i'm actually pretty critical of exaggerated nazi-baiting, and i repeatedly, consistently point out that if you're going to call somebody a nazi, you should make sure they actually are one.

which is what i did.

because he actually is one.

was i a little harsh on rolf?

rolf? that's german for ralph, right?

Rolf Lüders Schwarzenberg (born October 1, 1935 in Santiago) is a Chilean economist, entrepreneur, scholar and politician, former Minister of State of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. 

see, the thing is that i knew that. did you know that?

so, i don't regret the goebbels quip; it's reasonable. actually.

so, that's my reading of this - what seems to cause osteoporosis is neither a specific reduction in androgens, nor a specific reduction in estrogens, but a reduction in total sex hormones, overall. both men and women should be able to use both sex hormones to build bone density. while it is reasonable to treat ciswomen with estrogen and cismen with testosterone on the event that natural hormone production ceases, it doesn't seem to be necessary - the opposite treatment should be protective of osteoporosis, one way or another.

and i shouldn't worry about it.

this is very helpful.

so, apparently, your bones have androgen receptors and estrogen receptors. in a genetic male, bone resorption can happen via either/or - and your body will actually convert testosterone to estrogen using an enzyme called aromatase, in order to bind to the estrogen receptors.

a genetic male with decreased testosterone would consequently have less hormones to bind to the receptors, but that binding can happen via either hormone. so, the conversion doesn't seem to be total, after all. i would have to suppose that there is minimal, if any, sexual dimorphism in bone resorption, and women build and maintain bone density using the same process - just with more estrogen reception and less tesosterone reception.

logically, then, it shouldn't matter if you give your bones androgens or estrogens, so long as you're not decreasing your total hormone levels.

and, it's interesting to note that you can convert testosterone to estrogen, but you can't convert the estrogen back to testosterone, again.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5036835/

hrmmn.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266017

...and grocery shopping on foot with a knapsack full of food is probably the best load-bearing exercise you could imagine.

ok.

i should get tests and see, but i think i should worry more about maximizing estrogen high than i should about minimizing testosterone, in regards to bone density health. 

so, if the reason that testosterone-deficiency leads to osteoporosis in men is that the ability to convert testosterone to estrogen is reduced, it would follow that replacing testosterone with estrogen would have potential benefits to bone health.

Although men with low testosterone are recommended for testosterone replacement to build bone mass, the science has not yet shown to what extent the bone-building benefit is a direct testosterone effect or the result of turning testosterone into estrogen. It is important, therefore, not to minimize the role of testosterone-to-estrogen conversion. Estrogen preserves bone density in both men and women. Men normally convert testosterone to estrogen in a slow rate to build bone mass.2

Men who genetically lack an enzyme to make even small amounts of estrogen are prone to osteoporosis; this is shown by the fact that if they receive estrogen, their osteoporosis improves. So even though estrogen is not present in very high concentrations in the blood of men, it is a critical factor for bone health.

https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/male-osteoporosis-an-overview-43114

interesting.

Research suggests that estrogen deficiency may also be a cause of osteoporosis in men. For example, estrogen levels are low in men with hypogonadism and may play a part in bone loss. Osteoporosis has been found in some men who have rare disorders involving estrogen. Therefore, the role of estrogen in men is under active investigation.

https://www.bones.nih.gov/health-info/bone/osteoporosis/men

i mean...

if i was a ciswoman, and i walked into a doctor's office, and they diagnosed me with osteoporosis, what are they going to do about it?

they're going to put me on estrogen.

so, let's update that list:

pros:

- removing testicles reduces testicular cancer risk

- getting off cyproterone is good for my liver

- increased serum estrogen is good for heart health

- increased serum estrogen may also increase iron absorption 

- increased serum estrogen may protect against osteoporosis

cons:

- potential breast cancer risk

- decreased testosterone without estrogen supplementation is weakly linked to osteoporosis in cancer survivors

- some chance of weight gain

there is a big difference between myself and a prostate cancer patient, regarding the osteoporosis thing, though - i'm taking a ton of estrogen, and it should work better once the testosterone production ceases entirely and that tug-of-war shuts down.

yes - decreased testosterone is bad for osteoporosis. but, increased estrogen is good for it. and, that's probably why those results are inconclusive.

let's test me and see where i am, already.

my thyroid and alp were also tested recently, and both came in at the lowish end of normal. but, i definitely don't have an overactive thyroid.

so, i have no symptoms of low bone density except the gum recession, and i'm going to guess that is probably more due to low iron - and am curious to see how it changes, if at all, with increased iron levels.

but, i should bring it up, anyways.

and let's move on.

the data appears to be inconclusive.

Studies investigating BMD in transgender women receiving hormones have shown both lower, higher and no change in bone density after initiating hormones.[4-11] 

https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines/bone-health-and-osteoporosis

i've been on hormones now for over ten years. testing me directly is the way to go.

i'm not injecting anything radioactive into my arm, though.

this is probably something i should do, anyways.

my serum calcium levels were recently checked, and came in fairly high. my d was considered "sufficient". and, i get tons of exercise.

i've never broken a bone.

i have that gum recession, though.

i don't know if a bone density test is covered or not, but i should ask about it and base my decision on he results.

so, my testosterone has been much less than 1 nmol/L for years.

according to this paper, serum testosterone post-orchiectomy would range from 1-2 nmol/L.

https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/209352

that is, i actually shouldn't expect an increased reduction in serum testosterone (hopefully, it doesn't go up...), although i may be able to minimize the hormonal fight in my body, which should help the estrogen work better.

that is, while my estrogen should go up, my testosterone probably won't go down - and might even come up. confusing, yes.

that means that i'm probably already as risk of osteoporosis as i ever would be, post-op, and any testing i do now should be useful as to whether it's safe to continue this or not.

why don't i ask this question to start - what are normal testosterone serum levels in post-removal patients?

i'm currently quite low and have been for years. am i currently even lower than what i'd expect, post-removal?

i mean, you get some testosterone from food, even. women produce some, too. so, it's not going to go to zero. how low does it go?

what i should do is this: i should bring it up with my gp. maybe he can recommend some tests to determine if i'm at risk for osteoporosis or not.

that's really what i need here - to construct a probability. i need a likelihood estimate.

i can do all the research i want, it's the tests that matter, in the end.

ok.

do i really want to do this?

i mean, it's sort of a point of no return. i could flip-flop tomorrow and decide i want to be a dude, after all - however unlikely. once the testicles are gone, they're gone - and the testosterone is gone with them. that's it.

obviously, i've thought a lot about this, and if i'm having second thoughts, it's more about longevity than anything else. there's no question in my mind that i want to get to zero testosterone - i made that choice years ago, that's settled. and, the point is actually to take the stress off of my liver. but, i don't really want osteoporosis. chopping my balls off and getting osteoporosis from it at the age of 55 would qualify me for a darwin award, wouldn't it?

so, my lingering questions are about how safe this is and how it's going to affect my lifespan, rather than about whether it's what i want; there's no question it's what i want, but i also remember the words taught to me in a hymn, as a child: you can't always get what you want.

so, let me review the safety of this.

what i'll say off the top is that my testicles are likely a serious cancer risk, given that i'm not using them. i mean, this isn't going to be a monolithic thing, i'm going to need to weigh it out:

pros:

- removing testicles reduces testicular cancer risk

- getting off cyproterone is good for my liver

- increased serum estrogen is good for heart health

- increased serum estrogen may also increase iron absorption 

cons:

- potential breast cancer risk

- osteoporosis?

- some chance of weight gain

they can't schedule an orchidectomy right now, but they've agreed to schedule me one when they can.

so, there's some light at the end of the tunnel, there.

again: the red cross is really not an appropriate place for canadian tax money to be directed towards, in general. but, sending money to a religious group when we need more funding on science is just reflective of how this government thinks.

1) we have the thatcherian proposition that "charity work" should be done by ngos rather than governments, which needs to change asap.

2) we have the idea that india needs charity, rather than solidarity, underlying the position, in the first place.

...because the ideology in place is that canada is superior, and india is inferior. so, dominant canada needs to help little weak india.

which is not just offensive and racist, but is empirically wrong.

i would repeat my call for international solidarity, not christian aid work. we need scientists and doctors on the ground to stop the variants from running out of control, not preachers looking to exchange aid for conversion therapy.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-sending-10m-to-indian-red-cross-to-support-covid-19-fight-1.5404190

and today's post is the inri disc, the first period disc. this is actually not done yet and can't be until the alter-reality catches up, but i should have a skeleton of it up relatively shortly.

===

note that this release should have a physical companion component to it. 

purchasing this release does not come with a download. 

inri000: originally released dec 25, 1996. remastered oct 30, 2013. finalized june 26, 2016. 

inri001: originally released jun 1, 1997. remastered nov 8, 2013. finalized july 3, 2016. 

inri002: originally written and recorded over 1996-1997. sequenced and mildly modified in dec, 2013. released dec 11, 2013. finalized on july 3, 2016. lp000. 

inri003: created in mid 1997. sequenced and converted to stereo in november, 2013. released on nov 9, 2013. corrected in september, 2014. finalized on july 5, 2016. 

inri004: originally written in 1997 and first created in 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. finally reconstructed in the summer of 2015 and extrapolated upon over the first half of 2016. released on july 4, 2016. finalized on july 5, 2016. 

inri005: initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. deconstructed dec 18, 2015. released on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 6, 2016. lead track added and refinalized july 20, 2016. 

inri006: originally created in 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed in the summer of 2015 and then manipulated further in the summer of 2016. released & finalized on july 7, 2016. hidden track added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. 

inri007: initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015. released on jan 4, 2016. sequenced on jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 10, 2016. hidden track added and refinalized on july 21, 2016. 

inri008: initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015. released on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 11, 2016. bonus tracks added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. 

inri009: initially written in 1994. first full recording in 1996. recreated in mar, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed & remixed on july 18, 2015. released jan 7, 2016. sequenced jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 20, 2016. 

inri010: initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015. sequenced, released and finalized on july 22, 2016. 

inri011: originally created in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 4, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015. vocals added jan 6, 2016. released on jan 6, 2016. finalized on july 23, 2016. 

inri012: initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on nov 26, 2015. sequenced on jan 10, 2016. released & finalized on july 24, 2016. 

inri013: written and demoed from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. sequenced on jan 6-7, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. released jan 7, 2016. finalized on july 29, 2016. symph001. 

inri014: initially written in 1996. recreated mostly in feb, 1998 (schizoid, terrorists) but also partly in june, 1998 (abusive). sequenced in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. "terrorists" was reclaimed june 28-29, 2015 & remixed july 15, 2015. the main mix was corrected on nov 19, 2015. "schizoid" was reclaimed on july 12, 2015 & reprogrammed on dec 31, 2015. the main mix was corrected on jan 3, 2016 and remixed repeatedly jan 3-5, 2016. the lead track was sequenced on jan 5, 2016 and split back apart on jan 8, 2016. released on jan 5, 2016. audio permanently closed on aug 1, 2016. release finalized on oct 9, 2016. 

inri015: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. re-released jan 10, 2016. audio permanently closed on aug 10, 2016. finalized on oct 10, 2016. lp001. 

inri016: created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016. 

inri017: initially written over the course of 1997. recreated and expanded over the course of 1998. lead track first sequenced in this form in feb, 1999. further remixes generated over the course of 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, and another in late 2015. remastered in november, 2016 from various sources, 1997-2015. finalized & released on nov 17, 2016. 

inri018: initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled & released on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. final album version added as a bonus track and refinalized on dec 15, 2016. 

inri019: written and demoed from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in january, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. sequenced on nov 22-24, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. released on nov 24, 2016. release finalized on nov 27, 2016. symph002.. 

inri020: initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. released & finalized on dec 13, 2016. 

inri021: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized & re-released on dec 15, 2016. lp002. 

inri022: recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. released dec 27, 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized and re-released on december 16, 2016. 

inri023: constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. released dec 27, 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. re-released & finalized as lp003 on dec 17, 2016. 

inri024: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004. 

inri025: this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. released & finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 

inri026: initially written in the fall of 1997. recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017. released & finalized on sept 10, 2017. 

inri027: streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri028: constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri029: recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. 

inri030: initially created in sept, 1997. remixed and reimagined repeatedly over 1998 and 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. partially reclaimed dec 8, 2014. rebuilt and resequenced on jan 9, 2016 out of material that had been remastered over 2013-2016. reimagined again on oct 26, 2016 out of material that was created in jan, 2016, but not released (and finalized) until sept 13, 2017, in order to properly fit into sequence. 

inri031: recorded over the spring and summer of 1999. originally released on inrimake in october, 1999 (with an accidental phase reverse). the first section was modified further at the end of 1999. minimally altered and split into it's own ep on january 3rd, 2014. spliced further, appended to and remastered over sept, 2017. re-released and finalized on sept 28, 2017. 

inri032: recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014. released on jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp006 on sept 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones - but note that they are especially mandatory for this recording. 

inri033: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in dec, 1999. slightly resequenced in jan, 2014. re-released jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp007 on sept 19, 2017. this is my third official record. 

inri034: written & recorded in the fall of 1999. originally released on inridiculous in december, 1999. split into it's own ep on january 3, 2014. remastered, finalized & re-released on sept 28, 2017 

inri035: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed between 2013-2015. initially released as part zero of a three volume set on may 21, 2015. split into it's own release on june 14, 2015. finalized as lp008 on sept 29, 2017. 

inri036: written and recorded in late 1999 and early 2000. these versions of these tracks were sequenced without further modification in jan, 2014. released on jan 9, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on oct 3, 2017, with the remainder of hummer added as a bonus track. 

originally created from 1996-2000. this compilation is dated to jan 2, 2000. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2030. compilation will be finalized in jan, 2030. as always, please use headphones. 

released january 2, 2000 

j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, orchestral & other sequencing, drum programming, drum kit, percussion, pick scrapes, metronomes, vocals, vocal relics, mic noises, tapes, found sounds, paper, sampling, vocoders, octavers, cool edit wave synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, noise generators, noise reduction, soundraider, hammerhead, sound design, strategies, light-wave synthesis, digital wave editing, digital effects processing, loops, text-to-speech synthesis, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations, chance, a broken tape deck, production. 

the various rendered electronic orchestras include piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

that was an unexpected nap, but i feel a little more alert. 

the chkdsk is done, so i can get on that this evening - and it means i'm just about done getting everything on to the pc, so i can file it there and get to the next thing.

they make a decent case.

https://www.peta.org/features/tax-meat/

meat is junk.

we tax junk.

call it a sin tax, but it's a good idea.

well...

biden may not want to ban meat, but i think policies to reduce meat consumption are a necessary step in the right direction. the insistence that he'd never do anything like that, and relegation of it to a "conspiracy theory", is a deflating reminder that he's not actually serious about limiting emissions.

a specific meat tax on top of a carbon tax is actually a good idea that i'd probably support.

that said, the focus on meat production as a specifically carbon-intensive industry is actually an empirically wrong approach, and the confluence of environmentalism with animal rights movements, while positive, has produced a fair amount of misleading information around the consumption of meat products and it's effects on the environment; more specifically, the messaging ignores or obscures that, while grazing is a poor use of land, it's actually industrial plant agriculture that creates the larger amount of total greenhouse gas emissions, due to it's reliance on oil-based pesticides and nitrogen-based fertilizers.

that's right: the way we do plant-based agriculture today actually creates more emissions than the way we do animal-based agriculture. so, while the animal rights activists and health advocates are right to try to convince you to reduce your meat consumption, this specific argument that meat is bad for emissions is misleading, so long as we're comparing animal grazing to industrialized plant farming. if you want an improvement, you'd have to move to different methods to produce plant-based agriculture, and the technology required to do that while producing enough to feed billions of people on top of a reduction in meat consumption is currently just getting ramped up.

on this day, you can look that up yourself.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2021/04/26/no-joe-bidens-climate-plan-doesnt-ban-burgers-but-that-hasnt-stopped-fact-blind-republican-rage.html

i'm ultimately going to want to check everything.

but, that might be the answer - an iron+zinc+copper pill, or something.

to be clear: i don't suggest eating dirt. the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

i need zinc results to understand what i'm doing, but i may even want to look at a specific kind of multivitamin - one high in minerals, specifically - in order to compensate for the lost dirt.

it makes sense.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/would-you-like-side-dirt-eating-soil/

it's easy enough to piece together a theory that ice age humans may have been unable to access sufficient minerals from the soil (because it was frozen, or hidden underneath the snow and ice) and consequently adjusted by relying on meat for mineral absorption, instead. in the process, those who could best utilize the minerals in meat were most successful. so, those genes were passed on.

but, that would have only been true in areas affected by the ice age.

in warmer climates, those evolutionary pressures would have been limited, and the reliance on the soil for minerals would have continued.

i napped a little instead. that's ok - i'm awake now.

the recording pc is undergoing a lengthy chkdsk that is going to slow me down. again. but i'm closer to being done, now.

i'm still awaiting these zinc results, but, i'm thinking about the long term "naturalness" of taking iron pills and wondering - what is the most likely way that humans evolved to absorb iron?

i mean, one of the symptoms of iron deficiency that i uncovered was something called "pica" - a craving for dirt. this is pathologized in the literature, but how much sense does that really make? i have a tendency to pull back on things like that and ask if there's an evolutionary process at work, rather than a disease.

this is interesting:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/04/02/297881388/the-old-and-mysterious-practice-of-eating-dirt-revealed

they say they can't figure it out, but it seems to be rather obviously linked to mineral deficiencies and rather obviously something that was lost in the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. and, if it's women that have a stronger prevalence of the craving, it makes sense to think that what they're craving is, specifically, iron.

another thing to think about is the way we eat plants nowadays compared to how we evolved to eat them. fruits, vegetables & spices, nowadays, are these semi-plastic items that have been sanitized to sell the shiny coatings on them. we even spray them with chemicals to make them sparkle in the store. but, when our ancestors ate a potato or a beet or a carrot, not to mention spinach or lettuce, they ate the soil with it - and got a higher mineral count from it, as a result. this would have been true for hunter gatherers and for subsistence farmers, all the way up until the oil & pesticide era clicked in in the middle of the last century.

so, we're fed this line about getting iron from meat, and i've already debunked that - it's just empirically false. even full on carnivores get upwards of 60% of their iron from plants. with all of the other health problems associated with meat, it seems daft to increase your meat to get more iron, specifically. and, as i've said before, if i'm going to do this, in the end, i'm going to look for some kind of seafood. i need zinc results.

and, how weird is just eating iron shavings in the first place? we have examples of very ancient mines, upwards of 100,000 years old. eventually, iron becomes a precious commodity, used to fashion tools. but, how did we interact with iron before the iron age?

so, if we initially evolved to get our iron from dirt and maybe even actually from eating iron, this idea of taking pills becomes a lot less space age - and potentially even quite primal. the centrality of meat eating didn't happen until a little later on in the process, and would have been correlated with moving into colder climates (and may have even been caused by scarcity in vegetation during an ice age). for that reason, iron absorption would both increase as you move into colder climates and also shift towards heme along with a more central focus of meat in the diet. but, that's kind of what i'm getting at, in my supposition that i'm ultimately genetically pre-conditioned for lower iron absorption because i'm genetically descended from populations that lived in warmer climates.

maybe it's the way we evolved to do this, anyways.

i actually thought i had set the stripe account up for google play, but when they sent the "close account" information, i remembered that i must have set it up for the subscription service on bandcamp.

i briefly had that set up years ago, and haven't touched it since. i get that you'll make more money from people if you get a recurring charge, but it strikes me as slimy unless you're actually doing monthly content, and i don't want to enforce those kinds of time restrictions on myself like that.

but, that's done with and i can forget about it and move on, now.

it's after 19:00, so i'm going to get some eggs and shift focuses.

my phone appointment with the doctor in toronto about the orchidectomy is tomorrow, and i'm very excited about that.

the company i was fighting with was stripe:

https://stripe.com

in the end, they refused to log me into the account because they couldn't get me on the phone, but they did confirm that the account has not been logged into in months (years?) and agreed to close it for me.

the situation was just silly. they called my voice mail and left me a message - i even forwarded them the recording. i then called the number that showed up on the display feature, and left them a message. they asked for id, and i gave them a canadian health card. my login credentials were correct.

they had absolutely no grounds to suspect i was anybody other than the account holder, but that wasn't the point; the point was to associate the bank account with a phone number, and when they couldn't do it, they just cut the cord.

i would have liked to log in and delete the account information first, and then close the account after - no doubt a meaningless formality, but the best i could likely actually do in deleting the information from their servers.  as it is, the account is probably not permanently deleted, and the file probably persists. all i probably actually did was remove my ability to edit it.

but, i can't access it, anyways. so, what's the point?

i'm very poor and don't have access to the newest technology, but i'm pretty technical, and there's no doubt in my mind that they weren't keeping me out for security reasons - there's far too many contradictions here for that.

so, i'd advise you stay away from this company; this is a front group for an intelligence apparatus, and what they're trying to do is connect your phone to your bank account.

the existing government in canada is unusually pro-american, and especially for a liberal government, because it's staffed by people that grew up watching rocky films and other overt forms of american propaganda. worse, large amounts of these people went to school in the united states and/or have business contacts there. these are people that identify more with the historical democratic party than the historical liberal party - and you can consistently see it in the messaging, the policies, etc.

and, they're being taken for a ride by a new administration that fully realizes how stupid and naive they really are.

i've said this a few times - the competent version of donald trump is, in fact, joe biden. trump was like the opening band - biden's the main event. trump set everything up; biden's going to deliver.

and, don't be surprised if trudeau sounds more and more like trump, as he wishes for his return, as he carries out what's left of his dwindling mandate.

i mean, it's exciting shit.

sometimes, literally.

i'm stringing along the two people reading this.

will jessica have sufficient serum zinc?

stay tuned, for next time.

i'm going to have to start posting the link to any embedded videos in the post. i've been annoyed for months that it wasn't archiving, but it turns out it's as simple as posting the link in the body - silly, but so be it.

the full lab results - and, most importantly, the zinc results - should be in the mail tomorrow.

i seem to have gotten the issue escalated, so i guess i have no choice but to sit on it for a few hours and get back on their ass again tomorrow, if i don't hear anything about it.

unfortunately, my avocadoes are too hard to cut into, but it's almost time to stop to eat. another wasted day, unfortunately.

i called about mailing the bloodwork earlier, but they claimed it wasn't in yet. let me try again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIitQNXVgb8

that's right - america is stealing the oil.

surprised? lol.

you thought we were special, didn't you? nope. not at all...

so, our environment minister is demanding that the americans refrain from shutting down an aging pipeline that is bound to leak at any time. surreal.

so, here's where i inject a dose of realism.

there's a reason our pipelines go through the united states, and it's not logistical. i'm going to stand with the governor of michigan here and not with my own federal government - the pipeline should be shut down. but, what that really means is that the pipeline will be re-routed, and canada will get cut-off.

....because that's what america does: it controls the supply of oil, and it spends trillions of dollars on wars in order to do it. 

the lesson to canada is that it should have built it's own pipeline network. maybe if we had something like a national energy program, right?

eh?

but, that's not what the industry wanted - what the industry wanted was integration with the united states so they could set their own prices, and what they actually got was nafta, instead - a great deal for the yanks, but a lose-lose situation for both halves of canada, and a losing policy that just keeps on losing.

if you take a look at this map, it's easy to see what's going to happen if you eliminate line 5:

what they're going to do is just twin it to chicago, and probably end up exporting it.

then, voila - the eastern bastards can freeze in the dark. or, they can increase imports from biden's buddies, the saudis, which is what they mostly do, anyways. 

but, once you get your head around the geopolitics (which the minister apparently doesn't understand), here's my take on it: instead of fighting this, we should use it as an incentive to quickly transition. i'm actually happy to reroute the oil away from here. let's take advantage of it....

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/frustrated-canada-presses-white-house-to-keep-great-lakes-oil-pipeline-open-1.5402082

i'm making very mild progress in getting this account deleted. they're very anal, and i get it; i did tech support, i know there are specific rules you need to follow. so, i'm asking for an escalation, and the techs don't want to do it. but, they're going to have to...

what happened is apparently that, because i didn't have two-step authentication turned on, they need to call me to verify it's me. yeah - that's the company policy, that you can either turn on two-step identification, or you can accept a call from the service every time you try to login.

that's obviously a problem, if you don't have a phone, as i don't.

but, i think it obscures the actual policy here, which is that they're trying to tie banking information to sim cards. this is more about data collection than it is about security, and what they're essentially doing is holding the account hostage until they can associate it with a phone number, and by proxy a sim card and the whole surveillance apparatus attached to owning a phone.

....which would be why i wouldn't want a phone anyways, even if i could afford it.

the lesson here is that you don't want to sign up for this service, as they seem to be collecting personal information, and probably as a front for the cia, nsa or some other government group. and i'll let you know who they are, once i get the account deleted.

to be clear: you could take a large, random sample of people that have been vaccinated and watch them get infected by a variant and then rather easily beat it and conclude the vaccine must have helped, at least a bit.

but, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have beaten it easily, anyways - and hence no reason to think the vaccine did anything at all, if you're seeing routine contraction in vaccinated people, which we apparently are.

rather, what we're doing is assuming the vaccine worked at least a little bit, and i'll even hold to that - that's a reasonable assumption.

but, we're going to need some major studies before this line that it protects against "severe illness" can be reasonably evaluated. and, in the end, i suspect it will turn out lacking.

but, i want to repeat the point - if you're high risk, you should get vaccinated, anyways, because even a little bit of protection might make the difference, in the end. it might not. but, you want to take that guess - that's a bet you want to make, even if it turns out to be specious, in the end.

the line from the experts is that the vaccines might still prevent "severe illness" from contact with the variants.

but, severe illness is so rare that it would be almost impossible to tell if that's true or not without doing a rigorous study, which hasn't been done yet.

rather, the surface data seems to suggest that it's obvious that these new variants are evading existing immunity, which strongly suggests minimal efficacy regarding the existing vaccines.

indeed, the chinese - which seem to be at the forefront of this - are already looking at updating their existing vaccines. and, it's a matter of time before we catch up.

Like Manaus in Brazil, studies suggested that up to half the population in some of India’s biggest cities had already been infected in the first wave, meaning fairly high immunity in the population. “I think the problem is that what we are seeing is that this idea of herd immunity is messy,” said University of Manitoba virologist Jason Kindrachuk.

what it means is that it's answering the question about whether the vaccines are protective against the variants or not.

i'm not arguing against vaccination, and especially not if you're an older person. but, we need to stop thinking about these vaccinations as being one-off - it's too late for that. the virus has clearly already mutated beyond that.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/covid-19-india-canada-herd-immunity

socrates was right, i guess, huh?

https://nationalpost.com/news/fifteen-people-spent-40-days-in-a-cave-without-sunlight-or-phones-for-a-study-most-want-to-go-back

it is very sad. i would never suggest otherwise.

but, we can do this simple math together:

955/208195 = 0.00458704579 ---> .4587% required emergency care

142/208195 = 0.00068205288 ----> .0682% went to the icu

8/208195 = 0.00003842551 ---> .0038% died

and, the denominator is of course an underestimate - perhaps by as much as a factor of 10.

it's always very sad when young people die, but anything has a concept of risk - including crossing the street. and, i know that's not what the families want to hear, but it's my job to tell them what they don't want to hear, if the raw data contradicts it.

how many people is 8 people, over about a year?

according to the following site, a total of 477 people under the age of 17 died of the flu in the last full flu year in the united states. let's round that up to 500.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127698/influenza-us-deaths-by-age-group/

the population of ontario is about 5% that of the united states. 500*.05 = 25.

again: it's very sad. but, the fact is that some number of young people are going to die of viruses every year and, if anything, 8 is a fairly low total, in comparison to past years.

so, let's be rational in our behaviour, please - even as we acknowledge tragedy when it's placed in front of us.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-claims-teenagers-life-1.6002023

today's post is the 0th ambient works compilation, inri035.

it's also the last release dated to the 90s.

======

when i sat down to make the ambient works, i wanted a "mix tape" style cd-r of ambient fragments that ran from 1996-2003 as a volume 0. but, when i sat down to actually make it, i ended up with a 90 minute actual mix tape of material from 1996-1999. it actually split itself fairly cleanly into an inri period release, so i've made space for it as a 1999 release. 

initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed between 2013-2015. initially released as part zero of a three volume set on may 21, 2015. split into it's own release on june 14, 2015. finalized as lp008 on sept 29, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2015, 2017).

released december 31, 1999 

j - guitar, effects, bass, pick scrapes, tapes, metronome, synth, electric piano, drum & other programming, sound design, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, loops, sampling, sequencing, sound raider, digital wave editing, production, composition

they may claim their security is the greatest.

but, they've just succeeded in locking out the rightful owner of this account by setting the bar higher than i can reach - and without any forewarning or consent.

unfortunately, i'm fighting with a paypal alternative this morning, who has decided to lock me out of my own account because my computer is "too old". their overbearing, micromanaging software is not somewhere i want my data kept, so i need to get into the account to delete it. but, they're insisting that i'm trying to hack my own account.

the paranoia inherent in the post-russiagate world is reaching a tipping point where organizations and governments are starting to act in ways that defy logic. i have, in fact, proven that i am the owner of the account, but it's not up to a set of criteria that i have no ability to satisfy, due to financial and technical restraints. and, the fact that i'm not an american citizen.

and, i can't let them run off with my banking info - i need to get in to claim and close the account.

so, this is a stupid waste of time, brought on by unnecessary and unwanted layers of security, but i have to do it. unfortunately.

so, i took a shower last night and sat down for a nap and woke up at 5:00 am...

yesterday was therefore a wasted day, but i'm feeling more alert and should get some progress on the filing done today.

ugh.

not this bullshit, again.

this is a messaging strategy first used by the (second) bush administration to make the president appear holier than thou, or something. it apparently means something to christians; it's supposed to be a halo.

to a secularist, this is scary stuff - especially coming from the fake left. you can sort of laugh it off when the republicans do it, but...

it seems that the party has realized the importance of the white christian vote that it swung last election, and is trying to message towards it to try to maintain it. and, that's a tent i'd rather burn down than hang out in.

it's useful to point out that the philips curve is, of course, completely wrong - and none of the governmental bodies have seriously adjusted to it yet, 50 years later. by insisting on empirical trigger points, hopefully the idea is to slowly eliminate reliance on this debunked metric altogether. but, it's been very hard to get central banks to wake up, on this.

as i'm rebuilding, i need to focus on putting asides references to events that occurred in the past. i can save those here.

also, i want to set up a flickr account for old profile photos, as i migrate out of facebook.

for those that are curious, the idea that shoulder pain is correlated with a ruptured spleen is known as "kehr's sign" and seems to be fairly well regarded. 

i just wanted to be as thorough as i could in trying to understand what was going on.

ok, my shoulder is starting to soften up a tad.

i think there's a decent chance that i strained it when i was on my last soy milk run, as i had a heavy load to take back in my knapsack on my bicycle, and i was only wearing a little pink tank top.

and, in fact, if you take economics 101 nowadays, they teach you that almost immediately - that competition is harmful, and should be avoided as much as possible.

it's very frustrating when you hear these christian, liberal do-gooders fundamentally misunderstand what cooperation is really about.

cooperation is not preferable because it is a moral decision, it's preferable because it's a superior strategy.

i keep posting this. maybe somebody will watch it, this time.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7n0igh

the frustrating thing about this is that the science on the issue is actually quite settled. there's a plethora of studies out there that are monolithic in deducing that reducing travel is pointless.

the problem is that that contradicts what people call "common sense", which is in truth just a collection of fallacies and specious deductions.

there are many, many examples where science entirely debunks common sense, and this is one of them.

https://www.insauga.com/the-double-mutant-covid-variant-from-india-is-already-in-brampton-unconfirmed-reports-indicate

yeah, the media spin around the situation in india is to treat them as a developing country that needs foreign aid. that's very frustrating to see at this stage in history, and not what i said at all.

the reason that countries like canada and the united states want to focus on stopping the spread in places like india is that the variants are going to end up back here, in the end. you can't build a wall to keep the virus out - and that comparison is deeply applicable, in fact. i've argued repeatedly in this space that the best way to reduce the flow of central american migrants is to invest in living conditions in central america, which isn't about "foreign aid" and isn't an act of altruism, but is about realizing that this is actually in our own collective self-interest. but, both parties are controlled by a small elite that benefits from access to cheap labour, so nobody wants to address the root causes. reducing the supply of cheap labour would be the best thing we could do to help rebuild the union movement, which is exactly why nobody wants to do it.

at least with the virus, the class interests are minimized, so we should be able to see that helping them is the best way to help us. there's never been a wall that kept the barbarians out, and there's never been a travel ban that's stopped a virus from spreading. if you want to stop this, you need to send them doctors, not put an end to international travel.

and, yes - the same thing was true in the united states, not that long ago. at the time, i called for the same thing in the united states; it was fairly early in the pandemic that i actually called for doctors without borders to set up shop in the united states, and i was laughed at. in hindsight, maybe that wasn't so laughable. but, now the situation has shifted to india, and so i'm calling for a redeployment of resources there, instead.

but, the media is just using it as an example to set up a hierarchy and is framing it in the language of foreign aid. again, it's hubris, it's arrogance - and it's out of touch with reality.

travel bans will solve nothing. if we don't find a way to work together and deploy global resources to areas it's required when hotspots pop up, this will continue forever - or at least until we decide it's now "normal".

the best idea with pot this strong is probably to mix it with caffeine.

so, i may pick up some green tea early in the month and try to mix it with that.

so, i got my strawberries.

i mentioned that the pot i was gifted by the lowrider has a very powerful aroma, so powerful that i decided i had to try a little bit of it for two reasons: (1) because it smells so bad that i need to get it out of the house and (2) because it smells so bad that....what's it like, anyways?

i mean, this is a double-edged sword - if you're looking at just putting the pot away in the cupboard, the stink is both a curiosity as to the quality of the stuff (something i've been unhappy about regarding the store-bought pot) and an annoyance that needs to be neutralized. if i leave it in the cupboard for six months, is it just going to end up like the store bought stuff? so, i tried the smallest little bit on the way to the store - and outside of the house, as always.

when somebody rolls up behind you in a lowrider and offers you free drugs, you should probably be a little skeptical that they're giving you what they say they are. i'm not going to post links, but it seems like the black market is reacting to legal pot by trying to undercut it; the pot they're selling is actually very cheap, relative to the legal varieties, and even relative to what the going rate on the street was a mere couple of months ago, so the general reasoning behind spraying it isn't there. the idea behind the spraying is usually to increase the price.

the pot was sticky - something you don't get with legal pot, here - but not sticky enough to generate suspicions. really, my honest analysis is that this was fairly potent, high quality bud that is probably becoming scarce and would have sold for a decent sum before the regulation schemes came into force.

the count was probably closer to .75 g than 1 g (it didn't register as 1 g on my food scale), but i'm not complaining about the counts on free marijuana samples.

so, i just took a little bit of it, maybe an 1/8th of an actual gram but about a fifth of what was there, and mixed it with the raspberry leaves i had in the cupboard from last year to produce a small, persy-sized joint. i went over near the railroad tracks on the way to the store, smoked it and biked off to get strawberries. and, i think these are the correct social conventions and would heed people to re-establish them.

the result was what was advertised from the strain, which is "death bubba" - a very mild "high" followed by an irresistible urge to pass out, which i gave into about ten minutes after i got in. while this may be the ideal strain for somebody that is suffering from insomnia, it really wasn't what i needed this morning, and i'm looking to chug a pot of coffee now to compensate.

it could be that even an 1/8th was too much for me on this strain after barely smoking anything at all for the last 9 months, and i just got the sedative effects as a result of taking too much. or, it could be that this particular strain is really only good at the sedative side of it, and doesn't really provide for much in terms of an actual high - and potentially because the thc is too dominant in the chemistry. 

so, if i was out in the smoking section of a concert, and i took like one toke from somebody's joint, this strain might act as a catalyst for the effects of the amp distortion - it's the kind of pot you might want before a post-rock or psychedelic rock concert. maybe - if you take the very smallest amounts of it. personally, i prefer the kind of pot that makes me more giggly and less inhibitive, not the kind that knocks me out and wastes my day. i thought that was just a little tiny bit, but even that much was far too much.

so, what do i do with this, then? i'm not sure i can mask the smell in the cupboard, and i don't want to spend the week smoking pinners until it's gone. that's just going to make me sick, when i want to be doing something. and, i'm not sure what the best way to even do that even is.

for me, pot this powerful is probably best smoked as the smallest pipe hit ever, but i don't have one and definitely don't want the smell of one in here.

i'm going to leave it in the cupboard and try to smoke it in the tiniest amounts, very, very sporadically - after i finish something, between projects. hopefully, it doesn't rot when it's in there, but i'm not going to get much out of it, otherwise. and, like i said before - it could be in there for a while, especially now that i know just how potent it is. 

right now, i want to put it away, drink some coffee, do some cleaning in here and settle in for the week.

today's post is the box set for the third record.

===

purchasing this release comes with the immediate download of the release that you linked to it off of. be sure you make the right choice. 

inri016: created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016. 

inri018: initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled & released on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. final album version added as a bonus track and refinalized on dec 15, 2016. 

inri027: streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri028: constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. 

inri029: recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. 

inri031: recorded over the spring and summer of 1999. originally released on inrimake in october, 1999 (with an accidental phase reverse). the first section was modified further at the end of 1999. minimally altered and split into it's own ep on january 3rd, 2014. spliced further, appended to and remastered over sept, 2017. re-released and finalized on sept 28, 2017. 

inri032: recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014. released on jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp006 on sept 21, 2017. 

inri033: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in dec, 1999. slightly resequenced in jan, 2014. re-released jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp007 on sept 19, 2017. this is my third official record. 

inri034: written & recorded in the fall of 1999. originally released on inridiculous in december, 1999. split into it's own ep on january 3, 2014. remastered, finalized & re-released on sept 28, 2017 

originally created from 1996-1999, but mostly over 1999. this compilation is dated to dec 20, 1999. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2017. compilation finalized on sept 28, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

released december 20, 1999 

j - guitars, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synths, piano, sequencers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape deck, windows 95 sound recorder, sound design, found sounds, chance, vocals, flute, text-to-speech synthesis, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations production

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous-box-set

there were some more climate talks, but i mean...

what year are the targets set to, now? 2050? they used to set the targets to 2020. 

it's time to stop talking, now, and start acting - if it's not already too late. and, i don't have a lot of reason to expect much more than a cover-up and a pr gloss from this administration, that people don't start to clue into for another 2-3 years.

and, we don't have a movement on the ground to push them with.

the only chance we have is to talk them into trying to see it as a business opportunity, and we're even running out of time on that.

i think we're seeing a biden doctrine develop, and it's sort of what everybody should have expected - this is a 75 year-old man that's seen the world pass him by and doesn't fully understand the decline that's set in in america during his lifetime. and, it's uncovering something about him that he tried to hide: he seems to be somewhat of a bully.

so, the biden doctrine seems to be something like this: america is the dominant ape around here, and when it walks into the room, it's going to grab you by the lapels first and put you in a position of subservience, so that you show the proper respect. you can prostrate yourself, if you think it's appropriate; the point is that the hierarchy has to be established as a precondition, before any discourse can take place. he may even turn out to be relatively benign with you if you show him the proper deference, but the pecking order must be defined before anything else.

it's a sheltered outlook of reality, in 2021 - after years of trumpism, and many more years of american unilateralism giving way to a global multilateralism that sees american influence as dangerous. in the sense that it turns back the clock to the 50s, it's almost more trumpist than trump.

i suspect that there's a large number of young staffers that are arguing for a course correction, but whether they're heard or not depends on how long biden manages to live and maintain some semblance of mental health.

and, thus this is maybe an interesting angle - for all the attempts to compare biden to roosevelt, which always were and always will be laughable, he may, in the end, turn out more like churchill, as he tries to save a crumbling empire from collapse.

the armenian genocide is not a controversial thing, it's been universally acknowledged by historians since the time it actually happened. so, what is this resolution in the senate about?

on the one hand, it's an act of arrogance - as though the american senate gets to write history. i mean, on that level, it's absurd. if they repeal the vote, does that mean they can erase history, too?

but, it's really a political message to the turks that their days in the western alliance are numbered. for, there's only one reason it took 100 years to do this - because we didn't want to upset our turkish allies.

that said, there's an argument that it's kind of unnecessarily provocative, with little real purpose or value. i mean, nobody cares if the united states senate thinks a genocide happened in armenia or not - it's not an argument, it's not evidence, etc. if some academic somewhere changes their position on this, please let me know who they are so i can ridicule them in this space for the next twenty years. it's just intended to piss them off; there's no other reason to do it. and, that might not be the best way to deal with the substantive differences arising between the turks and the increasingly saudi-aligned americans.

in that sense, it's nearly a declaration of war. but, i don't think it's intended that way - it's intended to be an act of supremacy, to put the turks in their place, and is coming off more like a delusion of arrogance.

the turks may not react immediately. but, it's bound to fester, and, in the end, is likely to just end up unhelpful.

but, i'd encourage you to consult historians for history, and not the results of votes passed in the legislative bodies of representative democracies.

i've already made it clear that the science doesn't support travel bans, and that the political movements behind it are just rebranded trumpism. so, i'm not going to keep yelling at the wall about it.

but, this is a much better idea - cooperating with the indian authorities to help contain the virus at the source.

that said, it doesn't take a lot of insight to realize that the problem in india is going to reduce mostly to poverty. and, realizing the reality that the existing government in india is hindu-supremacist, and consequently in favour of the enforcement of vicious caste systems, is an important sobering process in realizing what's really possible, here.

the right way to do this is to help, not to ban. but, india's levels of inequality means it needs more help than we can give them by ourselves.

i'm going to actually call for something that has been missing so far - an international health force to get in there and clean things up. and, i'd call on the indians to cooperate.

otherwise, this will just carry on....

this is not the black death, clearly; but, the black death didn't have airplanes. we may find this dies harder than historical viruses, and we might have to deal with that as a consequence of the inter-connectivity and ease of travel inherent to modern existence.

so, while this is probably more about a pr push by the pmo, it's actually also the right health strategy - if globalized efficiently. we need to stamp these variants out where they are, not erect bans on travel....

https://globalnews.ca/news/7786301/canada-india-covid-medical-supplies-coronavirus/

i've had absolutely no gastric discomfort from the pills. if anything, my feces has really hardened up, quite a lot - which is supposedly normal. so, my body isn't giving me any signals that it wants me to slow down on the iron.

i am concerned about metals & alzheimers, but i seem to be a long ways from needing to concern myself with iron buildup. and, while i don't want to take zinc pills, and will resist it unless necessary, if it seems like it's an absorption issue with phytates, then it might be the better answer than eating more meat.

so, what am i going to do?

the data is upholding the diet regarding everything so far, except iron. i'm otherwise in spectacular health. and, i'm at least reacting to the iron.

is there any evidence i'm dealing with a zinc deficiency? frankly, there isn't. but, i mean, my track record in guessing serum levels isn't so great.

if my zinc levels come in fine, it's going to suggest that it's mostly genetic rather than phytate or calcium blocking. i mean, this is the question we don't know the answer to - am i just bombarding myself with so much iron that my stomach has no choice but to absorb some of it, or is the actual operative difference more along the lines of that i've separated the iron out from the diet? i'm taking the iron on an empty stomach, as directed - except with vitamin c. this is very similar to the heme test i took, except it's working this time, which suggests quantity is the issue, rather than quality.

but i don't know yet, really.

in the end, if it's *only* iron that is of concern, i'd rather just take iron pills than blow up the diet. and, for those reading along, that's potentially a valid caveat - for all it's overall health benefits, those with iron absorption difficulties may experience the onset of anemia when following this diet, and may need to supplement with iron on a daily or weekly basis, once your stores are up a little.

i got some rest. i'll need to briefly get out for some strawberries this morning before i settle in for the week. i've got two phone appointments this week, and will probably get the second half of the blood work done on friday, now that i know my hemoglobin isn't critical. so, let's hope this week is more productive.

for the day, i'll just be cleaning a little. and eating...

so, what are the possibilities here?

- i just need tons and tons of iron to smash through a likely genetic absorption difficulty or

- the nature of the diet makes iron absorption difficult and i need to isolate it (and maybe zinc, too) from phytates or

- lead poisoning in the water, which is not yet ruled out

so, my ferritin is now at 17.

i'm still anemic - i'm still freezing in 25 degree weather, and i'm still exhausted. but, the pills are apparently working, and i should stick at them.

my cbc is a little better than previous cbcs, with everything in the normal range except those large rbcs, which are just a tad big. but, again - the mcv's range for this lab are smaller than standard. i have four data points now, and the mcv is in the 95-97 range for each of them; this lab puts the cut-off for "normal" at 95, but most suggest up to 100 is normal.

i wanted to test for spleen bleeding, because my shoulder has been bugging me (and that's apparently a symptom of a ruptured spleen). the tests came back fine. they tested for reticulocytes to determine if i'm overproducing to compensate for blood loss and it's fine - indicating that i was probably producing almost no blood at all, previously. there's no blood in my urine (and no nitrites, either). and, my urine albumin is so low they couldn't even calculate the ratio. 

so, there's no evidence that i'm bleeding anywhere, and i'm reacting well to the iron pills - suggesting it was an absorption issue. as previously, every other test except the iron-related ones have comeback more or less ideal.

annoyingly, the lab didn't release zinc levels, which would help me better understand the nature of the absorption issue. i'll have to call the doctor and ask for the full report to be mailed to me on monday, as that's the only actual actionable result here, given that i know the pills are working.

so, i guess i need to sleep it off until it gets better.

so, i'm biking to the grocery store, and this low rider pulls up behind me.

"you smoke drugs?"

i answered truthfully; it's legal, and it doesn't matter if they're cops or not.

sometimes.

it turns out they're trying to sell the old fashioned way, and i got a free gram of what appears to be "death bubba". i haven't touched it yet; it could be a while. this wouldn't be my preferred type, but i won't complain - i'll just make sure i need the sleep. nasty stench, though - some of the worst i've ever smelled.

i'm not going to post any details here. it's not illegal for me to accept free bud, but it is still illegal to sell it outside of the taxation schematics. so, i'd be breaking the law by buying it from them, and don't want to publicize the number for that reason. for all i know, they're cops; i'll take the bud and say thank you, but there's no chance i'm calling them back. and, i would highly advise that, if you're going to buy illegally, you make sure you know who you're buying from. the whole point of legalizing it was to go after the small dealers - you don't want to find yourself a victim of entrapment.

but, whether police entrapment or old-skool dealers (i have no idea which is true. at all.), that's actually something i haven't seen in a while - somebody selling pot on the street.

right now, i want to eat and take a shower, not smoke drugs. that could sit for quite a while, really. but, it's in there.

i got about half of the test done:

- cbc

- reticulocyte

- ldh & ck isoenzymes

- zinc

- ferritin

- urinalysis

next time, we'll do:

- haptoglobin

- lead

- hepcidin

- h pylori

i wanted the hepcidin done, but it would have required a 5th vial and i just couldn't deal with that. the tests that did get done should give me enough info to tell me if i need injections or not, whether i'm bleeding or not and whether the absorption issue is strictly related to iron or not.

they also gave me the fecal kit, but it says not to do it if you're on iron, so i'm going to wait to talk to the gastro-intestinal specialist, first. i probably don't want to go off iron to check for blood in my stool. but we'll see what he says next week.

and, i got everything i need, except strawberries....with $3.15 left to followup on it. thankfully, they're on sale this week, they're just out.

as mentioned before, i spent an unbudgeted $50 on meat this month and it screwed me up, but the hit should be marginal if i can pull that off tonight.

so, i gotta face the music, here.

as mentioned, i think there's a fair chance i'll pass out. so, i'm going to need to take some coffee first and hope it works.

i can't believe i found a way to salvage the diet with less than $13 for the week.

i've had to cut out guava since mid-month, partly because i'm not even sure anybody's carrying it. i might be down to the walmart, only. if i can't find guava anymore (i live in canada...it's exported from mexico.....), i'm going to need to pull the c up a tad with extra strawberries, and maybe extra raspberries. for now, i'm just sort of taking the hit, although i've taken the strawberries up by 50% (partly because i needed to use them up). i mean, it's going from 250% of the rdi to 200%...but i want to keep those numbers up...

and, i've been putting tomatoes in the pasta bowl recently, but they're not calculated. they're on sale, and i might barely be able to squeeze a few in, but i'll probably have to put them aside. i'm definitely not going to have space for blueberries this week.

otherwise, i need

- 2 kiwis (<$1)

- 10 smallish avocadoes  (<$6)

- 6 medium-to-small bananas (<$1.00)

- a very small clove of garlic (<$0.50)

- 1 container of strawberries ($3)

========================

<$11.50

if it comes in close to $11, i might have enough for 4 tomatoes.

i'm exhausted. really. i do not feel good. but, i need to get this blood work done and then take a deep breath and figure out how bad it is.

i don't know where that meme came from.

i think it's at least from before about 2013ish.

i actually had a copy of this on cd in the late 90s, though.

yes, that was marvin the martian asking where the drop was, in 1999.

today's post is inri034, the last proper inri release.

=======

this is another lost track that exists in a sort of an ill-defined alter-reality. 

it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all. 

i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't). 

the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist. 

so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff". 

what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious. 

"i'd rather have a book than a friend. 

it's loyalty will never end, 

doesn't succumb to fashion or trend, 

and all the information it sends, 

will never get lost along the way. 

when things get as tough as they may, 

it will always know exactly what to say, 

'cause books don't hurt... 

...or do they?" 

musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown. 

the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life. 

and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri. 

written & recorded in the fall of 1999. originally released on inridiculous in december, 1999. split into it's own ep on january 3, 2014. remastered, finalized & re-released on sept 28, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

this track was removed from my third record, inridiculous (inri033): 

jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous 

the lead version is now on the outtakes compilation, inrimoved (inri042): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrimoved 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2014, 2017). 

released december 15, 1999 

j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, sequencers, drum programming, flute, digital wave editing, vocals, production

he forgot the provacateurs when he talked about the sources of "violence", by which he means property damage.

this is sort of surreal to listen to , but i'm going to let him finish, first.

=====

obviously must be the russians, though.

=====

so, what's going on here is that you're asking homo economicus to explain something that requires a little depth of understanding into human culture, and he just can't grapple with it - and admits it. there was a study done a few years ago that indicated that only economists understand economics, which sounds tautological when stated like that; what they determined was that these growth ratios, these appeals to gdp and even the concept of competition are things that are entirely irrelevant outside of an economics classroom, and that only an economist wouldn't be able to see that, immediately. maybe an economist might laugh at a study like that. but, that's what's going on here - the economist is asked to explain what the numbers mean, and can't begin for a second to even feign to be able to grasp it. and, that's predictable, and repeatable.

near the end of the video, he's asked about the lag in growth rates and suggests that the function of privatization is not to maximize profit but to decrease poverty, which no doubt causes this baffled kid to drop his jaw to the floor. i mean, you don't hear that kind of nonsense this side of goebbels. maybe he let his time at the educationally superior catholic university seep a little bit of that christian exceptionalism into his brain, there. yikes. i'm old enough to remember a time when this was a debate; this kid no doubt just laughed at him for openly propagandizing.

....the point being that this guy isn't honest, and his charts are not honest, and he destroys any pretense to it at the end.

but, let's put that aside.

what the economist doesn't and can't understand through the filter of it's training is that people don't base their views on the value of the economy they interact with and live within strictly, or even moderately, on accumulation. rather, we have these ideas about quality of life and they get in the way of good jobs and rising gdp in terms of understanding how we want to live, how we want to exist. some people may tell you that what happened in chile was about student loan debt, but i've been in student protests in quebec and i know that what it's really about is a rejection of the world that the school to corporation pipeline really creates. it's not just about wealth generation, it's about how people spend their time; it's not just about access to health care in some abstract sense, but about how you have to spend your life gaining access to that care.

in years past, we had systems of social control to brainwash us into romanticizing the concept of work. catholicism was one; calvinism was even worse. these systems taught us that the meaning we seek is not outside of the workplace, but within it, either via some kind of rewards system of cosmic air miles points or via some concept of individual identity. but, we've seen that fall apart everywhere, and exposed as the nonsense that it really is.

so, if we are to be elitists from the catholic university, maybe we might argue that the system of control has withered away, and all of these kids are just lost souls that need guidance. sending them to school just took away their chains. what good is that, really?

but, if we are to be a little more enlightened than the faculty at the catholic university, maybe we might realize that the kids are right - that the world we live in is empty, and that what all of this book learning gave them was a better sense of self-recognition. maybe these kids saw themselves in the mirror and realized their existences were futile. and, maybe they decided they wanted something more than a desk job, something more than a pay check - and realized the foundational principles of the economy would need to change in order to facilitate it.

or, you can send your kids to oxford and get them to listen to superior rubbish like this.

up to you.

putting it in quotes appears to confuse the filters.

so, it will delete - and youtube just removes comments it doesn't like. it doesn't even tell you it did it. - the following:

so, what's going on here is that you're asking homo economicus...

but it won't delete the following:

so, what's going on here is that you're asking "homo economicus"

good to know.

youtube appears to be blocking the term "homo economicus", probably because it contains the term "homo".

we've truly reached a state of idiocy.

so, i didn't finish eating before i passed out, which is terrible because we're talking about a 15 minute bike ride both ways. it wasn't a long day, either.

the idea that a half hour on my bike might knock me out for 12+ hours is absurd. i can normally do that in my sleep.

so, this is very bad - my iron has clearly crashed. and, i'm expecting depleted hemoglobin and a potentially vicious reaction to the blood test.

so, we're going to take two vials tops when i get there - and come back for two more next week.

i need the cbc, the ferritin, the reticulocyte & the hepcidin done immediately. and, if we can fit lead & zinc, great. the rest can wait until i know if i need injections or not.

and, i might.

like i said before, this is the right way to do this - the diet plan was a good start, but you have to test it to make sure it works, too.

i know it's easy to blame it on the phytates, but my calcium and magnesium levels are both high.

let's see what the zinc levels are...

so, i got to the doctor's office and back in less than an hour and got recs for the following things i suggested:

- reticulocyte (am i actually bleeding?)

- ldh (to test for spleen damage and general organ malfunction)

- ck isoenzymes ("")

- lead  (it's entirely plausible, given where i live, that i'm experiencing lead poisoning.)

- hepcidin (i think this is the key one. he didn't know what it was, either.)

- zinc (i focused just on the zinc this time, out of curiosity)

- ferritin (let's see what effect two weeks of pills has had)

...as well as the following things he suggested:

- haptoglobin (my blood results are weird, but this will clarify what's going on a little in terms of what kind of anemia is present. but, i actually suspect this will come back normal, or close to it, just to make it all that much more confusing.)

- urine & fecal test for blood traces (i'll let them do it, but...)

- h pylori (which is a bacteria i posted a little about previously. again, sure - let's be thorough. fine.) 

he also ordered a "urinalysis" and we'll have to see what's in the test regarding things like vitamins and minerals. but, i held off on a lot of stuff this appointment, and let him doctor, instead. we can do a full vitamin & mineral count next time.

this should clarify quite a bit, i think.

i'm posting them here ahead of time to make sure i don't miss anything when it comes back.

the only things in my list that got skipped were the vitamins and minerals, which were intended to check for full absorption, but also for my own nutrition project. i mean, are there any other weak points besides the iron?

- vitamins a, b1-b7, c, e, k & choline/betaine  (some in urinalysis, though?)

- selenium & iodine

- molybdenum, copper, nickel, manganese & chromium

- fluoride

- nitrates (in urinalysis, though?)

- cadmium, aluminum, arsenic, mercury

- protein / amino acids (in urinalysis, though?)

as mentioned, i'm ok waiting until next time for this stuff. there's enough in the test already as it is.

he suggested i hold off on the appointment for a hematologist because everything's coming back fine, for now; that is, he didn't see anything to specifically refer to him. fair enough.