Science fact and science fiction. Those are today's two topics.

Fact: time, Einstein said, is relative. You can spend a few years with things happening pretty much in the same way they always have. Then life speeds up. Things happen. Life-defining events. Here are the facts...

I had the snip (I really should self-edit this blog because I seem to have no shame!) and I had my first test. It was a success: zero sperm count. There's a second test to come next week, and I am pretty confident that it will scientifically show that I will be unable to father kids for the rest of my life. Which was, if you think about it, why I had the operation in the first place.

Beth's stiffness and general body pain has been scientifically diagnosed as Ankylosing Spondylitis. The body's defence mechanism feels like a displaced soldier, fighting a war that ended years ago. Maybe it was a germ, maybe it was an allergy to pollen, maybe it was something eaten. Whatever the reason, the body ends up producing too much TNF and it has nothing viable to fight. So it attacks the body that produced it. This leads to inflammation of the joints and whole body pain. There's a drug that was released less than two years ago that seems to work wonders in 60% of cases: Enbrel. Beth has to inject herself once a week and she feels 100% better. She has more range of motion in her neck, she has more energy, she can bend down to pick things up again and she's eating more. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this will be the stuff that gives her more pain-free days.

In other factual news... we're finally lighting the fire under our home building. We downloaded a few floorplans for houses that we liked and tweaked them to make a coherent dream house blueprint. We met with our builder and he was impressed. Most people just turn up with a general idea that they want to build a house, but with no ideas regarding cost or design elements. It turns out that we did half the work! Hopefully, we'll be in our house for Christmas.

Fiction: I've been a fan of science fiction since I was a kid. I remember reading sci-fi short stories when I was five, I was fascinated with Star Wars trading cards when I was seven and eight. I devoured Douglas Adams and the Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The Galaxy on radio and in printed form when I was ten and eleven. It all finally comes full circle over the next four weeks with the cinematic releases of "Hitch-Hikers' Guide" and the final episode of the Star Wars saga "Revenge Of The Sith". I already have my ticket for Star Wars. Midnight showing, day of release. I mean, come ON. I've waited since 1977 to see the thing wrapped up.

Listen : Finding Out True Love Is Blind - Louis XIV ... Don't Panic - Coldplay ... Cantina Band - Ash ... Banquet - Bloc Party.

Just been thinking about that whole Terri Schiavo thing, where a US President that shall remain nameless said he cautioned on the side of life (as a baby died in a Texas hospital because a law he passed cautioned on the side of profits). How Tom DeLay cried like a kid with a burst balloon about "activist" judges as activist "Christians" planned to murder / trespassed on private property / threatened the family on the side of legally proven right, by 'phone, over the issue. The fact that DeLay is under investigation for gross criminal misgivings has nothing to do with it, I'm sure. Just like when petty criminals cry foul over the legal system that caught them in the act has nothing to do with their petty and peurile opinion either.

So here's my wishes. It may not be on paper, but I'm the only person that knows my login to this blog, so it shows it comes from me.

I, Shawn Orlando Seabrook...

love life, especially mine. If I'm in any accident where the possibility exists that I could still communicate in a manner that leaves no room for the interpretation "is he really communicating with us?", even by the most convoluted of artificial means, then I want that to be made available to me so that I can communicate my wishes. Not the wishes of opportunistic politicians, or rich people that make their money by selling religious dogma to the masses. My wishes. If I'm in a compromised physical condition, but still have the chance for mental aptitude in future, then hook me up to anything that keeps me alive long enough to recover from my physical distress.

don't believe, however, in fighting a hopeless fight. If I'm ever in the situation where I will never recover from something that mentally debilitates me, then I don't want to be kept needlessly alive. If two independent medical experts have confirmed that I am not in any cognative state beyond pure reflexes, and will never be anything more than a biological food processor, then let me die. Use any part of my body for medical and scientific purposes after I'm gone. I believe it's just a shell and I won't need it anymore.

trust in my wife if there's any situation that's not clear cut. If I'm not in a position to make a decision, and I didn't cover the bases in the two paragraphs above, she's in control. She's the boss, and what she says is final.

believe in timely resolutions. The maximum time I should be left in a debilitative state, one where I'm artificially kept going, is 36 months from the time of the first life-saving procedure. The only exception to this rule is if I'm in a coma, and all I need is artificial hydration and feeding, and medical experts agree that I could still be mentally active within my coma. In tht case, please refer to the paragraph regarding my wife.

That's it. Dated the 3rd of April, 2005. Me.

Listen : Believe - Chemical Brothers ... Medical Love Song - Monty Python's Flying Circus ... It's My Life - Talk Talk.

In January, we went to see the comedian Mitch Hedberg live (Stephen Lynch too). Read that post here. I warned the world, I really did. I even sent a version of this posting to the local 'paper and they printed it on the Letters page. Today I discovered that Mitch died in a hotel room at the age of 37, and his family acknowledge that he was a heroin addict for some time.

I know: Terri Schiavo (the woman with the feeding tube in Florida) died, the Pope could very well be dead now too. They might just be waiting for the morning in Vatican City so they can announce that he died in his sleep. Neither hit me as hard as the Mitch Hedberg death.

Rest in peace, Mitch. You were truly a wreck on stage when we saw you, but we didn't ask for our money back so you weren't that bad.

Listen : Interstate 5 - The Wedding Present ... Narcotic Influence - Empirion.