Just a few random thoughts as I get stuff ready for the upcoming Typewriter Harvest type-in in Phoenix tomorrow.
“Happy Paws” is no laughing matter…
In spite of its innocuous-sounding nickname, Ecstatic Omniphilic Paw Syndrome, or “Happy Paws” is a very serious condition that affects a growing number of pets. EOPS often presents with an inability to keep still, excessive tail wagging, and rapturous dancing on hind legs. Sometimes the paws may move at a rate in excess of human perceptual limits, with observers reporting the appearance of multiple “ghost” images trailing the movement of the hind legs (Fig 1, Schutz, Sept. 22, 1965).
The exact cause of this condition is still being investigated, although early studies point to a set complex interwoven environmental, genetic, and socioeconomic factors which are known collectively as “Being A Dog”. Also, “Being In Love With Everything Everywhere”, although some argue that this falls under the larger “Being A Dog” umbrella and should not be counted separately.
The most difficult photograph I’ve ever taken
My dog Koa and I spend practically every day together. We play together, nap together, clean the house together, you name it. I’ve taken about a zillion great pictures of him, and quite a few of myself, but trying to get us together in the same shot is like trying to get the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch in frame while being attacked by a swarm of bees. What you see above is the BEST result I’ve gotten out of like 1,000 tries. I look like a frantic escaped mental patient, and Koa looks like a Muppet in the middle of a transdimensional warp experiment. I had to hold a little squeaky rubber duckie next to the camera to get him to look anywhere near it, and he kept backing away from every available light source, leaving me crouching on the floor in shadow trying to frantically squeak the duck and mash the shutter single-handedly without dropping the camera. Perhaps I can enlist the services of a police sketch artist to do our family portrait, cobbled together from eyewitness accounts of the two of us hanging out together looking cute, which I assure you we do. ALL. THE. TIME. Really.
BG
The “Real” Trump Conspiracy
What if, and just hear me out for a sec here… what if he knows something we don’t?
He announced, in the middle of a particularly problematic period of his presidency, that he wants to create a whole new branch of the American armed forces. A Space Force. Essentially, he wants to militarize space.
You know who else is really jazzed to get off the planet right now? Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Why is it that the people who have the money or power to do anything are all building spaceships like they’re going out of style? What do they know that we don’t? Killer solar flares coming to carmelize the Earth? Airborne ebola? The Rapture (Biblical or Blondie)?
Time will tell, but I’m making today’s tin-foil hat double-ply, just in case.
Typewriter collecting in the margins
![I'm old enough now that I learned how to type in high school, on an IBM Selectric in fact! Now that I'm older and everything old is new again, I've taken the plunge into the wild world of the Typosphere! [1970 Hermes 3000 Typewriter in 1940's typewriter desk] Now I'm up to a total of three machines, and I'm hungrily looking for more, scanning eBay, Craigslist, shopgoodwill.com, and my local thrift stores. I found a Sperry-Rand electric at Goodwill for less than $10, and Bill Wahl at Mesa Typewriter Exchange is getting it tuned up as we speak. [Blue and White 1971 Remington/Sperry-Rand 612 Portable Electric Typewriter. I've already honed my skills as a thrift-shopper, but I usually search for old hifi gear to fix up. Then one day I spotted an interesting looking portable in a nifty aluminum case. It looked serious and well-built, and it said 'Made In Switzerland' on the back. I only know of nice watches being built in Switzerland, but for $17 I figured it was worth bringing home and learning more about it. You guessed it, it was a Hermes 3000, in great working condition. All it needed was a ribbon a bit of cleaning. [profile of Koa the standard poodle with a mohawk, constructed entirely of typed characters] It's a funky, angular machine, and I really like it. So I've decided that '70s and '80s Japanese typewriters are my thing... I feel like they're under-represented in the Type-O-Sphere and as a result under-valued as well (aka cheap!) Cheap, heavy, and Made In Japan is my motto!](https://briangoode.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/imgp3090.png?w=1100)
Top 5 Best and Worst Reactions To “I Have Parkinson’s”
Yes, I do. It’s something that I don’t mind talking about, but which doesn’t usually get brought up in conversation, except by me.
When I do bring it up, it usually elicits a reaction, and over the years I’ve become something of a connoisseur of Reactions To I Have Parkinson’s.
So without further ado here are the top five worst and best reactions I’ve actually received from people when I told them I have Parkinson’s:
Worst
- “You know, my uncle/grandpa/neighbor had that, right up until he died.”
- “Have you tried meditation/pot/ginko leaves, etc…?”
- “Hmmm. You seem awfully young for that.” [While trying to figure out if I’m on meth.]
- “You know, (Celebrity X) has that and he/she does (Treatment Y), I saw it on (Television Program Z).”
- “I have this little twitch in my left eyelid, do you think that’s what I have?”
Best
- “That sucks. Are you doing ok?”
- “Wow! You seem like you’re doing really well.”
- “What does that mean for you? Do you have a good doctor for that?”
- “Do you need any help? Is there anything I can do?”
- A hug.
🙂
A momentous yet meaningless first post.
I’ve been right on the edge of starting a blog for a long time… so long, in fact, that when I was just sitting here at my desk thinking, “I should start a blog. I’ve got the domain name, I’ll start with that,” I typed briangoo.de into my browser, just to check where it was pointing to, damned if if didn’t pop up a totally unpopulated WordPress blog!
Heh. Past Brian already thought about this, but apparently has even less follow-through than present Brian has! Well suck it, past Brian. In your temporally displaced face.
