Aftermath
From AMERICAN DIGEST NEWS, October 26, 2004
LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA -- Doctors are blaming a rare electrical imbalance in the brain for the bizarre death of a blogger whose head literally exploded in the final week of the election!
No one else was hurt in the fatal explosion but a small room at the blogger's residence was sprayed with blood and brain matter when Gerard Van der Leun's head suddenly blew apart. Experts say he suffered from a condition called Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis or HCB .
"He was deep in concentration with his eyes focused on the screen and his fingers frozen over the keyboard," said Laguna Beach early responder, Miguel Wilsonista. "He seems to have hit 'Post' for what had to be the 3,456,856th item of inept political photoshopping this year when the blast occurred.
"His browser history documents that he went from Drudge to Real Clear Politics to Talking Points Memo to Instapundit to Fox News to The New York Times to MSNBC to Kos to Roger Simon to Little Green Footballs to The Corner to Atrios to Google News to Allah to The Belmont Club to Wonkette and finally, and probably fatally, to Andrew Sullivan . All of a sudden his hands flew to his temples and he screamed in pain. Then, as if someone had put a bomb in his cranium, Van der Leun's head popped like a firecracker."
Incredibly, Van der Leun's is not the first case in which a blogger's head has spontaneously exploded during these last few days of the campaign. Five bloggers are known to have exhibited of HCB in the last week.
The most recent explosion occurred just two days ago at Instapundit, when Glenn Reynolds' skull burst but his blog kept on updating itself oblivious to Mr. Reynold's absence. Documents unsealed in Washington today, disclosed that fading blogger Andrew Sullivan's head actually exploded in early 2004, but duct tape, chewing gum, and love has kept that blog's keyboard humming in the grisly aftermath.
"HCB was once an extremely rare physical imbalance," said Dr. Anatoly Martinenko, famed neurologist and expert on the blogging brain who did the secret autopsy on Andrew Sullivan early in 2004. "It is a condition in which the circuits of the brain become overloaded by repetitive punditry. The explosions happen during periods of intensely boring political activity when lots of current is surging through the blogger's brain but no new connections are or can be made. Victims are highly intelligent people with great powers of concentration. Both Mr. Van der Leun and Mr. Sullivan were intense people who tended to keep those cerebral circuits overloaded. In a way it could be said they were literally too smart for their own good."
Although Dr. Martinenko says there are probably many undiagnosed cases, he hastens to add that very few bloggers will die from HCB . "Most people who have it will never know. Their heads will explode and they will keep right on posting. At this point, medical science still doesn't know much about HCB . And since fatalities are so rare it will probably be years before research money becomes available. This tragedy today is just another instance where human embryo stem cell research could not have made a bit of difference, but we'd have been glad to have the money from the Federal Government anyway."
In the meantime, the doctor urges bloggers to take it easy and not think too hard for long periods of time concerning the outcome during the last week of this election.
Posted by Vanderleun at October 26, 2004 4:05 PM | TrackBackThere is a cure for this condition and it only requires legal drugs. I suggest you take them and unplug your backup computer power supply. You will then be automatically in a log-off mode where a quick recovery is assured.
Remember, only do legal drugs!
M5
Posted by: hgsmith20 at October 26, 2004 4:30 PMNo worries here, mate. If I had to think, I wouldn't blog. I might become a vegetable, but most left-leaning scientists place bloggers somewhere between mineral and vegetable anyway.
Sorry about your head. Hope you can find it again.
Greg
Posted by: Woody at October 26, 2004 4:47 PMVery funny and sad to say I wonder if my blood
pressure can take it for seven more days!
You put it much better than the average headless
blogger!
As a new blogger I would like to extend my sympathies and a thanks for the info... I will try to watch for any threatening symptoms.
http://writewingwarriors4w.blogspot.com
Posted by: WordWizard at October 26, 2004 5:37 PMTHis blog must stop immediately! Left wing bloggers are attacking the best right wing bloggers with miriads of repetitive meaningless pieces of information. They want to evoke the dreaded D-O-S syndrome (http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/denial_of_service.html) by overloading the circuitry!
Posted by: Julius at October 26, 2004 5:41 PMJust before President Clinton was elected in 1992, the Lord told me that He was placing a man in office who was not His choice. In 2000, or thereabouts -- I don't remember the year exactly -- the Lord again touched me and said, "After Clinton, I will raise up a man like David, a chosen man after My Own Heart who will lead this nation to righteousness." I do believe that that man was George W. Bush. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote -- he was not man's choice, and was placed here to rule the kingdom of the Earth, because Jesus's kingdom is the Kingdom of Heaven. George W. Bush is His placeholder here. The unusual circumstances surrounding the 2000 vote, including the endless recounts and recriminations, which turned brother against brother, and the world against the righteous, followed by the blinding and amazing ruling by the apostate U.S. Supreme Court, were a manyfolded and mysterious miracle which can only lead me to conclude that Jesus Christ my Lord had intervened. I believe that George W. Bush was God's Choice for the United States of America, and God works His Miracles in the most mysterious of ways.
Posted by: G. King at October 26, 2004 5:46 PMIf it's any consolation, a milder form afflicts professional blog-readers.
Posted by: P.A. Breault at October 26, 2004 6:00 PMYou rule again dude. I have been wondering why
my head seems to grow a rate analogous to the
'dome' in Mt. St. Helens. Twixt you and me ...
I'll be glad when this one is in the can ...
sometime next year.
You rule again dude. I have been wondering why
my head seems to grow a rate analogous to the
'dome' in Mt. St. Helens. Twixt you and me ...
I'll be glad when this one is in the can ...
sometime next year.
I agree with G. King, Our Pres was meant to be....
T. Esopa
Posted by: Tom Esopa at October 26, 2004 7:34 PMHmmm, I think I may have experience some of the symptoms, a cousin of Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis you might say, while watching HBO’S Bill Maher. I feel an intense fact checking impulse so I go to FactCheck.org and its downhill from there. Not having a blog of my own I go first to Free Republic to see if anybody is on it “live”. Then MSNBC’s MB’s and finally in an exited state I hit bottom. I wind up at one of AOL’s chat rooms. Luckily the cause of the condition is only present for about 1 hour. I seem to get better after the show is over.
Posted by: Lem at October 26, 2004 7:35 PMGet well kind sir. You are a Good American!
Posted by: Floyd Jackson at October 26, 2004 8:10 PMActually, Darling is an acronym for Damn Aging Relic (of)Lust Inspiring Nothing Good.
Posted by: rastajenk at October 27, 2004 4:46 AMFortunately I keep my head wrapped in tin foil that's been grounded when online. Should Kerry make the gaffe to end all gaffes, the high current generated by the millions of neurons firing at the same time should, hopefully, be harmlessly channelled away from my noggin.
Unfortunately this device probably wouldn't have helped our dear, departed friend Gerard. According to the safety label on the side, it's not-rated as "Andrew Sullivan Resistant."
Posted by: LRFD at October 27, 2004 6:31 AMApologies for the shameless plug. I wrote something eerily similar more than two years ago:
http://www.amcgltd.com/archives/001046.html
The names have changed, but the effect is the same... Reynolds met the same grizly end. :)
Posted by: scott at October 27, 2004 8:50 AMBest.Post.Ever.
AACCCCKKKKK! I'm infected!!!!!
F.E.T.E. (Damn, there I go again!)
Posted by: Beth at October 27, 2004 5:43 PMI thought only I suffered from ECB (I only read the blogs - I don't write them). Thank God I am not alone.
Posted by: Cal-Irish at October 28, 2004 11:11 AMI thought only I suffered from ECB (I only read the blogs - I don't write them). Thank God I am not alone.
Posted by: Cal-Irish at October 28, 2004 11:11 AMI thought only I suffered from ECB (I only read the blogs - I don't write them). Thank God I am not alone.
Posted by: Irish8990 at October 28, 2004 11:11 AMSorry for the erroneous multiple posts. I'm sufferig an acute attack of ECB right now that is affecting my ability to control my fingers.
Posted by: Cal-Irish at October 28, 2004 11:13 AMOMG, what a great post. I can't stop laughing.
Posted by: Sean at October 28, 2004 11:44 AMGood another political "blogger" dead.
Know it all lawyers who got tired of arguing in the courtroom and decided to ruin the internet with the fires they start.
Anyone who uses the word "blog" should be drug out into the street and shot.
Oh, God, I can't stop laughting...this is so right on. I haven't left my house or computer for days - I am eating rice and beans and I am almost out of wine - yikes. I am reading blogs in the middle of the night for more info, news, insight. Will someone PLEEEEZE tell me who is going to win - I can't stand it anymore.
Posted by: Len at October 28, 2004 12:27 PMLoved the piece about the blogger's head explosi ... God, what a headache
Posted by: cowtale at October 28, 2004 7:43 PMPerhaps he did a backup before the explosion ... ?
Posted by: Dallas at October 28, 2004 8:35 PMHe's not the only one. Check this out:
http://www.wonky.com/html/academia_40.htm
Posted by: Mark at October 29, 2004 8:14 AMGreat post!
Posted by: Lynn S at November 1, 2004 6:43 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.