Wednesday, January 31, 2007

msb-0108 1st Anniversary Show

msb-0108 1st Anniversary Show

Yup, I started doing this podcast Feb 2nd, 2006.

This show is to celebrate the first anniversary of MSBPodcast.

I have seen my future, and its on a podcast.

But its not just my future.

Its about the people I've met through email, through blogs, through Skype.

People like Miss Chris and MDMHvonPA and Friday's Child and ... and ...

Its about those of you who wrote comments and emails.

Its about people like Allison Reynolds with whom recorded my first interview.

Its about some of the musicians and some other podcasters, who, maybe not believing in me but believing in the power of hope and positive thinking, have "all' helped me grow as a person; helped me get over my anger at my disability, find a focus to my life and get back to living it again.

To all of you, I sincerely say: "Thank you".

----

"Feedback" Comes first, so...

I'd got a comment on my msb-0107 post on the multiple sclerosis blog before I'd even finished uploading the audio. That was surprising, but fun.

And I have to apologize to all the Australians out there.

I got it wrong.

(It takes a big man to admit he's wrong... I'm only 5'8" [1.74m] . Prtrtrtrtd! :-P)

Its "Vegemite" not "Marmite."

(That's the glop that the "British" feed to their kids.

The only reason their kids eat it is, apart from a bloody-minded death-wish, because its got enough salt in it to remind you of Lot's wife, while raising their blood pressures to where they have to breathe helium or risk the bends.

And all of this, while tasting like the northern-end of a south-bound dog. ["Mais, c't à taper au cul d'un chien, bon Dieux!"])

Regardless, they're "both" definitely acquired tastes, which my Gallic palate will "never" acquire.

Still, one must be fair...

I am getting a "lot" of interest from the "Land Down Under" from the interview with "Allison Reynolds."

But, I have got to report that iTunes is definitely under-represented for my downloads.

They're mostly off of web browsers.

---- The New Year Love = Action http://www.myspace.com/loveisaction

"Feed Forward" comes next so...

I'm still reading "The Elusive Obvious" by "Moshe Feldenkrais" ISBN: 0-916990-09-5.

It includes an illustration about a simple floor exercise that I'm still trying to master. (Heck! That I'm still trying to get through. :-)

It looks deceptively simple but I suspect that its actually exercising all of my muscles.

Its not just the exercise, its the coordination required to execute the transitions soothly.

Man, its surprising how I still have most of the muscles but I haven't used them in such a coordinated fashion in years.

Getting to "smooth" is "hard"!

---

My wife was asking about a Yoga move, as she just was not "getting it" at all.

So I demonstrated the move.

"Big friggin' mistake!"

No, I didn't fall over or anything, but I proceeded to pull on my ham-strings way more than I wanted to.

I really "felt the burn" after being basically chair-bound (a polite way of saying I sit on my ass way-y too much) or after merely walking around for the past ten or twelve years.

Holy "crap," that smarted...

I thought somebody had strung a piano with my calf muscles.

I'll never do "that" again without warming up first, that's for damn sure.

---- Year of Glad Maximum Angel http://www.maximumangel.com/

"Feed Me!" comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

---- The Year thefro no UIRL

Main topic: "The Importance of Knowing What the Doctor Is Talking About"

The New York Times had an article ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/health/30brody.html ) on "The Importance of Being Ernest." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest )

I'm not a stupid man.

I'm not an ignorant man.

But half-an-hour with a doctor, and my ears feel life they want to bleed, copiously, and my brain is trying to make an end run out my ass-hole to escape.

Its the unrelenting verbiage.

I know, and I can appreciate, that they're trying to be precise, but its as exhausting as being a "Stranger in a Strange Land" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land ) having to pay vital attention to sounds you aren't used to, in order to "grok" them later; if only your lesion befuddled brain could just remember them.

(I'd feel more for foreign nationals trying to live here, but I'm French and I had to learn English in high-school, at arm's length, where the fists are! ["Oh, the humanity!"]. Let 'em go through what I went through.)

Its unfortunate but my doctors, in fact most doctors I've ever encountered, don't pull, or maybe they don't even know, the beginning teacher's trick of asking you to "repeat something in your own words," to make sure that you heard and maybe, even, understood.

I suspect that they would be horrified with the results. (Maybe they'd be terrified of the sheer number of impending law suits. Well, if only they weren't able to just "bury their mistakes" that is...)

Doctors as communicators?

Definitely "not!"

---- this is the year.mp3 Hilary Grist http://www.hilarygrist.com/

Main topic, part deux:

I had barely finished my upload of msb-0107, when the latest issue of "Inside MS" showed up at my door.

In it, on page 44, is an article on "Stem Cells and MS".

Just what I was on about in the "remyelination" part of my piece on "The Elephant in the Room."

How "dead-on" is that for timing?

Something in it really caught my eye: "Prospects for 'endogenous' stem cells." (See the previous section for my views concerning the use of "endogenous" [If they mean "Originating or produced within an organism, tissue, or cell." they should be able to "simply say so". The search for, and use of a "mot-juste" is often not as effective as the right "tour-de-phrase".{ That's the difference between "Shakespeare," who made up words that "sounded right", and "baffle-gabble" which makes up words that sound like "bull-shit!" (If you've got to think about it, it slows down the rhythm and it "stops" being a conversation.)}] :-)

In the article, they said that they are studying stem cells for exactly what I said they should be studying them for: remyelination.

"Scary, isn't it?"

(Maybe they'll twig onto the fact that we want them to start a trial for inhalable forms of their therapies because we "hate" their friggin' needles, [poking holes into your integumen's a mistake to start with! {There's a reason why we try to avoid it and it the same as the medicos. (Pain "hurts!" Putting holes in your skin is definitely something to be "avoided!")}])

I'm not going to quote the article, you should be subscribed to "Inside MS" yourselves. (If not, why not? Go to http://NationalMSSociety.org/ and join up. And pick up a copy of the article too. :-)

---- Gladiator Soundtrack SPIRIT PSI-KO Spirit http://www.betarecords.com/psi-ko

Well... Here's to another year, or two, or ten, or ...

"Tata" I'm off to Tai-Chi.

Outro

8 comments:

Homer said...

Hello Charles!

I really liked your blog. I'm a computer engineer my self.
I Homer and I'm from Greece. I have MS. For the last ten(!) yeras. Almostt symptom free now...

No drugs for the last 9 months...
I think that:
"Doctors pour medicines of which they know little, to patients of whom they know less"
Bernard Show

I have been following the alternative way and I'm amzed of the result.

Visit my blog here:
http://www.mysclerosismultiple.blogspot.com
or my new website.

PS: I loved your statistics area. I thought it was for free but then I realised it costs you some money...

See ya!
homer

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Hello Homer,

I was wondering about who would be trying to reach me from Greece. (Who else but a fellow MSer? :-)

Kalimera!

I like the quote, but its actually by Voltaire. (I am one of Voltaire's Bastards. A skeptic and a cynic combined. :-)

I'm a firm believer in trying to avoid medicines, unless unavoidably necessary.

I'm on your blog page right now. (Ahh, the wonders of Firefox. :-)

The statistics on the blog page and on the podcast page are for free.

I've got one or two upcoming upcoming podcast episode(s?) that touch in this.)

I should run an old episode that explains that you don't need an iPod to listen to my show.

Anonymous said...

Charles that was a really quick answer!

Listen!
I didn't get you on the statistics.
You have been given this service for free where?
I visited http://www.neoworx.net/blue/index.php?querystring=37481*85.74.57.57*0a15eb8a68fb0e703313e7ce1e8e54d4
but it's not for free.
Please inform. I want to use thissss
Do you agree on exchanging links?
Ohg and "kalimera"!
Do you know "kalinyxta" as well? (means goodnight)

Thanks a lot MS comrade!
Homer

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Hello Homer,

There's a free version and a paying version.

Look at the bottom of the page at:
http://www.neoworx.net/blue/neocounter_page.php?language=

It says:

FREE or PREMIUM version?
Register now and start using NeoCounter Premium immediately. After a 14-day trial period you can either keep the free version or upgrade to NeoCounter Premium It's that simple!


(My emphasis in bold)

I'll probably get the paid version.

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Strike that...

I already got a two year subscription. :-)

mdmhvonpa said...

CONGRATULATIONS ... keep on rolling!

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Yo MDMH, thanks,

but what am I being congratulated for?

Homer said...

Thank you so much...

http://www.mysclerosismultiple.blogspot.com