Flu, hellhounds, SHADOWS and Jodi Meadows

 

Okay, that's not your average mixture.  Let's have the good news first: 

http://www.jodimeadows.com/?p=525  

YAAAAAAAAAAAY.  It's alive! 

* * *

. . . We are now, I fear, about to plunge down a steep slope.  I was feeling a little odd last night but in my current state of whatever it's always easy to put oddness down to a surfeit of quantum physics.*  Unfortunately not so in this case.  I nearly didn't get out of bed this morning, except that there are hellhounds.  And SHADOWS.  Which is still due the end of the month.  I can't frelling believe I'm ILL again.  I was ill in October, for pity's sake**.  I'm not sure yet whether this is merely (!!!!) a sick cold or whether it's going to insist on the full panoply of flu.  At the moment the jury is still out.  But I feel like stale death on toast.  AND CRANKY. 

            So I got out of bed at about . . . noon.  I barely fell down at all.  There are hardly any bruises from caroming off the four-poster on the way to the bathroom, which had mysteriously moved to a new location overnight.

            I got dressed.  I don't guarantee that my tee shirt is on the right way around (who cares?  It's covered up by six woolly jumpers) but I got the shoes on the right feet.***  I hurtled hounds.  Yes.  I did.†  Twice.†† 

            And I worked on SHADOWS.  I did. 

            . . . And this is as much blog entry as I can hold myself together for.†††  Good night.  May you sleep better than I'm likely to. 

* * *

*  Brief, according to my present state of non-brain, update on ABSOLUTELY SMALL:  It's all maths.  I don't know how even a crazed mathematician/physicist can have had the effrontery to look Average Reader in the face in the introduction and claim that understanding quantum mechanics does not require mathematics.  You are so lying, Professor Award-Winning Scientist Bloke.  It's all maths.^ 

            What is true is something else he said in the introduction however:  that in most physics books the author says something like, blah blah blah blah, and here are the equations to prove it.  And you're supposed to read the equations.  What's different about ABSOLUTELY SMALL is that he then tells you the equations over in words.  The equations are still there.  You still have to deal with equations.  They may not look like a lot of equations to Mr/Ms Science Brain but they are totally equations.  But once he gets away from those poor cats waiting trembling in boxes for the Killing Look, he explains stuff pretty well.^^ 

            If you're up for it . . . it's pretty fascinating.  It's so insane.  It's so not Newtonian.^^^  I also just love that most of it you can't know exactly.  HA HA HA HA ALL YOU CREEPY OVERBEARING SCIENCE BRAINS WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL.  HA HA HA HA HA.  Granted I still don't get it, but I'm a lot happier with the concept of a world that cannot be known/measured exactly—can't be nailed down.  This sounds a lot more plausible to me—more like my experience of the daily life this book is supposed to let me fit quantum theory into. ^^^^   And as he says, approximate doesn't mean wrong:  it means . . . approximate. 

            Anyway.  It's fascinating.  But it's probably not a book you want to strain to your bosom when you stagger off to lie on the sofa with hellhounds and minister to your brain-destroying illness. 

^ Now that I'm committed, which is to say I've bought the thing, twice, audio and hard copy,+ I notice with a jaundiced eye that the three encomiums on the back cover about how This Is The Book We've Been Waiting for to Explain Quantum Mechanics in Daily Life are all by hard liners.  There are two scientists and a lawyer.  I'm sure he's a very hard-line lawyer.  And probably the author's best friend since childhood.  I want a hat check girl/boy or a brewer or ballroom dancing coach to tell me it changed their concept of life. 

+ I cannot believe that anyone would survive the experience by audio only.  If audio helps you focus, as it does help me, then the audio is worthwhile, and audible's reader gets a medal.  But you're still going to have to have the hard copy.  For the equations.  If it takes the reader too long to say one of the frellers, you'll have forgotten the beginning by the time he gets to the end.  Lambda squared of the hypotenuse of the lobotomy . . . um. . . . 

^^ I do wish he'd stay away from real-world examples.  Even I know that a baseball is not a free particle, even when it's left the field and is busy arcing over the stands.  Speaking of the physics of gliding, however, is anyone playing Tiny Wings?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pT_2E5xI0   I don't know what I think of the game, but I love the graphics. 

^^^ I have a new theory about why Newton was such an ugly piece of work as a human being.  It's because in his secret heart he knew he was wrong.  

^^^^ Look at human nature.  Look at hellhound nature. 

** I think it was October.  Autumn anyway.  A few months ago.  And my stupid throat hasn't recovered from the last assault which is why the Muddlehamptons are forgetting my name.  ARRRRRRRGH.  And here I am again with an inflamed throat, a throbbing head, and that interesting kind of fever that makes you feel like you're made of boiling aluminium.  I RARELY GET THESE MALADIES.  RARELY.  Except lately ARRRRRRRRRGH. 

*** One right foot.  One left foot. 

† I also deserve a medal.  But so do they.  At the ripe old age of five and a half, although generally speaking the advent of maturity is a little thin on the ground, they are very good about waiting till I get my crap together, even when I seem to be having unreasonably more trouble than usual with said crap, and of hurtling slowly, with pauses, once we get outside.  I know the location of every public dustbin in this town . . . I also know the location of every bench, not that kerbs won't do in a pinch.  They probably just think I'm having a bad ME day.  Multi-application hellhound training. 

†† And the dog minder is going to take them out tomorrow.  Another medal. 

††† I told an American friend that what I really needed, Peter having made some excellent turkey stock for the bodily nutrition side, was someone to tell me Really Bad American Jokes.  So she's taken it upon herself to send me Really Bad American Jokes all day at intervals—for the support of my suffering soul.  Here's my favourite: 

It's the old west, and a newcomer to town sees there's a big crowd gathered in the town square.  So he spots the local newspaperman, and asks him what's going on.

          "It's a hanging," says the newsman.  "They're hanging Brown Paper Pete today." 

          "Brown Paper Pete?  Why do they call him that?" asks the visitor. 

          "Because he always wears brown paper pants, a brown paper shirt, a brown paper hat, and carries a brown paper satchel," says the newsman.

           "Wow," says the visitor, "What are they hanging him for?" 

           "Rustling." 

She's just sent me this one, but she says that I'm sick enough to worry her if I think these are funny. 

Guy walks into a bar, sits down and orders a beer.  While he's drinking, he hears a tiny voice say, "Hey mister!  I like your tie!"  He looks around, but doesn't see anybody.  A few minutes later, the same tiny voice says, "Hey mister! Nice shirt!"  Again, he looks around, but there's no one around except him and the bartender.  A little while later, the voice says, "Hey mister! You look like you've lost some weight!"  So the guy calls the bartender over and asks him what's going on.  The bartender says, "Oh, that's the peanuts.  They're complimentary."