Here’s some listings for my episode (huh…”my” episode) of Stargate Atlantis. I’m a guest star!
http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4/415.shtml
Air date is apparently Feb 1, 2008.
Thickets show in Chilliwack this weekend
Saturday October 20 at the Lions Club Hall (47130 Hope River Road) in Chilliwack BC. Doors at 8pm. The opening band is “Buckle Up Russia” around 9:30. Thickets around 10:30.
Costumes “mandatory”. Pumpkin carving contest! Prize for best costume! Games! Drinks!
Capacity is 150 people, tickets are $20 – call 604-795-4248 to acquire. There will be snacks, which is included in your ticket price!
Toren needs a ride!
"I'll Teach Your Grandmother to Suck Eggs" is an Oscar-Winning Line
I just learned that a lot of lines that Stinky Wizzleteats sings during the song “Happy Happy Joy Joy” on Ren & Stimpy’s episode “Stimpy’s Invention” are taken from the film “Big Country” with Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston and yes, Burl Ives, who won an Oscar for this film.
Swiped Wholesale
October 6th, 2007 by Ben Goldacre in herbal remedies, bad science |
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian
Saturday October 6 2007
The news this week that herbal remedies can be ineffective or dangerous is boring: but come with me on a journey through time (time time ) to the origins of medicine.
Herbs contain bioactive compounds. Thats why they can be effective, but its also why they can have side effects (some will inactivate your contraceptive pill, others will cause renal failure). Huge numbers of bioactive compounds extracted or derived from plants are used today in medical practice, including even common stuff like aspirin. There is little difference between herbal medicine and medicine in terms of what is used, only in how.
Digoxin in foxglove is very good at treating atrial fibrillation, a common kind of irregular heart movement. Unfortunately the dose range is very narrow, so its really quite easy to kill your patient. From the moment of its discovery, pharmacologists worked hard to standardise the dose.
They started with standardised preparations of the plant, but this proved dangerously inconsistent, because the quantity of the active component in foxglove was so variable, so new strategies were developed: standardised preparations of each batch of plant were tested in animals first, to work out how potent they were, and so on. Eventually we worked out how to extract the digitalis, and it could be weighed out.
Now people do careful studies of large numbers of patients on digoxin to see which dose is most beneficial, to understand how it works, and careful monitoring of side effects takes place, from individual clinicians writing about their concerns in medical journals all the way up to the yellow card system, where doctors and even patients can send in their concerns to the MHRA, however trivial or unproven they may be.
This process of enquiry, and standardisation, and testing, and verification, and negative findings, and dismissal of ineffective methods, and more, is one of the great developments in medical and intellectual history. Many people were disappointed along the way, as their ideas and theories were proved to be unfounded. Digoxin pills and foxglove both contain the same ingredient, but it is how they are managed and handed over that differs.
Until a herbal practitioner can show that giving a whole plant instead of an extract really is better, theyre making stuff up when they make those claims. Similarly, until they can show that using herbs at such low doses that they have no measurable effect is somehow beneficial, beyond the placebo (and placebo is great by the way) then theyre shooting with the stars.
But there are structural problems in the way that herbalists work: they have failed over millennia to collectivise, so they do not work together on research, but rather as independent commercial traders. They do not move to university settings, where the culture of critical self-appraisal might infect them, and possibly extinguish them too, if their ideas dont stand up.
And where alternative therapists do move into universities, they wall themselves off from the most valuable influences. CAM therapists dont rub shoulders with colleagues from other disciplines, who could share ideas and insights with them, and move ideas forward, or help brush the bad ones aside. The alternative medicine university courses I have approached have simply, flatly, refused to tell me the most basic things, like what they teach and how.
Its because of this culture, not funding, that the research on herbal remedies is inadequate. Huge numbers of trials are produced, at great expense, but the trials are inept, they are not fair tests, they have inadequate blinding and randomisation, positive results alone are cherry-picked, and worse.
An inept trial, bound by design to give a false positive result, costs just as much as a fair test of a treatment. And these problems are endemic: one study looked at the entire cannon of research on traditional Chinese medicine, and found 1100 papers: not one single trial published in China, in the entire history of research into traditional treatments, had ever found a test treatment to be ineffective. Not a single one.
Herbal pills contain bioactive compounds which can have real effects, but it is these differences of style, not content, that divide alternative therapies from medicine: and it will ever be the same.
Slackademics: Scrabbleology
So the Scrabble Strategy workshop went all right. I was expecting 10 people but in total there were only 5. Still worthwhile to do but considering I spent all day preparing when I should have been working on my art deadlines, it was a bit of a disappointment. Especially when I scheduled and rescheduled to accommodate people that ended up not showing anyway. Ah well, that is life.
Regardless, Ukeleleology is scheduled for Monday Nov 19th and I already have a small pique so that’s promising. No leads on a teacher so we may end up letting wiki printouts do the honors. At the very least it will be a good communal jam session.
These Are The Jokes
I want to market JUMPING SNAKE ACTUAL PEANUT BRITTLE. You open the can and there is actual peanut brittle inside. Hilarious and lucrative. If I had time I would do up a graphic for this joke.
VIFFY
I think the idea of an international film festival is a wonderful thing. Some people may be inclined to wait in line on rainy days for the opportunity (not the guarantee) to get into a venue with seats of questionable comfort, and packed with aromatic humans, to watch a film shown no more than three times in two weeks, that you can’t check online ahead of time to find out if it’s worth your time and effort (i.e. no reviews). I am not one of those people, but dog bless them for doing that I can then find out from them if a movie is shit or not.
ADDENDUM: Case in Point
Ohhhhhhhh folks!
Don’t be mad at me for waiting until the Great Old Ones thing blew over before I posted to my blog again.
I finally listened to the Paul F. Tompkins CD that Chris gave me. Funny, funny stuff, as promised.
The show last night was pretty good. Not as good as the official CD release party but still good. Some rock was played, some jokes were made, some shirts were sold, and I was pleased. Friends old and new stopped by and I thank them.
This morning I had two separate dreams that had these turning points based on a single word or phrase spoken by one of the characters. Interesting, no? Wait, let me explain, because I know hearing about other people’s dreams is in your top 3 of Fun Ways To Spend My Time:
Dream 1: a violent mafia dream. These criminals were plotting their next scheme in a house, and suddenly one of them looks out the window and sees a crowd of regular citizens (the mob meets a mob?) marching towards them. The criminals scatter into the streets and into the wilderness behind the house. The citizens cut down a couple of them but this one guy is trapped in this rocky area by about two dozen John Q Publics and is fending their melee weapons with his own martial skills. Meanwhile there is some verbal exchange between them, which offers some of the backstory to the whole dream. Then one guy says that they found out where the mobsters were hiding out by Phil. The last mobster standing goes crazy with this information, like he thought Phil was dead and Phil is the most important person in the world. So the revelation that Phil is still alive completely energizes the mobster and he just starts cutting through the crowd. Grabbing people’s weapons and using it against them, turning the tide completely.
Dream 2: the ex-girlfriend. This is one of those dreams where sometimes the character is his own person and sometimes the character is you. Let’s say for the sake of comprehension that it’s me for the entire thing. So my ex-girlfriend, who is not one of my real ex-girlfriends, but who is a cute little number with short blond hair, works at the grocery store checkout. I have done something really stupid that made her break up with me, but oh my goodness I have learned my lesson and I want her back so bad! So I am standing outside the grocery store and thinking of how to do that. Then I realize, of course, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff and with each item I’ll make a profound statement like “these are raisins. Raisins start with “R” and “R” stands for “regret.” So I fill my basket and work out what all these groceries are going to signify, and when I finally get to her she will have none of it. She is still too mad/intelligent to see through my half-baked ploy. She is off work and she gives me some stern words and walks out. As she’s walking down the street and left there holding the groceries, I become magic man with dream power and I yell out something like “if you won’t listen to me I only have one thing to say – ‘Calkan.’ Now, in the context of the dream, even I have no idea what this means except that I know it will get her to change her mind, and indeed it does. She stops, and reels, absorbing the heavy weight of this meaningful word and at the same time being amazed that I know it. Now in the dream, I think this is basically some kind of magic word and I don’t even know what it means myself. It just gets the job done and she begins to listen to me and reconsider our relationship. Whether or not this is a valid last-ditch effort to get an unreasonable person to acknowledge the truth, or this is just me being a manipulative asshole to get what I want, I will leave it up to you to interpret my dream.
But when I woke up I thought, “you know, from a storytelling perspective, that was really cheap. It would have been better of Calkan referred to some great regret this girl had, like an ex-love that she didn’t give a second chance and lost forever, or else something meaningful for her, emotionally.” In short, something sincere rather than a retarded magic word.
But, them’s dreams for ya!
Where the Great Old Ones Are on Boing-Boing Today
My Sendak homage to Lovecraft got posted on Boingboing.net and some other sites today, so I got a lot of emails from people who I hope will buy a shirt! Is this you? If so, please read on!
I already have some printed but I can print on pretty much whatever colour and size shirt you like. The print is in black so it works best on white, off-white, tan/beige, light (stone) blue, light (serene) green, and to a lesser extent, red. Size S, M, L, XL shirts are $15 US (all prices here are US). XXL and larger are a few dollars more. I primarily use Gildan 2000 cotton shirts, you can see the full range of colours at:
http://technosport.com/product_details.asp?PID=207&CatID=1&Dis=1
I have some “specialty” shirts as follows:
1 Fairline “ringer” size L, red with black trim. Classy! $18
3 American Apparel “melange gym tee” in green, size XL only. $19
3 XXXL khaki/sagestone $18
The image that I normally print on shirts looks like this:
You’ll notice it has text on it. I can take that off if you don’t want it. You have to specifically ask to have it removed though or by default you will get it!
SHIPPING for ONE shirt:
to US: $7
to Canada: $6-10 depending on latitude. Or is it longitude?
international: $8 by boat or $15 by air.
If you want to order more than one shirt I’ll happily recalculate shipping.
PayPal to thickets@uniserve.com
Hooray for commerce and supporting the arts! And by arts, I mean me. Also please note I have many more tentacular shirts & other Lovecraftian items (like CDs for my Cthulhu Rock band) at http://stores.ebay.com/Dead-Space-God
Dark Websites
Attention Thickets fans! The website has been completely revamped. www.thickets.net
Do have a look and feel free to make suggestions. Also, the forum had to be completely replaced but I’m in the slow process of manually transferring all the relevant data. Please register and post so it doesn’t look like I’m the only one on the boards…that’s just sad!