My first posting for the BBC can be found here. You want to know the great thing about blogging for two sites simultaneously? You get to stare at a blank screen for twice as much time, desperately trying to think of something clever to say for two audiences. Before long, I’ll develop a crushing form of performance anxiety that can only be remedied by copious amounts of illicit narcotics. And the only thing that will stop my rapid downward spiral is an intervention where my friends and family force me to put my computer up for sale on Craigslist.

I’m leaving tomorrow for a short business trip to Duluth. Blogging probably won’t resume until Wednesday. But here’s a bit of news to tide you over: beginning August 23, I’ll be guest-blogging on the BBC Ouch site for the next weeks. No, I don’t why they asked me, either. But the British are known for their appreciation of both quirkiness (see Eddie Izzard or any season of Doctor Who) and crotchety-ness (see Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens), so maybe I’ll fit right in. I’ll still be doing my regular 19th Floor blogging, which means you can still get your dose of my vulgar Mr. Hyde while my genteel Dr. Jeckyll is trying to be all mannered and cultured for the Beeb.

Here’s an interesting post describing various ideas to assist people with locked-in syndrome to communicate. People who have locked-in syndrome are completely paralyzed, oftentimes unable to even move their eyes. The closest I’ve ever come to being unable to communicate was when I was hospitalized as a kid and had a ventilator tube shoved down my throat. The inability to direct someone to the exact spot of an itch or to emphatically state “No, I do not want to watch another MASH rerun” could be incredibly frustrating. The hospital staff did develop a laminated communication board that let me whine and complain by pointing at letters, but it was an excruciatingly slow and cumbersome method. I invented my own system of tongue clicks and facial gestures to communicate simple concepts and some of those adaptive behaviors have become deeply ingrained. To this day, I flutter my eyebrows when I’m saying “yes”. 

I have one word of advice for the cast members of the upcoming Star Trek movie: chart your subsequent career path very carefully, or you might end up starring in a movie about homicidal bunny rabbits.

And in case you’re doubting the existence of such a cinematic abomination, here’s a video clip, complete with a stampede of said mutant bunnies. This piece of filmmaking is one more reason to be thankful that the Seventies can never, ever come back.

To the guys at BoingBoing: you’re starting to make me look bad. Why should people continue to visit my blog when they can get all their gimp-centric news from you? Sure, I could post something semi-original about the new DVD of excerpts from artist Sean Patrick’s forthcoming documentary on his experience with Lou Gehrig’s disease, but we’d both know I was just shamelessly cribbing your material. How about we negotiate some sort of deal on who gets to scoop the big gimp stories? I’m willing to be reasonable. Have your people call my people.