But not actually, you know, exploding.

"I must remind you that the scanning experience is usually a painful one.”

ConSec scanner, Scanners 

I suffer from Exploding Brain Syndrome, a harmless condition with the most over-the-top name ever.  EBS is a sleep disorder-related sensory illusion: some people hear explosions, or perceive flashes of light - in my case, it's like a brief cymbal crash that occurs three or four times in a row, separated by a few seconds.    

Because EBS has such a dramatic appellation, it's impossible for me to experience it without thinking about Scanners, David Cronenberg's breakout 1981 science fiction horror film.  Scanners is best known for the horrifying scene where Canadian actor Louis del Grande's* head is made to explode by Michael Ironside, who plays the villain of the film.  The overly graphic effect was created through the rough and ready special effects expediency of firing a shotgun up through a prop head filled with dog food, leftover hamburger, and rabbit liver, resulting in an undeniably effective moment** that makes me very grateful that my experience of EBS is not a literal one.

- Sid

* Coincidentally, Del Grande went on to create and star in Seeing Things, a CBC dramedy about a newspaper reporter who experiences psychic visions of crimes.  The show ran for six years and featured the who’s who of the 80s Canadian acting community.

** For anyone wishing to see the cinematic results, here's a link to the clip:

https://youtu.be/KYEOuBWVFvk?si=cthRaE_tf0ApOJDF

The exploding head is quite near the end of the scene, if you happen to be one of those people who just can't wait to see what that might look like. 

Canada Day 2026: Art Imitates Life.

Happy Canada Day, everyone - celebrating 159 years of being the place that desperate people escape to from the United States.*

- Sid

* Strangely enough, it actually never occurred to me that this statement applied in the real world as well as in science fiction until I typed that sentence.  I was really just thinking of The Handmaid's Tale, although the photo is from a Philip K. Dick story.

93,980?!

For the longest time, The Infinite Revolution pottered away at about 3,000 views a month.  Sometimes it would go over, sometimes it would be under, but 3K was the median for about six years.

Which was fine with me.  This blog was originally just an excuse to spend some time writing, an exercise in professional development.  I never promoted it on other platforms, although I did briefly monetize it through Google Adsense, but I was kicked off the program after I was accused of faking views.*  

At some point, I decided that it was a good enough sample of my writing style that I could put my name on it so that a potential employer could read it.  I didn't get the job, but to my complete surprise, it came up at my next job interview - they'd searched my name and found the blog. (I did get that job, although I doubt that the blog was a factor.)

Then, for the next six years, the median dropped down to about 2,000 views.  One month it went under a thousand - again, not an issue, but I was curious as to what might have changed.   

And then, sometime in 2024, it started to spike. In January, I cracked 10,000 views for the first time, an achievement which I repeated over six times that year, culminating in over 17,000 in December.  July of 2025 took me over 20,000; August, over 30,000, then back down under 20,000 for a few months.

February 2026 - 45,262, a number which seemed ridiculously high until June, which rocketed up to over 93,000 views - 93,980, to be specific.

What happened?  I suspect that with over 1,300 posts, I've simply reached some threshold of volume that makes for a visible presence. I'd love to think that it's more people reading the content rather than bots, but the alert reader will notice in the above screen capture that I only have four followers, which I feel is a far stronger metric of actual human readership that the views counter.

Still, it's hard not to feel a certain sense of accomplishment.  It's going to be interesting to see if it breaks 100K a month by the end of 2026 - and even a couple of months of half that would put me over a million total views for the blog.  I wonder if Blogger will notice?  If so, some kind of commemorative plaque would seem to be in order, like getting a letter from the Queen when turning 100. That would be fun, I wonder if there's someone I can contact about that?

- Sid

* After which I ended up getting a little money from Google after a 2018 class action suit accusing them of withholding Adsense payments was successful. Last year I attempted to rejoin Adsense just out of curiousity, and was accepted back into the fold. Since then it's generated about six bucks, it's certainly not a route to financial independence.