Memnison Journal

Hadn’t thought of this; Africa meets avian flu.

Haruna said H5N1 is spreading unreported in parts of the country as farmers, wary of the government’s promise of compensation, are reluctant to inform authorities about outbreaks. The government has been slow to close live poultry markets and restrict the movement of fowl from town to town.

“It’s very worrying that this continent doesn’t have the means to fight this illness,” Joseph Domenech, the FAO’s chief veterinary officer, said in an interview today. “The economic situation means that these countries cannot have an immediate and massive reaction. This means some areas of Africa may become pockets for this illness, creating future problems for Europe.”

Mere and her mom got into a huge project last night about how to make ‘proper’ orangeade. Susan’s recipe is basically fresh good orange juice mixed with fresh good lemon juice, cut with water and sugar and away you go. Very robust, strong drink. Mere liked the project…not so much the final result. She prefers her OJ a lot weaker and NO PULP.

Through the last week or so, Mere’s reaction to me being home and ill / recovering from the surgery has been interesting. She didn’t care at all for Daddy coming back with no beard, that ugly thing on his neck, and acting tired, dopey and out of it. She’s used to me doing all sorts of snappy patter back and forth, being head-deep in her studies and homework, and being intellectually lively. Groggy and listless was upsetting.

She did her durndest after that to see what she could do to make Daddy feel better. Lots of little nice, sweet things to make sure Daddy knew that he was loved and looked after, lots of cuddles and even going to the length of getting Daddy a beanie-baby bear on one rare trip out. And that was wonderful medicine for Daddy. It made me so proud of my little girl…

Actually, she was the healthiest. Susan had a bad dose of cold/bronchitis/sinusitis, and Susan’s mom got gout from eating too much bacon, and I was pretty much flat out. But they all have done their best to look after me and make me feel better, and I’m very grateful. Including not yelling at me for things I mislaid or messed up when I was spacey. I noticed, and thank you, guys.

The reaction is dwindling quickly, leaving a seriously red-looking skin around the incision that I pray will go away, and the beard will cover some of that when I regrow it. That won’t happen for a little while, at least until the doctor is done with keeping an eye on the surgical line. The itching is dying way down, and I’m starting to get less zonked from the drugs and trying now to stay off of them for the present. I have too much to catch up on around here in the way of paperwork and taxes and whatnot, and this is a perfect time to do it. I can’t do much of that when I’m goofy with drugs, though.

Here’s a link to the household pictures from last night, mostly taken by Meredith. Enjoy.

The Car Conection competition for weirdest street names.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: Fantastic cinematography, but all in all, I liked the original short story better. Susan and Connie thught it was OK but not Oscar caliber; I didn’t agree, but it’s not Best Picture. Still think that’s Walk The Line. The movie was a little hard to watch because - well, I grew up in an atmosphere of ignorance and heavy testosterone and people making huge messes of their lives without a thought as to what was possible with those lives beyond a dead end. I saw too much of these people, and it was painful to watch it all over again. I guess, for me, it was easier to read the story in well less than an hour than to suffer though watching it at length in front of me.

THE CONSTANT GARDENER: John Le Carre story about a mystery over murder and corruption in high places over big corporate bucks; Susan and Connie tuned out of the rental disc after the first 40 minutes, and I finished it by myself. Excellent cast, violent, and for as much as went on in the movie, it seemed horribly slow and drawn out. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz were great, and I hope she gets the Oscar for it.

Right now, this is the vote setup I have:

BEST PICTURE: WALK THE LINE, though I agree with an earlier commenter that the Academy will go with BROKEBACK.
BEST DIRECTOR: George Clooney for GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, but I think Ang Lee will get it for BROKEBACK.
BEST ACTOR: Joaquin Phoenix for WALK THE LINE’s portrayal of Johnny Cash, but I think Hoffman will get it for CAPOTE, and it’s a great performance.
BEST ACTRESS: Reese Witherspoon for June Carter Cash in WALK THE LINE
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jake Gyllenhall in BROKEBACK.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Hard one. My sentimental favorite is Catherine Keener for her portrayal of the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my great favorites) in CAPOTE, but I thought Rachel Weisz more for her great job in THE CONSTANT GARDENER. I think Keener will get it.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: BROKEBACK, no question.
SCREENPLAY, ADAPTED: The academy will go with BROKEBACK. I’d go with CAPOTE.
SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL: GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

And no, haven’t seen CRASH, it comes here this week on DVD.

The Russian Pigs-In-Space program.

• “When I come home from a bar, the sax smells like an ashtray,” Mr. Lang said. “Now it smells like veal stock.”
• “I lost my backbone here at home“
• Cop: *twirl*bam*
• I’m not Avon, and I want all your money. This is my knife, too.
• New Manga: World’s First Limited Edition Pants of Delight
• You say Assam, I say Assom.
• Feed the damn Giraffes or else, buddy.
• OK. I think we should be able to own Canadians and play football with gloves.
• Marmaduke in the comics: the psychosexual storm underneath.

A new Pew Research study shows that about a quarter of rural Americans have broadband at home; this is up from 9% in 2003, and comparable to about 40% of urban/suburban dwellers. The main reason for lower rural broadband adoption appears to be availability, the study said. But Pew also noted that country dwellers are on average older, less educated and poorer than urbanites and suburbanites, factors that are associated with lower levels of Internet use.

If you think about it, with the advent of sat-TV, broadband and good delivery services, you can live pretty much anywhere and not be cut off in a black hole of non-access to the outside world. You can move to someplace pretty rural and go on as before. This is a huge change…

Dash, the canine meatloaf, quite comfortable on one of the living room recliners and not about to get up - nossir, not her.

Quiet day and Meredith went off to play at a friends house, so we were able to get out and into some more movie-watching.

MUNICH: Yes, we call ‘em like we see ‘em. We gave up on this about a third of the way through. Wimps. The pacing was terrible, the story was spotty and you just lose interest in that they’re avenging the Munich massacre. Wake me up when they off the next person, and where are they now, and is that Roman Polanski? Nahh.

I WALK THE LINE: Excellent, and we think this one should get the Big three - Actor, Actress and Film. Lively, loaded with good music and tells an interesting story with very good efforts from the actors.

WARNING: this picture is *not* pretty. It’s taken this morning to show what a mess my neck is from the allergic reaction. You are warned.

So far, I now have an anti-itch med, which makes me sleepy and dopey much of the time, a thyroid replacement med which I have to take daily first thing in the morning (whenever that is in my sleep cycle), and an antibiotic just in case bad bugs leak in to that raw area around the incision, which is still closed for now. *crossed fingers*

A couple of you have called up and I’ve been too buggered to talk; sorry. I mostly have just been awake long enough to eat and hit the bathroom before the meds get to me and send me back down to the bedroom to sleep. I have had a period this might that gave me long enough of a window to make great strides to getting memnison’s implementation of joomla working better.

At this rate, I’m expecting that I may well have a while longer off work, just due to the recovery slows with this. This will put my return right up against the webmasters’ conference in North Carolina; I’ll go, but I will treat myself with kid gloves.

The collaborative’s biggest success, the Pan Asian Volunteer Health Clinic, operates every Tuesday evening in a county building in Silver Spring. Virtually every person who signs in is Chinese born or raised, as are the volunteer doctors and assistants. Their shared backgrounds mean easier communication when patients describe symptoms or the herbal remedies they have tried.

“Everybody speaks the same language,” said M.K. Lee, deputy director of the Chinese Culture and Community Service Center, the partner that helps MobileMed recruit staff. If a patient complains that “I’ve got fire in my mouth,” the staff immediately figures: fever. “Every Chinese physician knows what that means,” Lee said.

Don Knotts died; here’s an album of his good solo stuff from 1961. (mp3) Enjoy!

SECOND SIGHT by Gary Blackwood. Sent to me as a review book for the Sidewise Awards, but the AH content is marginal at best. The story (written for YA’s) is spoon-fed with a very noticeable narrator (not upsetting, just a little annoying if you don’t need him) around Washington DC, in 1864 and 1865, and involves a couple of teenaged kids - a stage mentalist and a REAL mindreader and clairvoyant with limited powers. A strong effort is made to capture a flavor of the times, which was nice, and the story tried not to be too contrived. B+ for effort, in short.

The nub is that while the mentalist (whose tricks were clever and something I’d never known) is a clever fake, he’s well aware that his friend isn’t, and when she starts having mental pictures about some men meaning harm to Abe Lincoln…he realizes that it’s incumbent on him to take them seriously.

Recommended for YA readers who like historicals and mysteries. As noted above, there’s virtually no actual AH in this, so AH readers would find it dissapointing. Six out of ten stars.

Miami area police responses to people asking for complaint forms.

SYRIANA: Susan and Connie found it boring, impenetrable and slow, and walked out on it about a third of the way through. I followed soon after, and filled myself in at a movie spoiler site, and realized that I wasn’t missing much. The umteen POV setups didn’t help.

CAPOTE: All of us agreed that Philip Seymour Hoffman absolutely did wonderfully with the character of Truman Capote, but I’ll admit that I found Capote himself so repellent (no surprise) that I kept saying - why would anyone give this jerk the time of day? Uggggh. (And yes, I have read IN COLD BLOOD and found it great. There’s other writers that put stuff out that I feel is well written, but I don’t care much personally for the writers.)