Low hemoglobin and iron count most likely from post-op bleeding and long-term healing, which explains the fatigue. GP also put me on statins for cholesterol again to get that down, and we'll need to take fasting bloods in the new year to test again.

And that's the way it is, this is your host Walter Crapsack saying goodnight.

You do know the election's less than two weeks away, right? Have you also forgotten what Shit Tony Stark did to make the artists flee to Bluesky? Not just the AI-scraping, but also making mass-harrassment socially acceptable with the block nerf, removing all barriers to actually doing it? So why the hell wouldn't the FA staff want to cover everyone's asses in case the result suddenly makes the site the biggest troll bait there is? You don't think 'validation' of the worst online behaviour would immediately make it spread to here? For God's sake people, we don't exist in a bubble and what you or I happen to think isn't going to matter a toss.

First full uninterrupted eight hour sleep in over a month.

Christ I needed that.

Pile surgery's no fun
Lost the urge to pee and so
A catheter and in it goes
Drinking water by the ton
Laxatives and too aware
The bog's upstairs

OW OUCH
My poor starfish how it leaks
OW OUCH
Can't lift anything for weeks

Lying down brought slight relief
Doped up on co-codamol
Must go cold turkey come this fall
Then the blood flow hits my sheath
What the fuck brain, why this cack
When I can't fight back

OW OUCH
Getting stiffies in my sleep
OW OUCH
With this cockhole tube in deep
OW OUCH
Though the arse pain's gone away
OW OUCH
I still suffer every day

What a way to be alive
Inactive right hand's for the birds
I'll make up lost time, mark my words
Christ, I'm nearly fifty-five
My adrenals will be shot
I'll drain the lot

OW OUCH
My urethra best watch out
OW OUCH
Once that piss bag's not about
OW OUCH
In a muddled blurry zonk
OW OUCH
Swollen blisters there for yonks

I remember when eight hours was regular and good
But now this wood looks forward to give another crap time
In an hour's time
And I remember how I'd snooze, let my mind go on a cruise
Now I muse where'd I put the scissors
Won't miss us

Pile surgery's no fun
Lost the urge to pee and so
A catheter and in it goes
Drinking water by the ton
Laxatives and too aware
The bog's upstairs

OW OUCH
Getting stiffies in my sleep
OW OUCH
With this cockhole tube in deep
OW OUCH
Though the arse pain's gone away
OW OUCH
I still suffer every day

OW OUCH
OW OUCH

repeat until fade

...when you have a catheter in following haemorrhoid surgery:

1. Give you a ruddy great monolith while you're sleeping that wakes you up.
2. Er...
3. That's it. >_<;;;

Well it's official, I am anemic for realsies.
My blood count has decreased despite the folic acid course, and since my nutrients are within normal limits the cause must be internal blood loss from the bowel or colon exacerbated by severe long term stress.
Normal blood count is 130, mine is 115, so we're not talking danger levels. It'll be another trip to the colonoscopy department though. So that's fun. No more inflation art for me thanks, I'm driving.

Minimum normal count is 130, blood tests give a current count is 124. Explains the jankiness of my short term memory, as well as the mental fragility and bouts of fatigue. Also my short term memory is janky, as is my short term memory.

OK Kryten, you can have the joke back.

...so it's going to be venison this year.

They are both unreliable as SHIT and if ANYTHING at all goes wrong, you're going to be left THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN THE HOLE to have to rebook at the airport, assuming you're not STUCK THERE.

HOLY SHIT I am livid with how they treat people.

https://twitter.com/EalaDubh/status.....11855762178049

None of that is a joke.

So in clearing out the family house we're going through my older bro's giant tabletop gaming and book collection to stick as much as we can on places like Board Game Geek.

Helpfully he had pieces and cards ordered and stored. But not necessarily in separate decks or boxes.

Two bloody days resorting and putting in order Talisman 4th Edition and twelve expansion sets. So that's fun.

There's all the Arkham Horror shite to take care of next after that. Ponyfinder books tho.

...that the Emerald Shitty Wizard is managing to pull a Liz Truss faster than Liz Truss.

Chin up, you'll be able to answer "And how many rockets have YOU launched?" with "I know how many platforms I haven't crashed."

The greatest coder and one of the greatest players of all time.

You had the Johns and Pauls as game designers, the faces of every project, but it was Lyman, the George, who was the heart that made those games sing, who didn't get nearly enough credit, and who brought out the best in all the various Ringos also working on the machine.

Well, I was just in the family house for the first time since my brother died in May. Not as bad a mess as I was expecting - it had been building up in my mind a lot and exaggerating the scale - but it's a big job and I need time to process it all.

But seeing all the board games and such set up and sitting out just as he'd have left them. :/

Thursday also brings the task of looking through the rest of Edwin's post for outstanding bills, rates and demands with things like the TV license and explaining he's been dead for six months and the house has been unoccupied since then. So that'll be fun.

I think I have enough support now, both in Wales and Northern Ireland, to get me through the slog of everything I need to wade through and organize as last member of the family with residual matters over a house I'll never use. One step at a time.

It's been over two months since my brother died and I'm not coping with any of it on a day-to-day level. I'm so withdrawn, and absolutely terrified of the responsibilities ahead that I still have to deal with and all at sea over what to do with myself. One look at the solicitor forms I have to fill in and I break down in a massive panic attack.

Still having to come to terms with everything that's been thrust upon me following my brother's death, with only myself to take care of outstanding family matters. I admit: responsibility is not something I've ever been good with and it's all overwhelming me a great deal. Bear with me.

The call came through about half an hour ago; my last brother is dead. It's only myself left in the family now.

Nobody knows what happened yet, the police were called to the family home out of concern when he didn't show for work Friday and today. He was 54; could have been a heart attack, could have been his asthma, who knows. It hasn't been more than a few years since my other brother committed suicide at 40, I just hope it's not a repeat of that.

But... I need time to process this. I don't know how I'm going to manage necessary affairs from here. I haven't even been awake more than an hour. I need time.

Something I've neglected for far too long has been to organise all my files - design, comics, art, everything - properly onto one machine that I employ for main everyday use, and back them all up on a spare drive as well as the copies on older PCs. And that means updates - mainly on the commission account  ealadubhsidhe where I post rarities not easily found (if at all) elsewhere, and which also has been idle for yonks. Keep an eye out for that. Avery and company of course will be staying here, but I may start supplementing with material related to the That Which Is Unseen universe. There's a lot to get through.

Was it worth it?

1. Yes
2. No
3. What are you doing still up Granddad

https://preview.mailerlite.com/v7s3.....99783310/x3d2/

Everyone knows gamebooks are my fatal weakness. Rob Shearman is also a bloody good writer as any Big Finish Whovian can attest.

Plus it's Arabian Nights-related, so you know. TF.

All moved.

All clean.

All stocked up.

All sorted for internet in the interim.

Old place is empty, tidy and fully decontaminated.

Tomorrow I get to crash like a ZX81 with RAMpack wobble.

It is good house.

It has no rats.

That is all.

Lease signed yesterday, keys picked up this week, a two-week extension with the moving process and a support worker to ease me through the worst of it.

Baby steps, but at least things aren't timing themselves around clobbering me all at once again. Yet.

Christ on a bike, it just gets worse and worse. Now I'm told no estate agent will have me any more; I'd fail any reference, because of the fallout over the last year of my life and mental health situation, brought on in large part by five years under Andrew Heighway with zero reward and a mental health service which hasn't even been *crumbs* for the birds.

So I'm out on the 24th September, reliant on social housing and likely to end up somewhere pokey, well out of the way, that'll bring back nightmare claustrophobia traumas and anxiety attacks; or else it's back to Northern Ireland leaving seven years of my life and any potential future with that behind, affirming it all as having been an utter devastating waste of time.

I did NOT need this four days before my 50th. Happy birthday, here's your present, EVEN MORE LIFE BULLSHIT.

Christopher Bair, creator of Talons the lizardman and the Mariko Takashi series, needs to raise funds to cover family medical costs. If you're in the US, he has an offer currently going where you can get signed copies of his Mariko books:

https://twitter.com/iwriteforme/sta.....79796735631365

And if you're outisde the US, physical copies can be bought from Amazon UK, with Kindle versions of most of these available too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=christopher+bair&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss