The Last Candle

The quiet moments before I start work ever since Fahrenheit 9/11 descended upon this country like a giant, flaming clown has been nothing but political jabber. A show of hands on Monday revealed that I’m the only Republican-leaner in the bunch. I usually put on my headphones whenever the poli-speak cranks up, however, because the commentary is usually terribly slanted with no point, or just plain short-sighted. (Maybe a side-effect politics happening in a side office in a information technology building at 8 AM, which is likely below the water cooler and above the children’s playground for most prolific discussion area.)

Today’s discussion was a result of the news of Saddam being handed over to Iraq to be put on trial. Iraq has legal custody, but the US keeps physical custody. To paraphrase a co-worker on the subject, “That’s like me saying you can have my PlayStation, but I still get to keep it at my house.” Everyone laughed, nodded, and agreed. It’s just that simple. Iraq is being taken for such a ride! He’s just a Playstation!

I did a quick Google to see how many Playstation have been sold since its release in 1995. 100 million says the official report from May 25th, 2004. Number of Saddam Husseins available in the world: one. So, just from a quantitative perspective, holding with Saddam Hussein is not the same as holding onto a Playstation, because there are 99,999,999 more PlayStations than Saddams, and that makes walking down to Target and buying a Saddam64 (comes with Pork Wars!) not much of an option for anybody.

Here’s a more accurate analogy: If I live in a mortar-and-brick house, and you live in a wooden shack (sad, really), you’d be wiser to store your fancy new one-of-a-kind home entertainment system at my place until you build your own brick abode. Keeping it at the shack creates a bigger chance that some other A/V monkey is going to break in and run off with it, and then you’ll never again will either of us watch Independence Day in 11000p and 3D SquishyVision.

The reason for Iraq not getting physical custody quite yet is more likely due to the lack of solidity in the Iraq miliary and justice system, and the US’s excellence and presence in that same aspect. It would great for Iraq to have total custody of Saddam, but having the thought of such a amazingly high-important character guarded by a force that might be inadequate — meaning, increasing a chance of rescue or escape — is a situation to be avoided. The idea of Saddam having friends in the region wanting to spring him is far from possible, it’s probable — just his defense team for the upcoming trial is 1,500 lawyers!

Both sides are doing the smart thing: Iraq is taking personal matters into their own hands by handling the trial, and the US is there to make sure Hussein’s at the stand on time.

Today’s notable event: Getting an EKG! And getting off work early for it!

Last Thursday, I noticed that my heart seemed to be getting a little bit…annoying. See, and the heart is supposed to be autonomous, transparent. It’s not supposed to be thump-thumping like an impatient guest. I was trying to watch Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and it felt like my inner organs were anxious to hop out and watch the show alongside.

Every ten minutes or so the heart would give an extra extra strong beat, and then a slightly less strong beat, and after that be back to its normal, unnoticable rhythm. This continued on through today, where I was starting to get silly and become something of a hypochrondriac. Migod, what’s wrong with my arm?! It tingles! The heart’s going down! I was also suffering a few stomach pains, which in the middle of having the heart being weird as well seems like IMMINENT DEATH. It was remedied by eating an entire 16” Mancino sub. But the heart was still acting up.

So, 3:30 PM, today: Shirt off, laid out on the medical table with that crinkly adhesive that initially looks just like paper, but still sticks to skin like a static-y shirt. The nurse hooked up all these metallic stickers to approximately twenty different parts of my body and attached some anonymous cords, possibly which led to an external power reservoir that used some of the patient’s energy harnessed during operations like this to reduce the hospital’s medical costs. If that was the case, they’d had plenty of suckers before me, since the lights stayed on the entire time.

EKG machine started up. “Bloop beep,” it says, like a Star Wards droid. The nurse lazily mentions the machine says that something’s “too noisy.” Well, it sure wasn’t the smalltalk in the room, since the conversation was about as heavy as a company jammed the Trojan Horse. Turned out that my sleeping iPod, set snugly into my right pocket, was being picked up by the electro-sticky stuck onto my wrist. I think the iPod dreams in its sleep, thinking of counter melodies made up of ones and zeros. Discarding the little mechatyke temporarily curbed the fussiness of the EKG machine, and soon I nurse strode out of my room about sixty beats later with a couple of sheets of evidence that I was indeed a living man, and thus still eligible to be taxed.

Diagnosis? Depending on who was asked, it was either an “inflamed heart,” which kinda sounds like the end of the world to person with said heart, or to the very authoritative, very knowledged doctor who was kind and helpful speaking to me personally: “Absolutely nothing.” The most likely scenario is that my heartbeat lags pumps early once in a while, creating a larger gap between it and the next beat. Extra blood fills the heart chambers, and voila: the heart has to work a little harder a couple times to expell the extra blood.

This conclusion means I can go home and write an enlongated weblog post about it without sounding like an angsty burn victim or an . And my stupid stress over false illnesses will go away. Oh, and lucky for me, the heart’s okay too.

Harry Potter fan page The Leaky Cauldron has confirmation from author Rowling on the title of the next Harry Potter book. I’m not going to spoil it here; go check out The Leaky Cauldron for all the details.

I like those Potter books. So easy to read, fast paced, great detail.

Have you all seen the note passed to President Bush by Condoleezza Rice, noting the transfer of sovereignty during the Istanbul summit? Nifty, eh? A classic line for a historical day.

Lesser known (perhaps to the much harsher language, mind you) is the note passed to John Kerry by “Terry” noting the same union. Crudely indicative, but finely succinct.

Sonata Arctica fans, take note! From the main page of the uber-awesome Finnish power metal troupe: “The 4th studio album is just about finished! The name of the new baby is ‘Reckoning Night.’”

I AM THRILLED. Compounding my joy is my mood of music lately, which has contained quite a bit of Sonata Arctica, due to discovering a newish EP and checking out the songs therein. Good stuff, as always. Tony’s songwriting and the band’s playing has always hit this fantastic cold, blue, bright tone that soars and sings, but keeps a subtle edge, like a clear blade of ice.

The Band has been writing a studio log for quite a while, which has been (thankfully) fairly prolific on progress mentions. Not only that, but Tony seems to get kind of excited sometimes and drops hints and song titles from the upcoming albums. As an example, here’s a big chunk from the update on June 4th:

The track titles are now ready and the baby has a name!
4th studio album of Sonata Arctica is titled “Reckoning Night”.
But, hush, don�t tell anybody just yet…
I can as well drop you some song titles while I�m on it.
“White Pearl, Black Oceans…”, “The Boy Who Wanted to be a Real Puppet” “Ain’t Your Fairytale”, “Wrecking the Sphere” and the summersong ended up as “Blinded No More”. [Guitarist] Jani’s song is called “My Selene”.

…so the album title news isn’t really recent stuff, but the fact that it’s almost done most certainly is good tidings! Some other killer notes from Tony are mentioning that a sequel to the great Silence track The End of This Chapter is on the album, and that Reckoning Night will have a more overall “rock” sound. (“It’s a bit different from ‘Winterheart’s’, that’s for sure.”)

My favorite overall release of these good ole’ Finnish boys was their first, Ecliptica. Silence and Winterheart’s Guild are kind of half and half — half decent stuff and half awesome stuff — although my two big Sonata favorites, Wolf & Raven and Victoria’s Secret, are from the two most recent cuts. I’m excited to see what awaits on the new album. Release date, please?