andygates

There's nothing worse than one of these, except for "my bicycle is making a noise", but this itch has been tickling the inside of my skull for months now. 

There's a novel.  I think it's hard SF -- I'd have read it back as a kid in the 80s, along with my steady diet of Clarke and Asimov (travelling library, you rocked!).  Anyway, this novel has an antagonist who is a bit of a Kingpin character, and he's a card-carrying archetypal Huge Black Guy.  Over the course of the story it turns out that every one of his physical traits is ... shall we say chemically enhanced: his physique, his voice, even his skin colour (he is both biggest and blackest, all part of his mystique) is all injectable, and as the SHTF (in space? LEO? Rama?) and he's denied it, he comes apart like an orchid out of the hothouse.  

Damned if I can remember the story or the character, but it's been nagging at me.  Any ideas, O nerds of the Internet?

This week has been puffer experiment week.  The blue puffer - that's a salbutamol inhaler - works just fine to take the last of my wheezies out, but I was still getting annoyed at the wheezies manifesting before deploying the blue puffer to nix them.  It stands to reason, if you're going to get a wheeze attack, maybe taking the dose as a prophylactic would work.  Did it?

Oh, you bet it did.  Turns out that the 'reliever' (not 'receiver' you mucky sods) is good for about two hours.  Lovely clear pipes and no thinking "ooer, will I need the puffer after this hill or can I leave it until I get to work?".  It's marvellous.

I can see why it's banned!  And I can see why every athlete seems to have exercise-induce asthma and needs a prescription for one (!).Time to get a permit myself, methinks.