The Bear Minimum

I’ve long been awaiting Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the Wii, and a review was posted today for it on IGN, a particularly good review.

A perfect 10 in fact, from my favourite gaming information site, IGN. Now, earlier today when I clicked on that blessed review link for the brand new Super Mario Galaxy 2, I had to skip down the page to where the actual score was listed. To my astonishment there was a perfect 10 sitting there, awaiting the opportunity to bask in the glow of appreciation from gamers the world over.

A perfect 10, the ‘Masterful’ score, has been awarded only twenty-four times in IGN’s illustrious history. Twenty-four times out of around nine-thousand-and-twenty-five or so games reviewed. That’s .2% of overall games reviewed. Ever. At first I was somewhat sceptical, thinking that surely this wasn’t the case, that not every aspect of the game could be reviewed at 10 points, but I do believe that that’s exactly what they’ve done! I’m terribly excited that a game I was highly anticipating has gotten such an admirable score. I’ve not yet watched the review, but I’m going to right now, then I shall report back.

Okay, I’ve watched the review. The game looks amazing, bright and fun in the same style as last time. Mario gets a few new suits which look like a lot of fun to try, and finally we’ve got Yoshi back! He’s got a few powers of his own in this game, and it really does look like a vast amount of fun. Apparently the game is larger over all, and there’s a heck of a lot on offer in terms of collecting and unlocking things. The story-line is bare-bones as usual, but it’s nice to see Princess Peach back.

There have been few titles on the Wii that I’ve found to be enjoyable to the same degree as I found Super Mario Galaxy, so I’m looking forward to cranking up my rather unused Wii to have fun with another Mario game.

I love seeing those who deserve it getting their comeuppance!

Earlier this year my car was broken into. I was at work, and had parked in the parking complex as normal, and during the day someone busted the lock on my car and broke in.

Luckily for me, I don’t keep anything valuable in my car. I actually like maps, so have no need for a GPS in there. I take my laptop into my office as I need it each day, and the same can be said of my mobile phone which goes to the office with me also.

So, the fellow who so boldly risked his freedom to break into my nice car in the end got absolutely nothing out of it. The most expensive item in the car that was actually removable would have been the spare tire in the boot.

I was irritated that I had to go and have the lock repaired, but amused that the fellow got nothing for his troubles. The parking complex I leave my car in has, like so many others in this country, CCTV monitoring systems. This means that on the day my car was broken into, footage was taken of the fellow who did it, and thanks to that footage, he was picked up the next day by the local police.

For some unknown reason, he entered a not-guilty plea when the case went to court last week. He was of course found guilty - there was clear CCTV footage of his face as he broke into my car - and will be sentenced next month.

Ahh, it’s delightful when you see the ‘bad guys’ caught and prosecuted for what they’ve done, and even more delightful when they’re found guilty!

I’m not a soft-touch when it comes to criminal activity, and often I feel that sentences could be a little stronger, so it will be interesting to see what the result of his sentencing hearing will be next month.

It’s been so very good to write again.

Since I finished my doctorate at University, I’ve not done a heck of a lot of writing. I’ve spent most of my professional time with patients, and haven’t really done much in the way of papers and such. My leisure time has been filled with activities with my wife, with reading and gaming, and with an assortment of other things, but not a lot of writing.

Since starting this blog - even with my intermittent neglect of the poor thing - I’ve found my love of writing refreshed and reinvigorated! I’ve so enjoyed the luxury of writing about any topic which takes my fancy, even just that writing takes my fancy!

There’s such liberty in blog writing. I do wonder how significant the position of the newspaper columnist is now that blogging has reached the wider populace. There seems to be, to me, an overlap here. You’re a columnist if you’re post goes in a paper, but if you publish that same piece online you’re a blogger. It’s interesting to me that the traditional roles of journalists are now… challenged by the freedom of information online and with the growing ability and desire to seek that information out from sources other than the news outlets we’re familiar with.

Blogging also offers greater insight into the wider opinion and knowledge base of an area. If you find ten blogs from British people, you’ll most likely find that some of them have written about the current election going on and from that you could extrapolate what they think about which candidate and so on. Now, that’s a very small group to choose from but you can still gain a good idea of what these respective people - and therefore, quite possibly, the social groups they’re a part of - are thinking.

From the perspective of a blogger, the anonymity is also enjoyable. Sure you know a few things about me, but what you do know is actually very little, really, and that allows me to feel safe to blog about what I blog about. Of course, I never blog about a patient without discussing it with them, first.

A post to talk about the dangers for practising psychologists.

As a practising psychologist, you’re asked to take on clients and then help them with whatever issue is troubling them or disrupting their everyday lives. In most cases you’re able to help your client come to a much better place in life. Sometimes, however, you can’t. On those rare occasions where a person is past my ability to help them, where they may require medication - as a psychologist I don’t medicate people, psychiatrists do that - or even hospitalisation.

If one can’t help a patient, occasionally families will blame the psychologist, even patients may do this on occasion. That’s where we can run into dangers. Remember those ambulance chasing solicitors who are famous for pushing people into ridiculous civil law suits? Well, at some point in the previous decade those same ambulance chasers set their eyes on the mentally ill, and it’s certainly not difficult to convince an unsatisfied mentally ill patient that it’s my fault they’ve not recovered yet.

They set themselves up as ‘no win no fee solicitors’ and make a habit of going after the vulnerable. I’m not saying all these lawyers are bad people, or that they don’t believe what they’re doing is right, but there are those who are on the nefarious side, and who are taking advantage of people, and those people have my ire!

There are other dangers faced by psychologists, also. Occasionally patients can become overly attached, which is usually quite easy to deal with in the office, but if a patient somehow finds out where you live? Well then things can get quite awkward.

Those are the most major of outward dangers. Inwardly a psychologist can beat himself up for not being able to help people, or, after a particularly emotional session with a patient, a psychologist can feel worn and sad and a plethora of other emotions. It is a rewarding profession, but it’s not without some down sides.

Oh I do like a little bit of pun humour, there.

Last Summer I was treating an older lady who had a rather unusual phobia. Technically she suffered from a sub-set of entomophobia, but more specifically, she was afraid of caterpillars. I’ll set the scene for you.

She was an avid gardener, and had been since her retirement. She was 60 when she retired, and 67 when she came to me for assistance with this phobia. She told me that around the age of 65 she had had a shock one morning when she’d been pruning her rose bush and have overturned a leaf to find a caterpillar looking up at her. That’s her description, not mine, though I do find the anthropomorphisation of animals quite enjoyable.

She said that seeing that green caterpillar in her hand for some reason quite disturbed her, and she’d had a very hard time since then being comfortable in her garden. This was all very understandable and we had a very productive few months of sessions where we managed to completely cure her of her phobia. It was delightful to work with a woman of her years and wit, she was very funny and very easy-going about talking about the problem, and very enthusiastic about resolving the issue.

As I type this, dear reader, it’s been quite some time since she and I have had any sessions, but as this is the first sign of the good gardening season she’s been in touch to let me know how she’s finding being in the garden again. She says she’s doing very well and she popped in my office to give me a nice bunch of early flowers from her garden.

It’s such a satisfying feeling, helping people with these sorts of problems. Seeing someone come in distressed and upset and seeing them leave happy and confident. For now I must bid you adieu, dear reader, for I’m expecting a patient soon.

I’d like to share another post based on my fondness for the natural world.

Today, for instance, I found an article on the National Geographic website, which, by the way dear reader, I recommend highly to everyone. The website, that is. Anyway, on this particular day I noticed a small article on Fireflies. These intriguing little insects, which are actually winged beetles, are known for their delightful ability to glow.

There’s not all that many creatures in the natural world which glow, so it’s a pretty special little group of insects (well, around 2,000 species, really) that we’re looking at here, dear reader. Basically, fireflies have a special organ, located under their abdomens, which they take oxygen into, and combine it in special cells with a chemical in there called luciferin, and the combination of which forms light with almost no radiant heat.

These little critters also manage to turn the light on and off, and each subspecies has their own type of blinking pattern, and large groups of fireflies have on occasion been known to blink in unison.

Scientists don’t yet know how or why fireflies blink, or how they can blink in unison, and that, to my mind dear reader, adds to their beauty. That mystery, so quiet and simple, in such an unassuming little bug. A bug that only tends to live for about two months, yet one that produces such displays as to enchant many world wide.

I do appreciate that about the animal kingdom, that there lives are often quite brief, and yet there’s often such stunning displays that coincide with those short lies. Take the butterfly for instance. A creature which has a life span of about 48 hours, and yet is the source of great admiration world wide!

I think I’m going to go and sit and watch my local wild life this evening, dear reader, and I hope you do too! Perhaps I’ll leave some food out for the local foxes and badgers, as well.

From the mouth of the volcano responsible for that horribly ash cloud an amazing lightning show formed last week.

I visit the National Geographic news site quite often. It’s far more entertaining than regular news, and has the added bonus of increasing my wonder at the natural world.

Recently a series of photos went up of a volcanic lightening storm caused by the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano in Iceland which has been disrupting everyone’s travel plans. A volcanic lightning storm is very similar to a regular one, with the same elements present to cause the charges. Scientists aren’t 100% sure how the long sparks, as lighting from volcano are known, form, though there is speculation that it involves the silica found in magma.

Not only was there an incredible light show, there would have been sound, too. “For instance, small sparks of about 30 feet (9 meters) to about 300 yards (91 meters) make sounds like rifle shots, while the miles-long bolts produce the deep, familiar rumbling we associate with thunderstorms.”

The lighting bolts when coming from volcanoes can travel in any direction, up, down, or out to the sides, and will continue streaking out in that direction until they meet an area of oppositional charge. Apparently scientists are installing lightning detection equipment on Eyjafjallajökull to try to gather more about this relatively newly known - only discovered last year - form of lightning.

Of course, the lightning forming in the ash cloud causes there to be glassy sand particles which are quite irritating to breathe in, especially for asthmatics or emphysema sufferers.

I’ll leave you now, dear reader, with some of my favourite images from the series posted on National Geographic’s story on the phenomena.

Ahh, is the world truly not amazing?

I certainly do! Here’s how I like my mornings to go…

First off, I like to ensure I’ve gotten enough sleep to be fully functional. If you’re sleep deprived, you’re actually as uncoordinated and generally effected by said state that you’re in a similar state to that of being over the legal drinking and driving limit. That shows how important it is to be well rested; especially when your job is to help people with their problems. You have to listen very attentively and help them find solutions. Rewarding, yet exhausting work!

So, after a good sleep, the first thing I do when I’m out of bed is have a very long, very hot shower. This is an enormous part of my morning. It wakes me up, and I’ve time to think about the day or alternatively not think about the day ahead and perhaps think about something my wife and I have planned for the coming weekend.

Next up, eating a healthy breakfast in my bathrobe with a very lovely cup of freshly brewed coffee whist chatting to my wife. At the moment I’m enjoying fruit and toast for breakfast, though it changes quite regularly. The coffee is a non-changing aspect to my mornings, however, though I do change which blends and so on. But there is always, always, a large hot cup of coffee. My wife knows the exact way I like it and always makes me a cup each morning for breakfast.

After that I dress and gather up any paperwork I’ve brought home, and drive to work. Whilst this may not appeal to everyone - which I do understand - having a set routine to follow in the mornings is highly beneficial for me. It takes me a while to fully wake up, so my shower and coffee really help with that. I wonder if you gained something from that insight into my life…

It’s a horrid transition, one that I really am not in favour of making!

I didn’t realise it’d been such a hefty download month. Rent a few movies off of iTunes and you’d be surprised how fast you’ll go through those downloads. Especially if you also decided you’re in the mood to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Nearly 9G just for those three films. That’s what I get for being lazy and not going and buying the Blu-Ray version in town. It’s interesting, though, seeing how much you’ve downloaded. I think when you’re on the highest speed connection short of fibre optics, which broadband is, that you’re unaware how much you’ll be downloading because it goes so fast. I’ve also been enjoying listening to Loreena McKinnett on YouTube lately, but no broadband means no YouTube, nor purchasing it off iTunes. I have one of her albums on there, but there are songs I like from other albums on YouTube and I just hadn’t gotten around to getting those yet.

I do have mobile broadband, also, but I don’t really use it. I’ve got an iPhone, and I fear that I’m letting everyone down with how few apps I have on it. I thought about a Blackberry, but decided I liked the sleekness of the iPhone, plus I didn’t really need business and office telephone systems, just one good reliable phone which I can be contacted on at all times in case of emergencies. My office, however has the Panasonic digital cordless phones system with a fax machine and so on, but I believe those were supplied to us by BT at some point.

At least with the billing cycle I’m on I only have to wait until the 15th to get regular service back… Only until the 15th

I’m honestly still uncertain as to whether I’d be an organ donor or not.

It’s an issue that most of us will become aware of at some point in our lives, perhaps as we’re renewing our licenses one year or a friend tells us they need a kidney or something less dramatic. The point is, we’re all aware that there is a great need for organ donors, and that the greater portion of Brits don’t want to donate.

I can fully understand why, too. When I think of my heart going into the body of another human being, after I’m dead, I feel as if it would be wrong. Wrong to be cut up after death, wrong to allow pieces of me to be scattered into other people, and… in some ineffable way, just plain wrong. I also feel that at the thought of my precious wife donating. The thought of her heart going into another person makes me feel that same level of wrongness.

And yet as a rational person I can see the great need for organ donation. I can see that there are so many people suffering or dying because they’re heart or lungs or kidneys don’t work anymore, and that if more Brits put themselves down on the registry then this would be a much diminished issue.

I think I’m not alone in feeling this way, either. Why else would the greater portion of the population refuse to donate? But are we being overly emotional about this? Are we denying other people’s health unnecessarily? I know we have every right not to donate, that our bodies are our own even past death, but I just wonder if perhaps we should be taught to be less sentimental about this issue. In any event, I’m still not ready to join the donor registry, and it is what it is.