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Having an Affair
My friends page looked so empty without ONTD, it seriously freaked me out. I never realised how much I relied on those guys, I would have nothing relevent to talk to anybody about otherwise. Who wants to hear me talk about A-Level physics? Whereas everybody is interested in the Lady GaGa/Paris Hilton saga, even if the people I'm talking about it to hate them.

In other news, you may or may not know, I'm been pretty ill for about a month now, with complaints such as recurring tonsilitis. Antibiotics couldn't clear it entirely (and in fact aggravated the condition of my overall health). My mother sees a homeopath and she made an appointment for a phone consultation with her.

Now, as a rule, I oppose everything alternative and holistic therapy stands for. I'm a subscriber of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, I totally stand behind what these guys are doing, if you're interested in scepticism and/or science check them out.

Not a lot of people understand what homeopathy is. I got the impression to start that it was basically eating vegetables and plant-based remedies, and I can understand plant-based remedies; modern medicine is based upon observations within the natural world, it's synthesised replications of plant and animal enzymes. I understand why people could potentially have a problem with synthetic drugs and want to use natural versions of them. But that's not what homeopathy is.

An overview: If you give a healthy person belladonna, they'll come up with symptoms similar to acute tonsilitis. When a person is suffering from acute tonsilitis, a homeopath will treat them with belladonna. Extremely dilute belladonna. In fact, some homeopathic remedies don't contain any of what it says on the bottle, they contain water with the "memory" of belladonna. This, apparently, will help the body heal itself and cure the underlying cause instead of (they claim) supressing the syptoms they way conventional medicine does.

It's actually been proven that echinacea doesn't work, but people still buy it. My mother still tries to give it to me whenever I have a cold. They proved scientifically that it doesn't work. Whenever I argue this with her, she blindly refuses to understand what that even means. They tested it, it makes no difference whether you take it or not. No mother, it doesn't work with you, you just think it does because you want to believe it.

So I was on the phone to the witch doctor homeopath (who, for starters, was trying to treat me for a medical condition over the phone) for about 45 minutes. She asked about the various symptoms, then she asked me to describe my personality to her. How would my friends describe me? What am I afraid of? What films do I like to watch?

I got off the phone to her. "It's a bit like a therapy session, isn't it?" beams my mother.

So I've been put on a hypoallergenic diet. This means no sugar, no dairy, no wheat, no yeast, no mushrooms, no red meat, no alcohol, no peanuts, no caffeine. You don't realise how difficult it is until you try. I can't eat toast. I can't eat a burger. I can't eat a sandwich. I can't eat pasta. I can't eat have a biscuit and a cup of coffee. I can't eat pizza. I can't have a gravy dinner. I can't eat coleslaw. For a month.

I can understand the probiotics (even though soya yoghurt is disgusting), I can almost understand the diet even if I can't forgive it. I've also got a couple of useless homeopathic pills to take (which are effectively worse than placebos because I'm not even expecting them to do anything).

But as I mentioned at the start, I've been ill for over a month now, and it's been adversely affecting my mood (the week I spent off college was a very dark week). So I'm getting desperate. Desperate enough to try these homeopathetic remedies. Cross your fingers for me.

Catastrophic Mind Pollution

  • Oct. 29th, 2008 at 2:13 PM
Human Blood
Dead Set is amazing. It's Big Brother with zombies and everybody must watch it.

I had a dream once about the zombie apocalypse. It's the only dream I've ever had that has felt like it's lasted for days, which convinced me that it wasn't a dream and that life as I knew it really was over. But I lasted for days before I woke up, and even then I didn't wake up because I was eaten, it was just because my alarm went off. So I'm quite confident that when that day does come, I'll get by ok.

But I'm getting a little paranoid about it now, because I can't stop making mental preparations. I'm beginning to feel sure that there's going to be an outbreak while I'm in London.

Also, I just lost the game again damnit!

Lot of sleepless nights recently, and difficulty eating. Which if you knew me, would seriously worry you. And walking around with this big stupid smile plastered over my face, even though that's the reverse of how I should be reacting to. It can only end in trouble. But I'm chilling out maxin relaxin this week, gwanin off to meet some friends and catch up on old times, and seeing a band and stuff, not doing my homework or learning my songs. So should be a cool kinda week.

And finally, I decided that I want to be an astronaut. So you'll be hearing some more about that in the future I reckon


I mean, look at it. How could anybody not want to go up there? (Space porn courtesy of io9)

The End Is Nigh

  • Sep. 8th, 2008 at 12:16 AM
Rorschach
Walter Kovacs, carrying a sign proclaiming 'The End Is Nigh', approaches the newsvendor.
Kovacs: Good afternoon. Is it here yet?
Newsvendor: Huh? Oh! Your copy o' the New Frontiersman! Sure it's here. I keep it here for ya ever day, don't I? How's the enna the world comin' along?
Kovacs: It'll happen today. I've seen signs. National Examiner reported a two-headed cat born in Queens. Today for certain. You'll keep my paper for me tomorrow?
Newsvendor: Uhh.. sure. Sure I will. No sweat. Have a nice day.
[Watchmen, Chapter III]

 
So, they're switched on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN on Wednesday morning, 9am European time. That means the end of the world is coming at roughly 8am GMT.

Teehee, some people even tried to put a restraining order on them because they were so fearful that turning it on would cause a black hole, or turn the earth into some strange new type of matter, or some other equally bizarre sci-fi plot twist.

A lot of people don't get that the further you get through science, the more interesting and seemingly magical it becomes. Advanced physics certainly doesn't make any logical sense. But hardly anybody gets that far, because all the basics are so dull that the majority of people give up after high school and never take an interest in the scientific world.

At least, that's the thought I'm consoling myself with while my A-Level Physics teacher reminds the class what 3 add negative 2 equals. It keeps away the thoughts of jamming a pencil up each nostril.