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House, M.D.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
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Now following the boys underhanded recommendation I watched the first season of "House, MD". Others have recommended it as well, and I think I understand why.
First of all the lead character, Dr. Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie, a splendid character full of wit, charm, personality, and both pithy and perspicacious observations on fellow staff and patients.
This is why I suspect most people watch it. Funny no one's offered me a T.V. show.
Now to the rest of it...
A CSI rip-off, merely set in a Hospital rather than a Crime Lab. A main plot involving a mysterious disease that usually reveals itself just before the end. There sure are a lot of "One in a Million" diseases out there, folks, watch out. CGI graphics zoom inside the patient to reveal the inner workings of the human body while the attending physicians puzzle over improbable symptoms to arrive at a diagnosis.
The plot follows a predictable path: A primary patient, who’s situation is grave and demands a thorough 45 minute investigation by both House and Staff, and a secondary patient (his assigned Clinic hours) whose primary purpose is to provide comic relief. Some politics and friction between the main characters.
It is of course complete and utter balderdash. Much like people like to believe CSI and other such "Law and Order" type shows demonstrate some aspect of the real world, there is no way a team of dedicated experts are working on resolving your murder/mystery ailment for days on end, let alone 45 minutes. The way they treat both the homeless and poor with the same care and dignity as they do the rich and privileged is as well ridiculous, it's the "Fairy Tale" of healthcare. And the way they use "Seizures" to indicate the situation is serious - well, it's a bit predictable, isn't it? As predictable as the "Human Interest" aspect of every show and the invariable cheesy ending.
But this is in general the state of television at the moment. What is missing in the series is the fact that the healing is seldom put in the charge of the patient, the psychological or inner life of the patient is seldom probed (apart from when House exposes it with his witty repartee), and there's missing (so far, I've only done Season 1) a more spiritual view of medicine that confronts placebos, belief, deathbed visitations, wonder and the mysteries of existence. House is a purely material, atheistic view of medicine and the body which I think we have somewhat cast doubt upon, if not clearly disproven.
House really needs a miracle.
Now I've downloaded Season 2, I'm hoping for more of a character "arch" - where the characters develop over the season, than was present in Season 1, but - well, I'm also quite prepared to abandon it. While Hugh Laurie is great he's hardly enough reason to waste 45 minutes watching the show. I'm a bit sad the boy has invested so much time in it, but I suspect it's just that he's missing my caring parental style...
Neighbours in Community Housing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 383
Neighbour on my floor pops in yesterday morning, lets herself in, she'd had a bad dream and wanted to consult my dream dictionaries. She's kinda-the-Kramer, seldom knocking, merely letting herself in to grab some coffee, sugar, art supplies, whatever she needs, and I haven't the heart to start locking the door.
Her dream, that she and her brother were in a football game, they lost, and then he killed himself, and it has her all out of sorts.
Myself, this is odd, I'd had a dream that night that I was in airports, missing flights, confused as to connections and destinations, and my sister (young, maybe 10 years old) had taken a dive from a platform, suicide, landed on her neck, it broke and a milky-white fluid poured out around her body and I'm shouting for my father...
As well disturbing, and I'm struck that we both should have had such similar dreams (the death of a sibling by suicide.).
But she's too busy to chat, conversation is not something she does anyways and I have to be kind of grateful, she's looking up the symbols in various of the dictionaries, finding competing explanations, trying to sort it out...
***
The neighbour upstairs, taken the past few weeks to hanging out with a boyfriend she met at the Soup Kitchen, he's homeless, lives out of his car, so she spoils him with bubble baths and home cooking and inane TV and they seem pretty happy.
"We laugh so hard together..."
She doesn't work, too many of these people don't, and so every day it's wake up to the Vodka, have a joint, and the party gets started...
They approach me, they've been drinking too much, they want to start a sort-of mutual support group, a Temperance or Tee-Totaler league, there's no doubting I'm occasionally off the rails but these, these people don't help...
I volunteer instead my free liquor removal service, I'll take all the leftover vodka they have on hand, for free, they can get started on this abstinence binge right away...
"Tomorrow" she tells me, but tomorrow comes and goes and there's no half-empty bottle of vodka on my doorstep.
***
Money has started to stick in my bank account. Partly because the restaurant is that little-bit busier, and - more largely, because I've been buying the native cigarettes. They're terrible, but the whole smoking thing is terrible, and the savings is enormous. The savings is my bank account. And I ask if they have a moonshine or liquor distributor, but they don't, they might get, they've got everything else, "E", "Superman" pills, Adderall, Ritalin, Special K, they're just getting started, their prices are great and so maybe soon...
Sun & Rain
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 282
This summer, of all the summers I've lived here, the most temperate by far. 35 degree days followed by days of rain and cloud, already there's the cool of autumn in the air, the morning, but by the afternoon it's the midday inferno.
The cherry tomatoes are ripening, there will be a good little harvest there, the strawberries are sweet, the basil grows, in the words of the neighbour - "Profusely" and the chilis are starting to give off little flowers where soon I hope to pick my Carolina Reapers.
No luck on the Jeep front, and I'm half thinking of giving up, waiting until next summer, I mean, the options at this point aren't great, and I'm loathe to take on a mountain of debt just when the bank account is showing some signs of improvement...
Chris checks in on me, haven't seen him all summer, he's his biking club now, his lover, but there was an accident on a FSR up near Trout Lake, maybe our FSR, and he wants to check I wasn't the fatality...nope, another couple, "influencers", not in the least interested in prospecting...
Crows VS Pigeons
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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So I go into the Best Western Parking lot to feed the crows. That way I'm off the property and there's no complaints.
The crows, I've had complaints that they've been cawing outside nonstop looking to be fed. I don't give in. This would be training them in behaviours I'd rather not.
And the other day I awoke to one on the railing outside my door. Waiting for me. Funny, I feed them on the other side of the building, but they've found me out. Clever. There's no feeding them here, though, there would be complaints and evictions...
But when I'm outside in the morning, pocket full of Dollarama peanuts, I set up a sort of scrimmage, a football game, flicking the peanuts into the parking lot - they prefer the shelled ones. And even if I can't see them they soon see me and chaos ensues.
First 1, then 2, 3, 5, 8...all hopping along, one swoops in and catches a peanut on the wing, others, shy, fly close and then hops carefully towards it, too shy and he loses it to another, others show up and chase each other away, some - 1 greedy, attempts to take 2, 3 in his beak, but often loses them when challenged by another, pigeons by the dozen now showing up and running interference, a peanut is too big but they can gather up the crumbs from the crows pecking...
Make it a game, try and flick the peanuts where each crow has a reasonable chance of grabbing his own, it's like football and I'm the quarterback, they seem to get it, going wide when they've finished their peanut for another...
This is the morning, before my coffee and maybe again after it's ready and I've checked the news. In the afternoon they're on their own, although I've still been followed, I'm trying to set up the expectation that this is an early morning thing, not an all-day thing, the early-morning football and then they too should be off and about their day...
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