@Richard & All

[rolliebollocks]

This is Jen (dave's girlfriend) Dave is in the hospital right now, he's going to be ok, and says not to worry!

[jevans4949]

Please send him our best wishes!

[Richard]

Thanks Jen for the explanation of Dave's absence and the good news.
Good luck Dave, I think it is the hospital that we should now be concerned for.

[dodicat]

This is Jen (dave's girlfriend) Dave is in the hospital right now, he's going to be ok, and says not to worry!

Hi Jen
A get well soon from us all.
Dodicat was at the Quack last week, with a sore left knee.
He was told that it was old age!
Imagine that?
Dodicat , in a rage, swore, and told him that this could not be, for his right knee, was not sore, and it was the same age.

[roook_ph]

Who's Dave?
I wish him well too

[vdecampo]

Get Well Soon!

-Vince

[Richard]

Who's Dave? = rolliebollocks. Poet, pedagogue and one day maybe Professor Tolkacz.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Oh c'mon Dave. A programmer with a girlfriend. You will have to think something better than that.

[Kot]

He was told that it was old age!
Imagine that?

That's favourite game for doctors - they say "it was because of old age" and they have fun watching you sulking "me!? old age?!". I had the same with some of my doctors ;)

[dodicat]

This is Jen (dave's girlfriend) Dave is in the hospital right now, he's going to be ok, and says not to worry!

Hi again Jen
I hope Dave is keeping better, and he'll be getting home soon.
I was going to write a little freebasic doodle for him, but I suppose he will have limited access to a box.
Instead I have decided to write him a little tale.

Dodicat himself was hospitalized in 1969.
He went to his Doctor one day, and opon the Doctor asking him how long had he been gambling, Dodicat's reply was "For as long as horses and dogs could run",
And this was the wrong answer, for he was sent up to a hospital in Lunkarty, near Dundee on a re-habilitation course.
These days were the Swinging Sixties, radical new treatments were abound, it was the age of enlightenment in the treatment of obsessive behavior disorders.

In fact the Lunkarty unit tried a different treatment every month, I suppose they were working on the assumption that they would eventually get it right.
Dodicat struck lucky, for no sooner had he arrived at the unit, when the Matron came striding into the ward ----- And she told us all that this month's treatment was a fortnight in Las Vegas.

The very next morning we were on board a jetplane, leaving the Old World, for the New, a dozen or so of us, gamblers from all over Broad Scotland and we sang "Hey, we're going to Las Vegas". nearly all the way across the pond.
I have since dedicated the song "Thank you for the days" to the Lunkarty unit, for we had a magnificant fortnight in that desert town, they gave us dollars and told us to spend as much as we wanted, they simply advised us to keep some back for Wine, Women and Song, but the rest we could squander.

My story begins here, my last half hour in Las Vegas in 1969.

I was standing outside the Golden Nugget hotel, waiting for the airport Taxi, with half an hour to spare.
I decided to kill time, I would take a walk down the little boulevard behind the hotel, we had all spent the entire fortnight downtown in the main drag, with didn't explore the narrow avenues and alleyways near the hotel.
There wasn't much to see in the boulevard, but across and down a bit I noticed a small premises with a cardboard sign in the window.
On closer inspection I read the words

"Ask me a question, I'll tell you the answer.
I Am Mr. Memory Man
Come on in"

So, in my mind I prepared a real stinker of a question, America in those days wasn't really in to European Football (Soccer), so my question would be about soccer.
In I went and there he was, Mr. Memory man.
I asked him who won the Semi-finals of the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1909.
He looked me straight in the eye, and in the space of a heartbeat he quietly said "Winterthur"
Well, of course, he was correct, I put a couple of dollars in his donation box, went back out into the small boulevard and back up to the Golden nugget for the taxi, and thought nothing more about it for Forty Years.

Last year, 2009, Dodicat decided to have a holiday, and he struck on the idea of going back to Vegas.
He did so, and had a Magnificent fortnight.
The town had changed of course, the one armed bandits were superceded with electronic devices, and all was a bit glitzier, but the roulette wheels still spun at the same rate, Blackjack has always been, and the Knave of Spades and the Nine of Diamonds never change.
On the last half hour of his holiday, dejavu like, Dodicat found himself standing, again, outside the Golden Nugget Hotel, waiting for the Airport taxi, with half an hour to kill.
He decided to wander back down the small boulevard behind the hotel, as he had done Forty years previously, to see if Mr. Memory man was perhaps still in business.
Where his premises stood, now stood, a large shop, with a Huge Neon display outside above the entrance, An Indian Chief fully feathered and brightly coloured in Neon strips and the words written on the Neon sign:

"Ask me a question, I'll tell you the answer
I Am Mr. Memory man
Native Indian
Come on in"

Dodicat could see that business must have been good over the years, but on his previous visit he hadn't realised that Mr. Memory Man was in fact a native Indian.
Dodicat went in.
On the walls were tapestries and paintings depicting Cheyenne, Sioux, Apache and many more tribes, Chiefs, and Braves and Squaws of oustanding beauty.
There were native artifacts everywhere, Totem poles, tomahawks, wigwams and all sorts.
A huge ornate spiral staircase wound its way up into the top reaches of the shop.
It was opon this staircase that Dodicat saw, again, Mr. Memory man, gracefully descending in full Feather of a Cheyenne Chief's garb.
Dodicat was a bit awe struck, and didn't know much about Indians, only through John Wayne and Bonanza, But he did rember the proper way to greet an Indian.
As Mr. Memory Man approached, Dodicat held up his right hand and said "How"
Mr. Memory Man looked him straight in the eye, and in the space of a heartbeat quietly said " A penalty in the second half".

[rdc]

Wishing you well Dave. Get back soon!

[voodooattack]

Please send him my best wishes for a swift recovery. *switches back to lurking mode*

[squall4226]

Well, good luck and best wishes. That rollie is a smart one and his presence will be missed even if it is only for a short time.

~Blyss

Also LOL @ Lachie's comment about programmers and girlfriends.

[srvaldez]

good tale dodicat lol

[rolliebollocks]

Thank you all for the well wishes. Being crazy has its upside. I wrote a whole book while in the hospital, and in fact, this will be my third hospital born book, and while depressing is also satisfying.

They finally stopped trying feed me Risperdal and now that my meds are correct, (I had an exceptional clinician), I don't have to worry my gift being robbed from me so that I can remain stable.

This in fact, though annoying to be confined, should prevent future hospitalizations.

The counting argument even applies to my enemies, the awful psychiatrists.

@Dodicat

Great story, and thanks.

@Richard

Thanks. I hope I get that opportunity.

~~~

Here's a poem I wrote, one of about thirty I crafted while there.

http://baseinfinity.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... #%$@.html