Harrison Ford is definitely showing his age in a couple of the stills — his pants are hiked up to the Old Man Zone, for starters — but he still looks good. I don’t feel as bad about seeing Indiana Jones growing old as I thought I would. One of the great aspects of the character is that he’s flawed - people beat him up, he gets angry, and things don’t always go his way. Seeing him grow old just reinforces the idea that he’s a regular guy who overcomes obstacles.
I came across this band last month when I was searching for great instrumental pieces to listen to while writing in NaNoWriMo. They’re a Texan post-rock band, and their albums are completely instrumental. The songs are very atmospheric, so they lend themselves well to writing, but they’re also great to just sit back to and relax.
This song, ‘Your Hand in Mine’, is from their 2003 album The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.
I went to a doctor at the beginning of the week for a follow-up appointment about that abscess. I don’t have a regular doctor in this city, so I just use the walk-in clinic. Unfortunately, at these clinics, you never know who you’re going to get, and I tend to to be notoriously unlucky with doctors.
When last I visited, I was given Amoxicillin, had a swab taken, and was told to place a heating pad on the area a few times a day and to keep it wrapped in gauze. I had done that, and the wound was feeling much better, but the follow-up was just to be safe.
After sitting in the waiting room for half an hour, I was brought in to see the doctor, one I hadn’t met before. He asked me what the problem was, and I explained what had happened. Either the last doctor hadn’t written anything down in my file, or this man hadn’t read it. After dealing with him, I’m placing my bet on the latter.
I asked if the test results from the swab had come back, and he said he hadn’t seen anything about a test. I’m fairly sure the swab sample is taken to test for which bacteria caused the infection, allowing them to adjust the medication accordingly if needed. This seems like a fairly important safety check, but apparently he didn’t think so.
He asked to see the area, and immediately after I pulled off the gauze bandage he said, “An abscess can often be a sign of diabetes. That’s fine now, you can stop bandaging it. You’re cured, go home and have a shower.” Without another word, he left the office.
There are a number of reasons why I was dumbstruck by this:
He dropped the diabetes bomb and then left without any explanation. After researching it a bit and phoning my parents, who are both in the medical field, I’m not too worried about this. While it is apparently true that people with diabetes get abscesses more often, assuming someone could have diabetes from an abscess is a fairly large leap.
He just looked at it. He didn’t put gloves on and poke at it or ask me any questions about it, he just looked.
He told me to stop wearing a bandage on it and that I was cured, but the wound was still open. I’m not a doctor, but even I could see that it was most certainly not cured. You also don’t have to be a doctor to know that walking around with an open wound is not really a good thing to do, especially when it’s on an area that will rub up against your pants all day.
He left the office so abruptly that I couldn’t tell if the appointment was over or not. I didn’t know what he was doing. I spent the next few minutes standing there awkwardly, smelling myself because of the shower comment, before finding him in his administrative office and asking if we were done. On top of that, I had just showered an hour before seeing him, and I smelled mighty fine, thank you very much.
It occurred to me after leaving the clinic that he might have not even looked at the abscess. It seems like he just looked at the gauze bandage for signs of drainage instead. It’s possible that he assumed I hadn’t changed the bandage in the five days since my last appointment and, since the bandage was still in place, hadn’t showered. Upon seeing that there wasn’t much drainage on the bandage, he declared me cured. In reality, I’ve been showering, although awkwardly, and changing the bandage every morning.
Good thing I took time off work. I might have missed the chance to have a doctor completely brush me off. After leaving, I promptly discarded all of his advice, and I seem to be healing nicely.
I have this magical gift that allows me to find the stupidest doctors imaginable. If there’s a fool with an M.D. in the city, you can be sure I’ll track him down.
Jason at The Clarity of Night held another writing contest, which I had planned to enter and then promptly forgot about. I’m actually quite annoyed with my short-term memory right now.
I entered his last contest, and I found it to be a really rewarding experience. Many wonderful comments were left on my entry, and it introduced me to a number of people whose weblogs are now part of my daily reading.
All is not lost, though. The entries have been posted, to be judged tomorrow, and I recommend you have a read through them. Many of the entries are of a surprisingly high quality and are very entertaining.
I’ll enter the next one. I’d better tie a string around my finger now.
It’s been raining all weekend here. I’m quite happy about this, because it kept me from feeling like a lazy bastard for not getting out and being active.
This hasn’t been the best month for me. Near the beginning, I was ill for the first time in ages. Then last week, I had a wee bump on my thigh, which quickly developed into an abscess of pain and misery. It was inconveniently positioned, so it rendered me crippled. After a very slow hobble to the doctor, much pain, and antibiotics, I’m now happily on the road to recovery. Thankfully I can work from home, so I was able to spend the last couple days of the week stewing in my solitary anguish.
I’ve narrowed down the list of any minor changes to my life in the last couple of months to find what could be negatively affecting my physical being this way, which sadly only really amounted to three items: planning to take part of NaNoWriMo, rock climbing, and more actively trying to eat healthier, non-processed, organically-grown food.
I’m either allergic to leading a healthy lifestyle or potential creative endeavours.
I just finished the first season of Flight of the Conchords, and I loved every episode of it.
I became mildly obsessed with them at the beginning of the year after watching everything I could find on YouTube, so I was really excited when I heard they were coming out with an HBO series. I watched the first episode from the HBO website, thought it was really good, but got distracted and completely forgot about it until a week ago.
They’re a hilarious deadpan musical comedy duo from New Zealand. The series follows their characters as they try to make it in America. Here’s a clip from one of the episodes:
I actually figured the series would be canceled mid-season, since that seems to be the trend with great, unusual shows, but I read they’ve been picked up for a second season. If it’s half as good as the first, it’ll be worth watching.
I’ve decided that my NaNoWriMo attempt is a lost cause. I got about two days of good writing in before I fell sick and had family visit. I started to feel better a few days ago, but that week has put me too far behind.
It’s been suggested that I just tweak my word count goal to exclude that week, dropping it down to 40,000, but I know that won’t work for me. The motivation wouldn’t be there without that common goal at the end.
I do like the start of my novel, and the plot that’s formed in my head, so I’ll still be writing. It won’t be at the cutthroat pace of NaNoWriMo, but it will get done. While this may be a failed attempt, I do think I’ve gained from this experience. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to come up with a novel-worthy plot. None of the ideas seemed good enough, and I was worried I’d start writing and find myself halfway through a novel with a terrible idea. NaNoWriMo forced me to come up with a plot, and I realise now that it’s not the end of the world of an idea doesn’t pan out; just learn from the experience and start writing something else.
I wish everyone still participating good luck. Those I’ve been following seem to be doing an amazing job, so keep it up.
The first day of writing went beautifully. It felt great to be writing fiction again and even better to see a long plot unrolling in front of me. I easily cleared the 1677 word target for the day, ending at 2110 words.
Friday didn’t go quite as well. I felt ill all day, and I decided to try and nap it off when I got home from work. That short nap lasted 12 hours, and I missed an entire day of writing. I’m still feeling off today, but I managed to bring the word count up to 3454. I’ll be sitting down to write soon, after I finish some cleaning, so I’m hoping to try and gain as much as I can today.
My parents are arriving in town tonight for a four day visit, and my brother will be here Tuesday night for a short visit as well, so it will be a little rocky finding time to write in the next few days. I feel fine skipping out on after-work activities to write, but I don’t feel right ignoring visitors when they’re only here for a short time. I should be able to hit my daily word target still, except possibly Tuesday, but I won’t be able to make much ground on the day I missed.
I was hoping to start off really strong this week, giving myself a little leeway later in the month, but instead I’m already behind. I’m a little annoyed at this, but I still feel like I have plenty of time to catch up. After this Tuesday, I don’t have any major blockers for the rest of the month, so I’m planning to try and raise my daily word count a little each day until I’m caught up.
The story is coming along very well, better than I had imagined. Some of my dialogue has been quite strong, the characters are starting to show their personalities, and I’m working on being more descriptive in my scenes. I’ve already surprised myself with some of what I’ve written, and that’s really great to see. Despite the rough start, my enthusiasm for this has only grown.
Indiana Jones - Screen Stills
