After the Slab

Greetings, gentle readers.
Well, it appears that the surgery went well, since I've got a report indicating that there are zero post-operation complications.  Of course, now I'm in piercing, rending pain.  The collarbone muscles that the neurosurgeons cut to get at my spine are connected to everything in my upper thoracic cavity.  Breathing is hard, a swallow of water feels like a pine cone going down my throat, coughs are pure torment, and I haven't had the catastrophic misfortune of a sneeze yet, but have great justifiable cause to fear one.
That being said, I'm just going to blast out my shower playlist and run away before I get drawn into the big topics that the Atlantic Monthly magazine has tossed about recently, like women acting catty towards other women in the workplace, or Antifa violating the social contract of exclusive legitimacy of violence.  I might also add at this point that, due to an enormous wound on my neck, I can't really shower, per se, but rather dunk my head and wash it before hosing off the rest of my body, avoiding the over-sized compress that conceals the steri-strips acting as temporary sutures.  Steri-strips that would just as easily wash away in shower water as keep my insides from defying my skin and heading outside my body.
Here we go...

Almost a Narrative

Romeo and Juliet, by Dire Straits
Turning the Town Red, by Elvis Costello
More Today than Yesterday, by Spiral Staircase
Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World, by Johnny Clegg
Auf Achse, by Franz Ferdinand

And that's it for me.  I need to take some more medication and lie down for a while.  The hospital kept me well juiced with Dilaudid, and I need to reckon up how I can match that dosage with my flavour of opioid.
Until next time, good night England and the Colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Pre-Op Jitters

Greetings, gentle readers.
I'm going to have to make this a brief as I dare, since I'm strung out on four different medications and tears of exhaustion are dripping onto my pants.

Religion Poisons Everything

I could go on at length about how the Bible in general, and the Old Testament specifically is a load of crap.  On one level, it's a bunch of shit gurgled out by a pack of ignorant desert-dwelling barbarians who hadn't developed any sort of knowledge as a society.  Their maths were garbage, their medicine was non-existent, and their science was founded on fear, superstition, and arrogance based on cultural insularity.
Slavery, rape, genocide, and barbarous cruelty aside, I want to briefly touch on the bit that I feel is highly apropos at the moment.  Not to trivialize the fates of the Midianites or the Hazorites, but they're no longer around to complain, are they?
One of the sneaky little divine admonitions of the Bible is not to wear clothing of different threads sewn together.  Chapter 22 of Deuteronomy basically says not to wear a material of wool mixed with linen.  That's pretty stupid.  One can brush it off as being as comparably stupid as the other forbidden things like pork and shellfish.  Food we can understand.  People in a desert that can't understand parasites or bacteria could interpret trichinosis as God's will not to eat swine, and spoiled oysters as the angels of the firmament directing people away from sea creatures without gills or fins.
"See?'  one may cry, "They're just ignorant.  They didn't know any better, so maybe one of the high priests got a rash from his wool/polyester blend bell-bottoms, and decided God was speaking to him again, like the time God asked Abraham to slay Isaac or killed all of Job's kine."
Things get a more sinister when you compare Deuteronomy ("The Book of Really Bad Ideas") 22:11 with Leviticus ("Another Book with Really Bad Ideas") 19:19, which says,

"Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee."

It rambles off to talk about scourging women that lieth with men, etc., but the damage is done here.  Don't mix breeds of cattle; don't mix seeds in a field; don't mix threads in a fabric.  This is no longer blind ignorance and stupid superstition.  This is the foundation of racial purity ideals.  When people run around, shrieking about "taking back their birthright" or "reclaiming their country," that sense of entitlement is not rooted in historical fact - it's rooted in revelatory scripture.
The fact that white supremacists have submitted to DNA tests that overwhelmingly point out that their genetic purity is utter bunk is irrelevant.  Science is irrelevant when God the tyrannical totalitarian is in the house.
The bottom line here is that white nationalists would have no traction without being given legitimacy by religious scripture.  It's not hard to extend this statement to slavery under the Confederate States of America, an institution only made possible under the auspices of "muscular Christianity."  As Robert E. Lee wrote:

"The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."

Right.  I'll wind up quickly with my last playlist from my iPod Nano.

Shower Showcase

• Overland, by Stereophonics
• Suddenly Monday, by Melanie Chisholm
• Heart Refuse to Pound, by Big Sugar
• Teacher, by Jethro Tull
• Lucille, written by Albert Collins and Little Richard; performed by Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1974
• Cartoon Heroes, by Aqua

I again yield the floor to anyone who can draw some sort of thematic conclusion from these disparate components.
My surgery is on Monday, and I suspect that my next post will likely be after I'm released from hospital.  Until that point, I must bid my adieus.
Good night England and the colonies,
—mARKUS

Final Week Countdown

Greetings, gentle readers.
A quick update on my health, not that anyone asked.  I've passed my pre-operative medical examination and it looks like we're going full steam ahead on Monday 21 August.  Apparently, my blood sugar registers as borderline diabetic, so I'm probably going to have to do some more A1c tests at some point.  In the meantime, the guy who eschews wearing jewelry now has a semi-permanent surgical wristband with which to decorate himself.  It's a pretty orange-pink and has a very stylish bar code.  Medically speaking, I'm reminded of a conversation from the film "Exorcist III":

Kinderman: "I thought you said there's nothing wrong."
Dyer: "My brother Eddie had these same symptoms for years."
K: "Your brother Eddie died at the age of 30."
D: "So what?  He got killed in Vietnam."
K: "There could be some sort of connection."
D: "A connection?"
K: "Are you sure it's not serious, Joe?"
D: "Well with Eddie..."
K: "Will you shut up about Eddie!"
D: "With my brother it was nerves."
K: "You make a lot of people nervous."
D: "Only sinners."

Sports

Liverpool FC just played their first match of the season, and, as so often tends to be the case, there are some positive and some negative conclusions to be reached.  The scoreline was an attractive one for the neutral observer at 3-3.  For LFC fans, it was worryingly familiar.  Too often, far too often in the past has the team made routine games seem like desperately panicked attempts to salvage dignity in the face of abject disaster.  Matters of simple execution become white-knuckled, nerve-fraying seconds of fingernail-chewing catastrophe.

One might suggest that sports have a greater emotional impact with increased tension between teams of comparable quality.  Others would argue that any discrepancy between ability and performance creates disappointment.  In this case, a team that can manhandle a team full of international stars like Bayern Munich 3-0 in a preseason game two weeks ago should be able to demonstrate the same precision and discipline against Watford.  As the great Bill Shankly said,

"Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple."

Watching players unable to replicate displays of simple competence breeds frustration and anger.  So rather than seize upon individual gaffes and failures, I will be a bit more obtuse and look at systemic failures which prevented the players from succeeding.  I noticed three things that manifested to a lesser degree during the preseason games, like the Audi Cup.

1.  Command at the Back

When Franz Beckenbauer was winning everything in Europe in the mid 70s with West Germany and Bayern Munich, his analytical mind kept drawing him toward the position of sweeper.  Someone who, when the team did not have the ball, could dictate to the defence how to cover, move, intercept, and tackle any oncoming assaults.  That person had to be behind the defence so that he/she could see the entire pitch and all the other players on it. When Beckenbauer moved to the New York Cosmos, began working on implementing that role himself - marshalling the defenders, solidifying possession, and then driving the next attack forward.

As strategy and tactics in world football developed, the rôle of the sweeper became integrated with other positions.  Sweepers became a luxury, and that manpower was required in midfield to cope with some of the newer systems like the WiBl/WoBl (With Ball/Without Ball) 3-5-2/5-3-2 and 4-3-3/4-5-1. In some teams, like the Manchester United of the 1990s and 2000s, they relied on a "sweeper-keeper."  Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Saar became the backfield generals that could command the backline, shriek at the back four to either step in line to form an offside trap, or to break to man-on-man coverage.  Manuel Neuer continues this tradition for Germany and Bayern Munich.  Other teams relied on a central defender to control the offside trap, and to direct coverage for blocks, tackles, and interceptions.  Some examples of centre-backs acting as the coördinating defensive general are Tony Adams, John Terry, and Fernando Hierro.  Wide full backs that famously directed traffic for their teams include Philipp Lahm and Paolo Maldini.  Finally, defensive midfielders that performed the traffic cop rôle include Marcel Desailly and Matthias Sammer.
Getting to the point - Liverpool doesn't have an individual that can perform this function.  Joel Matip is athletic and talented, but doesn't communicate.  Dejan Lovren is constantly out-thinking himself and questioning his own decisions.  Simon Mignolet is too focused on the ball to try and give instructions to anyone else.  Insofar as full backs go, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold are too unproven, Moreno and Clyne are too inconsistent, and when James Milner plays at left-back, he tries to lead by example, not by direction.  In the midfield, although Henderson, Wijnaldum, and Can like to play deep in their own end to start attacks from within their own half, none have any inclination to direct a defensive scheme.
Problem:  Nobody bossing the back-end.
Solution:  I had hoped that Ragnar Klavan might act as the shouty veteran for a while until Matip grows into it, but he's proven as uncertain and shaky as Lovren at this level.  I don't suppose Willem II have any big, Finnish defenders available during this transfer window?

2.  Space between the Lines

Many long-serving LFC fans will remember the animated antics of Rafa Benitez in the technical area at pitchside.

One gesture that he seemed to make on a rather regular basis was to hold his hands vertically, in parallel, thumbs pointed to the sky.  He would then squeeze his hands together, like clapping with a cushion between his hands.  His facial features would contort as he frantically tried to communicate this point to the players on the field.  Of course, what his gesticulations were meant to convey was that the space between the defensive, midfield, and forward lines should be compressed.
What does this mean?  Basically, the way that the players positioned themselves on the field did not suit the style of play indicated by the manager.   As I previously mentioned, Henderson, Can, and Wijnaldum all like to drift closer to their own net in the hopes of leading an attack.  In so doing, they left a huge gap between themselves and the trio of Mané, Firmino, and Salah.  In the Watford match, whenever the midfield received possession of the ball, they were forced to:

• pass through traffic and risk interception
• pass laterally or backwards to the defence
• pass over the top with 45-yard long balls

So either the midfield players need to press farther forward and the defence needs to coordinate steps forward in tandem, or the entire philosophy needs to change so that surrendering the midfield and sitting deep in defence works with long-ball, low percentage kicks upfield for the forwards to chase.
Problem:  Liverpool players are too far apart for short passing lanes.
Solution:  This may sounds sacrilegious, but the team needs less McManaman-esque free-wheeling, and more regimented positional play.

3.  Set Plays

I have harped on about this particular topic at length and on multiple occasions, such that I'm afraid that most of my acquaintances are well and truly sick of my hectoring.  Rafa Benitez reckons that a decent team ought to score at least one goal for every ten corner kicks.  That's reasonable, and it's therefore a cause for concern when a team concedes a goals from only three corner kicks, particularly since the ball took multiple touches within the 18-yard box.  Those same multiple touches created the swirling chaos that resulted from a set piece throw-in.  Strangely, part of the solution can be found by watching the 1981 film "Escape to Victory."

Granted, there aren't a whole lot of tactical bits of wisdom in the film.  That being said, consider Shankly's quotation that I cited earlier about simplicity.  Stallone's character (Robert Hatch) spends a fair bit of time badgering Michael Caine's character (John Colby) for one thing:  the place where a goalkeeper stands during a corner kick.  Colby brushes Hatch off repeatedly, thinking that Hatch is being facetious.  Eventually, Colby relents and tells the secret: "The far post, facing the ball."  Why there?
The answer lies in being able to see the flight of the ball.  Being able to spot the height and swing of the ball allows a goalkeeper to make a decision about whether to challenge for a catch or punch, or to stay deep in the 18-yard box.  The goalkeeper can also direct defenders in such a way as to allow the fewest touches and the fewest bounces of the ball by getting the soonest first contact.
The same logic applies to attackers of the ball during a corner.  Attackers should always be in motion, moving toward the ball in such a way that the attacker can always rush to meet the terminal point of the ball's flight.

Shower Music

Many apologies, but I've been at this off and on all day, and I just can't continue.  Don't even know when I'll get up enough gumption to have another shower and then have another go.  If anyone has any questions, please leave them in the comments section below, and I promise that I'll get to them. So here's what my iNano played for me during my last ablutions.

• Gloria, by Them
• Six-Blade Knife, by Dire Straits
• Why, by Melanie C
• Jungle Telegraph, by Eels
• Senikhumbule Unomathemba, by Ladysmith Black Mambazo

I don't know.  It may portend something interesting on the African continent.  Maybe not.
I've got to sign off and nip out for a kip, or tap off for a nap, or whatever it is that young people say these days.  "These days, these days..." as Vesuvius, the fourth Doctor's robot companion from Doctor Who Weekly, issues #1-8 would say.
Till next time, goodnight England and the Colonies.
—mARKUS

Sit Down Next to Me

Greetings, gentle readers.
Those who are visiting this blog for the first time, and interested in political and/or academic topics should probably skip this entry and either use the search bar or scroll downward to get to the relevant content.  I'm feeling a bit wretched, so I'm just using this bit to make sure that I am exhaustively cataloguing all of the music that plays during my showers.  This experiment involves finding patterns in seemingly random things, like a Rorschach test.  Because I need a nap, here goes:

iPod Nano Rave-Fest Mania

• Three-Minute Song by Big Sugar
• Time by Pink Floyd
• Smitten by Bree Sharp
• All for You, Sophia by Franz Ferdinand
• Girl Can't Help It by Journey

Reading through the list in a linear fashion would seem to indicate that there is some sort of chronology-related theme that transitions into some sort of destructive romantic cataclysm, involving a hideously dread-filled feeling of inevitability.  It's also interesting to note that I used the example of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to explain one of the POTUS' tweets in a blog entry last week.
In any event, I'm bagged.  I can't sleep in my normal foetal-position because my muscle relaxants screws up my joints.
That being said, good night England and the Colonies,
—mARKUS

Heritage Day Festivus

Greetings, gentle readers.
In the words of the illustrious Trevor Noah, let's get right into it.

Politics

By and large, a lot of people tend to believe that university level degrees in philosophy are worthless pieces of paper that lend no credence to any kind of qualification, and give no indication as to employability.

• Number One - universities and colleges are not job-placement facilities.  If you don't understand the point of a liberal arts education, announce it loudly in public and someone will inform you.
• Number Two - philosophy grants people the luxury of a larger perspective.  What do you want from your government?
  No, not something like a 2.5% increase in GDP per annum.
  What does good government actually mean?  What values does a good government hold?  Should security be a greater consideration than privacy?  Is compassion a greater attribute of government than fiscal transparency?
• Number Three - philosophy transcends arbitrary political divisions.  It doesn't matter if you're a member of the Whigs or the Know-Nothing party, slavery is almost certainly a bad concept.  And yet, there are people today that would argue about that.  Republican Ben Carson seems to imply that slavers did human cargo a favour by transporting them to a place with new hope and new masters.

Process of Elimination

I don't want to dwell on the president of the United States, because it is psychologically unhealthy to give any sort of attention to narcissists, but I did want to have a bit of a yammer that ought to appeal to my age demographic.

Jack Klugman

If you can remember the television show "Quincy M.E." you're probably asking yourself  where your life went.  You should also remember the opening title sequence, in which Jack Klugman performs an autopsy in front of a class of medical students.  With each procedure, one or two students faint dead away out of shock or disgust.  Eventually, Quincy removes his latex gloves in an empty examination room, as all of the students lie collapsed unconscious.
My point is this:  let us create a thought experiment.  The 45th president of the United States currently enjoys a 30% approval rating amongst the polled American voting public.  Let us consider that segment of the American public to be the innocent and naïve medical students about to be exposed to some very raw and graphic scenes.
Considering that a lot of the current president's support comes from highly religious evangelical groups, this is of great interest to me.  People who whip themselves into a froth about bathrooms or what people do in the privacy of their own homes or any sort of transgressions against the code of conduct indicated by the biblical Book of Leviticus have seemingly identified with the 45th president to an overwhelming degree.  A man who is now on his third wife and proudly declares that he can go about doing anything to women like "grab them by the pussy" is now being lionized by the largest American body of self-righteous moralists.   When will they sheepishly admit that their hypocritical admonitions of others have finally come to rest on the lintels of their own henhouses?
I will now lay out a hypothetical timeline of events, each point resembling another medical examiner pathology procedure that might be considered shocking or traumatizing.  Instead of  autopsy slicing and sawing, I will create fictional American political events that have some speculative basis.  Create an imaginary supporter of the 45th president in your mind, and as you follow along the timeline, imagine when that construct will abandon the cause in disgust, much as Quincy's disciples succumbed to unconsciousness.
So... pick the spot when one of the 30% will jump the ship:

Executive Orders

• The president issues a direct edict decriminalizing polygamy, saying that it would be great for America to have bigger, more powerful family units.
• Roe v. Wade is overturned, and measures are drafted to ensure that expectant women will do nothing to endanger the foetus during gestation.  In unrelated news, medical insurance premiums for obstetrics triple in cost.
• A new presidential executive order increases powers of police units, including granting all police officers complete immunity from prosecution whilst in the process of performing their duties.
• After increasing American military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen, the president assigns Jared Kushner to personally assess the situation on the front lines and create policy recommendations for further Middle East intervention.
• The president issues an executive order that decriminalizes incest, saying that his presidency is one of love.  Voices of opposition are heard, and Tay-Sachs disease is mentioned, but the measure is implemented regardless.
• A bill in the House of Representatives regarding the price and availability of pharmaceutical products in the United States passes, to the astonishment of a large number of lobbyists on the Hill.  Bipartisan enthusiasm is highly publicized before the mid-term elections.
• A new executive order is released, mandating that all for-profit incarceration facilities must be kept at maximum capacity at all times.  State and federal judiciaries are instructed to add prison time for all offences.
• After Jared Kushner is hideously maimed by an IED in Madan, Syria, he is patched up in a veteran's hospital in Bethesda, MD and sent to a facility in Portland,OR to recover while his marriage to Ivanka Trump is annulled.
• The president announces plans to wed his own daughter, saying that he is the candidate (sic) that supports family values and that "Chinatown" is a great film because Jack Nicholson is tremendous.  The announcement is quickly followed by the announcement that Ivanka is already six months into her pregnancy.  The date of conception appears to be at a time when erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical remedies were made affordable, and when Jared Kushner was overseas on assignment.
• North Korea launches an ICBM toward Los Angeles.  While the space-based defence system is able to destroy the delivery cylinder before it could deploy its multiple, independently-targetable re-entry vehicular warheads, a North Korean submarine plants a 20 kiloton device in the waters near Miami and destroys most of South Florida.  The U.S. Navy cries that it will retaliate after it has finished spending its new trillion dollar budget increase on retrofitting every ship in the fleet in dry dock.
• Amidst a crisis involving an underfunded FEMA and the dying refugees from Florida, the president announces the birth of his new daughter/grand-daughter, whom he promises to be "Barron's new best friend."
• The United Nations decides that North Korea will surrender all of its weapons or face sharp military action.  Contemporaneously, the U.N. sets a worldwide schedule for the decommissioning of all coal-based power plants.  Citing American exceptionalism, the president declares open defiance of any international declarations and regulations.
• As the bulldozers and earth-movers finish a channel amputating the radioactive lower half of the Florida peninsula from the continental United States, the president announces that the nation is getting a huge circumcision, and that should make all Jews happy. "Shouldn't it make them happy, folks?  Shouldn't it?" he shouts at a bewildered crowd of refugees.
• Following the release of relevant statistics, the United Nations declares universal sanctions on the United States for violations of trade agreements, human rights, and national sovereignty.
• The president appears at a rally, clutching an infant.  Stroking it salaciously along the line of its diaper, he announces that this is the "greatest baby ever, the best" before licking it along the side of its head.

Now, consider all of the imaginary people standing at the beginning of the thought experiment.  At what point would they start to sit down?  How many are still standing at the end of the experiment?  I'm just curious where the threshold of nationalistic fervour that dictates the support of the Commander-in-Chief regardless of... well... anything, really... actually lies.  Would the POTUS have to physically throttle some of these voters to death personally before they begin to see some flaws in his decision-making skills?

Conclusion

I'm tired, and I've spent far too long writing this exhaustive piece of dreck.  I must go.  Until next time, from me it's good night England, and the Colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Them Long Weekend Blues

Greetings, gentle readers.
I was told that I needed some method of notifying people when I published a new post to the blog.  I hope that I've put an email notification in the margin.  I'm never sure when this thing transitions from a design view to an external view.  If I've made a mistake and accidentally published a dancing baby or some other website dreck, please let me know as soon as fast as the speed of love.
Feeling a bit woozy this afternoon, so I'll try and be quick about things.

Tales from the iPod Nano

Here's what my little musical pal played for me during my shower earlier today.  Once again, the challenge is to determine if there is a deeper theme or motif that links the tracks to one another.

• Paralyzed, by the Cardigans
• Brown-Eyed Women, by the Grateful Dead
• Kevin Carter, by the Manic Street Preachers
• Since You've Been Gone, by Kelly Clarkson
• Love the One You're With, by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

Are there dots to connect?  Crossword clues to intersect? Who knows?  I just know that I can't mess with the song databank until I rebuild the iTunes replica software that lets me play with the Nano.  That means that until my new workstation is operational, what's on the Nano stays there.  No additions, deletions, or manipulations.

Football, Football, I Like Football

... and I'll travel anywhere to see my favourite team.  (to quote the immortal Alan Randall)  For those that don't know, my favourite team is Liverpool Football Club.  For those North Americans who don't follow the English Premier League, here's a brief introduction from HBO's John Oliver:

In any event, the Premier League starts in eight days, as the Mighty Reds of Liverpool travel to Watford's Vicarage Road stadium to the north of London.  That means that I have slightly more than a week to try and summarize the off-season personnel transfers and the pre-season friendly matches in order to try and present a complete picture of what an objective observer might be able to expect from the team over the course over the gruelling season ahead.  I don't have the time or the energy today, so what I will do is try and explain what makes European football different from North American sports.  This way, when I make a remark like "a deep domestic cup run" or "depending on the January window," readers will have some form of context.

European Football

First off, I'm going to frame this in reference to the NHL, since demographically my readers are more likely to be Canadian than American.  Those more familiar with the NBA, MLB, or NFL should find some very comfortable ground upon which to tread, and I am more than welcome to open a conversation where direct comparisons can be made.

The Name

European (and indeed World) Football is named for the ball sport wherein the ball is predominantly played with the feet.  Only one player per team is allowed to use his or her hands to touch or control the ball legally, and even then, only within a specifically designated goal area.  When a conflict arose in the 19th century about naming sports in the United States and Canada, the Rugby-descended rules were chosen to be named "Football", and the FA (Football Association) rules were designated "Soccer" as a contraction of Association Football.  What North America calls soccer, everyone else calls football.

The Draft

There is none.  European football teams like Liverpool don't draft players at any sort of eligible age or scholastic level.  Teams generally have an academy where young players are coached from a young age and signed to contracts at different ages and maturity.  Teams that finish lower in league standings receive no reward for failure.  In fact, there is an ominous fate for those that finish too low.

Playoffs

There are none.  The round-robin elimination bits that NHL teams do in the post season are done contemporaneously with the season.  The champions of the English Premier League are analogous to the NHL's winners of the President's Trophy.  Weird thing here is that where the NHL playoffs determine a single winner, England has TWO domestic cup competitions:  the FA Cup and the League Cup.  The former is open to all teams, including non-professional and semi-professional ones, and the latter is only open to the top 92 professional teams.  Practical upshot - within a couple of weeks, a team could theoretically win three major domestic trophies in one season.  By the same token, a team could be knocked out of both playoffs before Xmas, but still have a chance to win the League.

Relegation

Rather than try and enforce parity by giving sad sack teams first pick of young talent, teams that finish too near the bottom of their national league face relegation - being sent down an entire league level.  In the NHL, finishing last gives a team a very solid chance of getting some young talent for nothing.  Under the European system, a last place NHL team would be sent down to a lower level, such as the AHL or WHL, to be replaced by the best placed finisher from that lower level.  Advantages:

1. There are no "races for the bottom" like the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1980s when they wanted to draft Mario Lemieux.
2. Conversely, no-one wants to "drop" down a division and make less money from attendance, advertising, television, and marketing.  That makes the last few games of every season ridiculously dramatic, as the failing teams desperately flail about in a mad attempt to save their money, dignity and players.
3. Meanwhile, the best teams in the lower divisions savagely battle it out in bloodthirsty, end of the season duels to try and secure golden tickets to the cash-laden gravy trains that are the higher divisions.

Trade Deadlines

Trades as the big four north american sports leagues know it don't really exist.  Players are commodities.  They are bought and sold, and their values are basically defined by the contracts they have signed.  A team in Paris just recently bought a Brazilian named Neyman Jr. from Barcelona of Spain for an incredible amount of money.  The Spanish (Catalan) team didn't want to sell him, but his contract had a buyout clause and so business was concluded. The details can be found here.
But, like the North American sports leagues, transactions have deadlines.  After the first month of the season, all transfer dealings are closed. During the month of January, though, a transfer window opens, and clubs can once again merrily buy and sell players like chattel.
Finally, because of a Belgian named Jean-Marc Bosman, if a club lets a player's contract lapse, and that player finds himself out of contract, like Bosman, he becomes a completely unrestricted free agent, and can go to whichever club wants him, usually the highest bidder for his wages.

Conclusion

I've been at this all day, and I need to have some closure in my life.  If such it may be called.
I shall endeavour to return when I am forcibly roused from unconsciousness by my medication alarm.
Until then, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Medical Update

Greetings, gentle readers.
First of all, it could be pointed out that this is the second blog post in a single day.  I'll discuss the pharmaceutical conditions later, but the more important thing is that I've actually also taken two showers in the same number of days.  That I still have any energy left is testimony to something.  I'm not sure what, but I'll be certain to blather about it later after... the iPod Nano shower playlist.

Music

• My Daddy is a Vampire, by the Meteors
• Fools, by the Lightning Seeds
• Go for a Ride, by Caesar's Palace
• Forever Again, by Melanie Chisholm
• Sorcerer, by Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham

This list seems to have some sort of thematic reference to role-playing, but what would I know about such things?

Spinal Tap

So here it is - full disclosure at last about my disability, drug use, surgical appointments, and future prospects as a professional baseball pitcher.  Not that anyone asked.
I've got what's known as C7 radiculopathy.  In short, I've got a disc between my C7 and C8 vertebrae that has been pinched, herniated, and has now closed my nerve canal on the left side of my spine at that spot, causing some severe pain and paralysis on my right hand side.  Yes, I know.  Left, right... the human body always does those crazy cross-over things, like the cranial hemispheres.

Drugs Are Our Mates

For the past few months, I've been running through varying doses and prescriptions of all manner of drugs.  The best combination that I've found thus far has been a high dosage of oxycontin mixed with a correspondingly eye-watering dosage of an anti-convulsant called pregabalin.  To me, that sounds like an expectant dwarf, and the side effects would seem to indicate to me that there is some sort of connection.  Never before have I had occasion to use the term gynaecomastia.  I recently tried to switch from the pregabalin to something called gabapentin, which sounds to me like a club of five gossipy women.  That didn't work out so well, so it turns out that I would rather grow breasts than lie in a foetal position, moaning incomprehensibly for hours.

Cuts Like a Knife

So I had a consultation with a neurosurgeon, who reviewed the MRI with me in all of its three-dimensional glory.  He approved me for spinal fusion surgery, and within that very week, I was scheduled to have a tube shoved into my thoracic cavity through the front of my neck (just dodging the esophagus).  When Darcy Henton told me of his operation, I thought he was taking the piss.  The spine runs along the dorsal side of the human thorax, not the ventral side.  Why mess about with the lungs and other squishy bits inside the chest cavity?  Anyway, that tube is then supposed to jam a plug between my vertebrae and then fuse the whole assembly such that the nerve is fully insulated from any future pressure.  Apparently, there may be some problems with neck flexibility down the line, but any potential difficulties pale in comparison with the screaming agony or drug-induced doziness that present themselves as the only two other alternatives.

In Conclusion

I've been conscious and semi-productive for far too long today.  I even tried to do some dishes.  It's time to lie down again.  Combine my exhaustion with my disappointment that Liverpool lost the final of the Audi Cup in a penalty shootout yesterday, and you've got a sleepy little camper who needs to rest up for the Athletic Bilbao match on Saturday.  I'll try to summarize the LFC preseason at some point before the kick-off against Watford at Vicarage Road, but certainly not now.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

July is Gone Already?

Greetings, gentle readers.
Now that my surgery is upcoming, the past few days have been filled with paperwork, ensuring that there is insurance, that disabilities and recoveries are covered, and that all of the people who want post-dated cheques get them, along with a reminder that in Canada, we use the spelling of "cheques" with the "qu", not the "ck" of the unwashed masses south of the border.
Have also discovered that rather ordinary things like my sleeping position can greatly affect how I feel the next day.  That, and switching anti-convulsant medications was a bad idea.  After getting into a good rhythm with my pain meds and anti-convulsant, switching the medication basically dropped me back to square one, with the twitching, and the sweating, and the hey hey hey.
That being said, I barely made it through my last shower and, having done so, became a worthless, semi-comatose invalid for the rest of the day.  Here's what I heard over the course of that shower:

Music

• Sleep in Late, by Big Sugar
• Time After Time, by Cyndi Lauper, performed by Eva Cassidy
• Take Me Home, by Melanie Chisholm
• Digging for Words, by Juluka
• Big Shot, by the English Beat

The Eva Cassidy song (like most of her songs) seems a bit haunting considering her early death from a metastasized melanoma in 1996.  That reminder of the shortness of our existence seems to draw some sort of theme of the temporal around this entry.  It also seems poignant that Cyndi Lauper, eternally remembered for girls just wanting to have fun, penned this haunting song about two separated individuals who cannot see the future for one another.

Veterans

I find it interesting that it so much easier to donate to charities if you're in the UK.  For example, to donate toward the establishment of a Behavioural Health Division of the U.S. Armed Forces, you need to go through the rigamarole of using a credit card or PayPal to give them money and go to this site to complete all of the forms and paperwork:  https://secure.squarespace.com/commerce/donate?donatePageId=57ffe275be6594d853ccfe64
The other thing one could do would be to elect government representatives (like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)) that are committed to helping veterans, treating PTSD, and working towards establishing military processes to minimize the emotional impact of waging awful war against people who would prefer if you bombed someone else.  Or continue to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or any other hypocrite committed to militarily-enforced regime change.
Meanwhile, in the UK, if one wanted to help wounded and damaged veterans debilitated during their service in the middle east, one simply needs to send "HERO29 £3" to 70070 on one's mobile phone to add three pounds to one's monthly mobile bill.  The complicated donation stuff is still there at https://www.ssafa.org.uk/give,  but surely the best way to garner donations for a charity is through the least tortuous path.  If it's simple, surely people would be more inclined towards it.
Actually, now I'm curious about the mechanics of the mobility networks and the ability to do those sort of text "SOMETHING" to XXXXX sorts of transactions.  I'll do some investigations.
But that's it for me for the nonce.
Good night England, and the colonies.
—mARKUS