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Today was a tiresome day, which I obviously blame on both weather (rainy and warm == muggy) and the apparent after-effects of the scope. At some points it felt like I was trying to catch up with the world and another world, but luckily I ended up half-asleep somewhere in the north, west, east and south of Nova Scotia. Zzzz.

Fair enough: A thing I was reminded of the other day was, when someone asked me what the ‘acronym’ was behind my first name, which happens to appear on every official document I carry around. I won’t tell you.

If there was an ‘eei-iii-ther and eeether’ camp, which camp would you belong to? Apparently I belong to the correct camp, which is the one that says ‘eeeeiiither’ and ‘neeeiiiither’ and not ‘eeeether and neeeether’. While I’m neither British or Canadian, I guess, neither either nor either is either wrong. Right. Something like that.

Note to my twin brother: we have unanimously decided to move your birthday to December 25th because it causes too much confusion. Sorry ¹.

¹Small print: we won’t move dates if suspect plans to quit smoking. All other disclaimers apply.

The best part of going to an endoscopic clinic is that after the ‘procedure’ I was tickled to refresh my brains how the digestive system works. If I’m not wrong, the digestive system was part of the biology classes during secondary school, which is generally from age 8-12 in The Netherlands. Note, dissection of animals has never been part of the Dutch educational system. I’m not sure what the reason for that might be: obviously, Northern American cultures have it generally in the regular cirriculum.

Anyway: the Pico Salax happened to start to work only after 5 hours, which meant that I wasn’t ‘pleasant’ all night (6 PM + 5hrs = 11 PM). The second batch of the drug (which had to be taken the next morning [this morning]) didn’t make things better. I did have many laughs about the ‘output’ of my digestive system, because at the end it was so senseless: the last bit that comes out of your rectum is pure liquid. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wash your hands (you should do that all time, which is another thing that was hammered in our brains by the Dutch eductional system). It leaves me wonder what Pico Salax exactly does: I always thought that laxatives stimulated ‘bowel movement’ (can you say ‘mineral-oil’?).

The procedure itself was so easy that I have no clue what exactly happened. I was whiskered in ‘the room’, somebody showed off a nice (neat) Pentax endoscopic camera. In the mean time I was provided a sedative and the next thing I remember was that I woke up in a different room. Hey: what happened to the promised Live Screening Of Arthur’s Colon (In TechniColor)? Obviously, the nurses decided to ‘put me in an eternal sleep’ instead of having me ‘lightly sedated’. From what I understand is that I was in a deep sleep for almost 3 quarters of an hour: after that my wife was finally allowed in to see me, I had to dress up and had a conversation with the doctor, who said the next check-up should be in another 5 to 10 years. Most importantly, I’m still healthy, which doesn’t really surprise me, since I’ve not been using any medication since well… I can’t remember¹. That long ago. And that 3 quarters of an hour sleep in a hospital bed did me pretty good, I’d say. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going after some rootbeer.

¹ Probably 6-7 years ago. Like I said, I’m generally pretty healthy. Quitting smoking helps too.

In preparation for the day before, the following emergency plan to keep me as ‘fasting’ as possible: I’m not allowed to eat anything before 6 PM because after that it’s PicoSalax time. Hey, what can be worse than trying to stuff yourself up a couple hours before the deadline with a truly Canadian meal called ‘KD’. You only ‘need water and a microwave’, things that are available on the workplace. ‘Now with microwave instructions available on-line only’!

Inspired by Alfons’ purchase a couple of days ago, I decided to check out the local computer hardware grocerychain to find out that most notebooks magically had disappeared from the shelves and were out of stock. I was informed that in 3 to 4 weeks, computer makers are sending out their new line of laptops just in time for the new school season. So, now you know too.

Hot weather has arrived, once again, and now it’s a good time to get rid of your dandelions before they start to bloom again later on this year. You go. Burn them all.

A couple of movies we’ve watched (links go to IMDB):

• Flightplan – Foster tries to find missing daughter and fights hijacker. There were a couple of scenes where I balked at the screen: the scene where Foster leaves the plane and the one when she opens the coffin. Overall fun.
• Munich – Bana kills terrorists and then that. Spielberg intro at beginning takes too long and reveals clues. Also, flashbacks don’t work and reminded of flashbacks in ‘Private Ryan’, which also didn’t work. Good.
• Walk the Line – Cash biopic. Reese Witherspoon’s performance is Oscar worthy. Good.
• Narnia – Uh – what can I say? Too many [CENSORED] references killed the movie. Interesting role by Tilda Swinton. Hey, where’s Morissette’s song?
• Good night and good luck – Clooney’s movie about the McCarthy period and it works. Features perfect music, sung by Dianne Reeves. Not for the action-movie buffs, but definitely a ‘watcher’.

Hey, it rained today!