September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month

Hey, look, it’s September, and that means, once again, that it’s Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month!

In much the same way that Thanksgiving and Christmas have become occasions for annual reposts over at the animals’ blog, it seems that one post in September is going to be dedicated to revisiting The Event. This year, rather than just link back to all the original posts (although I’m still doing that too), I thought I would reproduce the first of the Event posts in its entirety, since that’s the one that includes most of the helpful tips about what to look for and what to do (and, uh, what not to do) should aneurysm troubles come your way. Read on for more!

Continue reading “September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month”

Let’s Ask ChatGPT Medical Questions!

So a while back, having finished up the final season of The Umbrella Academy* and the first season of 3 Body Problem**, I had canceled our Netflix subscription while we watched some other stuff on Britbox, Starz, and elsewhere. But then the Jamie Foxx special What Had Happened Was … came along, and I wanted to see it, so I signed back up. The special is being billed (sort of) as standup comedy, but that’s not really what it is. It’s more or less Jamie Foxx speaking about a very serious incident and cracking the occasional joke, kind of not unlike somebody else we know.

We’re #1!
Continue reading “Let’s Ask ChatGPT Medical Questions!”

Five Years Out: Three Weeks in November

Yes, I know, this is Election Day here in the U.S., but—speaking of traumatic events!—it’s also the five-year anniversary of The Event. Well, more or less; the actual anniversary is on November 7th, i.e., this coming Thursday. But we don’t post on Thursdays around here, we post on Tuesdays*, and so you’re getting the anniversary post a couple of days early.

This being an anniversary that both begins and ends with a five, it seems like a good occasion to once again reproduce the entire six-part series on The Event for those readers who may not have seen it before, as well as for those readers who have been following the election and would like to take their minds off it by reading about somebody who was having an even more stressful day than they are. Probably. Anyway, read on for the tale of what to do, what not to do, and what might happen when your brain suddenly starts acting all weird!

* This is of course so that if I can’t come up with anything else to post about, I can always do a Teaser Tuesday.

Continue reading “Five Years Out: Three Weeks in November”

September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month

Hey, look, it’s September, and that means, once again, that it’s Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month!

Continue reading “September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month”

Not A Review Of “Six Feet Under”

So not long ago, having recently finished Mr. Robot, a show that, perhaps surprisingly, my wife really liked:

Wife: “Poor Elliot. His life sucks.”*

We started casting around for another program to become or “main course”, a position previously occupied by such luminaries as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Halt and Catch Fire (my personal favorite, because computer nerds), The Wire, and Treme (but not The Magicians). Someone somewhere recommended another show we missed the first time around, Six Feet Under, so we decided to give that one a try.

Continue reading “Not A Review Of “Six Feet Under””

Teaser Tuesday: Clifford D. Simak, “Way Station”

So this week (well, probably several weeks ago by the time this post appears) I was reading Way Station, a classic SF novel from the 1960s by Clifford D. Simak:

Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: Clifford D. Simak, “Way Station””

Happy Annieversary! Or Something!

So it was four years ago to the day that The Event occurred, in which there were various ways I could’ve died but I somehow managed not to hit any of them. Members of the brain aneurysm group I’m in often refer to this as their “Annieversary” or, occasionally, their “Second Birthday”; I’m going with “Annieversary” since it didn’t involve cake or funny hats. (It did involve noisemakers, though, in the form of machines that whirred and beeped and went “ping”.)

Readers who have been around a while may remember my six-part series about this, which I posted a few months after the fact, and of course I’ve linked back to the first installment any number of times. Since it so happens that this year my weekly posting day falls on my “Annieversary”, I thought I would repost the whole spectacle in its entirety. So, be advised: This will be a long post, because a lot of stuff happened over the course of that three weeks. Oh, and, so as not to stress anyone out about it, here’s a little spoiler for you: I didn’t die. Not even once.

Continue reading “Happy Annieversary! Or Something!”

Aneurysms in the News

So I’ve posted a few times before about celebrity aneurysms, because when celebrities have them it makes the news and that’s a good way to raise awareness about things that may be lurking in peoples’ brains. Usually this has been in the context of those who’ve passed away from them, such as Tom Sizemore and Grant Imahara, but not long ago I saw several articles about Lauren Miller Rogen, the actor Seth Rogen’s wife, whose story went a little differently. Well okay a lot differently:

Continue reading “Aneurysms in the News”

So It’s Not Just Me Then

Recently I was reading a profile in The New Yorker* of the science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, a contemporary of other such SF authors as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, Roger Zelazny, and Octavia Butler (who was, briefly, a student of Delany’s). Despite the fact that back in my younger days I read many, many books by authors from that era, I somehow managed never to read any of Delany’s work, although I’m quite familiar with his name. I’m going to guess that this is because our local library didn’t stock many Delany titles, since in those pre-Internet days of dead-tree books that you had to get from a bookstore, most of my reading material was of the borrowed variety. But I digress. Here’s how that New Yorker article started off:

Continue reading “So It’s Not Just Me Then”

Your Brain’s In Jeopardy, Baby (Oooh)

I don’t watch Jeopardy! anymore, because, among other reasons, we don’t have cable anymore; but I used to watch it, and once even attended a taping (in the latter part of the Alex Trebek days) with my parents and my aunt.

Continue reading “Your Brain’s In Jeopardy, Baby (Oooh)”