Ye Olde Post - KTS - EOSS

Might have posted the following text (at the end of this waffle) before, but I am in the process of transferring some OneNote files into Evernote so that I can have them at home (on the Xoom, on the Galaxy, on the MacAir), and some are quite interesting and new to me. It's called EOSS.

Early Onset Stupidity Syndrome, had it since I was a kid. The ability to remember trivial shit, unless it is required for a quiz night, and work/medical related stuff, but forget a person's name 1.5secs after being introduced. To forget what I had written, what I had thought, what my opinions are.

Saw a tall guy on the street yesterday with severe varicose veins. Instantly I thought - Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome. Wonder if he has some port-wine body-marks somewhere.

Why do I know this, but not the capital of Uganda? That was one of the question the brains-trust should have answered correctly last night. One of the guys has a PhD. In fluid dynamics, so not much help with African capitals in that speciality, although he was correct in putting down Algeria as the African nation that comes first in the alphabet.

The 'al' in alphabet, and the 'al' in Algeria are both of Arabian origin, right? No, only the later, Right? FIIK.

BTW, in KTS, the veins become varicose in because there are fewer valves in the superficial femoral veins than is usual, often only one. (I know this from a lecture a friend, the first sonographer in Australia with a PhD I believe. His thesis concerned venous incompetence of the leg - varicose veins.) Once this valve gives way, and it does eventually, even as a kid, because it is holding up a much larger volume of blood than it would if the column were shared amongst several valves, and then the distal veins distend.

Here is the bit of text I found...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I procrastinate. Like the purist marshmallow that I apparently am, I dither. I look for excuses and for distractions. Like Amazon.com

A package arrived today from Ye* Olde** Blightey. Thought I'd lash myself about the head with some of the British experimentalists of the 60's. Christine Brooke-Rose, B.S. Johnson, Ann Quin. Stuff you probably won't see on the rotating racks at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Why? Because. Books make a virtual me.

They are cushions. To rest my head upon, to muffle the gun-shot, to torture myself with, a la the Spanish Inquisition***

E@L

* the Y is "thorn", a printer's mark for the "th" sound.

** the "e" is silent. Hence the entire expression is pronounced the same as if it were written The Old Blightey. [Know this from some book by Anthony Burgess, probably one of the Enderby novels.]

*** Cardinals were not involved so much in the Spanish Inquisition. In fact other than the (usually Dominican ) Inquisitor himself, everyone else involved was a member of the laity. [Biggles was not a common name in Spain, at the time, either.]