messiestobjects

Some Awesome Quotes, Because I'm At Work And Bored

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.
J.K. Rowling

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

Adam was but human -This explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. 
Mark Twain

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
Socrates

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Hermann Hesse

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Steven Wright

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.
Lemony Snicket

Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.
Hermann Hesse

History sighs, repeats itself.
The Onion

Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
Dylan Thomas

The Synchroni-City Of Atlanta

So remember that picture of the Dalai Lama that I found in that Rudy Rucker book from a few posts back? Well, I found out where the photo was taken! Sort of. Yesterday was my first real free day since coming to Atlanta, and they claim to have the largest aquarium in the world here so I decided that I'd go check it out. I love aquariums. I've been using that picture of the Dalai Lama as a bookmark, naturally enough, and I brought my latest Rudy Rucker book with me to read when I stopped for coffee or some such after I got tired of looking at big fish tanks. 

Incidentally, I was talking to one of the guys in the class earlier, asking him about stuff to do in Atlanta, and he got real excited telling me all about the Coca-Cola museum. Yeah, that's right. He was nearly frothing as he told me that they let you try every coke flavor ever made, and that they had this display of coke cans from around the world! The Korean one was particularly sublime, apparently. The highest artistic commercial expression of design and functionality.

And people wonder why I think most of America is such a wasteland of consumerism.

Atlanta's other big attractions according to the hotel's brochure rack were the UPS museum and a grand tour of CNN's offices, and something called The Underground which is a historical area of the city with lots of "unique shopping". Also, a guided city tour... on Segways. Urgh. So, suffice it to say, I wasn't really expecting much out of my day there, other than the aquarium.

The aquarium was pretty sweet. Although, it made me finally realize that no aquarium is ever going to hold up to my childhood memories of going to the aquarium in Boston with my family. Whenever I remember it, it seems gigantic, bigger than any aquarium could possibly be, with a huge 6 level cylindrical tank which you walked up a spiral ramp around, looking at thousands of fish, sharks, and a blue whale inside. I know I know, very unlikely, but I said it was a childhood memory. Those kind of memories tend to grow up along with you. Anyway, the one in Atlanta has four whale-sharks, and they're fairly large. And hammerhead sharks, and those ones with a long saw for a nose. So I was happy. Oh! And Manta-Rays. I love Manta-Rays. They're my favorite aquatic animal.

Anyway, I finished up in the aquarium at around 2:00, and decided I would head over to the Underground, which sounded mildly more interesting than the UPS museum. The coke museum was right next door to the aquarium, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, I just couldn't. I thought about it for a minute, and started walking towards it, but when I saw the ticket line I realized that my soul would truly be damned to hell if I actually paid to go in the ... coca-cola... museum... So I backed away slowly and made for the Underground.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Underground... I saw a sign, a very interesting sign, that said 'Dalai Lama. Free event. 3:00 - 6:00'. I saw some hippie-looking people standing around, so I asked one of them half-jokingly if that meant that the Dalai Lama was really going to be there. And you know, he was. So, I went and saw the Dalai Lama. He was making an acceptance speech in the Olympic Park there, because Emory University had made him a Distinguished Visiting Professor, or some such. On the way in, just before going through park security, there were some fundies hanging around across the street screaming at people that they were going to hell if they listened to the Dalai Lama, and trying to hide the Dalai Lama signs by standing in front of them. Fundies are soooo cute and adorable, with their childish ways and grammar, I just had to snap a photo.

So it seemed like there were thousands of people in the park, waiting to see the Dalai Lama Show. Being bored, and having a camera in my hand, I took a few gratuitous crowd shots.

The girls holding the flag there kept shouting "Free Tibet! Stop killing the monks!" And I kept thinking, "Nobody here is killing any monks, nor are we enslaving Tibet. What are they getting so agitated about? They should go to the Chinese embassy. Or if it's Americans they want to shout at, they can go to Washington and chant about leaving Iraq and to stop murdering innocent Iraqi people. That at least is something worth yelling at a large gathering of Americans about. Oh wait, I get it, we're on TV." Oh, and did I mention that it was pouring rain all day, right up until around noon? Atlanta was having a pretty serious drought until yesterday. So people kept being all smug all day and saying that the Dalai Lama brought the rain with him, but that it stopped long enough for him to speak, because the rain started up again at around 7pm. True enough as far as it goes, although all that really concerned me about it was how the buildings kept disappearing into the clouds. Atlanta is kind of pretty with low clouds.

Anyway, after a bunch of Tibetans playing music, a three piece Atlanta jazz band, then more Tibetans wearing those yellow half-moon hat things and doing that deep OM chant, the Dalai Lama finally took the stage. He's such a nice old man. He thanked Emory University for making him a professor, although he did say that they shouldn't expect him to be around teaching classes much because he's very lazy. Much laughter and applause.

Then he spoke for an hour or so, in his charming broken English, often stopping mid-sentence to ask his translator "Whatssa Name?", about world peace and all that. Since he's the supposed reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion, he had some nice things to say about that. He said that compassion is not a religious idea, that he did not learn these important values from Buddhism, but from his mother. Compassion is born into every human being because after you are born, your survival depends upon the care of another human being. Turtles, who are abandoned on the beach by their mothers, Salmon, whose mothers die after spawning, and some animals whose mothers eat them, insects and so on, they are likely not capable of compassion. Compassion is therefore a human instinct, not a religious idea. He made a very clear point to say that religion is really not so very important, but that compassion is. If you believe in God, that is wonderful, but it is more important to have love and compassion. I think I can get behind that.

After the Dalai Lama Show was over, I saw a bunch of Tibetan monks hanging out so I walked over to them and did the little bow thing that everybody does when those guys are around. Very friendly guys. I pulled out my Rudy Rucker book, and showed them my bookmark and asked them if they knew where the photo had been taken. They smiled and one of them said "Oh, very good picture of His Holiness. This look like when he was in Mambamaramamabakok India."

So there you have it. Some things that I learned today: People holding signs and chanting slogans generally ought to be mistrusted, but people holding children are beautiful, (The Dalai Lama also said that "It is everyone's duty to give maximum affection to their children. It is not my duty though, because I'm a monk. Ha ha.") and that the Photo of His Holiness that fell out of Rudy Rucker's book was probably taken in Mambamaramamabakok, India. And I thought my trip was going to be boring. Sheesh. So the moral of this story is, if you avoid going to the easy, obvious things which commercialism would have you do such as cola museums, you get to see the Dalai Lama, have certain pressing photo-origin questions answered, and be condemned to hell for it by people who claim to follow Jesus, who, by the way, also preached a message of love and compassion. I flipped them the bird. A really fun day, as far as I'm concerned.

Whirling Dervishes Eat Haunted Donuts

I'm in Atlanta Georgia and I'm bored. I haven't really had a chance to leave the hotel yet, and even when I get a chance I'm not particularly excited about it. I mean, it's Atlanta. Although, one cool thing, I'm about 3 blocks away from this sweet looking Haunted House, which was rated the #1 Haunted House in America by Hauntworld Magazine! So, I will definitely check that out soon.

Also, I finished reading both of those Rudy Rucker books.  Spacetime Donuts was the first book he ever wrote, but 2nd published after White Light. SD was fantastic. It's about the idea that the Universe is shaped like a donut, so that if you were to shrink infinitely, you'd eventually wind up coming back around to our size. In other words, our Universe is contained within itself, in every atom. The donut analogy as Rudy describes it is this:

Say you have this donut laying flat, and you place a piece of paper on top of it. The points where the paper actually touch the donut form a circle and is our size level. Staying on the surface of the donut but moving towards the center, the hole of the donut, the size of the circle you are on shrinks. That's you shrinking down to the size of molecules, atoms, quarks. Continue around and without going backwards, you wind up growing back up in size until you are back to where you started. It's very fractal. Good timing that I just read that book actually... everything is speaking to me through fractals these days. Rudy is often trying to describe the complex mathematical ideas of infinity through his gonzo transreal stories. My brain actually feels massaged every time I finish one of his books. He's very good at it.

I know I know. You're exhausted with my Rudy Rucker blogs by now. Sorry. Maybe you should get off your butt and read some already, so you'll know how awesome he is, too.

Moving on, I was holding off on this until it actually came to fruition, but it looks like it never will, so... I was contacted last February by someone who works in the Religion and Ethics department of the BBC website. He had stumbled across my video and pictures of the Whirling Dervish ceremony I'd attended in Turkey, and he wanted to use them in a piece he was putting together. I of course was flattered with a much enlarged ego. He'd written to me once or twice to say that he was still working on it, and that it could be a while before it came together, but it's been a really long time now and nothing. They did however put my name and website prematurely on their photo credits page, so I've got that going for me! See here! Scroll down to the M's. Very exciting, very nothing.

And Now For Something Completely... Earie?

This dude had an ear grafted on to his arm in the name of art. Ear. On his arm.

I'm totally not making this up.

Human ear. Grafted. On human arm. Art.

Urg.

I want eyes on my fingers. Oohh! Gills! I want gills!

My Adjective-Heavy, Overlong Version Of The Emperor's New Clothes.

One of my favorite stories of all time is The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a popular one, and technically it's a fable I think, but it's been in the back of my head for years and years. I think about it so much because it works on so many levels and also it’s another piece in the puzzle of human nature. For a short Fable, it explains so much about human behavior that it feels like an epic. I don’t remember how old I was when it clicked in my head what that story was really about, but ever since then it’s behaved rather fractal-like in my head (Although most things are behaving that way to me right now, because I’m an official Frack addict) as I’ve consistently seen more complicated patterns of human behavior within it every time I think about it.

An Emperor, who is very vain about his fashion sense, spends a lot of his country's money on his vanity, yet he feels that most of the people around him are too stupid to appreciate what is in reality his extremely gaudy taste. So he searches for a Tailor who will make him something so "beautiful" that only those with the "highest" fashion sense can appreciate it. It doesn't take him long to find his Karl Rove, his Ahmed Chalabi, his St. Paul. A clever Tailor has heard about his quest and responds with a devious plan.

He takes the measure of the Emperor, and declares that he will make him the finest suit imaginable, with the caveat that it will be so unimaginably fine that only those who are truly capable of sensing the greatest beauty will be able to see it, so ineffable will this creation be. The Emperor, of course, is very pleased by this and is looking forward to the day when he can prove to the world that he is not a vain idiot, but that he has the very keenest of aesthetic appreciation.

The Tailor takes his down payment and goes off to the pub and has a merry time. He plays some golf, takes a long weekend off in the hills with an easy lass from down the street, and sleeps off the hangover. He meanwhile sends messages to the Emperor that he's been hard at work, along with descriptions of the suit and how lovely it will be, relating his progress on how difficult and rewarding the work is. How the color is beyond the glamour of gold. How he searched far and wide to find the mythical thread of the gods in ancient and little traveled lands. How he imported the finest lace from ancient Babylon. How he is using only adamantine needles gathered from the secret merchants of Atlantis to do the thread work painstakingly by hand, being so careful that a well turned stitch may take him an hour per knot. The Emperor is beside himself with impatience, and daily his imaginings of the suit grow greater until the blinding beauty of what this suit will be has formed an unshakable picture in his mind.

At long last, the clever Tailor wakes one morning and decides that it is time. He opens up a closet door and grabs a dusty old clothing box from the back of it, cleans it up and proceeds to turn it into the finest dressed box in all the land using old ribbons and bits of cast off cloth from his cutting room floor, causing an absurd amount of envy in all of the other clothing boxes' tiny black hearts.

He then cleans himself up, and dresses himself in what are actually very fine and tasteful clothes, because he really is a fantastic Tailor and truly knows what a nicely cut suit is all about. In fact, looking at the Tailor that morning, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he was the lord of a wealthy fief with an old family and refined sensibilities. Further, he might have been happy to cut the Emperor as fine a suit as this one, but the Tailor knew that his tastes did not run in that direction and would demand something far showier than was truly tasteful.

Getting himself into his role, he grabs some air and arranges it fussily inside the handsomest box ever created. He then sends word to the Emperor that the suit is finished at last. Beside himself with joy, the Emperor sends an escort of his personal guard to bring the Tailor and his suit to the palace.

When the Tailor arrives at the palace, Box of Adonis tucked safely under his arm, the Emperor greedily demands to see the suit, so eager is he to present himself to his subjects as a man of the greatest sensibilities. The Tailor first admonishes the Emperor to remember his caveat, and before taking out the suit, begins to remind him of how sacred and beautiful this suit is, and that he must prepare his eyes to see it lest he be blinded by the beauty etc etc etc...

So after much ado about nothing, they retire to the Emperor’s chambers along with several choice Imperial Attendants and there, apart from prying eyes the Tailor opens the box and... Well what happens here is a matter of much debate. Some people believe that the Emperor, so fixated on the ideas carefully planted by the Tailor of the amazing technicolor suit, in fact actually saw the suit exactly as he imagined it, his fantasies becoming a mirage before his eyes. Others believe that, seeing nothing there he was loath to admit to himself (but even more importantly, would be loath to admit to his courtiers and advisers) that he could not see it, especially in front of his attendants and more so after talking it up for so long that only those with fine aesthetic discernment would be able to look at it, and so proceeded to convince himself that it was there, lest he be laughed at by those with more acumen for not apprehending it. Still others believe that the Emperor knew very well that there was in fact nothing there, but again for the same reasons as stated above and further chose to go along with the Tailor's clever ruse so that he could proclaim himself the only one in the world with the ability to see it; God's chosen fashion sensor.

In any case, whatever was going through the Emperor's mind at the time, the outcome was the same. It will be up to him to face the reality he hid himself from, or the reality he created, on judgment day. For the rest of us, it is what comes next that is important.

The Tailor made a great show of lifting the invisible clothes out of the box and draping them ‘round the foolish ruler. His Attendants, after an initial moment of confusion, began to help the Tailor and made various sounds of approval, exclaiming that the Tailor had done a wonderful job and that the Emperor looked simply incomparable. One of the Attendants quietly slipped out of the room to warn… I mean, to announce of course! To announce to the Lords and Ladies of the court that the Emperor was now dressed in his eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and would be attending them shortly.

The Emperor presented himself to his court, beaming happily in his amazing new outfit which everyone saw to be his bright pink polka-dotted underwear, yet none of them would be the first to say other than that his robes were splendorous (lick spittle cowards that people of such station invariably are). There was a tense moment for the Tailor when a poor ignorant chambermaid came in to tend the fire and gasped upon seeing him holding court before hundreds of his courtiers, wearing nothing but his Imperial Knickers! She turned a truly amazing shade of white which possibly had never been specified on the royal color charts before that day, and began to stammer an apology for walking in on the Emperor in such a state. Having gone over every eventuality in his head many times over, the Tailor smoothly explained to the Emperor and his Attendants in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, but especially by the poor white-faced chambermaid that it only proved his point that those without class or fashion sense would not be able to comprehend the world’s finest fabric creation.

Chambermaids, poor creatures that they are with little in their lives other than the drudgery of cleaning up after other folk’s dirty messes, are resultantly prone to gossip. So naturally word of this exchange spread quickly, although the story which the chambermaid told changed from her simply having seen the Emperor in his knickers to having been temporarily blinded by the Emperor’s au courant hauteur, and was now in fact one of the lucky first to have seen the new wonder which could only be seen, according to the greatest Tailor of the land, (For he was the Emperor’s personal Tailor, was he not?) by people of taste and education! An article of clothing which only those of a complete doltish nature would fail to behold, and of course all of the Lords, Ladies and residents of the palace, who with their position, wealth, and refinement were the envy of those of the working class, had perceived it and therefore proven that the rumors of the Members-of-Refinement only suit were in fact true.

And so of course it was not long before everyone in town determined that they would not be one of the unfortunates to expose their ignorance by failing to see the new outfit, having a great desire to prove themselves every bit as refined as their social superiors.

As it so happened, the Imperial Scheduler had on his calendar for this day an Imperial inspection of the Empire’s Cavalry. As the bent, near-blind old Scheduler informed the Emperor of this duty, the Tailor listened closely, and worried a little. He asked the Imperial Scheduler what he thought of the Emperor’s attire, and whether it was appropriate garb for an official public inspection. The Scheduler, having heard the talk of the eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and near blind though he was, exclaimed how fine the Emperor looked and declared that the Cavalry would likely be honored by his well-dressed inspection.

And so the Tailor, deeming the public ready as evinced by the fact of word having spread to the servants, was sure that by the time the Emperor’s retinue arrived outside word would have spread even further, and felt confident that he was safe. He then approached the Emperor and asked for the remainder of his fee, having delivered the new clothes as promised, before taking his leave. The Emperor, being always in the public eye, paid the Tailor his due with a healthy bonus thrown in for having far surpassed his greatest expectations. The Tailor then bowed his way out of the palace, thanking the Emperor for his magnanimity, and telling him that should he have any problems or need any further work done not to hesitate to summon him. The Tailor left in a very jubilant mood indeed, having more gold in his pockets now than ever another tailor may receive in a lifetime, and all for such toil free deception!

The Emperor ordered his retinue be made ready, and, dressed impeccably in naught but his undergarments, proceeded out onto the streets for a much anticipated inspection of his cavalry, for now all of the people would see and understand how wonderful their Emperor’s taste in clothing really was!

Strutting down the avenue outside of his palace, surrounded by his slavering suck-ups, The Emperor began to preen. Never before did such a preening take place as this one. In fact, were the Emperor even a small touch more smug and self-loving, this story may have come down to us through the ages known as The Emperor’s New Preen.

But of course, we all know what it’s really all about. It’s about a grown man publicly walking about in his skivvy, pretending that he looks simply fabulous. And as he walked down the main street of his city in this manner, the people were trying not to snigger, because while they all saw him, um, very clearly shall we say, none of them wished to be the first to admit it and invite possible ridicule in case there was any truth to the idea that he was actually very finely dressed, and so laughing would only expose their own lowness.

People are generally pretty stupid and have overlarge egos, and the Emperor was, well, their Emperor.

A young child, too young and intelligent to have paid any mind to the nonsense talk of the adults but not so young that he didn’t know what was truly important, was therefore looking around the street for interesting things to pick up from the ground and chasing pigeons. As he was running after a particularly energetic pigeon, he found himself quite inadvertently out in the middle of the street… directly in front of the nearly naked Emperor.

As the child’s clear eyes scanned up from the Emperor’s feet to meet his royally clouded eyes, widening in surprise along the way, I like to imagine that a chill of doom shivered up the Emperor’s regally ambivalent spine. I think that deep down, everyone knows you can’t fool children, not about the important things anyway, even when you’ve managed to fool yourself.

The child, not understanding the silly adult complexities of the situation, shouted up to the Emperor (who, leaning back with one leg crooked and arms going bent as he was, looked as if he was ready to flee from this harmless little urchin):

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

Those nearest the unfolding drama gasped, and the silence thundered like a wave. The complete ridiculousness of the situation had been apparent to all, but after being too cowardly to state their convictions on the matter, the child’s innocent question was as a needle to a balloon for the people on the street. And then: laughter. Unable to hold on to their imagined dignity any longer, the throng bellowed until the tears came.

Now, in the old telling of this story, the Emperor, looking quite like a scared little monkey, became ashamed as he realized that the jig was up and high-tailed it back to his palace in order to become decent and to find that louse of a tailor and hang him by his fingers. However, times being what they are, our story does not end nearly as tidily. Instead, our Emperor, looking more like a smug, semi-intelligent nose-picking little monkey, chose to ignore the laughter, loudly pronounce that all of those who were full of mirth were in fact scoundrels, and that he very well was wearing very fine cloth which they obviously were too uneducated and unpatriotic to see, until some of the people came around again to believing in the ruse and began to accuse each other of being on the wrong side of things until no one knew anymore what was naked and what was not. And rather than hanging the insipidly deceitful Tailor, the Emperor made him his top fashion adviser and gave him a big raise.

And that is The End of all things, children.

Zoom A Little Zoom, Fractally Parlez Vou

I found an even better fractal program! I made this YouTube video with it. It only took like 15 minutes, too. Nyah nyah, Gary!

And here's another one I did today... This one is called Fractal Party Goin' On. I'm kind of obsessing over this program. I may add more fractal videos to this post from time to time.

This one is called The Pink Fractal Room. Man, I can't get enough of these. Somebody help me.

I can't stop. They're so awesome. This one is called Holiday Of Fractal.

Fractally Speaking, Of Course

Fractals freak me out a little bit. If you start with the mother of all fractals, the Mandelbrot Set:

and you zoom in, and keep zooming in, you can get to a point where if the portion that is viewable on your screen were actual size, then the rest of the Mandelbrot which you've zoomed past would be larger than the universe itself. And you can keep going, and going, and going, and always there will be more richly detailed fractal vistas. THAT'S infinity.

I think what freaks me out is how... familiar... it feels. It's like watching your brain operate from the manager's factory overlook. What's completely strange is that while the Mandelbrot Set was discovered in 1980, the mathematical formula is really simple. No calculus, no trigonometry. It's some algebra. Adding and multiplying. The mathematical formula known as the Mandelbrot set could have been discovered at any time in the history of math... technically. What was required to make the realization that the Mandelbrot set is actually infinite complexity generated by a simple formula was computers, because zooming down into a fractal requires constant calculation, and a computer screen which visually details the results. It's almost as though the Mandelbrot was always there, waiting until we were ready to find it, a living, breathing concept. A universal theorem equivalent to the obelisks of 2001:A Space Odyssey.

Fractals have always made my head spin a little bit. Sometimes, I actually aurally hallucinate while watching them. It's one of those sounds that could be children laughing and playing on a playground far off in the distance, or screams from a slaughterhouse, or a tinkly waterfall, but you can't really tell which. Sometimes they move on their own... even the jpegs, not just the YouTubes. I have to literally force myself to stop thinking about them when I start getting into a fractal kick. Today's fractal head trip was inspired by this video, which someone over on MySpace sent out in a mass bulletin. I've even downloaded a fractal generating program. It's awesome, but I've only just begun to figure out how it works. It's slightly technical. They're so pretty.

Fractal math is quite probably the mathematical function used to calculate the Universe, whether by design or by nature, whichever your bent. It's sort of amazing that we can even comprehend such a thing, see the edges of it in reality, and wonder about it. Here's one that is Universe scale.

On Buying Used Books, or, Revisiting Tired Old Refrains

I haven't actually read this book yet, but I've started it and I'm very excited about it. It's an old Rudy Rucker novel that I picked up used from Amazon. I love this guy.

But my point isn't about Rudy this time. My point is that you should always buy used books when you can. Because they're cheaper. And because they need a home. And because they've already got that nice older book smell, no waiting!

And also because, old books are like a box of chocolates... never mind. I got Spacetime Donuts in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and I never got around to reading it until last night. I'd brought it with me on the last couple of trips I've been on for work, including a two-day trip to Virginia I just got back from, (Traffic was hell on the way back; other than that I have little to report on that one.) but I never got the chance to get to it until now, and when I opened it, a snapshot fell out which I assume was being used as a bookmark. I love when that happens. I mean, it probably sucks to be the guy that sold his old books and then can't figure out what happened to his picture, but bonus for me! So here's the snapshot: (Of course I've scanned it already. All pictures must be scanned. I'm like the photo police.)

Crazy right?! It was someone's personal snapshot of the Dalai Lama! Looks like he took a couple of shots to the arm there. Fight Club Dalai Lama?

I wonder where this was taken? Everybody is Asian, except for the cops... so it could be some American Chinatown somewhere, or it could actually be in Asia, because of the pagoda and the Asians, and maybe the Dalai Lama likes to cart Western-lookin' cops around with him? There's no date stamp on it unfortunately, but it looks at least relatively recent, because he's all old. Still, that dude travels a lot, so there's no knowing.

So what, you really think I'm going to let this post pass without gushing about how awesome Rudy Rucker is? Fat chance! I mean really, he's so cool that even the Dalai Lama hangs around his books all the time, trying to be half as cool. His newest book was recently released, and I'll be bringing it with me to gorge on on my next job, which is likely to be in Atlanta Georgia. A good place for reading, I think. God I love this guy. Seriously, if you still haven't visited Mr. Rucker's work, get 'White Light' now. Right now.

Aw hell, while I'm at it, Gun Club rules the most too. Still.