{"id":3804,"date":"2010-03-06T22:26:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T03:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2010-03-06T22:26:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-07T03:26:00","slug":"ah-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3804","title":{"rendered":"Ah, Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning, after I woke up, showered, and ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I tried finding an online video stream for Global Calgary<\/a> television. Which, I think it’s safe to say, is not something I normally<\/i> do. I mean, I like the occasional Canadian television just fine — your Kids in the Hall<\/i>s, your Slings & Arrows<\/i>, your Newsroom<\/i>s, what have you — but the local Alberta news isn’t the first thing I flip on when I wake up in the morning. (The television in my bedroom no longer gets any<\/i> channels, now that it’s all gone digital and I haven’t, but that’s another story altogether.) But I thought I’d check, since Heather<\/a> was going to be on, at around 10 AM my time, promoting Evolve<\/i><\/a>, the new vampire collection in which she has a (really good) short story. Alas, although there is this<\/a>, it’s less a live stream than a couple of their recorded promos. So I had to wait until Heather posted the video herself<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I thought she did a great job. A few years back, I was interviewed a couple<\/a> of times<\/a> on BBC Radio, and I found even that — safely ensconced as I was in the confines of my apartment — completely nerve-wracking. Heather professed to being incredibly nervous herself, but to her credit I don’t think it much shows. And, moreover, I think the book’s definitely worth checking out.<\/p>\n

After failing to find that video feed, I ran some errands. I went to the bank, picked up this week’s copy of The New Yorker<\/i> at the post office, and then I actually got a chance to read some of it for a change, while I waited to get my hair cut. (I tend to just let it grow until it starts getting in my eyes and annoying.) Then I came home, had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, and decided to go donate blood at the local church. I used to give blood regularly, back when I was in college and there was always a convenient blood drive in the residence halls where I lived. But even when I was still living in a college town, once I moved away from a college student’s schedule and got a job, it became a lot harder to find the time to go. There were few evening or weekend blood drives, which always disappointed me, and I think I gave blood all of once in the five years I stayed on after graduation. <\/p>\n

Luckily, the church here usually has their blood drives on the weekend, and the weather today was gorgeous enough that I could just walk right over. The nurse there talked me into giving via apheresis<\/a>, which I’d never done before, never even heard of. It takes considerably longer, maybe twenty to twenty-five minutes, and there was a long list of very unlikely but still possible side-effects I had to sign a consent form saying I’d been instructed about. (Of them, I really only experienced the tingling and numbness in my hand and maybe<\/i>, very briefly, the odd smell and taste in my mouth.) Basically, they just break down the blood into its components, keep the red cells, and recycle everything back to you. <\/p>\n

It does mean I can’t give blood again until almost July, since it’s essentially like giving blood twice<\/i>, but I’m okay with that. I think next time, even if my hemoglobin levels put me again in the okay-for-apheresis category, I might just donate the old-fashioned way. I’m just a little more beat than usual, is all, and I think the whole thing took a lot out of me. (No pun intended.) Plenty of fluids, and a nap earlier this evening, helped.<\/p>\n

Other than that…I watched the third episode of that alternate-universe variety show that somehow wound up at the beginning of the Saturday Night Live<\/i> DVDs I bought recently. The one with the weird guests, the unfunny Muppets, and the “Not Ready for Primetime Players” relegated to bit parts in occasional sketches. And I also re-watched John Carpenter’s The Thing<\/i><\/a>, which I’ve had a weird itch to revisit lately. (I think I’ve just read a couple of articles online where it’s been mentioned, is all.) There’s something really scary about a monster that doesn’t just kill you, but becomes<\/i> you. I may use it as an excuse to revisit the original John W. Campbell short story, if not the original movie version.<\/p>\n

And that’s really it for my Saturday.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, after I woke up, showered, and ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I tried finding an online video stream for Global Calgary television. Which, I think it’s safe to say, is not something I normally do. I mean, I like the occasional Canadian television just fine — your Kids in the Halls, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[16,14,28],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-movies","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}