Tag Archives: Fear

Fear & Bravado

Surgery Turban
Yet another hospital selfie

You sign the forms because you have to. If you don’t, the surgery doesn’t happen and your weakness and pain never go away. You gulp and sign your name saying, “sure, I’m aware that the things you plan to do to me are inherently risky and could all go terribly wrong”.

Then they inform you, quite specifically, of all those things that could go wrong- infection, brain damage, death – and that you’re not to sue them if they do. Of course you’d be brain-damaged or dead, so it would be your heirs doing the suing (hey that rhymed, I’m keeping it in!). Nevertheless, it is you that must sign.

So you do what they say and wait. There have been no fluids or solids since before midnight, there is no jewelry on your person, and you’ve shown up on time – 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning. You’ve resigned yourself to the risk and you’re plunging ahead, even though your spouse can’t stand the stress of waiting with you and dropped you off in the parking lot and sped away. You wait alone.

Intellectually you know that this is no big deal, they perform thousands of these procedures and they’re good at it. But you take comfort in your indulgences from the day before, because, hey, who knows, you may not be walking out of here alive. Continue reading Fear & Bravado

Weird Design

Predator 2

Remember this guy? This is Predator, star of the 1987 movie named, aptly enough, Predator. It was a bit of a cult hit, and spawned two sequels, two spinoffs,  and another film currently in the works.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse “The Body” Ventura head up a team of mercenary badasses hired by the CIA to head into a steamy jungle to snuff out some bad guys. They hunt and kill the bad guys, only to find they are being hunted themselves. By this weird Predator thing that can turn itself invisible and likes to hunt and kill humans for sport.

There’s only one Predator against six heavily armed, Special Forces-trained killers. But soon the commandos are hunkered down, scared out of their wits, and getting picked off one-by-one to their gruesome, gory deaths. Finally it all comes down to Arnold and Predator, and well, you can’t have a movie franchise if you kill off the star, so Arnold finds a way to kill Predator and save himself.

Predator Commandos Continue reading Weird Design