the pod bay door

:: I was just on Cindi’s site, and she’s posted about the return of Andy Kaufman. Yes, you read that correctly. I mean, good feckin’ grief. Turns out, the 20th anniversary of his death from lung cancer was May 16, 2004. Yahoo! – YAHOO! – is running a story saying Kaufman is alive and living on the upper west side of Manhattan; don’t they check their sources? Didn’t they see Shattered Glass? His blog, Andy Kaufman Returns, is up and running. Snopes sez it’s all a hoax. But you can’t help but feel just a wee bit suspicious, knowing that this is something Kaufman would pull off, even from the grave. Kinda creepy, eh? Wait! Maybe Yahoo! DID check its sources. Maybe he IS alive!

:: Earlier today, I visited my physician at the Family Medicine Centre in Edmonton. I do that often, for blood pressure checks, mostly. This visit, however, was because on Tuesday afternoon I noticed, or rather, I could feel that my heart beat was higher than normal. I work out 4-5 times a week, 30 mins on a Precor elliptical cross trainer, and usually get my pulse up to ~160 bpm. I spend 5-7 minutes cooling down on the machine, during which time my pulse drops to ~110 bpm, before finishing my workout.

On Tuesday, near the end of my workout, my heart was was pushing 170 bpm for a couple minutes, and it felt good. However, I noticed that when I cooled down, it was still above 130 bpm. The rest of the evening and all day yesterday, I could feel my heart beating faster than normal. Despite having a physical scheduled for June 1st, I decided to see the doctor today. I had an electrocardiogram done, and the test suggested I have a condition called Sinus tachycardia, meaning a P wave greater than 100 bpm. The ECG also confirmed that my heart is beating normally, i.e., there are no erratic rhythms to suggest other potential problems. As well, I experience ventricular ectopic beats every so often, yet the ECG recorded not one VEB (this is a good thing!)

So what’s the upshot? My heart could be receiving extra stimulation, such as from caffeine, wild sex, or nasal medication with Epinephrine as an ingredient. Well, I drink black coffee, maybe 1-1.5 cups in the morning, occasionally a second cup later in the day, and have one or two lattes on the weekend. Been doing that for 25 years. I’m not using any nasal spray. I gave up wild sex a few weeks ago. But I did change my coffee from a Costco-sold brand to a fresh one-pound supply of Starbucks French Roast about a week ago. Hmmmm. The Starbucks French Roast could be driving up my heart beat. Well, Dr Bell is suggesting I lay off that coffee until I see him again, which is like, a total drag. I mean, I don’t smoke, don’t drink except socially, don’t use drugs, there’s not many vices left, y’know.

BTW, I did work out again tonight, kept it to ~160 bpm near the end, and feel fine. My pulse at the moment is 97 bpm…

:: Last night around 10:15 pm, my doorbell rang. At the door was a man in a baseball cap, maybe mid-30s, holding an inhaler. He told me his name and address, (he lives across the avenue), and said that his wife had the car and his credit cards, etc., and needed to refill his daughter’s inhaler immediately, and had no cash, and that he needed four dollars. I studied him for a moment, told him to wait a minute, retrieved a $5 bill, and handed it to him. I thought, what’s five bucks, and he seemed like a nice guy. He thanked me, I asked him to bring me $5 tomorrow when he had a moment, he agreed, and left. I haven’t seen him since.

I’m still giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. If he doesn’t pay me back, c’est la vie, I suppose. Maybe I have too much faith in the basic goodness of people, I don’t know. But refusing his request at that moment didn’t seem like the correct thing to do, and it was only $5, after all.
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:: My pal Jennifer lives a few blocks away from me. We’ve known each other for, good God, almost 15 years. I drove over to her place tonight to meet her sweet 16-week old little girl, Charlotte. Check out the cool pic of Charlotte and Uncle Randy. It was nice to get out of the house, meet the Little One, and hang with Jen Jen, and go for a nice walk. The weather was overcast and mild and humid and just right. Thanks, Jen!

:: Jennifer notes that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Coldplay Martin named their newborn girl “Apple“, and Gina Davis’s new twin boys were christened Kian and Kaiis. Her response and mine to these developments are similar: WTF???

I had a lot of respect for Paltrow and Martin up to now, as they keep their relationship out of the public eye, making efforts never to walk down red carpets together, etc. But “Apple”? Good grief. From the Herald Sun (Melbourne Austr.):

The Eye’s Western District spy suggested Apple could get hitched to Christine Applegate’s brother and become Apple Applegate, then get rid of him and take up with Bill Gates’ son and she’d be Apple Applegate Gates.

What’s with the weird baby names? Yes, I ranted about this earlier, and will continue to rant about this stoopid practice. The Herald Sun, notes that these handles aren’t the first odd celebrity baby names:

A Knight’s Tale star Shannyn Sossamon has a son called Audio Science, while Almost Famous actor Jason Lee has a boy called Pilot Inspektor.

Audio Science? Pilot Inspektor? There really, really oughta be a law. Why, you ask? Check out Horrid Celebrity Baby Names.

:: It’s confirmed that Dennis Farina will be replacing Jerry Orbach on Law & Order. Orbach will be missed. I think it will take time to warm up to Farina.

:: Michael Moore‘s new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, debuted at the Festival de Cannes today. Oddly enough, I cannot locate the movie’s official web site. Reviews of and commentary on the film are already in, from sources such as: BBC, Associated Press, Time, and The Hollywood Reporter, which reports a 15-20 minute standing ovation for the film after its screening and offers a review. A definite must-see film for 2004.

An expansion of this list is on my post at Blogcritics.com.

Here is another family story, this time from my Mom, about her father.

When I was six years old my parents moved our family to the north end of Winnipeg. We lived approximately one city block from King George Public School which was located on the corner of Selkirk and Arlington. It would have been so easy to send five of their six children there for school if our parents hadn’t been so adamant about us getting educated in the Catholic school system. This meant we had to be up by 7 a.m. to be ready to catch the streetcar (yes, I did say streetcar) and be on time for school which for us was St. Mary’s Parochial School. Our school was located directly across from St. Mary’s Cathedral on St. Mary Avenue.
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:: steely who? the original band names, lists some of the names that Becker and Fagen considered for a band name, before settling on Steely Dan. As if! My favorites are Thunderhurl and Hard Donut. This is most likely another brilliant parody by Walter Becker, who writes the most colourful parody and satire pieces for his band’s web site.

:: Allison (friend at work) told me about The Word Spy: “This Web site is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren’t “stunt words” or “sniglets,” but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources.” The full list is here, along with the Top 100, as measured by page views. Some words and phrases, like metrosexual, jump the shark, google, NIMBY, flashmob, and blog (duh), you will or may recognize.

Among those I’d not seen before, these are some of my favorites:

• wrap rage: n. Extreme anger caused by product packaging that is difficult to open or manipulate. Also: wrapping rage.
• time porn: n. Television shows and other media that portray characters as having excessive amounts of spare time.
• butt call: n. An unintended phone call placed by sitting on one’s cell phone.
• batmobiling: pp. Putting up emotional defenses when a relationship becomes too intimate.
• cankle: n. A thick ankle, particularly one that appears to be a continuation of the calf
• himbo: n. A man who is good-looking, but unintelligent or superficial. (NOTE: This one reminds me of LOMBARD, from the William Gibson novel, Pattern Recognition, which means: lots of money, but a real dickhead.)
• yestersol: n. One Mars day ago.
• quarterlife crisis: n. Feelings of confusion, anxiety, and self-doubt experienced by some people in their twenties, especially after completing their education

:: Regarding my previous post about our provincial leader plagiarizing sources on a term paper, Keith, speaking from experiences as a teacher working overseas, offers a few thoughts on the subject of web theft.