My friend Gonzo. This is the nickname that has befallen my lovely CPAP machine; not because it is blue and likes chickens, but because when I put the mask on, I look like Gonzo, or a water faucet. Pick one. I don’t care. I hate it no matter what you call it. Yet I love it…such a conundrum.
I went to bed tonight at about 11:30. I woke up at 2:30 and felt like I was suffocating. Well, actually, I felt like I couldn’t get a breath of fresh air. I tried to keep Gonzo on, but I think once you have a notion that something is suffocating you, the overwhelming urge to tear it off your face overrides the little voice inside your head saying “But this is good for you.” Makes me wonder if the guy from alien would prefer a CPAP machine every night for the rest of his life or the suck-face alien one-time encounter.
See, I am getting melodramatic. I’m pretty sure he’d choose Gonzo, since the face sucking alien encounter ended so poorly. You know, my first forray into gopher via UNIX led me to a site that listed many a piece of movie trivia. It was alphabetical, so one of the first pieces of trivia I learned on the net was that when the alien exploded out of the guy’s stomach, none of the ship crew members (except the guy of course) knew what was going to happen. There was just one take to capture the genuine shock and horror when it happened. I think if I had been one of those crew members I would have kicked the director’s ass for scarring me for life. But that’s just me.
The second piece of trivia I learned was that in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg wanted the actress in the crypt full of snakes to scream, but wasn’t getting what he wanted so had someone actually throw a real snake on her shoulders. The movie was then cut to make it look like Indie had accidentally knocked the snake onto her.
That was my first adventure into things you can find online. It was 1992. Neither of those facts turned out to be completely true…but I believed them for a long time because “I found it on the net.” How many times have you heard that one?
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