In fact, having seen many clips on YouTube, and being a huge fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s work, and having a subscription to Peacock, I decided to watch the entire House series. Also, as a huge fan of Blackadder, a show which Dr. House keeps on his DVR—that Dr. House is a dead ringer for Hugh Laurie from that series! Overall, I very much enjoyed the series and the rotating cast of characters, though when House goes nuts and ruins his boss’s first post-breakup date, the shark has been jumped. I mean, the takedown of the narcissistic cop in series 3 was just funny, but what happens in series 8 was just creepy. But, I won’t spoil it any more than that. It’s a fun ride and I much encourage it!
But before you start binging House, and then “A Bit” of Fry and Laurie, please check out this week’s episode!
This week, Cat and I return with a special 2-part series on Seeing the Doctor.. We both discuss our various doctor visits and experiences and of course we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Some doctors are just absent any form of bedside manner, especially when it comes to women patients and dismissing symptoms, especially pain. Nothing exemplifies this more than the famous Golden Girls scene where Dorothy Zbornak (played by the late, great, and then there’s Bea Arthur) when she confronts a dismissive doctor who ignores her clear set of symptoms for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Meanwhile, I wanted to give an update with respect to my Doctor Whorewatch. I’m currently in the Jon Pertwee and thoroughly enjoyed watching The Dæmons (I have a bit of a crush on that Olive Hawthorn) and the ghostly apparitions from Day of the Daleks (which has the wrong Dalek voices—sorry Nick, shows light beams on weapons which are literally described as sonic, and I miss the camp visuals!) around Halloween. I enjoyed seeing the Royal Navy (I and the BBC thank you! But Doctor, are you telling me the Silurians evolved in the Age of Mammals? Is that much better than the Age of Molluscs?) base where The Sea Devils was shot during Veterans’ Day, and on Monday, in keeping with the 61st Anniversary today, I’ll begin me rewatch of The Three Doctors (the last live appearance of William Hartnell as the Doctor and of course it’s great to see Patrick Troughton return since his last story last Summer) ! I could not have asked for a better synergy between stories and real life!
Anyway, enough about the Doctor, on to this week’s episode!
Folks, as the leader of the Science Book Club, I’m all about knowing how things work like how clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (i.e. CRISPR) works using the CAS 9 component of the various CRISPR methodologies used by microbes. That is why I was excited to get the Pfizer / BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, since it’s a direct mRNA (messenger RiboNucleic Acid) vaccine using techniques coming out of the CRISPR biotech revolution.
Indeed, anyone who saw me on social media back in 2021 could see me being a whiny little b*tch when it came to my desperation to get a jab. Fortunately, I did get my shot, and my second shot, and at the time of this posting, I’ll be on my 6th dose of the COVID vaccine and have my latest flu shot and as discussed in the episode, I did indeed get my Shingles first shot, with the second shot to come in about a month, whereby I plan to also get Hepatitis B and maybe Gardasil vaccinations, or Monkeypox—if they don’t let me take the later. Knowing the 250 year science behind these amazing inventions makes me all the more eager to teach my immune system about all the dangerous pathogens I can.
After all, vaccinations, or virulations as they were known in the 18th Century, were familiar to President Thomas Jefferson in his day, and it’s an honor to use the same historic technology updated for today that the framers of this Democracy used. We’ve come a long way since then, using smaller and then microscopic samples of the pathogen, all the way down to mRNA. We don’t store the samples in Mercury anymore either. And we now know that the data linking vaccines to Autism is just, pure bunk!
While I’m elated that Smallpox is all but eliminated from humanity, I hate that in the 21st century, we’re now losing ground to Polio. Most people don’t that to pinpoint and capture Osama Bin Laden, agents posed as Polio Healthcare workers to get into his compound and find him. Having done so, and assaulted the compound, the Pakistani people grew to distrust the vaccination campaign workers and started refusing the legitimate Polio vaccinations. Eventually, Polio again began to spread and is once again on the loose. That was the faustian bargain we played. Eradicate Polio from the world, or eliminate the man behind 9/11.
So folks, trust me, get your shot and thank the virulations and the vaccinationists for finding a drug-free, one-to-two dose cure to so many nasty diseases. Stay healthy my friends, and thank you for watching!
This week I wanted to pay my respects to our nation’s military as on Monday it will be Veterans’ Day. That’s why this episode it about Serving Your Country, especially in uniform. Having worked for the Naval Research Laboratory for almost 2 decades and that was some of the greatest work I’ve ever done. I was and am very proud of how I worked to keep our men and women in uniform safe.
My work there was lifechanging. Until I worked with those uniformed men and women, I didn’t have a good graps for what our nation’s military does. I didn’t see them, I only saw how politicians used and abused them. And, I didn’t realize that our armed forces are the best way out of poverty. Or that women in uniform protected under state-wide Equal Rights,give ip those rights when they’re shipped abroad and only under the protection of the U.S. Constitution.
So, thank you all for your service and Happy Veterans’ Day
In the United States of America, on 5 November, 2024, you have your last chance, as a citizen, to vote for your next President. But, did you know there are also down-ballot elections? Do you know who your Congressperson is? Do you know your Governor? Do you know your state Senator and Representative or Delegate? Because, believe me, fixing the flaws in the system starts in the grass roots and all politics is local so please do read up on your county or parish ordinances up for vote, and be mindful of who’s running for School Board or Soil and Water or County Attorney General.
On this site, we won’t tell you how to vote—however, I did suggest you listen to Taylor Swift instead—but for your state and local elections, think about how we can make politics more responsive to the people. For instance, do you know where your state lies on the Swamp Index? If you’re like me, you may be surprised to learn that Virginia ranks 46th of 51 in the Index; my co-host Cat (who couldn’t make this episode) in New York is all the way up at 14th place, by comparison. This is why my special guest Nancy Morgan and I have been fighting to get money out of politics. After all, since Citizens United v. FEC, we’ve seen astronomical growth in dark money political spending under the guise of legitimate businesses. While you’d need a constitutional amendment to undo Citizens, many other reforms are best performed in your local state capitol, from Atlanta to Salt Lake City.
And you know I, personally, have been a big proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment and women’s bodily autonomy, for electric vehicle access and support, and for good governance of one person one vote and for every vote to be equal with a National Popular Vote bill. The National Popular Vote is a bill passed in states with a total of 209 electors—only 61 more electors are needed to have the voters choose our President. After all, the system we have now causes both large and small states, both deep red and deep blue states, both rich and poor states to be totally ignored because they aren’t a battleground. And if you are in a battleground, your days are numbered. After all, Ohio and Virginia used to be battlegrounds, but not anymore. That capriciousness just isn’t a good way to select the leader of world’s biggest military. Is your state part of the compact? Great, maybe you can help in some other states! If not, write your state legislators, and consider, if your governor is against it, add those 888 words as an amendment to your state constitution, like Nevada.
Of course, there’s also the issue of Opened Primaries to keep our candidates more centered and weed out the unstable ones. And of course First Past the Post voting is one reason we get such diametrically opposed and out of touch candidates and are so afraid of the Spoiler Effect. I’m glad that Ranked Choice Voting / Instant Runoff Voting is gaining traction, though I feel that it’s not as intuitive as Star Approval Voting, which is what you see in, for instance, your Amazon ratings, and has a much better chance of being Condorcet. And of course there’s the issue of Gerrymandering, which we tried to fix with OneVirginia2021 but failed miserably with obstructive politicians added at the eleventh hour to the “independent” redistricting panel. Gerrymandering allows the politicians to choose their voters, and not the natural other way around.
If any of these non-partisan issues matter to you and you’re in Virginia, please come to our Democracy Day on 21 January in Richmond, on the Quindecennial anniversary of Citizens!
Addiction is a very serious topic, and, after all, quite scary for this Halloween episode. Sure, I could have chosen something less real, like skeletons or blood (but the CCS does give some of that aspect in this Spoopy character class I’m using) but tonight, we’re talking about Addiction. After all, there’s nothing more terrifying than the dark and deadly downward spiral that addiction brings.
The first thing I want to make quite clear is that: it’s not your fault! Addiction is a brain malfunction no different than any other malady in the DSM. You’re not yourself when you’re addicted, and those around you can only be there to support your recovery, but it’s up to you to want that recovery and rock bottom is almost always on that difficult path.
This week, my dear friend Shea Megale. joins me as my guest to discuss this very personal issue. You see, Shea lost their brother to addiction. They had to witness the downward spiral first-hand and their experience, I felt was critical for this episode and Shea delivered most eloquently and succinctly. Of course, that’s no surprise as Shea is also a fellow author who I met through The Hourlings.
Also, please check out the foundation Shea and her family set up to help fight addiction.
Finally, I feel I must bring up the topic typically banned on YouTube, that of suicide. Please know there are people there who can help, whether you’re addicted or just depressed and listless. Please phone the Suicide Hotline at 988; there are people here to help!
If you ever read about economics, you’ll no doubt have heard about the sunk cost fallacy. The thing to remember is that this isn’t a general rule. In fact, nobody says it better than The Gambler, as sung by Kenny Rogers: You got to know when to hold them, and when to fold them. Know when to walk away, and when to run…
The long and short of it is that you need to look toward the future. For instance, with my job, I could see that I was working insanely long hours and never being given credit for all my hard work, with the final spoils of the assessments going to junior coders to my detriment. I don’t have any animosity, mind you, even if I feel most cheated about them never moving the office to Reston Town Center, as promised, after a fifteen months of working there. I’m very proud of the work I did and my contributions. And I have no regrets when it came to a head of me needing a vacation and them not granting it, so me happily signing my resignation.
Or, consider my 25 year relationship with my ex. I still consider her my friend and don’t regret the time we had together but the sunk costs were piling up with no sense of return to come in the future and I knew it was time to get out when she tried to lock me in a room. As a single man, I can very easily forgive and forget and know my worth is more than that and be willing and able to move on, with no intention of ever being more than friends because those memories will never fade, they just don’t hurt as much as they used to.
But, there are many reasons to persist. I’ll never be able to pick locks if I give up before I’ve mastered the skill. I need more than 12 flight hours to become a pilot as well. These aren’t sunk costs because they have a definite goal and a path to get there. The cost only becomes sunk when you only see more of the same ahead and no hope for anything different or to change.
So, whatever your burdens are, just take a minute from time to time to reassess. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel, then consider persisting, but never continue throw time or money after a lost cause. And that’s my best advice.
Continuing on from our series autumn episodes, this week we’re discussing introversion, extroversion, and extroverted introversion. What is an Extroverted Introvert? If you like parties with friend that you know, but still need to recharge, you might be an extroverted introvert. If you love talking to perfect strangers and schmoozing, and your only feeling when it’s over is that it’s over, you’re kind of an extrovert. And if you like to just netflix and chill, maybe introvert is more your style.
Is Introversion better? Of course not! we need all types to have a successful society. Someone needs to make the sales, after all, after someone else writes the software. It all goes hand in hand.
As for neglect, well, there are many forms of that. Being a child with your needs ignored, or being a wife who’s husband neglects her. Neglect is difficult and debilitating and it’s not what an Introvert wants. Introverts still want friends and to hang out with them, just as extroverts do.
So, whether your an introvert, or an extrovert, or something in the middle, we hope this episode will help you understand all about us. Until next week…
Next Friday, come one, come all… and bring your Tesla. Because on Friday, 18 October, at the Frederick Airport, we’re going to try and break a record. How many vehicles will we have when we record this record of this spectacular.
Still on the fence? Don’t worry, the Airport is opened for us, and we are even excited to have a special guest! None other than the Simon Pollock, the creator of the XLightShow tool for editing and authoring your very own light show scripts. I, for one, want to make a Doctor Who script but I’ve not had the time and it’s hard to do when you’re developing on Floor 15, and your Tesla is in basement parking.
All we ask is that you pre-register your vehicle, and come with your Tesla software up to date.
As some of you may know, I have been going to therapy on-and-off for a number of years. The main reason for this because, like many young men of today, I left college with nothing, and couldn’t get a date to save my life. When I finally did find someone who would date me, I clung on as if my life depended on it. In hindsight I know this was unhealthy, but I also recognize as a neglected child and baby, according to my parents, that it’s no wonder I have abandonment issues and historically had a Anxious Attachment style. Of course, naturally I was most attracted to rejecting women who recapitulated my childhood neglect and finally married someone with an Avoidant Attachment style. Therapy has helped me get through this, and helped me stop hating myself and helped me become someone who is more secure in his attachment.
Now, I’m hoping to do into more depth on Attachment Styles in a subsequent episode, as well as therapy, but this week, my wonderful friend Cat returns for the first of 6 topics of discussion. This week, it’s all about that Inner Critic. That inner critic who makes me think no woman will ever find me attractive because of all my recent and historical romantic failures. That inner critic who makes me think I’m not a real cosplayer because I don’t make my own outfits. That inner critic who says I’m an awful composer. That inner critic who says I’m never going to be a pilot after two and a half decades of trying. That inner critic who tells me I can’t deliver a good speech. Celle critique de la interior que dit que je ne parle pas français, oder Deutsch, o italiano, или русский, 日本語または 中文. That inner critic who says I’m a failed Physicist because McGill didn’t even give me credit for the 3 years I studied the discipline. That inner critic who reminds me I’m a software engineer without a job. And that goddamn inner critic that reminds me I’m not a successful author because I’ve only had a few of my short stories published and I’ll never be as successful as Stephen King, or even Nev Fountain or Martin Wilsey.
Now, should you always ignore your inner critic because it’s shit-talking you? By all means, no! The critic is there to keep you from embarrassment. But sometimes, when you’re constantly rejected romantically, and having trouble finding the time to finish the first draft of your novel, and realizing how long it’s been and you still don’t have a pilot’s licence, or your sewing machine sits idle, don’t sweat it. Because I may not be the best, but have been on some successful dates, I do cosplay, I do write music, I am licensed to fly, I ran a great Toastmasters last Thursday, I practice my linguistic skills when I travel, I run a science book club and have read over 100 science books, I’m a very skilled coder with sufficient clearances which make me expect I will have a new job soon, and I have my own Amazon page if you want to read some of my work. And I fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, for a National Popular Vote, and Electric Car access, especially for National Drive Electric Week!
And this channel, well, I hope it will grow too. I don’t mind only 10 subscribers oas of this writing. I’m happy that two of my shorts got over 150 views. So don’t let that Innere Critic Rule you, making you fall into self-sabotaging behaviors. Control your Inner Critic, and just don’t let it control you!
