This Week in Nelson, volume 3, number 8

Fucking gorgeous weather outside today. I hope everyone in this corner of the world is enjoying it. This week we’ve got the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy (not the band), a cure for the common cold, a little college basketball talk, the speed of emotion and a whole new type of AIDS. Let’s do it.

Birthday shout-out to Gaus! And Corey! Or is Corey’s next week? It’s soon, that’s all I know. Two more dudes turning 30 as my own 3-0 fast approaches. Death is nipping at our heels, gentlemen (and ladies). Gird up your loins.

Books read this week:
-Still reading The View from the Seventh Layer by, Kevin Brockmeier
-Started reading Infinity Blues by, Ryan Adams

I’m still being really lazy with the reading. I need to get my head in the game.

Random out-of-context quotes of the week:
--“Can I wear the Scream mask? The mask from Scream? When I’m doing you from behind?”
--“You know, that’s how the plague started, back in the day. It’s from a little disgusting birdbath in someone’s backyard that rats made sex to birds in it and created a whole new type of AIDS.”

The O’Reilly Factor for Kids book quote(s) of the week:
-CURRENTLY UNDER RECONSTRUCTION. PLEASE EXCUSE OUR MESS!

Interesting news articles of the week:
-“It was a good week for an outdoor barbecue when a trailer truck on Utah’s I-15 spilled its load of 40,000 pounds of hamburger patties, and then two and a half hours later another truck on Utah’s I-84 spilled its load of beer.” (What a waste that it happened in Utah.)
-“Scientists have unraveled the genetic code of the common cold, making a cure possible within a few years. Teams of genetic scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and two other universities deciphered the genetic sequences of 99 strains of the rhinovirus, organizing them into 15 branches. They found that while these viral strains all have a different sequence of genes, they are remarkably similar in what researchers called ‘the guts’ of the virus. That offers a target for drugs that would block the cold viruses’ replication or impact on the body. ‘We are now quite certain that we see the Achilles’ heel, and that a very effective treatment for the common cold is at hand,’ researcher Stephen Liggett of the University of Maryland School of Medicine tells The New York Times. Pharmaceutical experts warned, though, that if development of such a drug is extremely expensive, drug companies might not commit resources because most consumers or insurance companies would decline to pay $50 or $100 for a cold cure.” (Go science! And why the fuck would it have to cost $50 or $100? Even if it’s expensive to develop, you could sell that shit for $20 and eventually you would make a fucking fortune. People aren’t gonna stop getting sick. Think about the future, people.)

Something(s) I’m tired of/ mad at:
- My car’s engine. It was struggling at the end of last week and the check engine light came on, so I had to take it in and get it overhauled, which cost a chunk of cash. Fucking cars.
-Medical billing. My operation was almost two months ago and I’m still waiting to find out how much it cost. I know the hospital charges were about nine grand, but the insurance company hasn’t hacked it down, yet, and I really want to know what it’s gonna take to be done with it.
-Being sick. I caught a cold last week, and while I’m a lot better now, there’s still some gunk in my sinuses. Both my cats had colds, too, which was weird. Can cats catch people colds? Can people catch cat colds? I just don’t know. But I would gladly drop a Jackson to be all better.
-Texas retiring Kevin Durant’s number. Not that I care that much, but that’s kind of fucking bush league. He was a great player, sure, and he won a bunch of awards, but he was also a kid who played for one year on a team that didn’t win either the regular season or tournament conference titles and didn’t even make the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. Actually retiring his number, to me, that just says that Texas’s tradition as a basketball school is a joke.

Something(s) I’m delighted by:
-KU beating Oklahoma. Sure, Blake Griffin wasn’t playing, but I’ll still take the win and the sole possession of the number one spot in the Big 12. And Collins dropping threes like a fucking 3-point robot. We’ve still got Missouri and Texas at home, but those are totally winnable. I ask you to point out another team who lost their starting five from the previous year and still rocked the shit out of their conference the next year. We keep this up and we’ll have a pretty great seed come tournament time. Fuck yeah, KU.

On that note, I feel like a should give a little shout-out to my K-State peeps for K-State sitting at fourth in the conference, despite also fielding a young team after a lot of major departures. I’ve always been of a mind that the KU/K-State rivalry is something of a fraternal one, that I always want to beat them head-to-head, and finish better than them, but that when it has no bearing on KU I’m always willing to give them my support, within reason.

Something(s) I found really kind of odd:
-That they made a new Street Fighter movie. And that it’s the only new movie coming out this week. Next week is Watchmen, though, so I’m actually going to have to go watch a screening for the first time since November. I hope I remember how.
-Today’s weather report told me that the wind today was “CALM at calm mph.” What’s calm mph? Is there an angry mph? Or an amused mph? How about sexually confused mph? How fast is that? Well science?

This Week in Answers to Your This Week in Questions This Week!
--“Why, when I need to make a payment directly to Capitol Federal, do I have to mail them a check, or take it directly to their HQ in Topeka? I mean, really. When I asked about making a payment over the phone with my Visa debit card, I was told “they don’t have the ability to process that sort of transaction by phone.” As in, they are unequipped to take my card number and run it through, charging the appropriate amount and settling the matter once and for all. And they’re a bank. Really?”
-Next time just tell them you’re Jewish.
--“How does one treat or cure vagina aversion?”
-I guess it would depend on verifying the level of vagina aversion, and then following the principle of feed a cold, starve a fever. Or is it the other way around? Either way, more or less vagina would be called for, depending on the severity of the condition. Perhaps some kind of confrontation therapy, like where someone who’s afraid of snakes is put in a box full of snakes, but with vaginas. Perhaps the answer is a new reality show, Vagina Factor. I’ll make some calls.

Caught the first couple episodes for some new shows recently. The new Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse, is pretty solid. I’m interested in it, for sure, but it still kind of needs to find its legs, I think. I’ll say the good thing about Whedon is that he always strikes an excellent balance between drama and comedy, and between action and character-driven narrative, and my one complaint about Dollhouse so far would have to be that the comedy isn’t so much a factor as of yet. The other new show I’ve been catching is East Bound & Down, that new HBO comedy with Danny McBride as a washed up asshole of a ballplayer, which is pretty solid funny. In fact, I kind of let it take over the quote section this week. Weird fucking show, but definitely good for a laugh. I think I’ll have to check out that new show Castle when it starts up in a couple weeks, too. I’m a big fan of Nathan Fillion, so I’ll see what’s up with it for his sake. Mostly I’ll just be glad when it debuts since it’s an ABC show and therefore ESPN is running ads for it fucking constantly.

Okay, the sun’s going down fast and I want to read a little before it gets too dark, so I’m going to leave you now. See you next week.

–> N.