Month: January 2015

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After seeing the tweet below, I had to put together the graphics in this post. The crowded, dirty Los Angeles of 2019 featured in the 1982 film Blade Runner looks rather pristine compared to the real-life Beijing of 2015.

Blade Runner? No! Beijing, today. pic.twitter.com/JB6lUGLzg0

— Puño (@punodraws) January 14, 2015

If you’ve heard the aphorism “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team'”, you may be surprised to discover that it’s not true:

I’ve got no argument with the “never be afraid to try” part, but…

• What little evidence there is of Noah’s Ark’s existence is a bit sketchy and not trustworthy, what with it being based on the mistranslated hand-me-down propaganda of biased bronze age “47 percenters” who ended up waging class war on Egypt’s job creators.
• The written account says that Noah built the Ark with help from God. If you’ve ever worked on a group project, you know that there’s always a star player who does 90% of the work. Who better than the guy who engineered the crisis in the first place to design the thing that would get you through it?
• The Titanic’s sinking can partially be blamed on construction (substandard materials), but operator error played a large role.
• If you need folksy-sounding wisdom like this to get motivated, even the most minor of obstacles is likely to discourage you.

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Four years ago today — Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 — I was newly-separated, feeling chills, and having difficulty breathing. By that evening, I wound up in the ER of St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto, and in “droplet isolation” in the the ICU by the next day.

My throat had swollen so tightly shut that they hung this sign over my bed:

If you’re stuck trying to think of a name for your band, you might want to consider this.

While I was lying in that ICU bed, I made myself a few promises. I promised myself that I’d not just survive, but go on to meet someone new, and hey, if the situation allowed for it, maybe even relocate.

Four years later, I’m living in Tampa and a little under two months away from getting married. I’m pretty pleased with how things turned out.

Go read My Hospital Week, my story about my time in the ICU. You’ll laugh and you’ll cringe as I talk about bedpan negotiations, foot-long Q-tips and where they end up, accidentally disconnecting my emergency call button, and the reality of being sponge-bathed by a cute nurse.

You can’t tell Kitty what to do: