:: This Is Me! ::

:: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 ::

Awakening... Again!

I've been quite ill for the last few months - culminating in a visit to the Emergency Heart Disease department at the hospital. All tests there came back clear and established that I don't have heart disease. I then had blood tests to check just about every bodily function it is possible to check by blood tests. Finally, the results came back and showed that I had problems with the Helicobacter Pyrolis bacteria. From my searches on the web (this site was aobut the easiest to take in), it appears that the most likely cause of it for me was long-term prescription of Naproxen (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug). I am now on two courses of antibiotics, which seem to be making a world of difference.

Other major problems arose from the anti-depressants that I changed to about 10 months ago (Mirtazapine). After a few weeks on them, my ankles started to swell up - alarmingly. To counteract that, I was put on Bendrofluizide - diuretics. They didn't make much difference, and over the course of a few months, my weight suddenly shot up (by about 60lbs in 4 months!). My eating habits had certainly not changed to that degree. Along with that, my energy levels went from low to non-existent. Any exertion wiped me out for a duration that was totally disproportionate to the energy used (hmm... that's not a very 'neat' sentence, but it's the best I can think of). Armed with the knowledge from the blood tests, I went back to the doctor and my whole regime of medication was changed.

The good news is that within a day, my ankles were almost back to normal (good diuretics hey?). It was the first time I'd actually been able to feel my ankle bones for several months! My energy and optimism are also up - almost miraculously. Obviously, I can't do as much as I'd like to, because I'm now carrying this extra bulk around all the time (equivalent to around 30 standard bags of sugar - at least that are on sale in the UK), but even that is going down quite rapidly now. My fiancée - for whom my condition has been almost harder to deal with than it has been for me - is astonished at the sudden change. In fact, yesterday, she said "Welcome back!". Additionally, my eyesight has improved. It would take up to 4-5 hours after getting up sometimes before I could focus properly!

The not so good news is that I'm now on Prozac. Okay - I know the controversy surrounding that drug, but in the situation, you have to try and take a balanced view between the doctors and the drug companies on the one hand, and case histories and reporters on the other. At the moment, it is as if I have woken up from a deep and dark sleep - but one in which I could see what was going on around me, but was powerless to react to it or to change it. I am monitoring carefully - and have asked those around me to keep an eye - to see what any effects of the new medication might be. For now, I'm basking in the joie de vivre of my awakening.

Blair Denounces the Sixties

In a long parliamentary speech on legal reform and cracking down on drug-/binge-drinking-related crime, our illustrious Prime MInister has managed to come up with an insightful piece of socialogical reasoning. Apparently, the reason our society is in such a mess is because of the permissive society of the Sixties. Apparently the lager louts and drug dealers are the product of poor parental discipline because their parents were too busy 'swinging' in the Sixties. He has equated the decline in morality with Sixties parenting too. Good call Tony! But hang on a minute...

I'm in my mid-forties, and I don't know anyone of my generation or older who doesn't deplore the changes in our society (of course, there are some people of my generation that don't, but I know a lot of people of my age who do). I haven't handled it as well as most of them (hence the major depression). But I often feel 'displaced' in this world of today. My world was one in which neighbours, families and friends looked out for each other. It was a world in which, in times of crisis, people and communities would rally round and help each other - whereas now they are more likely to resort to looting or litigation. My world was one in which you could go out at night and party hard without the threat of being involved in some kind of violence was not the norm. It was a world in which hospitals were more concerened with healthcare than with quotas, schools were more concerend about education and discipline than with whether they were going to face arrest for disciplining children. In my world artisitic and community ventures were promoted as valid for their merit in improving our lives rather than simply for their financial value.

But my world changed. It changed in the Eighties, when a woman with more testacles than the average football team said 'there is no society'. It changed when that same woman told people to look after number one and encouraged an 'entrepreneurial' spirit. At the same time, she showed adolescents that they were the untouchable ones. They could literally commit murder and get off lightly - and by the time those adolescents hit an age at which they could be imprisoned for their actions, they were too entrenched in the habit of 'getting away with it' to change.

My world didn't change under Harold Wilson. It changed dramatically in the Eighties under Thatcherism. But of course, Tony Blair is never going to admit that. He's the staunchest Thatcherist since Margaret Thatcher stepped down. Not bad, considering their political parties were the total oppposites! I give as much credibility to his assessment of the causes of a lawless society as I do about his repeated statements that 'we will find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq'.

Of course, I'm not a sociaologist or an expert in political or social history. What qualifies me to disagree with the words of our Prime Minister - just as it does most of the people that will read this - is that I have lived in the real world and watched the decline happen. The real world, that is, as opposed to the veiled world of the politician. As society has declined, I've watched as an insider looking out rather than as an outsider looking in as most politicians do.





:: Marc 1:00 PM [+] ::
...

Awakening... Again!

I've been quite ill for the last few months - culminating in a visit to the Emergency Heart Disease department at the hospital. All tests there came back clear and established that I don't have heart disease. I then had blood tests to check just about every bodily function it is possible to check by blood tests. Finally, the results came back and showed that I had problems with the Helicobacter Pyrolis bacteria. From my searches on the web (this site was aobut the easiest to take in), it appears that the most likely cause of it for me was long-term prescription of Naproxen (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug). I am now on two courses of antibiotics, which seem to be making a world of difference.

Other major problems arose from the anti-depressants that I changed to about 10 months ago (Mirtazapine). After a few weeks on them, my ankles started to swell up - alarmingly. To counteract that, I was put on Bendrofluizide - diuretics. They didn't make much difference, and over the course of a few months, my weight suddenly shot up (by about 60lbs in 4 months!). My eating habits had certainly not changed to that degree. Along with that, my energy levels went from low to non-existent. Any exertion wiped me out for a duration that was totally disproportionate to the energy used (hmm... that's not a very 'neat' sentence, but it's the best I can think of). Armed with the knowledge from the blood tests, I went back to the doctor and my whole regime of medication was changed.

The good news is that within a day, my ankles were almost back to normal (good diuretics hey?). It was the first time I'd actually been able to feel my ankle bones for several months! My energy and optimism are also up - almost miraculously. Obviously, I can't do as much as I'd like to, because I'm now carrying this extra bulk around all the time (equivalent to around 30 standard bags of sugar - at least that are on sale in the UK), but even that is going down quite rapidly now. My fiancée - for whom my condition has been almost harder to deal with than it has been for me - is astonished at the sudden change. In fact, yesterday, she said "Welcome back!". Additionally, my eyesight has improved. It would take up to 4-5 hours after getting up sometimes before I could focus properly!

The not so good news is that I'm now on Prozac. Okay - I know the controversy surrounding that drug, but in the situation, you have to try and take a balanced view between the doctors and the drug companies on the one hand, and case histories and reporters on the other. At the moment, it is as if I have woken up from a deep and dark sleep - but one in which I could see what was going on around me, but was powerless to react to it or to change it. I am monitoring carefully - and have asked those around me to keep an eye - to see what any effects of the new medication might be. For now, I'm basking in the joie de vivre of my awakening.

Blair Denounces the Sixties

In a long parliamentary speech on legal reform and cracking down on drug-/binge-drinking-related crime, our illustrious Prime MInister has managed to come up with an insightful piece of socialogical reasoning. Apparently, the reason our society is in such a mess is because of the permissive society of the Sixties. Apparently the lager louts and drug dealers are the product of poor parental discipline because their parents were too busy 'swinging' in the Sixties. He has equated the decline in morality with Sixties parenting too. Good call Tony! But hang on a minute...

I'm in my mid-forties, and I don't know anyone of my generation or older who doesn't deplore the changes in our society (of course, there are some people of my generation that don't, but I know a lot of people of my age who do). I haven't handled it as well as most of them (hence the major depression). But I often feel 'displaced' in this world of today. My world was one in which neighbours, families and friends looked out for each other. It was a world in which, in times of crisis, people and communities would rally round and help each other - whereas now they are more likely to resort to looting or litigation. My world was one in which you could go out at night and party hard without the threat of being involved in some kind of violence was not the norm. It was a world in which hospitals were more concerened with healthcare than with quotas, schools were more concerend about education and discipline than with whether they were going to face arrest for disciplining children. In my world artisitic and community ventures were promoted as valid for their merit in improving our lives rather than simply for their financial value.

But my world changed. It changed in the Eighties, when a woman with more testacles than the average football team said 'there is no society'. It changed when that same woman told people to look after number one and encouraged an 'entrepreneurial' spirit. At the same time, she showed adolescents that they were the untouchable ones. They could literally commit murder and get off lightly - and by the time those adolescents hit an age at which they could be imprisoned for their actions, they were too entrenched in the habit of 'getting away with it' to change.

My world didn't change under Harold Wilson. It changed dramatically in the Eighties under Thatcherism. But of course, Tony Blair is never going to admit that. He's the staunchest Thatcherist since Margaret Thatcher stepped down. Not bad, considering their political parties were the total oppposites! I give as much credibility to his assessment of the causes of a lawless society as I do about his repeated statements that 'we will find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq'.






:: Marc 12:22 PM [+] ::
...

Old News - New Software

No kidding it's been a long time! I've been counting the physical cost of depression. I think that, now, I am on the road to recovery both mentally and physically. One remaining piece of insanity is that I have uploaded old recordings of my songs (for no newer ones exist) to Soundclick. I did so for fun, mostly, although of course, there is always the hope that some of them will appeal to sombody. Ranting online and overcoming deep depression, it is easy to forget that before I was depressed, before I was a widower, I was a songwriter. And before that, I was a classical musician and composer.

Old News is the name I gave to the old songs (appropriately :)). But for the more serious-minded, I have been working on algorithmic and written music in a more classical (though modern) idiom. They are all on this page.

I've also been updating my fractal graphics site - Fractal Visions. For my birthday this year, I was given 'XenoDream'. I have hardly been able to leave it alone in the time I've had it - it is wonderful software. The first two galleries on my site are now exclusively dedicated to XenoDream images.


:: Marc 8:08 PM [+] ::
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Spoof, spam, doom and gloom

You can't really have failed to hear about the latest work of the wasted genius of the virus-writer. 'MyDoom' has featured in every tekky newlsetter, forum, etc. - more: it has been on the BBC TV news (alongside all the fallout from the Hutton Report). It is spreading at an alarming rate - and I can see why. It has a whole host of dirty tricks up its sleeve. One such is that it sends you an email with an attachment, with a variety of subject lines and 'from' lines. One example is a notice of 'delivery failure' saying that the email you sent has not been delivered. It is quite plausible, although I have been receiving such notices for a few months now - they never even get downloaded onto my pc, let alone any nasty little attachments they may contain being opened. I open very few attachments, even if they purport to be from someone I know well.

I've been receiving an alarming amount of email asking me to confirm whether I've sent such and such an email, which usually has a random string as its subject line - email which I have not sent, to people I've never heard of. How do I know? Because I only use that email address for subscriptions and mailing lists, as a log-in for certain forums, and on sites where I know the address is not encrypted (such as this one). My default address for sending email is different, so I know if someone asks why I've sent them a garbled email from the address that is linked here, that something is wrong.

I had considerable difficulty doing my weekly virus-definitions update yesterday. It was a big one to do, and it took a good half-dozen attempts before it finally succeeded. I then immediately did a full system scan - it was clean. I then did an online scan - also clean. This morning I got my weekly newsletter about virus alerts etc. from Trend Micro, which of course, featured 'MyDoom' as the biggest current threat. As well as MyDoom sending plausible emails, and harvesting address books for further addresses, it harvests email addresses from web sites and spoofs them. I looked at the header details for one of the emails I'd had and sure enough - the email address and the originating domain didn't match. So I know that email addresses are pretty meaningless when it comes to sussing out who actually sent the email. You probably know it, so how come the various spam filters don't?

Anyway, if you check the email link at the top of this page and find that you have received email from it, please - delete it immediately, cos it ain't from me unless it's a reply, in which case it will have 'Re: [the subject you put in]' as its subject line. I use a different email address to send my mail from - and people that need to know it, do know it.

If you want to find out about MyDoom, do a search on Google - you won't have any problems finding information from many trusted sites. It is a real pain - I know for certain that I'm not infected with it, but I am affected. If you go on chat, or forums, or mailing lists - you could be too.


:: Marc 3:41 PM [+] ::
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Exhonorated

Lord Hutton published today (officially) his report on the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly. 'Teflon' Tony is exhonorated by the report, which says that the Prime Minister didn't lie, and that there was no underhandedness in naming Dr Kelly as the interviewee in the BBC's interview by Andrew Gilligan. The BBC comes off badly in the report. Resignations and executive meetings are in abundance there.

I listened to Tony Blair's statement live in the House of Commons this afternoon, in which he listed all the accusations from which he was exhonorated by the report. He demanded retractions of the statements that he had lied, and more or less demanded apologies. He then went on to say that the issue of justification for war with Iraq only became a major one after that interview. I don't want to end up on the list of people who have to retract comments on his actions; so I must simply have imagined the several thousand people world-wide who protested against the proposed war before it started.

Tony Blair also continued to justify the war saying that most people agree that 'the world is a safer place since Saddam had been removed'. I, for one, disagree. The world is no safer. The terrorists are still out there. And so is the power of the U.S.A. I can think of nothing less safe than that power falling into the wrong hands...

The degradation of language

The accusations (apparently false) that were made in Andrew Gilligan's report included that the government 'sexed-up' the dossier about Iraq's (as yet elusive) WMD, meaning that the dossier was seen as too bland. I have heard more than one reporter ask seriously (and how the hell they could keep their faces straight is beyond me) "Was the dossier made more sexy?" Isn't it somewhat depraved to regard the agressive potential of a nation 'sexy'? If a report was made available on the U.S.A's weapons of mass-destruction capabilities - or for that matter, our own, 'sexy' is not an emotive word I would use. 'Scary' yes - 'terrifying' even. To be more neutral, I might say that it contains powerful arguments justifying war (well actually, I wouldn't but...), but to describe it as sexy I think is about as base as things can possibly get.


:: Marc 6:01 PM [+] ::
...

Airport Security

With some controversy, British airlines have agreed at the request of the U.S. to have armed air martials on random flights. Additionally, now if we want to travel to the U.S., we now have to buy a visa at a cost of £67 to do so - once again, a U.S. initiative to increase security. So it was a little surprising to find a story in the news today about a Sudanese man who is currently in custody in London after he was discovered carrying bullets on a flight from Washington to Heathrow, en route to Dubai. The man was apparently arrested because of the firearms act, but has now been re-arrested under the 'suspicion of terrorism' act. What statements that have been issued from Washingotn are described as 'terse'.



:: Marc 10:54 PM [+] ::
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Happy New Year

I've been immobilized by sciatica since the new year, so this is somewhat belated, but sincere.

I have just upgraded my version of Awasu News Aggregator, and was checking it out today. I clicked on a menu item for Feedster, which is a cool site for searching RSS feeds. My clipboard still had text on it from a usenet article I was replying to on 'analysis', and that text was automatically entered in the search field. It came back with the article I'd responded to. Pretty impressive. Then I saw at the bottom of the page that it said "Are you sure you weren't looking for Anal Sex"! Whoa! All I can say is, be careful what you search for.


:: Marc 11:04 PM [+] ::
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Selling Out Jesus

Okay - I'm not a regular church-goer, I have not been baptized or christened in church. That is not to say that I don't have beliefs and ultimately faith - though definitions of what or who I have that faith in are clouded by the fallibility of human communication. I happen to have been brought up in a country where Christianity is the most prominent religion, and therefore a country that celebrates Christmas. Some celebrate more than others - in spite of gloomy statistics on spending, I'm sure that corporate marketing has cause to celebrate. Each year, I find myself more and more sickened as the true meaning of Christmas becomes less and less foremost.

If I was an alien visiting this planet - and Western Christian culture - at this time of year, I would not have any idea what exactly Christmas is about. The only minor hint I've seen in the media is a series of adverts running at the moment for TimeLife's set of DVDs of the Bible - special offer on the story of Jesus. In a recent survey, I was asked who the true hero or heroine of Christmas is. The options included Mum, Dad, other relatives, the supermarket and the corner shop. No mention of Jesus, Mary or Joseph.

For those of us that have nice lives, with friends and family around us, it is easy to forget what Christmas means to some people. To those who have lost someone this last year - I sympathise, you are beginning a long struggle. It sounds trite, but take the word of a recovering depressive - it does get better eventually. The sadness is gradually infused with the happy memories of those we've lost. Others simply have nowhere that they belong, nobody that cares about them. To those in abusive relationships, Christmas is just a time of more dread. Alcoholics struggle. Paupers see the lavishlessness of shop and restaurant windows, and it is like having their senses ground into misery.

I count myself very lucky. I have survived a time that I can barely remember with support from special people and a handful of loved ones. I am warm, I am fed, I am not alone and my spirit is strengthened.

May the object of your faith preserve and nurture your spirit through the holidays and the coming new year.


:: Marc 8:40 PM [+] ::
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