Happy Birfday !!

Bored? Swing by my blog, and find out your supervillian name. 🙂 (or you can do it at the batman page at cartoon network.com) Requires flash. (case sensitive…bob does not equal Bob or BOB)

Newton = Scourge
Scotto = The Fiend, and El Oso = The Spoiler.

Found a fantastic comic book database for helping to search for almost anything… like the internet movie database for comics(you can also try this one). outstanding! Also the big cartoon database. Children’s Picture book database , science fiction, fantasy and horror book database, not to mention the library of congress again.

That’ll keep anyone busy for a week. 🙂

some music here – http://31337157.com/MP3/

http://31337157.com/MP3/shatner/ has shatner and nimoy singing about bilbo baggins. I may die.

weird recent set of keywords to connect to my homepage blog- “feet and blisters, web” brings my page up first on av.com… I wish I could slap java on my lj page, so I could track keywords here, too.

Alton Brown has a fresh rant.

How mortifying! I know a lot of absent-minded folks…I’d hate to see that sort of thing happen to them. I wonder how my boss or my sweetie would deal with that sort of situation. Both straight-arrows but have little tolerance for rude or stupid people. The way they treated him probably cost the company a small mint in plugs and store usage fees.

Not cool that he had a dog in the car on an extended shopping trip, though. (I don’t know the whole story there…maybe it was a safe environment).

Thinking back on the Newton name post last week, and ‘s “With a C, not With a K” post and it’s got me thinking…

I’ve had people confuse the name “Scott” with Todd, Scout, Bob, and of all things, Gus. When I was a kid, I had a phase when I wanted to spell it Skot. (an economy of letters, and looks keen in a runic sort of font. I held a belief for a while that the letters C and Q didn’t serve much purpose, unless paired with the letters H or U repsectively. I wanted to rework CH into a new single letter, and replace QU with KW where needed, and drop Q entirely. I was a weird kid.) That phase has mostly passed, as Scotto works fine for me these days.

My last name is a bugaboo for all sorts of people. It’s two words, the first one all lower case. “von Berg”. Bad computer databases have a *lot* of trouble with that. They either want to combine them, and caps the von- “Vonberg”, chop off the data after the space – “Von”, or mix up the data so that one of the words is the first name. I can’t tell you how much junk mail comes addressed to “Mr Berg”, Dear Von! You need your grout cleaned! (or whatever). I often wonder if people with hyphenated names have the same trouble, but the one person I know that is hypenated hasn’t really had to deal with it that much. Not the worst of it, back when I filled out stuff including a full name, I’ve gotten mail addressed to “Dear Mister Third”, too.

I wonder if it’s a common occurance. There are so many names that can be spelled a few different ways, or unusual ethnic variants. Erik/Eric, or Lori/Laurie, etc. I’d love to see how people have hosed the names of others, but I know “real life” names are tricky for a lot of people on LJ, even just first names. Perhaps there’s a way to do it more anonymously, but a way to phrase a question about it.

Neat! Prionix linked back to my poemtag!

A note on the scale. Nervous Rex is About 2 and a half inches tall. (or maybe 6 and a third cm, if conversion is right) They’re all standing on top of my palmtop because it’s a flat surface on rugged bed terrain.The poor fools dont stand a chance against a giant Newtasaurus run amok over their fair city. the carpeted parks, the finely tiled city with it’s cardboard spires and giant white “astrobowl”… no plastic life will remain.

Update. Oh… the humanity. The running brown gunman is apparently tasty to giant kitties. Newtzilla has been scrambling around with the poor soul in his colossal feline maw, and batting him all over the mostly frictionless tile like a nightmarish hockey puck.

Neat! Prionix linked back to my poemtag!

A note on the scale. Nervous Rex is About 2 and a half inches tall. (or maybe 6 and a third cm, if conversion is right) They’re all standing on top of my palmtop because it’s a flat surface on rugged bed terrain.The poor fools dont stand a chance against a giant Newtasaurus run amok over their fair city. the carpeted parks, the finely tiled city with it’s cardboard spires and giant white “astrobowl”… no plastic life will remain.

Update. Oh… the humanity. The running brown gunman is apparently tasty to giant kitties. Newtzilla has been scrambling around with the poor soul in his colossal feline maw, and batting him all over the mostly frictionless tile like a nightmarish hockey puck.

I also want to know if this movie is available with english subtitles. I saw a clip of it on Telemundo, and it looks *keeno* and creepy.The gist of the movie involves the only survivor of an airplane crash, and features games of chance, a weird subculture, proxy rituals, and characters with a special gift which is both a blessing and a curse.

Some evil news –

Cambodia skull map dismantled

“PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Skull by human skull, officials have dismantled a key icon of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Buddhist monks chanted and prayed Sunday for the souls of some 300 Khmer Rouge victims whose remains became part of a map of Cambodia made of human skulls and displayed publicly since 1979 as a testament to the regime’s brutality.”

Thousands Seek Citizenship in Fake Country

More than 3,000 Pakistanis want to become citizens in the northern European nation of Ladonia, the country’s state secretary said on Monday.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.

Ladonia is a piece of land in southern Sweden only one square kilometer (half-mile) in size, and as a nation exists mainly on the Internet (http://www.aim.se/ladonia) and in the mind of its creator, artist Lars Vilks.

Hmm… If I’d made that Magonia website like I was planning… would I have been in the news? Some dispatches are due….maybe Tulpa pays it a visit. A painted sunset might bring her life into focus.

Pupils of a Kansas School Quench Their Thirst After the Manner of Horses.
Topeka, Kan.-The manual training school is to be equipped with a newfangled drinking arrangement for the pupils, which Judge T. F. Garver, of the school board terms a “horse trough” arrangement.

The new drinking system is a cupless, dipperless affair, supposed to be highly sanitary and the latest thing in school drinking fountains. Instead of a cup or dipper, one who wishes to drink bends over the fountain and plunges his face, or part of it, in a bubbling stream of water forced upward through the fountain much like an artesian well.

It is really an adaptation of the old fashioned country school way of holding the cupped hand over the spout of the pump, while another pumps, and when the cupped hand is full of water, plunging the chin, nose, and forehead, if necessary, into the water, if the hand is big enough, while the thirsty one drinks.

These “horse trough” drinking fountains have been tried at the summer school and Supt. Whittemore reports that they are an excellent device. The special advantage is that the persons who drink do not use a common cup and there is no danger of communicating disease.

Minnetonka Record, February 3, 1905

Queer California Disease.

Which Causes “Natives” to View the Rest of the Country as of Little Consequence.
When my wife and I came to San Francisco from New York we expected to settle, if not permanently, at least for a long time, but we have since changed our plans; why, the public might be interested to know, as our case is a typical one. We discovered that this part of the country is infected with its own peculiar affliction, which is of endemic form-a “native-born” product of the state, writes a correspondent of the San Francisco Argonaut.

Californianitis is principally a defective sense of proportion. We have no doubt that California is a big state, and that Californians are called to big things, but the native sons of the golden west might do well to remember that there is something else besides their state, and that there are some other people, and good for something besides serving as trinkets in their hands.

It had never occurred to us that we were “easterners” until we found ourselves chained to the triumphal car of some native daughter of California as she passed to her drawing rooms showing us as the victor’s spoils. We found ourselves declared foreigners, and called upon for daily largesse of dutiful homage.

We look in vain for justifications of distinctively American pride, or developed Californian originalities; in fact, the chief things held out to us as the glores of California are the missions (which are Spanish), the Chinese quarters (which are oriental), the Mexican restaurants (which are half-breed), the the kaleidoscopic scenery (which was here some years before Californians).

The Californian refuses for his state the modest place claimed for itself by every other in the union, abreast of its sister states, but, on the contrary, insists upon for it an isolation, golden-haloed, though at times he himself be conscious that the golden halo is only plated wire.

In a recent issue of a San Francisco daily paper we read an editorial on the yacht races for the American cup, in which the editor mildly suggested that San Francisco might be a better place for the races than New York-there is certainly wind enough to swamp the yachts, but what about the fog?

This is funny enough; but irresistible is the idea of the chief objection he foresaw New Yorkers would make, the loss of trade brought by visiting enthusiasts-which, by the way, might number 10,000. Isn’t this sizing things too much by local units, when it takes a Dewey parade with 3,000,000 visitors actually to crowd New York, and an extra 100,000 is there a wonted influx of ordinary travelers?

Some time ago a California writer, describing the mission period of Californian history, declared that the Spanish monks had given to the world a new style of architecture and a new form of the art, the mission furniture. The facts are, the mission architecture is nothing but the “barocco” style of ecclesiastical constructions used widely in Spain and Italy in the seventeenth century; and the mission furniture is easily to be found in all the medieval castles of Europe, with only this difference, that the former is made uglier and the latter cruder because of the want of suitable materials and good artisans.

Living in San Francisco would be particularly pleasant if it were normal, but since there is a bacillus here, too, and we must choose between the pains of Californianitis and the pangs of New Yorkitis, we prefer the latter every time.

Minnetonka Record, January 6, 1905

The Decay Of Manners.
We rush through life in such a hurry these days, that there is little or no time or thought for the refinements and courtesies that in the good old days of our grandparents were considered necessary to good manners.

The man or woman who has really good manners, nowadays, we distinguish as being of the “old school.”

Unfortunately, the old school is passing away, and there is no new school to take its place.

We seem to be drifting into the idea that good manners are a rather boresome and indefinable something in the way of an affectation which we may put on with our best clothes for weddings, parties and other such affairs, but not to be carried about with us on ordinary occasions.

We have come to regard common courtesy as a time consumer and a waste.

Rapid communications have corrupted good manners, for the speed with which we can travel or transmit news has aroused a nervous impatience of delay which is fatal to courtesy and manners both in spirit and form.

We no longer write the good, long, warm, soul-satisfying letters that were written in the old days.

Formerly letters were dignified and interesting, but now they are neither.

We imagine we have no time to write elegantly and in a spirit of impatience we scribble a few lines to some friend when there is no escape from the painful necessity.

And the letters of today show that their writing is a task, not a pleasure.

Once upon a time it was good manners to hold old age in reverence, but it is not so any more.

Whatever we may actually feel in the heart, our attitude toward the old indicates that instead of regarding them with reverence we consider age the synonym for incapacity and boredom.

It is an age of ill manners in both men and women.

Garish vulgarity taints what is regarded, commonly at least, as the best society.

So far we have sunk that the men of genuine courtesy and polish must balance it with some sort of coarseness or be damned as a “sissy.”-St. Paul Daily News 1902

Gypsies: The name Gypsy, an abbreviation of “Egyptian,” has been used for centuries by English-speaking people to denote a member of a certain caste of turbulent wanderers who travelled Europeduring the Middle Ages, and whose descendants, in a much-decayed condition, are still found in most European countries. Many other names, such as “Saracen” and “Zigeuner,” or “Cigan” have been applied to these people, but “Egyptian” is the most widespread in time and place. It does not relate to Egypt, but to the country of “Little Egypt” or “Lesser Egypt,” whose identity has never been clearly established. Two Transylvanian references of the years 1417 and 1418 indicate that Palestine is the country in question, but there is some reason to believe that “Little Egypt” included other regions in the Levant. Gypsies speakof themselves as Romane’, and of their language as Romani-tchib (tchib = tongue). Physically, they are black-haired and brown-skinned, their appearance, like their language, suggesting affinities with Hindustan. But, although possessing marked racial characteristics, for the most part, they must also be regarded as a caste or organization. In recent centuries, if not in earlier times, many of their over-lords were not of Gypsy blood, but belonged to the nobility and petite noblesse of Europe, and were formally appointed by the kings and governments of their respective countries to rule over all the Gypsies resident within those countries. The title of baron, count or regent of the Gypsies was no proof that the official so designated was of Gypsy race. This fact must always be borne in mind in any considerationof the Gypsy system.

The rulers thus appointed, being emppowered by Christian princes, and under Papal approval, were necessarily Christian. Moreover, their vassals were at least Christian by profession. Although their behaviour was often wildly inconsistantwith such a profession, it was in the character of Christian pilgrims that they asked for and obtained hospitality from the cities and towns of Mediaeval Europe. On the other hand, they seemed to have practised rites which could not be described as Christian. This twofold character is illustrated in connection with the services which they still hold in the crypt of the church of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, in the Ile de la Camargue, Bouches-du-Rhone. In this church the Festival of the Holy Marys is annually celebrated on the 25th May, and to it the Gypsies come in great numbers. The crypt is specially reserved for them, because it contains the shrine of Saint Sara of Egypt, whom they regard as their patron saint. Throughout the night of the 24th–25th May they keep watch over her shrine, and on the 25th they take their departure. Among the Gypsy votive offerings presented in the crypt, some are believed to date back to about the year 1450. All this would indicate that the Gypsies were Christians. Another statement, however, tends to qualify such a conclusion. This is the assertion that the shrine of Saint Sara rests upon an ancient altar dedicated to Mithra; that the Gypsies of that neighbourhood who are known as “Calagues,” are descended from the Iberians formerly inhabiting the Carmargue; and that their cult is really the Mithraic worship of fire and water, upon which the veneration of Saint Sara is super-imposed.

Confirmation of this view may be obtained from the worship of fire still existing among the Gypsies of Southern Hungary. The ceremonies observed at child-birth, in order to avert evil during the period between birth and baptism, may be taken as evidence. Prior to the birth of the child, the Gypsies light a fire before the mother’s tent, and this fire is not suffered to go out until the rite of baptism has been performed. The women who light and feed the fire croon, as they do so, the following chant–

Burn ye, burn ye fast, O Fire!
And guard the babe from wrathful ire
Of earthy Gnome and Water-Sprite,
Whom with thy dark smoke banish quite !
Kindly fairies hither fare,
And let the babe good fortune share,
Let luck attend him ever here,
Throughout his life be luck aye near !
Twigs and branches now in store, -bis.
And still of branches many more, /
Give we to thy flame, O Fire !
Burn ye, burn ya, fast and high,
Hear the little baby cry !

It will be noted that the spirits of Earth and Water are here regarded as malevolent,only to be overcome by the superior aid of fire. Nevertheless, those women who are believed to have learned their occult lore from the unseen powers of Earth and Water are held to be the greatest magicians of the tribe. Moreover, the water-being is not invariably regarded as inimical, but is sometimes directly propitated. As when a mother, to charm away convulsive crying in her child, goes through the prescribed ceremonial in all its details, of which the last is this appeal, as she casts a red thread into the stream: — “Take this thread, O Water-Spirit, and take with it the crying of my child ! If it gets well, I will bring thee three apples and eggs !” The water-spirit appears again in a friendly character when a man, in order to recover a stolen horse, takes his infant to the stream, and, bending over the water, askks the invisible genius to indicate, by means of the baby’s hand, the direction in which the horse had been taken. In these two instances we have a clear survival of the worship of water and the watery powers.It may be questioned whether thses rites ought to be ascribed to Mithraism in its later stages, or whether they own an earlier origin.

One definite statement with regard to Gypsy lore is afforded by Joseph Glanvil, in a passage which inspired Matthew Arnold’s poem of “The Scholar-Gypsy.” “There was lately a lad in the University of Oxford,” says Glanvil (Vanity of Dogmatising, 1661), “who was, by his poverty, forced to leave his studies there, and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond Gypsies.” Glanvil also goes on to say that “after he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade,” this scholar-gypsy chanced to meet two of his former fellow-students, to whom he stated: — “that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the powers of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended,” he said, “to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.”

Here we have clear indications of the possession of a body of esoteric learning, which included the knowledge and exercise of hypnotism. Even among modern Gypsies this power is exercised. De rochas states that the Catalan Gypsies are mesmerists and clairvoyants, and the present writer has experienced an attempt on the part of a Hungarian Gypsy to exert this influence. The same power, under name of glamour, was formerly an attribute of the Scottish Gypsies. Glamour is defined by Sir Walter Scott as “the power of imposing on the eyesight of the spectators, so that the appearance of an object shall be totally different from the reality.” And, in of a reference to “the Gypsies glamour’d gang,” in one of his ballads, he remarks: “Besides the prophetic powers ascribe to the Gypsies in most European countriesthe Scottish peasants believe them possesed of the power of throwing upon bystanders a spell to fascinate the eyes and cause them to see a thing that is not. Thus the old ballad of ‘Johnnie Faa,’ the elopement of the Countess of Cassillis with a Gypsy leader is imputed to fascination–

‘Sae soon as they saw her weel-faur’d face,
They cast a glamour o’er her.'”

Scott also relates an incident of a Gypsy who “exercised his glamour over a number of people at Haddington , to whom he exhibited a common dung-hill cock, trailing, what appeared to spectators, a mossy oaken trunk. An old man passed with a cart of clover, he stopped and picked out a four-leaved blade; the eyes of the spectators were opened and the oaken trunk appeared to be a bulrush.” The quatrefoil, owing to its cruciform shape, acted as a powerful antidote to witchcraft. Moreover, in the face of this sign of the Cross, the Gypsy was bound to desist from the exercise of what was an unlawful art. As to the possibility of hypnotizing a crowd, or making them “to see the thing that is not” that feat is achieved to-day by African witch-doctors. What is required is a dominant willon the one hand and a sufficiently plastic imaginationon the other.

Scott introduces these statements among his noteson the ballad of “Christie’s Will,” in relation to the verse–

“He thought the worlocks o’ the rosy cross,
Had fang’d him in their nets sae fast;
Or the Gypsies glamour’d gang
Had lair’d his learning at the last.

This association of Rosicrucians with Gypsies is not inapt, for hypnotism appears to have been considered a Rosicrucian art. Scott has other suggestive references in this place. “Saxo Grammaticus mentions a particular sect of Mathematicians, as he is pleased to call them, who, ‘per alienosque vultus, varus rerum imaginibus, adumbraie callebant; illicibusque formus veros obscurare conspectus.” Merlin, the son of Ambrose, was particularly skilled in this art, and displays it in the old metrical romance of Arthour and Merlin. The jongleurs were also great professors of this mystery, which has in some degree descended , with their name, on modern jugglers.

It will be seen that various societies are credited with the possession, in an eminent degree, by the art of hypnotism, in the Middle Ages. Presumably, it was inherited from one common source. How much the Gypsies were associated with this power may be inferred from a Scottish Act of Parliament of the year 1579, which was directed against “the idle people calling themselves Egyptians, or any that fancy themselves to have knowledge of prophecy, charming, or other abused sciences.” For the term “charming” like “glamour” and other kindred words (e.g. “enchantment”, “bewitched”, “spellbound”) bore reference to mesmeric influence.

The statement made by Glanvil’s scholar-gypsy would lead one to believe that the Gypsies inhabiting England in the seventeeth century possessed other branches of learning. They have always been famed for alleged prophetic power, exercised through the medium of astrology and chiromancy or palmistry, and also by the interpretation of dreams; this last-named phase being distinctly specified in Scotland in 1611. It does not appear that any modern Gypsies profess a knowledge of astrology. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Groome was shown by a Welsh Gypsy-man the form of the written charm employed by his mother in her fortune-telling, and that form is unquestionably a survival of the horoscope. Both mother and son were obviously unaware of that fact, and made no profession of astrology; but they had inherited the scheme of the horoscope form ancestors who were astrologers.

The practice of chiromancy is still a Gypsy art, as it has been for ages. A curious belief was current in mediaeval times to the effect that the three Kings or Magi who came to Bethlehem were Gypsies, and in more than one religious play they are represented as telling the fortunes of the Holy Family by means of palmistry. This circumstance has evoked the following suggestive remarks from C.G. Leland.

“As for the connection of the Three Kings with Gypsies, it is plain enough. Gypsies were from the East; Rome and the world abounded in wandering Chaldean magi-priests, and the researches which I am making have led me to a firm conclusion that the Gypsy lore of Hungary and South Slavonia have a very original character as being, firstly, though derived from India, not Aryan but Shamanic, that is of an Altic, or Tartar, or ‘Turanian’ stock…. Secondly, this was an old Chaldean-Accadian ‘wisdom’ or sorcery. Thirdly– and this deserves some serious examination– it was also the old Etruscan religion whose magic formulas were transmitted to the Romans….. “The Venetian witchcraft, as set forth by Beroni, is evidently of Sclavic-Greek origin. That of Romagna is Etruscan, agreeing very strangely and closely with the Chaldean magic of Lenormant, and marvellously like the Gypsies’. It does not, when carefully sifted seem to be like that of the Aryans…. nor is it Semitic. To what degree some idea of all this and of Gypsy connection with it, penetrated among the people and filtered down, even into the Middle Ages, no one can say. But it is very probable that through the centuries there came together some report of common origin of Gypsy and ‘Eastern’ or Chaldean lore, for, since it was the same, there is no reason why a knowledge of truth should not have been disseminated in a time of a traditions and a earnest study in occultism.”

These surmises on the part of a keen and accomplished student of every phase of magic, written and unwritten, are deserving of the fullest consideration. By following the line indicated byLeland it may be possible to reach an identification of the “traditional kind of learning” possessed by the Gypsies in the seventeenth century.

from the –Encyclopedia of Occultism, A compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Occult Personalities, Psychic Science, Magic, Demonology, Spiritism, Mysticism, and Metaphysics by Lewis Spence copyright 1923, reprinted 1960.

Library of Congress, nice search engine for images.

Saw an interview with Milla Jovovitch… she is crazy thin! You could cut a man in two with those elbows!

A scrotum-shriveling hellish mating between Barney and a rhino is on it’s way to movie screens everywhere.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You know, I can think of a few people today that I’d like to tell to just shut the f-up… only because sound logic would be wasted on ’em. Politics. I’m just going to let it drop…It’s simpler to argue with a velvet painting of dogs playing cards.

Here in Hsueh-t’ou Mountain
a rapid waterfall dashes
down thousands of feet.
Here nothing stays,
not even the tiniest chestnut.
An awesome cliff rises
up thousands of feet
with no space for you to stand.
My friends, may I ask:
Where do you proceed?

– Yung-ming

I pull Off on a Comet by Jules Verne from the library and opening to a random page I read the following…

“You think, then,” said Servadac, with a smile, “you have determined the perihelion of our orbit; but how about the aphelion? Can you form a judgment as to what distance we are likely to be carried?”
“You are asking too much,” remonstrated the count.

“I confess,” said the lieutenant, “that just at present I am not able to clear away the uncertainty of the future; but I feel confident that by careful observation at various points we shall arrive at conclusions which not only will determine our path, but perhaps may clear up the mystery about our geological structure.”

Hmm..looks like I shook the 8-ball, and got “Future uncertain”.

Basically it tells me to pay attention, and learn from my conclusions. That I shall. Careful observation is good advice to anyone, I think.

You know, I can think of a few people today that I’d like to tell to just shut the f-up… only because sound logic would be wasted on ’em. Politics. I’m just going to let it drop…It’s simpler to argue with a velvet painting of dogs playing cards.

Here in Hsueh-t’ou Mountain
a rapid waterfall dashes
down thousands of feet.
Here nothing stays,
not even the tiniest chestnut.
An awesome cliff rises
up thousands of feet
with no space for you to stand.
My friends, may I ask:
Where do you proceed?

– Yung-ming

I pull Off on a Comet by Jules Verne from the library and opening to a random page I read the following…

“You think, then,” said Servadac, with a smile, “you have determined the perihelion of our orbit; but how about the aphelion? Can you form a judgment as to what distance we are likely to be carried?”
“You are asking too much,” remonstrated the count.

“I confess,” said the lieutenant, “that just at present I am not able to clear away the uncertainty of the future; but I feel confident that by careful observation at various points we shall arrive at conclusions which not only will determine our path, but perhaps may clear up the mystery about our geological structure.”

Hmm..looks like I shook the 8-ball, and got “Future uncertain”.

Basically it tells me to pay attention, and learn from my conclusions. That I shall. Careful observation is good advice to anyone, I think.

random scotto factoid – Somewhere near my apartment is a nesting area for green parrots. I saw about a half dozen of them fly overhead coming in today. I wonder if they’re native, or escaped pets?

I missed Calle Ocho last weekend, not that I’d have been up to go. Great Music and food. A huge block party.

I *still* have to get that stuff put in the mail. Drat. Nothing time intensive, but I’d like the stuff to be where it’s going, not where it is now. *note to self, find out the preferred chain.*

Isaac Asimov Died of AIDS? He contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during open heart surgery, and allegedly his doctor advised him to cover it up.

Dave’s Birthday is this Thursday… I wonder what to hook him up with? Maybe a blockbuster gift card… he’s a daddy now, no time to go out to movies anymore.

“Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. ‘This is the way in,’ said Gollum softly. ‘This is the entrance to the tunnel.’ He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol: Shelob’s Lair. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odour of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within.”

The Lord of the Rings, Book IV, Ch 9

Thumbing through an old paperback novel called Lycosidae. It’s the Pride and Prejudice of giant spider stories. A nice popcorn book between more serious study (not available via amazon! must be out of print).

Spiders are great. Freaky, furry web-spinners with poisonous bites and a love for killing the peskier bugs. Mandibles! A bunch of eyes! They’re just super neat… they’re so thoroughly alien, yet they’re everywhere. Heck, there could be one dangling above your head as you read this! Lowering itself closer and closer to you on a line of silk, preparing to land on your shoulder… *evil laugh*

The movie Eight-Legged Freaks comes out this summer. I want to see it.

Speaking of things with eight legs… Cephalopods are even more spiffy. Squid, octopi, that sort of thing. Totally weird.Tentacles with suckers. And inside the suckers, hooks. many can change color with their surroundings, or just to show moods…and they have venomous bone-crushing beaks!

random scotto factoid – Somewhere near my apartment is a nesting area for green parrots. I saw about a half dozen of them fly overhead coming in today. I wonder if they’re native, or escaped pets?

I missed Calle Ocho last weekend, not that I’d have been up to go. Great Music and food. A huge block party.

I *still* have to get that stuff put in the mail. Drat. Nothing time intensive, but I’d like the stuff to be where it’s going, not where it is now. *note to self, find out the preferred chain.*

Isaac Asimov Died of AIDS? He contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during open heart surgery, and allegedly his doctor advised him to cover it up.

Dave’s Birthday is this Thursday… I wonder what to hook him up with? Maybe a blockbuster gift card… he’s a daddy now, no time to go out to movies anymore.

“Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. ‘This is the way in,’ said Gollum softly. ‘This is the entrance to the tunnel.’ He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol: Shelob’s Lair. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odour of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within.”

The Lord of the Rings, Book IV, Ch 9

Thumbing through an old paperback novel called Lycosidae. It’s the Pride and Prejudice of giant spider stories. A nice popcorn book between more serious study (not available via amazon! must be out of print).

Spiders are great. Freaky, furry web-spinners with poisonous bites and a love for killing the peskier bugs. Mandibles! A bunch of eyes! They’re just super neat… they’re so thoroughly alien, yet they’re everywhere. Heck, there could be one dangling above your head as you read this! Lowering itself closer and closer to you on a line of silk, preparing to land on your shoulder… *evil laugh*

The movie Eight-Legged Freaks comes out this summer. I want to see it.

Speaking of things with eight legs… Cephalopods are even more spiffy. Squid, octopi, that sort of thing. Totally weird.Tentacles with suckers. And inside the suckers, hooks. many can change color with their surroundings, or just to show moods…and they have venomous bone-crushing beaks!

at the docs…as usual, I’m on time, but the doctor is running slow. A 10:40 and its now 11:12 am, with about 9 people ahead of me.

Salon for the palm sucks. All Teasers for premium content. Bah. I deleted it from my avantgo channel list and now am looking for a better online magazine to palm-synch. Lots of good stuff at plinkit & my yahoo. I just added the sun-sentinel, we’ll see how that goes.

[update from home- 12:54pm]

Well, I’m home for another week, the doc want’s to be sure I’m mending well. A good start would be not having me sit in the waiting room for over an hour!