I passed!
Well, kind of. They want me back in eight weeks. But I’m cleared for the gym. Woot!
On a train headed to a party. Have an excellent weekend, everyone!
January 9, 2026 — 6:15 pm
Comments: 4
Eyeball!
This isn’t my eyeball, but this is what I had: a horseshoe retinal tear. The little white dots are where this poor bastard got whacked with a laser. That’s exactly how many times it felt like, too. Doesn’t seem to leave much of a peephole, does it? And it doesn’t actually seal the edges of the tear, either, so I dunno how it works.
Just, ew.
If it heals properly, those little white dots turn into little black dots of scar tissue. Yay, I guess.
Anyway, I was forbidden going to the gym until the follow up appointment, and they were three weeks late for the two week follow up, so I’m delighted to say they just called and said they had an opening tomorrow afternoon. Wish me happy little black dots!
On the road tomorrow, but I’ll tuck you in before bed.
January 8, 2026 — 5:28 pm
Comments: 5
Never thought of it that way…
I wonder if the satellites have any sort of sensors that might detect something moving through them.
Further to the statins discussion below, I know several people who really suffered on statins (debilitating joint pain). I also read a large meta-study recently that said statins do provably lower heart attack risk, but don’t improve overall mortality. So they’re doing something bad.
Of course, plenty of studies show clear benefit. Which is why it’s so hard to make good informed decisions – you can find a study to prove anything you like. I just know I don’t want to end up like my mother in law – carting a bag of pills around with me everywhere.
January 7, 2026 — 7:01 pm
Comments: 6
Here we go again
I have just had a call from my GP office. My cholesterol is high. My cholesterol is always high, so we have this conversation every few years. I go back in three months for another blood test, so I’m asking Grok what foods lower cholesterol. He say
Oats and barley (fine, fine)
Beans and legumes (cool beans)
Nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, pistachios) (mmm mmm)
Avocados (awesome)
Fatty fish (e.g., salmon, mackerel, sardines) (good)
Fruits and vegetables high in fiber (e.g., apples, berries, Brussels sprouts, eggplant) (no problemo)
It says it takes a month for dietary changes to make level changes, but I’ve gotten results in the past leaning on oatmeal for a week. Let me be clear: I do not care about my cholesterol levels, but I don’t want to go on statins and I’m tired of having this conversation with my doctor.
I think also dark chocolate, green tea and chia seeds. All fine.
Any other ideas? I ain’t eating Benecol for nobody.
January 6, 2026 — 6:08 pm
Comments: 8
Poor boys
It’s been in the low twenties this week, which is as cold as it ever gets here. Our last two surviving birds have been through nights this cold, but only when they were part of a flock to cuddle with. They’re bachelors now.
Reflecting on how awful it would be to go out in the morning and find them stone dead, the last three nights I tiptoe out after they’ve gone to bed, shove them in cat carriers and bring them into the laundry room for the night.
It’s not warm back there, but it’s not freezing. The room with the fire would probably kill them with thermal shock. Also, they start doodle-doodling before the sun comes up.
Last time tonight and then it warms up a bit.
Look, I know I’m the last person who should say this (just look at that cockerel meld into the bars of the cage like a T-1000), but I’m getting tired of AI video on X and AI voiceovers on YouTube. I’m’a start blocking soon! Just saying.
January 5, 2026 — 5:27 pm
Comments: 4
O-kay
I asked Grok to give me a picture of 2026, and this is what I got: a giant Trump next to a tiny desk.
ChatGPT froze for an hour trying to draw a neon 2026 and MidJourney regurgitated four typically weird hallucinations with no discernable theme. MidJourney does nice work when you carefully describe what you want, but it sucks at improvisation.
Happy New Year, y’all! Dead Pool tomorrow.
January 1, 2026 — 4:47 pm
Comments: 6
I know this!
You forget – I have a certificate in Chickenology from the University of Edinburgh. As part of the course work was a very interesting article called something like How the Chicken Conquered the World, but I don’t think it was this wordy article of a similar name from the Smithsonian.
Yes, the Romans had chickens and prized them. Ditto the Chinese. “The domesticated chicken has a genealogy as complicated as the Tudors, stretching back 7,000 to 10,000 years and involving, according to recent research, at least two wild progenitors and possibly more than one event of initial domestication.”
The chicken descends mainly from the red junglefowl, which came from around the Philippines, South India. That sort of area.
The way I remember it, there was one area that had a glut of food every ten years or so and the local flock would ramp up to produce an egg a day during those good times. So in domestic settings, where they were always well fed, they continued to put out a stupid amount of eggs.
When you think about it, laying an egg every day doesn’t make a lot of evolutionary sense in the wild. But it’s different in a domestic setting, when you’re rewarded for it and bred by the billions.
Someone once said, if you want to have a lot of an animal, teach humans to eat it.
December 31, 2025 — 6:38 pm
Comments: 6
Is this real?
Uncle B sent me this link – the evolution of the chicken. I was surprised to see it start with a modern-looking fish. Is this just AI slop?
I know, I know…I can talk.
Looks like Barney Fife is the dickwinner! Hoorah! New Dead Pool Friday.
December 30, 2025 — 7:12 pm
Comments: 8
Close…
Just for fun, I asked several AI to illustrate the fourth day of Christmas, without giving them any other information. I wanted to see if they would use the song as source material.
MidJourney didn’t get the brief at all. One of the images was various dinosaurs or other reptiles dressed as Santa sitting around a Christmas tree.
Grok gave me two nice pictures of four birds sitting on a snowy branch. The birds look a bit like blackbirds, which is probably just by chance, but would be canon. The internet tells me the “four calling birds” were actually “four colly birds” in the oldest printed version of the song – blackbirds, that is. Also, it got the correct number of birds. Also, picture of birds.
ChatGPT understood and gave me a charming Christmas card illustration featuring what look like doves. Okay, there were six of them, but I’ll still call that a win.
That’s when I realized today is the fifth day of Christmas.
So there’s ChatGPT again. Wrong number of rings, but I’ll take it. Looks sweet in color.
December 29, 2025 — 5:59 pm
Comments: 4
And a merry Boxing Day
Had a splendid Christmas, thank you. Hope you did too. Now comes the Week of Turkey.
December 26, 2025 — 4:37 pm
Comments: 2