the house of squiggles

If you ever had a colonoscopy or are planning on one, you can’t miss this one!!!

ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

Colonoscopy Journal:

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.

A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.

I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, ‘HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!’

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ‘MoviPrep,’ which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven.  I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America’s enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.

Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation.
In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep.  You mix two packets of powder together in a one-litre plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a litre is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon..

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, ‘a loose, watery bowel movement may result.’

This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic, here, but,have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch?  This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything.  And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another litre of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage.  I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on Andy?’  How do you apologize to a friend for something like that?  Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked..

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand.  Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down.  Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.  At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist.  I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere.  I was seriously nervous at this point.

Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA.  I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, ‘Dancing Queen’ had to be the least appropriate.

‘You want me to turn it up?’ said Andy, from somewhere behind me.

‘Ha ha,’ I said.  And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade.  If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea.  Really.  I slept through it.  One moment, ABBA was yelling ‘Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,’ and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt.  I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

On the subject of Colonoscopies…
Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous….. A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. ‘Take it easy, Doc. You’re boldly going where no man has gone before!’

2. ‘Find Amelia Earhart yet?’

3. ‘Can you hear me NOW?’

4. ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’

5. ‘You know, in     Arkansas , we’re now legally married.’

6. ‘Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?’

7. ‘You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out…’

8. ‘Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!’

9. ‘If your hand doesn’t fit, you must quit!’

10. ‘Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.’

11. ‘You used to be an executive at Enron, didn’t you?’

And the best one of all:
12. ‘Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?’

ONE
Recently, when I went to McDonald’s I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.
I asked for a half dozen nuggets.
‘We don’t have half dozen nuggets,’ said the teenager at the counter
‘You don’t?’ I replied.

‘We only have six, nine, or twelve,’ was the reply
‘So I can’t order half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?’
‘That’s right.’
So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

(Unbelievable but sadly true..)

TWO
I was checking out at the local Woolworths with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those ‘dividers’ that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn’t get mixed.
After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the ‘divider’, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code, she said to me, ‘Do you know how much this is?’
I said to her ‘I’ve changed my mind; I don’t think I’ll buy that today.’
She said ‘OK,’ and I paid her for the things and left.

She had no clue to what had just happened.

THREE
A woman at  work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very  quickly.
When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM ‘thingy.’

(keep shuddering!!)

FOUR
I recently  saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her  car.
‘Do you need some help?’ I asked.
She replied, ‘I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can’t get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?’
‘Hmmm, I don’t know. Do you have an alarm, too?’ I asked.
‘No, just this remote thingy,’ she answered, handing it and the car keys to me  As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, ‘Why don’t you drive over there and check about the batteries. It’s a long walk….’

PLEASE just lay down before you hurt yourself!!!

FIVE
Several years  ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, ‘I’m almost out of typing paper What do I do?’ ‘Just use paper from the photocopier’, the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five ‘blank’ copies.

Brunette, by the way!!

SIX
A mother  calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if  she needs to take her kid to the emergency room,  the kid had eaten ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and he should be fine, the mother says, ‘I just gave him some ant killer……’
Dispatcher: ‘Rush him in to emergency!’

Life is tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid!!!!

Just try reading this without laughing till you cry!!!

Pocket Tazer Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife.

A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Tazer for their anniversary submitted this:

Last weekend I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse- sized tazer. The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety….??
WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home.
I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button.
Nothing!
I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time, I’d get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.
AWESOME!!!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, right?

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and then thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat.

But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; and a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries. All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5″ long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference (loaded with two itsy, bitsy AAA batteries); pretty cute really, and thinking to myself, ‘no possible way!’

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best …
I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side so as to say, ‘Don’t do it stupid,’ reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny lil ole thing couldn’t hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and … HOLY MOTHER OF GOD .. . WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION . . . WHAT THE….!!!

I’m pretty sure Hulk Hogan ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs! The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to ‘mug’ yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is NO such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor!  A three second burst would be considered conservative!

A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling. Apparently I had crapped in my shorts, but was too numb to know for sure, and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head, which I believe came from my hair. I’m still looking for my testicles and I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return!

P.s… My wife can’t stop laughing about my experience, loved the gift and now regularly threatens me with it!

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid !!!

 
 
YEH, WE’RE ALL A SMART BUNCH DOWN UNDER!
 
Rural Australian Computer Terminology.  
A little bit of Aussie culcha…..
 
LOG ON:   Adding wood to make the barbie hotter.
LOG OFF:   Not adding any more wood to the barbie.
MONITOR:   Keeping an eye on the Barbie.
DOWNLOAD:   Getting the firewood off the Ute.
HARD DRIVE:   Making the trip back home without any cold tinnies.
KEYBOARD:   Where you hang the Ute keys.
WINDOW:   What you shut when the weather’s cold.
SCREEN:   What you shut in the mozzie season.
BYTE:   What mozzies do.
MEGABYTE:   What Townsville mozzies do.
CHIP:   A bar snack.
MICROCHIP:   What’s left in the bag after you’ve eaten the chips.
MODEM:   What you did to the lawns.
LAPTOP:   Where the cat sleeps.
SOFTWARE:   Plastic knives & forks you get at Red Rooster.
HARDWARE:   Stainless steel knives & forks - from K-Mart.
MOUSE:   The small rodent that eats the grain in the shed.
MAINFRAME:   What holds the shed up.
WEB:   What spiders make.
WEBSITE:   Usually in the shed or under the verandah.
SEARCH ENGINE:  What you do when the Ute won’t go.
CURSOR:   What you say when the Ute won’t go.
YAHOO:   What you say when the Ute does go.
UPGRADE:   A steep hill.
SERVER:   The person at the pub who brings out the counter lunch.    
MAIL SERVER:   The bloke at the pub who brings out the counter-lunch.
USER:   The neighbour who keeps on borrowing things.
NETWORK:   What you do when you need to repair the fishing net.
INTERNET:   Where you want the fish to go.
NETSCAPE:   What the fish do when they discover the big hole in the net.
ONLINE:   Where you hang the washing.  
OFFLINE:   Where the washing ends up when the pegs aren’t strong enough.  

Many thanks to John Collins for sending me this and giving me a good laugh.

Cats are tough critters.

Unk is having a ‘crazy half hour’. She is attacking everything that comes near her.

WOW, those claws are sharp. I have reminded her that I’m only a Human, with soft delicate skin. She has taken no notice. Blood will be shed before this ‘play’ session is over, and the blood is sure to be from the Human not the Feline.

I will be happy if Unk and Vella play together and stop making holes in me!!!

Little Unk has claimed my study as her territory.

Well actually, I persuaded her to move from living under my bed to having a cozy residence in a suspension file storage box with an entrance cut into the end and lined with a folded towel, on one of the desks in the study. Unk is a very fast learner, the first time she and Vella were face to face (about half a metre apart) Vella hissed and gave a very low pitched gutteral growl. Unk was sort of taken aback by this, but then repeated the display back at Vella. Now Unk always seems to be the first to give out the hiss, and start growling. She does this whenever Vella decides to stick her head into Unk’s study.

For anyone trying to visit this website yesterday, you probably found it not working. It seems that Unk had tried to climb a bundle of CAT 5 cables that run from the floor up to the shelf where the main network switch lives. In doing this, she managed to dislodge one of the plugs…… yep, no internet service to the network in The House of Squiggles was the end result. I am going to fit a strain relief bracket so that the weight of the cables is not pulling on the plugs and sockets on the rear of the network switch. 20 lengths of CAT 5 cables that run 1.5M vertically can be quite heavy……. but then again, when a cat is climbing the bundle they get even heavier!

As you can see from the above photo, when Vella is not around Unk is quite relaxed. She is a very affectionate cat and just loves being patted and climbing on me.

Sorry folks, my broadband connection is on a go slow until the end of May…………

Please be patient, pages will take longer than normal to download.

Sometimes the timing of things seem to be ‘just right’.

One day early last week someone had put a small story up onto a newsgroup that I read about how they came to name a cat Unk. The story goes that this person had managed to have themselves adopted by a stray cat, and had accompanied said cat to the Vet for a checkup and to get it’s injections. When the vet asked what the cat’s name was the guy told the vet that he hadn’t named the cat yet, so the vet wrote “UNK” (short for UNKNOWN) in the name field on the cat’s file……. Well the bloke thought this was an OK name, so the cat became known as Unk.

Well, I have managed to have myself adopted by a small Tabby and White cat that had been living rough in the Point Cook area. Seeing as this cat is of Unknown age, Unknown parentage, and I couldn’t think of a name……. she has become my “Unk”.

I say she, but I am not quite sure yet. I have managed to pat her a few times, and give her rubs around the ears, but not been able to pick her up yet. She was after all living the life of a feral cat.

So, it’s interesting times at The House of Squiggles, with introductions between Unk and Vella. To say the least, Vella is not impressed!

Apologies for the image quality… my mobile phone camera is not very good! These photos were taken while Unk and I were getting to know each other, before she moved into The House of Squiggles.

Above: Unk in stalking mode.

Unk sitting and trying to decide if she likes me. She was purring like a little motorboat when I took the above picture.

An updated image of the Geranium featured a couple of months ago.

Another WICEN activation. This time providing communications for the canoe leg of a Tri-Athlon event.

The MARS Challenge starts off at Soverign Hill in Ballarat with a little run to Mt Bunningyong, a mere 20 km, where the unfortunate individuals who have chosen to undertake this torture hop merrily on their bicycles to cycle to Geelong, which is like a little ride in the park at 79 km. Just in case they are not tired yet, it’s time to board a canoe and paddle 32 km, yes folks 32 kilometers down the Barwon River to finally end with a 50 metre ’sprint’ to the finish line!

Did I say sprint to the finish line…… some people actually did just that! There were a few people who are probably ordinary mortals and they could only just manage a casual walk to the finish line after pulling their poor battered bodies out of the canoe.

Again, being a sedate ‘Geek’, I took up my position sitting on a comfy chair, with my radio and thermos of coffee at the Finish Line on the beach in Barwon Heads. Some great company was provided by a small group of fellow Radio Operators and as usual ‘A great day was had by all’.

The view of the Finish Line from our position under the brolly seen below.

We weren’t very hard to find….. all you had to do was look up!

The antenna I used was a 4 element Yagi mounted atop my portable 7 metre tall mast. I manufactured this antenna with the guidance of Graham VK3XGD during a club construction project with the Geelong Radio and Electronics Society (GRES).

P.S, we didn’t loose any of the athletes, nor did we have any disasters requiring us to call for medical assistance.