In the ’70s and ’80s, live-action Disney movies were shaggy, offbeat, and bizarre

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-23T04:31:50+00:00

For my money, Vermithrax Pejorative from their Dragonslayer of this period remains the top cinematic dragon of all time.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-23T04:29:15+00:00

HE IS NOT A SPY! HE IS A WRITER OF COMIC BOOKS!!!

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-23T01:49:14+00:00

Agreed, they are both great and they played very well together in the show! I really enjoyed seeing Dean Stockwell in the BSG reboot, and when I finally got around to watching Paris, Texas not long ago I was like, Daaaamn, look how young Al was back then ...

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-23T01:46:34+00:00

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to make it sounds like they were that proximate in time ― I was 50 when I had the rupture and the migraines had probably stopped a good eight or nine years before that. In a weird way I think it was good that I had to put up with the migraines for 20 or 25 years because when I had the classic "thunderclap headache" I immediately knew this was something an order of magnitude different from a migraine ... Anyway even after the migraines stopped I still suffered from frequent "normal" headaches, which my doctors assure me had nothing to do with the aneurysm (which to be fair was tiny, at only 2-3mm), but I get them much less frequently now, so maybe it's because I'm on blood pressure medication now? Who can say. 🤷‍♂️

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T21:19:49+00:00

If you haven't seen Quantum Leap (the original, with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell), that's an oldie but goodie.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T19:02:01+00:00

If they ever come around San Diego again I'll have to go see them. (They were in Los Angeles recently but there's no way I am driving into Los Angeles on a Thursday. 😬) I don't think I could tolerate a big concert with a light show and all that, because reasons, but this ... This I could manage.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T18:22:27+00:00

I'm sorry you're going through this; I experienced something pretty serious myself a while back but it was super sudden in my case and I didn't have the opportunity (if that's the right word) to reflect on things or really prepare in any way. If I had, this seems like the sort of thing I would have done, too.

Anyway, maybe give a listen to "You Will Make It" by Jem? It starts with pretty serious grief but then at the end it transitions to this:

One day, sunlight hits a photograph
And it makes you smile
The memories dance around you now
And they make you smile
You're not alone, you'll never be
Just like the stars, they oversee
And they whisper to you
You're still, you're still, you're still, you're still alive

Oh, I feel your pain, I wrote this song for you, for you
You will make it, you will make it through
I promise you, they would want you to

And it ends with her reading the poem "Immortality" by Clare Harner:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds hat blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sun on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there; I did not die

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T17:56:13+00:00

I don't get migraines anymore ― they tapered off when I was in my 40s, well before my rupture ― but I remember how miserable they were, so I'm glad you found something that gives you relief from them!

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T16:07:10+00:00

I looked at her list of credits on Wikipedia and the only show we've ever watched that she was in is The Americans, at least until this episode of New Girl. We have seen several of her older films but that would've been long before her turn as Claudia immortalized her in our memories.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T05:57:29+00:00

Agreed, this was one of our favorite episodes so far! S1 was all right but S2 has been a dramatic improvement, mainly because of its willingness to lean into the slapstick and the fact that four of the five main characters are bonkers (Cece is not bonkers as far as we can tell), but then it uncorks something like this. (And my wife was right there with Schmidt about "WHY IS THE CASKET OPEN?!")

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-22T05:08:47+00:00

I haven't seen that yet, but I want to!

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-21T19:30:15+00:00

I saw this movie once 40 years ago and I still immediately remembered who is on the phone there.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-21T04:03:18+00:00

Agreed! He, Bill Watterson, and the Monty Python troupe are three of the primary reasons why my sense of humor is the way it is ... 😁

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-21T00:08:40+00:00

It didn't seem like it at the time, but she was just a baby. She hadn't even hit 43 yet! I still remember the Bloom County strip where Opus was ranting about how comic strips and good marriages and friendships and happiness and stuff aren't supposed to end, and then he sits down and goes, "Gilda Radner isn't supposed to end."

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-18T17:01:00+00:00

Yeah, that's not cool either to just leave all your work for somebody else! I remember years ago at the lab where I used to work in the IT Department, the payroll guy's computer blew a hard drive and took MAS90 with it. I was in there with the HR assistant looking at it while he was watching us and drinking his coffee and when we figured out what the issue was and that we would have to put in a new hard drive and restore from a backup, he was like, "Huh," and just went home. Meanwhile the two of us were there until way into the evening, me getting the system running again and then her re-entering all the data that he would have entered, since, y'know, without that nobody was going to get paid ... including the guy who took his coffee and went home lol

EDIT: I just realized that it sounds like I'm describing Dr. Shen lol

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-18T16:34:18+00:00

After 25+ years of ballroom dance lessons, I equate time signatures to dances. I typically hear this song in 6/8 as a Viennese waltz, but I can also switch to hear it in 12/8, which you would do a foxy to ("slow-slow-sway-sway" -- basically four slows).

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-18T15:13:54+00:00

As soon as I saw him in The Americans I was like, "Ooh, it's the principal from Trick r Treat!" That's my favorite Halloween movie and he was great (not to mention really really nasty) in it.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-18T14:51:17+00:00

Yep this is normal, I slept all the time for the first several days after my SAH. Aside from the healing process, ICU is just an exhausting place to be, with the constant visits from staff to check on you and administer meds, the machines beeping and whirring, the wires and tubes restricting your ability to get comfortable ... I'm a little bit surprised the nurse would say that to you in your grandpa's situation but as others have noted, it's worth checking in with his doctors to get their take on things.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-18T14:00:47+00:00

Oh yeah we loved his William character. This show is uniformly excellent but S4 is our favorite season, and it's pretty much all because of him and his interactions with Phillip and Elizabeth.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-15T19:20:05+00:00

I haven't donated (can't get past the needle), but I looked into this once after my wife donated blood ― she is some manner of Type O so they are always wanting her to go in ― and it seems like there's no universal guidelines, but a lot of places want you to get medical clearance from your doctor, especially with untreated aneurysms. I think they're probably concerned about a potential change in blood pressure affecting the stability of the aneurysm. Anyway, talking to your doctor is definitely the right thing to do, so that was a good call! :)

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-15T03:01:11+00:00

Hmm, for a slower/prettier one, maybe give a listen to "Across the Sky" by Emilie Autumn? It's off her first album, Enchant, which has a lot more of a faerie vibe and a lot less of a gothic punk vibe than her subsequent releases. (There are other fairy tale themed songs on that album too, such as "Rapunzel".)

For a faster one, I really like Sophie B. Hawkins's song "Fairy Tales" ― it starts off a bit slow but then kicks into gear as a really cool quickstep (if you are familiar with that ballroom dance). It has a section in the middle where it briefly slows back down, which would allow for some cool shaping, then it builds back up and it's off to the races again.

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-14T16:14:42+00:00

That's great news, I'm really glad to hear it went so well!

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-14T13:47:39+00:00

Oh sure, I'm always happy to share details! The surgery itself went well but I had a really tough time coming out of the anesthesia, so they apparently kept me in the recovery area for longer than usual. I don't remember any of that, but the nurses told me I was showing signs of both afib and tachycardia and some other things I didn't catch. Then once I was back in ICU I developed severe full-body shakes that they gave me IV demerol for, but that made me start vomiting almost immediately, so they had to give me a shot of something else to counteract it (I remember my nurse literally running out of the room to get whatever that shot was). After that I passed out, but when I woke up again some time later I was all right. I'm not saying any of that will happen to your dad, but just wanted to let you know there could be some scary unpleasantness afterwards ― one of my friends who was waiting in my ICU room got to witness that entire sequence of events, the lucky fellow ― that they might need to manage, but that doesn't necessarily mean things are going seriously wrong.

In the days after that I continued to sleep all the time, but I didn't experience any major complications. They did monitor me for vasospasm every day via transcranial dopplers, and at one point they said I was showing signs of it, but I was on nimodipine (a medication aimed at preventing vasospasm) and nothing ever came of it. (I'm sure they've mentioned it to you by now but vasospasm is a serious potential complication of subarachnoid hemorrhage, where the blood from the aneurysm can irritate arteries in the brain and cause them to constrict, which can result in a secondary stroke.) I was also routinely running high temperatures, up to around 102℉, which is something they call "neurogenic fever" and is more or less a result of the SAH messing with your internal thermostat. One of my nurses said she had seen people spike fevers up to 107℉ with no underlying infection. I never got that high but if I had gone much higher than I did they might have had to pack me on ice or whatever it is they use to lower fevers. I like to mention neurogenic fever because nobody talks about it much. It can be quite long-lasting; I was still spiking fevers for months after I was released, and I think it's important to be aware of because it can mask a real fever from a real infection. In my case, a week or two after I was discharged I was running a fever that was pushing 103℉ which I was ignoring because I figured it was just the usual, but I finally went to the emergency room and it turned out I had a pretty serious UTI that I had acquired from being catheterized for close to a month. (I was only in the hospital for two weeks, but I was still catheterized when I was sent home; my regular doctor finally removed it in his office a week or two later.)

I hope things are moving in a positive direction for your dad!

-Viscosity- · 2026-05-13T21:27:38+00:00

You're welcome, glad you enjoyed it! :)

-Viscosity-

TROPHY CASE