Barr an mhaidin chugaibh...

Where else could it happen, and at what better time than St. Patrick's weekend? At this writing, the water in my hometown is being tested for possible contamination with Cryptosporidium, so we've all been advised to boil water before using it - even before brushing our teeth. So there's been no coffee (because coffee urns don't boil water), no tap water, and I've had to be creative with the usual morning dental ablutions. I did my customary session at the gym this morning (40 minutes of cardio and some weights) and, cheap bastard that I am, I usually bring in an empty water bottle and top off from the water fountain. Today, though, I actually had to pay 90c for a litre bottle of Volvic... boo hoo.

Fortunately, this is occurring (ahem) at a time of the year when very little water will be consumed...

More importantly, tomorrow is my dad's birthday, he'll be 74 this year. Happy birthday, pops! :-)

Canal and street.

Many are called, but few are chosen, and a bloody good job too sez you.

Time for you to meet some of my friends. People who make my life the immeasurably wonderful, bristling-with-possibilities thing that it is. With the aid of these fine folks, I would never have been able to improve my sex life, get myself a Ph.D. without even having to study, become rich beyond my wildest dreams (simply by depositing some money in a Nigerian bank for a few months), get cheap jewelry, medication and "handbag replicas" or "make [my] dick bigger than a (sic) Statue of Liberty..."

Where would any of us be without these fine people? Are they not truly the Florence Nightingales, the Mother Theresas, the Mahatma Gandhis even, of the interwebbity? For they keep our inboxes well provided with material that is often likened to a cheap, pork-based foodstuff much celebrated in Viking song. And all our lives are enriched tenfold, thanks to them.

Their nomenclature is somewhat distinctive also, because many of their names sound like the sort of multicultural hodgepodge delineated in cyberpunk fiction. Yet another sign of the dynamic, ever-changing world in which we live in. Here are some of them. Perhaps you too have encountered several of these people. Or you may run into them sometime in the future. If so, please pass on my sincere thanks to such sterling souls as:

Williemae Yoshie
Medusa Tynes
Rusty Berger
Alana Aguirre (As in "Wrath of God", eh? Just what spammers deserve I suppose.)
Cadwallader P. Hustings
Reginald
Lorenzo Martin
Bauer & Whitlock Fontenot
Dixon Marcelo
Louella Diaz
Emerson Lesley
Margret Felicia
Weston Delmer
Sophie Clayton Ragland
Pedro & Rigoberto
Eugenia Roxana (Got to be a porn star, this one.)
Gaye Kayla (Ditto.)
Sommer Delaine (Ditto ditto.)
Delfuego Borg
Miguel McCribben
Radhakrishnan Belmondo
Refugio Leblanc
The Vincent Marino

Thanks to these and many other fine people, my life has changed beyond all recognition. For now I amble around the place in bootleg designer clothes. My digits twinkle with cheaply obtained jewelry. My neck also is hung, festooned even, with cut-price bling. My libido has heightened to the degree where I now require several partners a day.

My eyes sparkle with pharmaceuticals purchased at knock-off prices. I hold three Ph. D.'s, five M. A.'s, two M. B. A.'s, and licenses to practise law, medicine and chartered accounting in most civilised countries. Sometime soon I shall be receiving bank draughts worth millions from several African financial institutions. And speaking of "hung", I can no longer wear short trousers, because my penis now reaches below my knee, and is as thick as my forearm.

With appy polly loggies to the divine Ms. W...

(To the tune of REHAB by Amy Winehouse.)

They told us we could stay with Rahab
We said, "No, no, no."
They said "you gotta spy, give it a try,
Just go, go, go"

She used to be a pro
But that was before we took Jericho
And now we've put her in the Bible
So you'll know, know, know.

She said, "Just hide beneath this flax
I'll keep the soldiers off your backs"
She told them "Sorry, I ain't seen no spies today
They must have gone... that-a-way..."

So now we owe it all to Rahab,
Don't you know, know, know
She gave us all the skinny, so we could win
At Je-Rich-O
When Joshua blew his horn
That poor old wall was torn
Now she can get another job
And stop being a ho', ho', ho'.

(Joshua 2:1-27)

Mega thrill-power alert:

2000AD - the comic that brought us Judge Dredd, Sláine, DR and Quinch, Nemesis the Warlock, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, Ace Garp, Halo Jones, Zenith and many other masterpieces of sequential art and storytelling, the comic that introduced an unsuspecting world to the talents of Pat Mills, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons, Peter Milligan, Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Massimo Belardinelli, Ian Gibson, Andy Diggle, Carlos Ezquerra, Alans Moore and Grant, Kevin O'Neill, Garth Ennis, Simon Bisley, and way too many more to mention, turns 30 today.

More hyper-scrotnig info at BBC News.


(Sigh.) It feels like only yesterday that fifteen-year-old me sat down, put on the radio, sipped a cup of coffee, and flipped through the pages of this most zarjaz piece of literary/pictorial wonderment. Before long I was a fully-paid-up Squaxx Dek Thargo. My mind has been irrevocably warped ever since, and I thank Tharg The Mighty himself for it.

Splundig Vur Thrigg!

With apologies to Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Palin and Cleese.

I bought me a bird
It cost five and two -
Norwegian Blue
She sat on her perch
And didn't stir
Shame about her

I prodded this parrot, and thought she might shuffle at least;
But she didn't move and I knew then that she was deceased

Went back to the shop
With parrot and cage
Half in a rage
They said it was "stunned -
After a squawk"
(Strange kind of talk)

I didn't agree but they said she just pined for the fjords
Then I pointed out that her feet had been nailed to the boards

Poor Polly's no more
Her plumage so fine
Has ceased to shine
They sold me a dud
Dead of bird flu -
Norwegian Blue...

video @ tumblr

"sous le pave: la plage"

Pavement art by Julian Beever.

Varieties of Unreligious Experience (via Blogs of Note).

How does Ry Cooder use iTunes? (via Kill Ugly Radio).