5 Degrees With A Chance Of Flurries

The Stoat-- DJ A.D.D. and I spent twenty minutes talking about it. No joke.

The Stoat-- DJ A.D.D. and I spent twenty minutes talking about it. No joke. It's like a small weasel on steroids drunk on its own power.

It right now is a balmy five degrees outside with 30 MPH winds and snowing fairly heavy. It’s been this way for about four days straight and it doesn’t seem like there’s any chance of it letting up any time soon. It’s this time of year where I basically don’t leave my house. I’m an admitted post-holiday shut in. My phantom illness didn’t help to motivate me to go anywhere over the last 48 hours. I’ve been better though since that night in the ER. I woke up yesterday sore, tired, and a little weak. Overall though I was no where as bad as the other night. Today I’m feeling absolutely fine (normal even), but I’m not pushing it too much.

Nevertheless, life goes on. I had DJ A.D.D. over last night. We basically spent 45 minutes recording “digitalflood Pirate Radio Volume 6 Episode 1” and another six hours messing around on the Internet, watching TV, going out to eat, and talking about the most random stuff you’d ever imagine (fifteenth minutes spent discussing the cost models and content delivery right to use licensing associated with variations in video subscriber models– I won’t even try to explain that in English, but it’s pretty nerdy stuff). We looked at God knows how many electronic musical instruments on the web and even watched the “Watchmen” DVD to cap the evening on a high note. Having said that, the episode came out very good. I’m going to work on post-production over the course of today and it should be out by tomorrow night (1/4/10) barring any unforeseen issues.

I was asked a whole bunch of times what my New Year’s Resolution for this year is and I’m going to divert to my story I put about this on Facebook so you can get a feeling of where I’m coming from this year:

I was randomly asked what my New Years Resolution was because that’s the kind of thing that happens this time of year. I responded without hesitation “To not smoke rock” and they replied “But you don’t smoke rock”. I then replied “Well then 2010 is success story for me already, now isn’t it?

As I pointed out to DJ A.D.D. just before recording this week’s Pirate Radio; any year where you start it in an ER is great year because it can only go uphill from there. And that my friends is how I predict 2010 to be. A year of onward and upward success.

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I <3 the ER... or not

Mystery Valley in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona.

Artwork as mysterious as my illness-- Mystery Valley in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona.

Last night I ended up in my local hospital’s emergency room. No, I’m not kidding– I spent an hour of New Year’s Day family dinner hanging out with brother in the ER.

It all started around 5 pm EST. I’d just finished dinner. My wife, youngest daughter, and I went over to Mom’s house to partake in my Mom’s annual New Year’s Day Polish style feast. Dinner was absolutely wonderful and I was having a great time. That’s when I all of sudden had trouble breathing. Shortly after that I went outside to get some air and then I started having trouble focusing. Dizziness then set in. I went back inside and sat down. I started feeling numb all over my body. I then went upstairs around 5:30 pm to lay down in my sister’s bed. I put my feet up, but things started getting worse. I felt “disconnected” from my body. Like I was standing behind myself looking through my head. I don’t know how else to describe. I then became very nauseous and threw up only a small amount though I’d eaten much more. Then diarrhea set in. At about 6 pm, my brother took me to ER after he offered to do so. He’s a cop and I asked him if he found me like this would he take me to the ER– when he answered yes I wasn’t going to argue. Off we went.

They checked my heart rate and it was a bit fast than normal (124 bpm) but not erratic. My blood pressure was a bit high (138/88) but not outrageous. They checked my eyes’ response to light and my ability to follow objects. They took blood and ran a battery of tests. My temperature was a perfect 98.8 degrees. I was determined to be 100% healthy by medical standards though clearly something had to be wrong. They gave me some Xanax at 6:30 pm and by 7 pm I felt fairly normal enough.

The doctor said it could have been some sort of virus or bacterial infection in my system. That my body probably experienced panic attack like symptoms because it couldn’t figure out what was going. The Xanax helped calm my brain’s auto-defenses down and let my immune system kick in. With that they discharged me at shortly after 7 pm and I went back to my Mom’s so my wife could drive me home.

My wife brought me back to our house. I changed into my PJs and dug out my drum machine. I watched the BET hip hop awards while drawing up some new beats in bed. I sipped about a liter of seltzer (the doctor said it may have been dehydration and to drink lots of clear liquids). I then fell asleep at around 10:00 pm.

I hadn’t been drinking any alcohol that whole day. I do not consume illegal narcotics at any time. The only thing I had that day was an Aleve in the morning and my acid reflux medicine. I had a grand total of five beers the night before on New Year’s Eve and had awoken that next morning with only a slight headache. Otherwise I felt great. I hadn’t done anything strenuous the whole day. I had no mental stress that whole day. I’m just not sure what to make of it.

I feel 100% normal today though maybe a bit tired and sore. Maybe it was some flu or bacterial infection. Maybe it was a Lyme’s Disease flair up (those are random like that). I don’t know– all I do know is it absolutely scared the crap out me.

It also screwed up me recording Pirate Radio as planned that night, but I guess that’s another story. I’ll have to give recording another shot tonight and see how it goes. Any night though where I don’t end up in the ER is a good one in my book. So ultimately that is my goal for tonight. To take it easy and not end up in the ER.

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The Mayans Didn’t Understand Sweater Vests

It's not just a picture of a rock-- it's a picture of a rock on the Internet!

It's not just a picture of a rock-- it's a picture of a rock on the Internet!

As we now stand two years from 2012 I believe I need to set the record straight on this whole 2012 Phenomenon Theory (aka the Mayan Doomsday) thing. For those of you who don’t follow half baked theories made by long extinct indigenous peoples that are randomly revived by even more half baked paranoid fruit cakes indigenous to the blogs of the “Inter-webs”, the Mayans supposedly predicted that the World will end in 2012. While there are no firm writings confirming this belief, if you follow the calendars left behind by the Mayans they stop at 2012. Instead of being like “Hey, maybe the Mayans figured it wasn’t important to track more than 1,500 years of time” or “Maybe they figured that somebody might invent a better calendar system by 2012”– no the modern blogasphere fruit cakery has instead embraced the concept that the Mayans back in the 1400s knew more about the year 2012 than any other culture on the face of the planet Earth. How can that be? Well, simple enough– they had been hanging out with aliens for years who told them this secret. I mean that’s logical after all.

Thus, the aliens were kind enough to show the Mayans that in 2012 the World would end. Unfortunately the aliens were not kind enough to tell the Mayans they would get small pox from Spanish conquistadors and be wiped out like most of the American indigenous Indians within a matter of hundred years. I guess when you’re an alien you stick to important World ending events and not towards actual short term events that might matter to the people you’re talking with. It’s sort of like calling up your cousin and telling him that the World will end in 2012, but failing to mention he has a gas leak in his house and not to light that cigarette he was about to smoke. Minor details.

In the grand tradition of half baked  concepts I have come up with in about a half hour while drinking my morning coffee, I have figured out that the World wouldn’t have to end in 2012. See upon further long term investigation of the Mayan rock thing calendar I figured something out (long term being about 30 seconds on Wikipedia.com looking at photos I’m not even sure are of an actual Mayan calendar… but again– details aren’t important for such short term things). I figured out that in 2012 the planet Earth will discover the power of the sweater vest!

What does this have to do with sweater vests and Mayans? No idea, but Google says it's linked so it has to be true.

What does this have to do with sweater vests and Mayans? No idea, but Google says it's linked so it has to be true.

That’s right, we’ve been looking too closely (literally) at the Mayan calendar. It was when I stood back from my computer monitor in my kitchen that I realized what the Mayans were trying to tell us. It happened like this:

As I poured my cup of coffee and looked over to “Yo Gabba Gabba” on the living room TV (which is near my computer) my eyes grazed across my computer monitor. That’s when I realized it– the Mayan calendar looks like a sweater vest pattern from afar! I was then distracted by Biz Markey’s “Beat of the Day” and proceeded to drink my cup of coffee forgetting what I just figured out.

A few hours later I realized the coffee maker was still on. I turned it off averting a disaster, which was leaving the coffee maker on too long resulting in me burning my house down. A few minutes after that I told bad jokes to my Mom on the phone. And as if the stars were aligning I then did Groucho German dictator impersonations to my invisible friend named Invisible Friend.

Sometime after that I went to log into df.com to post something random and remembered that I’d made an Earth changing discovery earlier that morning. I immediately Googled “mayan sweater vest”. On page one of the results was an image of a lady wearing a weird hat that certainly looked pretty ethnic. She also looked pretty ethnic as well, so obviously this was all tied together. That image was but one of several hundred results. If the Google could find that many results from my random search (and there was hundreds of results) it had to be valid. Google must have also thought the Mayan Sweater Vest theory was true– then it must be true because Google does not lie! The Mayans were trying to tell us that in 2012 we would discover that sweater vests would save the planet Earth from certain doom including me leaving a coffee maker on too long and possibly Al Gore’s polar bears drowning due to global warming.

Like any true researcher I had to validate my findings further. I didn’t want to seem like I hadn’t spent at least 5 minutes on the thing or like I just made it up to have something to write about on my blog. I did my validation work by heading over to Gap.com to “fall into the Gap”. I was amazed with what I found via a quick clothing search: They had kids’ sweater vest on sale for $17.99! That certainly could not be a coincidence.  I quickly stood back from my computer monitor and beheld the full screen glory of the sweater vest picture. Yes, it looked exactly like a Mayan calendar (or as close to what the Mayan calendar I think looked like since I last found that image earlier in the day).

Gap Kids Sweater Vest-- saving the world one child at a time!

Gap Kids Sweater Vest-- saving the world one child at a time!

I needed to find the aliens who talked with the Mayans though to make sure I wasn’t going in the wrong direction. Unfortunately I don’t know any alien invaders. So I instead I turned to the next best thing– illegal aliens. I don’t know any actual illegal aliens either though. So I had to compromise and find the next closet thing to that.

See my limited ignorant white guy view says that the majority of illegal aliens in the US are from Mexico. Based on that limited xenophobic and half baked belief I then further figured anyone who was Latino (or close to Latino even) could stand in for an actual illegal alien who in turn was standing in for a outer space aliens.

I found the first Latino person I could on my Facebook friend list as I was too lazy to actually leave the house to find a Latino. It is, after all, pretty cold out there right now. Plus I’m low on gas.

Since I don’t know too many Latinos it turned out to be my wife Chrissy (she’s 50% Puerto Rican so that’s close enough for government paperwork) and (even better yet) she was right upstairs so I wouldn’t have to go too far to talk with her (fill up of Mustang’s gas tank averted).

I asked her for her opinion on sweater vests. She told me she “liked them”. AH  HAH! Chrissy likes sweater vests! It was true then; the Mayans wanted us all in 2012 to wear sweater vests and that in turn would save the planet through some unforeseen universal knowledge beyond us all, but accumulated in the power of Gap.com sales. Thank you Mayans! Thank you for showing us the truth!

So here’s how you can help: Go to your favorite store, buy a sweater vest, and keep it on stand by for midnight January 1st, 2012. At the stroke of midnight put on the sweater vest. That’s it– world ending disaster averted. You too can help us save the planet with your sweater vest. We will survive!

Of course, since this blog is on the Internet it must be true. Because the Internet (like commercials on TV and used car salesmen) don’t lie. Now about those drowning polar bears and Al Gore– well I guess that can wait until later in the day to figure out. Maybe I’ll do that over a beer after New Year’s Day dinner while watching “Family Guy” reruns tonight. Or maybe I’ll forget about the whole thing and instead pretend like I never even thought about it. Either way,  stay tuned!

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Happy 2010!

Happy 1910!

Happy 1910! Oh wait... I was supposed to find something for 2010. Close enough. What's a century matter anyhow.

First and foremost, Happy New Year to all our viewers from all of us at digitalflood.com. It’s unbelievable that we’re done with 2009 already and that we’ve just begun 2010. Nevertheless it’s true. We’ve got a lot planned for 2010 so be sure to check out df.com daily.

Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to add us on your favorite social network of choice so you know when we update.

Speaking of updates, digitalflood Pirate Radio Vol. 6 Episode 1 will be out this Monday (1/4/10) at the latest. If all goes well we’ll record it by this weekend. We’ll also be recording Vol. 6 Episode 2 with DJ A.D.D. this weekend. That episode should be out the following Monday (1/11/10). We’ll keep you up to date as both episodes get produced and near release.

Lastly, thank you all for helping us have such a successful 2009. DF.com is now over ten years old, but we have no plans on slowing down. Our viewership is stronger than ever and Pirate Radio is in high demand. We’ll be kicking it into overdrive this year and really taking Pirate Radio up a notch or two. 2010 marks the fifth year of Pirate Radio production and we plan on making it the greatest Volume to date. You won’t want to miss this– Volume Six is guaranteed to rock hard.

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