Pneumonia Vaccine Shot

Yesterday I got my pneumococcal shot - the vaccine against pneumonia. I'm at T+20 hours now so maybe it's a little premature to say but my side effects from the shot have been mild to nonexistent. I've got a dull ache in the upper arm where the shot was administered; that's it.

This is one of the additional two shots I thought I needed this year after the combo of the Covid-19 booster and flu shot. The other shot I was planning to get is the RSV vaxx, but CDC seems to have changed the guidance on that sometime back so it's only recommended for older (65+) adults. The CDC recommends the pneumococcal vaxx for all adults 50+, children under 5, and certain others with risk factors.

It seems strange to me that there are vaccines now for older people. When I was a kid I thought they were all just for kids. Y'know, one-and-done sort of things. I had a bunch of shots when I was little kid, a few more before I started kindergarten, then one or two more when I went to college because apparently they missed a few when I was a kid or maybe a few more had been added to the list. There was no obviously no Covid-19 to get shots for back then. Annual flu shots weren't even a thing. <Cranky old man voice>Back in my day, we just got the flu every year!</voice>

Well, I'm much happier now with an annual flu shot instead of an annual flu.

Breaking Bad: The Murder Twins, part 4

The Murder Twins, as I call them, are an enigmatic pair of recurring minor characters in season 3 of Breaking Bad. A cold open scene in S3E7 unravels the enigma just a bit. It's a flashback to ~20 years ago.

The twins, Marco and Leonel, are kids playing in a spacious back yard with trees and a swing set while their uncle, Hector Salamanca, watches. The boys get in a fight over an action figure. Marco pops the head off the toy. Leonel runs in tears to his uncle, crying that he wishes Marco dead.

Hector calmly explains that he will help resolve this dispute. He asks Marco to fetch him a cold beer from the ice bucket at his side, then....



Hector cruelly forces Marco's head under water and holds it there, drowning him. Leonel is shocked. Hector asks, "Is this not what you wanted?" Hector holds the boy's head underwater until Marco starts hitting him to force him to release.

"Family is everything," Hector intones gravely.

As character backstory, this one makes sense for explaining the lives of violence and casual cruelty the Murder Twins live.

As morality lessons go, it falls flat. "Family is everything" is supposed to explain why the Murder Twins are so committed to revenge against Walt for betraying their uncle. But if family is so important why would your uncle offer kill your brother for some tiny transgression? Why would he even pretend? All I can figure it's part of a lesson: you can kill others whenever they wrong you (the part that's not shown here) but never fight with your family. Or they'll kill you, too.

Breaking Bad: The Murder Twins, part 5

The subplot of the Murder Twins, as I call them, comes to a head in Breaking Bad S3E7. Having set out to kill Walt for revenge they are sidetracked to pursue Walt's brother-in-law, Hank, a DEA agent who killed their cousin in a shootout.

Two hit men vs. a federal agent? That's going to be an interesting fight. Of course, the hit men aren't going to call ahead and make an appointment. ...Except someone does. Hank gets a call from an unknown number on his cellphone while he's out shopping. "In one minute," an electronically modulated voice says, "Two men are going to kill you."

One Minute is the title of the episode.

To shift the odds even more, Hank has just been suspended from his job for beating a suspect. He doesn't have his gun. First he tries to laugh off the call as a prank from his partner, but when his partner doesn't answer his call he starts to get frantic. He looks around the parking lot. Everyone is initially a suspect. Except most people are just doing what other shoppers at a hardware store do: push shopping carts, enter or exit cars, etc. Then he sees one of the Murder Twins leering at him from behind through the rear view mirror, and the other one to the side. Both have guns. The fight is on.

Hank, not having a gun, uses his car as a weapon. He shifts in to reverse and pins one of the twins, Leonel, against another vehicle. The force of the impact sends his gun flying through the shattered window. Hank grabs the gun and uses it to shoot the other twin, Marco. He's trained with a gun; all his shots go to the torso near the heart. But the twins are wearing bullet-proof vests. Meanwhile Marco is returning fire. Hank is stuck several times and falls to the ground, almost dead.



This could have been curtains for Hank, but the Murder Twins are dramatic. Their signature method of killing is to use an axe with a polished steel head. Marco goes to get the axe while Hawk manages to find one more bullet for the gun. Just as Marco comes back with the axe in hand, Hank has one last shot ready. And this time he aims for the head. BOOM!

S3E8 begins with Hank being rushed to the hospital. We won't learn his condition for a while. Meanwhile dozens of police officers and federal agents are at the hospital in a show of support. One of the Murder Twins is there, too— as a patient. Leonel Salamanca survived being crushed by a car, but his legs have been amputated. A few of the officers escort Walt to see "one of the animals who tried to kill his brother-in-law."



When Leonel sees Walt peering through the window of his hospital room, a sneer of pure hatred comes across his face. He pulls off the monitors he's wearing, pulls out the IVs in his arms, and leaps off the bed. Both his legs have been amputated, so he pulls himself across the floor by his hands. The wounds on his legs start bleeding, leaving a trail of blood as he crawls toward the door. The whole time he's looking up at Walt with pure hatred on his face. Orderlies rush in to restrain him and put him back on the bed.

In a later scene, a food delivery arrives in the crowded waiting room where dozens of police officers are waiting. It's free food from Los Pollos Hermanos, whose owner heard about the attempt on the life of a police officer and had it sent over as a show of support. The owner, of course, is Gus Fring— the drug lord.

While the cops are all chowing down on the free food, the last of the Murder Twins goes into cardiac arrest. Nurses rush in but can't save him from dying. Gus's hit-man, Mike, surreptitiously leaves the area as he drops a syringe in a sharps bin. The free food was a distraction. And Mike, or someone else in Gus's employ, was the one who tipped off Hank.