Category Archives: Mr. Boy

Tentative smiles at the cancer center

Posted on September 29, 2014 | 4 comments

Tentative smiles, that is, among the patients. The staff smiles until you wonder if their faces will crack open and their mouths fill with blood. We primary care-givers also smile tentatively, keying on our patients.

I’m a primary care-giver now that Mrs. Charm has been diagnosed with Stage III Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, DLBCL. Tentatively. Still awaiting results of this morning’s bone-marrow biopsy and this week’s PET scan to make sure it isn’t some other type of lymphoma. The lymphoma part is definite.

Infusion port to be installed in her upper chest soon for the chemo to begin (tentatively) week of Oct. 6. Drill thereafter is one six-hour day of infusion of R-CHOP (unlovely acronym) followed by three weeks of recovery.

Then another six hours of toxic infusions and so on for (ideally) about six months. Otherwise Mrs. C will not be among the 55-70 percent for whom R-CHOP works (for at least two years, hopefully longer) and then it will be on to the radiation and, probably even more tentative smiles as the burning further diminishes her health.

There’s little joy in Mudville, i.e. Rancho Roly Poly, these days. Mr. Boy (a new high school freshman) and I are hanging (appropriate word) in there. Tentatively.

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Posted in Cancer, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering

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Are video games a sport?

Posted on September 15, 2014 | Comments Off on Are video games a sport?

At least one, League of Legends, is. And varsity, at that. At least at one private university, Robert Morris, in Chicago. Why, they’re even offering scholarships.

Which I found Googling the title question after seeing it posed for an essay in Mr. B.’s high school English class. And I thought he’d been wasting his time all these months. ‘Course he is playing Call of Duty, which is not on the team. Yet.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Obsessions, Rancho Roly Poly, The Culture

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Apple Watch

Posted on September 10, 2014 | Comments Off on Apple Watch

The new “giant” iPhone6 (5.5-inch diagonal screen) is cool, but it’s the watch I’d consider. Looks much prettier than anything Dick Tracey would have been caught dead with, but if it does the same (or similar) job, who could complain?

“Apple’s smartwatch is pretty cool and runs differently than its competitors. The digital crown control (a dial like you’d find on a traditional watch) is smart, and maneuvers such as navigating to apps on the watch and changing the color of watch face a snap. Apple Watch has a touchscreen, but you don’t need it for a lot of things.”

I saw another brand on the AC repairman the other day at the rancho. He said it helped him stay in touch with the office without continually having to retrieve the smart phone from his pocket.

I leave my phone in the car anyhow so the watch might not be that useful to me. No office to report to for us recovering journalists. Now if Mr. B. (who said he’d never heard of Dick Tracey) wants one for his birthday round about Valentine’s (despite the fact it would be harder to text with it), we’ll know for sure.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Science/Engineering, The Culture

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Defeating the public schools…

Posted on August 13, 2014 | 2 comments

…one uneaten packet of French Dressing at a time.

Just what nine and 10-year-old boys bored with the nanny-state b.s. (which the girls are pretending to soak up, of course) could use.

And, hey, the school provided the packets. Is that cool, or what?

Via Cobb.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mr. Boy, Obsessions, The Culture

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Sunscreen too “toxic” for San Antonio

Posted on July 2, 2014 | 2 comments

I’ve always thought it rather silly the way Texas mothers slathered on the sunscreen whenever their little darlings ventured into the sun, noonday or otherwise, all in the name of preventing skin cancer. Going the pioneers one better: they only wore long woolen trousers and shirts and broad-brimmed hats to keep their skin pristine.

But troglodyte that I am, I grew used to sunscreen as Mrs. Charm joined the crowd with young Mr. B, starting in pre-school and continuing to the present and his status as a rising high school freshman. Little did she know. The second-largest public school district in San Antonio has now banned sunscreen as “dangerous.”

“Sunscreen is a toxic substance, and we can’t allow toxic substances to be in our school[s],” said North East Independent District spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor. “They could possibly have an allergic reaction [or] they could ingest it. It’s really a dangerous situation.”

Which suggests to me that either the threat of skin cancer was overblown all along or the school district really does deserve its Nanny-of-the-Month award from Reason Magazine.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Obsessions, Texana, The Culture

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Children are a major disappointment

Posted on July 1, 2014 | 3 comments

Children are a major disappointment in most cases, which is why I say that the modern ideology of parenting is baloney. People who don’t have them aren’t missing anything they really need. They’re not helping keep the race in business, no, but they’re not suffering for it either.

Children are mainly hard work and lots of expense and very little return. Other than the tax write-off, which ought to be a whole lot bigger. They start off well enough, even amusing, but they soon grow into indifferent adolescents and, eventually, contrary adults who forget all about who brung ’em.

I used to wonder why my parents, especially my mother, kept bugging me to have children. Now I know. They were getting even.

Via Mouth of the Brazos.

3 Comments

Posted in Mr. Boy, The Culture, The Economy

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Curmudgeonly, yes, but also true

Posted on June 26, 2014 | 3 comments

“…I tire of our early 21st century world which is dubiously the rudest and crudest society in history, having jubilantly swept most of the etiquette of speech, table, dress, hospitality, regard for fairness, deference to authority, and the relations of male and female and child and elder under the fraying and filthy carpet of politically convenient illusions.”

Ain’t it the truth, with a criminal president and a news media that aids and abets him.

(Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!)

Via MyOldRV.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mr. Boy, Texana, The Culture

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