Deprecated: ltrim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 3030

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_ID is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 378

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_count is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 379

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_description is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 380

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_name is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 381

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_nicename is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 382

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_parent is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 383
Pointless remarks - Paul's blog

Archive for the ‘Pointless remarks’ Category

PostHeaderIcon Weight loss

Roter rooter colonoscopy“.. do you have a living will?” asked the friendly lady at the other end of the phone line.

And especially because I do have a rather strong will to live, I found the question a bit disturbing, considering it was asked by an employee of the Sheridan Surgery Center, Melbourne, FL, where I have an appointment tomorrow morning at 8:15am. Were they planning for a screw up?

Anyway, tonight at 7 pm I weighed myself.

I just did that again, about 2 1/2 hours later.

I’m happy to share with you that I lost 4.8 pounds during that period!

PostHeaderIcon Where? (a riddle)

snow july tim de waalWHERE was this picture taken? (Yes, it’s snow, and yes, it was taken July (added correction: NOT July, obviously, but June!) 27th, 2007)

(Thanks to Tim de Waal for providing this picture)

PostHeaderIcon Patience

nasa shuttle atlantis patience

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) — Atlantis and its seven astronauts took a cross-country detour and landed safely in the Mojave Desert Friday

I just woke up.

It’s a wonderful day here in Florida, close to Cape Canaveral: Sunny, no wind, and not a single cloud!

Had Mission Control waited another 24 hours with bringing Atlantis home, NASA would have saved 1.7 million bucks.

AND we would have experienced our beloved two ‘booms’.

On the other hand, we now get to see the shuttle return home on top of a Boeing 747, hopefully doing a low level flyby at Cocoa Beach again.

Always an amazing sight.

(link to article –link-)

PostHeaderIcon Jesus goes High Tech

Jesus chipOnline casino Golden Palace.com gets a chance to extend their collection of Holy Apparitions (they were the ones who purchased the ‘St Mary-In-The-Cheese-Sandwich’ artifact for $28,000 – link -): This time Jesus Himself appeared … but it’s not exactly the booming voice from the sky … you need an electron miscroscope to see His image on a 4 Gig flash memory chip from Samsung.

Don’t you agree with me that Jesus REALLY looks like Osama Bin Laden!

Scary, isn’t it?

(“Jesus appears in Samsung Flash memory chip” – link -)

PostHeaderIcon My achy breaky heart

Survived this oneLast Monday morning, around 2am.

“You KNOW God is with you right now, right?” .. whispered she from behind me.

In other circumstances I gladly would have engaged in the discussion by informing her that I, in fact, did not know that, and more specifically, that I was pretty sure he wasn’t, and that if he WAS, he wasn’t doing his job.
But this was neither the place nor the time, so I kinda nodded. After all, she was a very nice girl and meant well.

Just before entering a room she stopped and walked up next to me, turned around, grabbed my hand, gazed me in the eyes and said: “Do you want me to pray with you?”
This is always a bit of an embarassing question to a devout atheist like myself, but in this instance even more unsettling, since a) I found myself in a situation where the LAST thing you want to hear is people praying for you, as it usually means there’s nothing else they can do anymore, and b) I just had several people ‘work’ on me, from hooking me up to an EKG, to taking chest X-rays and stabilizing my blood pressure, heart rate and pain (administering nitroglycerine, lopressor and (yummie!) morphine), and now I was ‘supposed’ to be rushed to have a CT scan to look for blood clots, so I found it a bit disturbing that this, undoubtly well meaning, nurse delayed this process by trying to take out some time for praying to God.

I’m fairly sure (not really, since I don’t believe in God) that if God didn’t want me to have this heart attack, I wouldn’t have been here in the first place.
So I responded with something like “Mwnaah”, with that friendly “Maybe not today” look one uses when someone tries to sell you something for a good cause at your door when you’re watching a Spurs playoff game (Go Spurs!).
“Well”, she smiled at me, “be sure that I certainly WILL pray for you!”. Again, friendly as it may have been meant, I didn’t find it very encouraging for my situation.

Then, when she prepared me for the CT scan she happily informed me that I was going to experience the closest thing to female menopause (something about a warm feeling like I had been peeing all over my self  (apparently induced by the injected dye liquid) .. ? .. Uhm… okay).

The whole procedure made me think of going through a whirring rotating mini-Stargate.
But that was all.

When she enthousiastically enquired about ‘that’ feeling, I had to tell her that I, truthfully, hadn’t experienced anything of the kind.
She was visibly disappointed by this. She didn’t speak a word while she pushed me back to the ER.

No feeling of peeing all over myself, and no prayer sessions, it must have been a disappointing night for her.

Mine wasn’t too great either: Around 4am I was admitted.

PostHeaderIcon Colonoscopies and pot odds

diceThis post is related to my two previous posts.
Recently I was listening to some details about a certain type of ‘minimally invasive’ surgery, when at some point the risks were brought up.
It was explained that this procedure was relatively safe, as it had a risk, expressed in mortality rate, comparable to that of a colonoscopy.
That sounded very reassuring, since a colonoscopy doesn’t involve incisions and messing with vital organs.
Then I saw the actual numbers and sure enough, they were fairly close.

But I was shocked nevertheless.

In 2004 I had a colonoscopy, based on my primary care physician’s recommendation to ANYONE who turns 50, to have one. Just as a precaution.
Since they did remove some polyps, it was recommened to have another one in 2006. I’m overdue for that one, and I really should get one scheduled.

Or SHOULD I?

I’m still shocked by the mortality rate of a colonoscopy. It was given as around 1 in 2000.
It is recommended that by the time you turn 50, you should get a colonoscopy, and then one every 5 years after that (or more often when they find something).
There are about 50 million people over the age of 50 in the US. If they would all follow the recommendation, each year 10 million people will have a colonoscopy! With the above mentioned mortality rate, 5,000 people WILL die each year by simply having a colonoscopy.
This scares me a lot.
I had no idea that such a procedure would kill one out of every 2000 patients.

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about this number.
And now I do of course realize that there’s another side of this coin. Something that poker players may recognize as a pot odds calculation: what is the cost of NOT having one. What are the odds that I DO develop undetected colon cancer.
When I wrote my ‘Odds’ post, I was still heavily leaning towards not going in for my second one.

But now, considering that this is widely recommended (so you think that someone has done the proper statistical analysis of the odds involved1.) PLUS the fact that I am more at risk due to the removed polyps .. maybe I SHOULD get another one.

I’m not asking my readers to make this decision for me, but I would appreciate their thoughts on this mortality rate2..


1.Here I appear to follow one of my commenter’s remarks, basically saying “If the authorities say it’s safe, I don’t care too much about the numbers”. But there is a difference I think.
2.I restricted myself to mortality, there are also various other, rather nasty, risks (like colon perforation) that require immediate and complicated surgery)

PostHeaderIcon Alien visitation

endoscope

I just came across an old post from my previous blog at Live Journal (link). For some reason I felt like re-posting it here:

Today, November 30th, 2004, I have been abducted by aliens.
I can’t give a full, detailed, account, since I’m only faintly aware of the actual abduction.
No, I didn’t dream it. It really happened. I remember laying on a gurney in a dimly lit chamber.
Soft strange music playing in the background. I also recall laying on my side, staring at an unfamiliar and complicated looking aparatus which was connected to a long black shiny rubbery hose.
I instinctively knew that that would have to be the infamous anal probe, and I’m frightened by the size and length of it: they are going to stick that thing WHERE?
So, all those alien abduction/anal probe stories are real after all?
One of the less conscious memories is that of beings coming into the room, beings in long loose robes. Green ones I believe.
From then on I am aware only of some faint experiences of uncomfortable pressure in my abdominal area and some soft strange whirring sounds.
The next thing I remember is waking up, feeling VERY dizzy and disoriented, still laying on a gurney, next to strange machinery that’s making soft puffing and bleeping noises.
And I realize that it’s all over. That I’m still alive. And will live. And that the experience, although by no means pleasant, wasn’t even painful!
Actually, the only rather painful part of the procedure was the $250 co-payment for this colonoscopy.

(you can click on the picture)

PostHeaderIcon Just weird

tampa hard rock casino bingoTriggered by an earlier post (link) I ordered a DVD of Martin Scorsese’s movie ‘Woodstock’. Last Friday I watched the opening song of that festival by Ritchie Havens. And just like when I saw that movie when I was 17 years old, in an old small obscure theatre in my home town of The Hague in the Netherlands, for some odd reason, it struck me how incredibly mishandled and tortured his guitar looked. Well, true, Ritchie’s technique differs remarkably from Andrés Segovia’s, but still. He himself must have realized too, that his guitar had reached its end of life, because after the Woodstock concert he gave it to his chauffeur.

Last Saturday afternoon, while walking around, contemplating to get a beer, I suddenly stood eye in eye … with that very same guitar!

It hung on a wall.

I could have touched it.

I stared at it for a while, not knowing what to think of this coincidence: one night seeing back that guitar I first wondered about some 37 years ago on a DVD, and then the next day, actually seeing that very same guitar.

Hanging on a wall.

On Indian tribal land.

The very same, relatively small, patch of Indian tribal land, where last month, the day before my birthday, the combination of a punctured abscess, the flu, Chloral Hydrate, Diphenhydramin, Clonazepam, Diazepam, Nordiazepam, Temazepam, Oxazepam, Lorazepam, Atropine, Topiramate, Ciprofloxacin and Acetaminophen, killed Anna Nicole Smith.

Update: as one of the commenters pointed out, this is incorrect. Mrs. Smith died on Indian Tribal land in the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Broward county, Florida, near Miami, not the one in Tampa.

But neither of these events is the topic of this post.

Yes, indeed, we were at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa.

Please have a look at their website at this link: link.

Did you see the slot machines in that picture?

My wife played those slot machines there for, oh, probably two hours or so.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

And this is what my post actually is about!

No, you DIDN’T see those slot machines on that website I just mentioned. Nor did my wife play any slot machines there.

In fact, check out that website again! The word ‘slot machine’ is nowhere to be found!

Most of the people in that casino may have THOUGHT they were playing slot machines, but they weren’t.

It’s all an illusion.

I already had made the observation that, while they had a nice and BIG poker room besides these ‘slot machines’, this casino, strangely enough, didn’t have any ‘table’ games. No black jack, no roulette, no you-name-it.

Then, on the way home, my wife asked me if I knew what the word ‘DAUB’ meant. I admitted that my knowledge of the Seminole language was inadequate to explain the meaning of that word. She said the ‘slot’ machines had a button with the word ‘DAUB’ on it, which mystified her. There was also, at the top of the machine’s screen, a grid with numbers, that almost looked like …. and yes… at home, some googling confirmed her suspicion: those machines were NOT slot machines. Slot machines are illegal on tribal land. These were bingo machines! The similarity with well known slot machines? Well: “The lower screen is just there for entertainment,” Gail said. “The cards are on top”.  See: link

Do a google on ‘daub slot machines’!

How come they can get away with such obvious fraud (I know… ‘loophole’ is the word), but a game of skill, like online poker, is firmly and effectively banned? (Well, I KNOW why, but I had to mention it!).

WHAT a …   (help me find a word here…)

PostHeaderIcon Martial Arts

kiai characterWhen I grew up there was this thing called Judo.
It was a form of martial art where two combattants would grab eachother by the lapels of their special white pj’s, followed by some pushing and pulling and then the tallest and heaviest guy would win.
There was also a far less popular form of martial art called Jiu Jitsu.
Since martial arts were basically taught, at that time, as a form of self defense, I must say that, to me, pj-pulling Judo was far less effective than Jiu Jitsu, which involved, amongst other things, poking your finger in your opponent’s eye and breaking his fingers.
Then Karate became popular and was soon followed by a whole gamut of martial art forms, some more bizarre than others: from hitting eachother over the head with a cane stick to kicking eachothers shins to a bloody pulp.
Most, if not all, involved unpronouncable names, lots of yelling and screaming, and jumping around a lot.
And none of them was as effective as a method of unarmed self defense as the much more down-to-earth ‘western’ method of firmly planting ones fist in ones opponent’s face, better known as boxing. But I don’t think boxing is considered a martial art.
Which, then, leaves us with the question ‘which is the most effective form of martial art?’.
This is, of course, a hotly debated topic amongst martial artists, and I’d like to introduce to you a case where a representative of one form challenges one of another.
This is about a Kiai master who wagers $5000 on a claim that he can beat ANY MMA master.
An MMA master accepted the challenge and I’ll point you to a video of the match.
But let me first explain the two different forms of martial art.
Kiai is fairly hard to explain, because there’s a lot of mumbojumbo involved about breathing, silent yelling, reflection and energy concentration.
Let me describe it this way: the Kiai master attacks (and defeats) his opponents by ‘manifesting, emitting and projecting his internal energy’ onto his opponents by waving his arms around, but without touching his opponents (the video starts with a demonstration of this!).
The MMA master (MMA stands for Mixed Martial Arts) on the other hand, has no qualms whatsoever when it comes to touching his opponent.

Watch the video of this challenge, and be amazed. Be VERY amazed.

See the video here: link

PostHeaderIcon St Patrick’s day

St Patricks's day Melbourne

Today I went to the St. Patrick’s day parade downtown Melbourne.

Maybe not one of my better ideas. It was a zoo! I had forgotten how much I dislike crowds, and boy was I quickly reminded of it.

Yes, there was beer.

And those who know me, will testify that I’m not someone to turn down a beer quickly.

But I’d be damned if I would drink fluorescent green beer!

That’s just plain wrong. Worse, it’s blasphemy!

*shakes head in utter disgust*

Green beer!


Deprecated: ltrim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 3030

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$object_id is deprecated in /homepages/29/d116676307/htdocs/claessen.com/blog/wp-includes/class-wp-term.php on line 198