Sdtrk: ‘Intercity 215’ by Merzbow

This can be, in no way, shape, or form, a good thing.

Gaping hole found in universe
Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:31PM EDT | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A giant hole in the Universe is devoid of galaxies, stars and even lacks dark matter, astronomers said on Thursday.

The team at the University of Minnesota said the void is nearly a billion light-years across and they have no idea why it is there.

“Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size,” said astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick.
the rest of the article is here

Let us… let us consider this for a moment. Space contains an awful lot of, well, space, but it’s not completely empty, as we all know. Then there’s the issue of dark matter, which is, quoth Wiki, ‘hypothetical matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter’. Which basically means that although it’s bastard hard to detect, there is something there where you’d think there’s nothing there, out there.* But these astronomers and scientists have stated that this void they’ve stumbled upon contains no stars, no planets, no black holes, no dark matter, no nothing. Actually, the only thing it seems to have in it is Nothing.

I don’t know about you, but with the discovery of this Void, a number of various apocalyptic scenarios are forming in my mind. You know: a great rift between universes, the walls of reality being rent asunder, Elder Gods of unspeakable power and malevolence pouring into our fragile little cosmos to wreak devastation until the end of time itself, stars winking out one by one, breathable atmospheres of inhabited planets turning into blood, the endless screams of anguished souls praying for a sweet release that will never arrive… huh. I think I’ve just described a typical day at work

*The Wiki entry then goes on to say, ‘It has been noted that the names “dark matter” and “dark energy” serve mainly as expressions of our ignorance, much as the marking of early maps with “terra incognita”‘, which I found to be pretty funny

Sdtrk: ‘Catapillar 2002’ by Merzbow

Under normal circumstances, cats are the most beautiful creatures in nature. But as we all know, nature doesn’t always behave the way we’d expect it to. Witness: *whispers* DEEEAAATH CAAAAATT

‘Nyaa you will die at dawn nyaa’

US cat ‘predicts patient deaths’
BBC News | Thursday, 26 July 2007

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home’s residents are about to die is baffling doctors.

Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

According to the author of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

“He doesn’t make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,” David Dosa, a professor at Brown University who carried out the research, told the Associated Press news agency.
the rest of the article is here

He may not exactly be the friendliest kitty around, but Oscar is simply doing his job as a Shinigami (death god). Albeit the cutest Shinigami ever. However, if he’s ever spotted working outside of the hospice — say, standing on your bed at three in the morning and staring at you — then there’s a problem.

*whispers* DEEEAAATH CAAAAATT

Sdtrk: ‘Mass riff’ by Stereolab

Finally: a name worthy of a Benny Hill character.

*chortle chortle*
She didn’t pick up. Which was disappointing, as I’d really wanted to reply to any and all statements she made with a saucy ‘Ooh matron!’
And another heartwarming scene from my workplace…

ME: Hi, I’m Dave [horrid last name], calling from [Blazing Shithole Industries]. How are ya this afternoon?
AGEING TOSSER: I just got back from the doctor.
ME: Heh, is that Good or Bad?
AGEING TOSSER: Good and bad.
ME: A little bit of both, eh?
AGEING TOSSER: I have to go change my clothes; I just peed my pants.
ME: Aaah… *hangs up quickly*

Brilliant. Yet another reason to not get old

Sdtrk: ‘Half day closing’ by Portishead

Thankfully, I had the rare presence of mind to get my arse out of bed last night/early this morning and type out the dream I’d had! I present it here, for your edification, dissection, and analysis…

Jeff (aka Zip Gun), Sidore and I are freelance Angel* exterminators. We’re on call in an ivy-covered Roman-styled courtyard, hunting down one that looks a bit like Shamshel. Although the sky is a dark orange lined with purple clouds, it’s been drizzling steadily. The third ‘member’ of our group, a human-sized version of JA’ (pronounced Jet Alone Prime**), has managed to corner our quarry, and I’m firing at the Angel from behind a wrecked car. My weapon is some sort of linear rifle that looks more like a tactical shotgun. The thing about it is that its laser sight, instead of creating a tiny red dot, it paints a 4 inch wide orange smudge on the target that resembles a crayon scribble. One would suppose it’s not a stealth weapon, then…
So I’m pumping shot after shot into it, but I can’t seem to penetrate its AT field. I order JA’ to keep it at bay while I return, and I run off to get Shi-chan. She’s sporting waist-length black hair, and is dressed like a miko***. She’s at the far end of the courtyard; as I’m running towards her, I’m yelling ‘Shi-chan! You need to be backup! Come on!’ I don’t even stop as I throw my backpack to her, and I make a high-speed U-turn back toward the Angel. ‘Grab the gun from the bottom inside and hurry!’

We run back, where JA’ has the Angel under control, after a fashion, by pinning down one of its tentacles with a knee and its hammer — we can tell it’s the main tentacle, as it ends in an enormous red-on-red eye the size of a basketball. I rush up to it, and commence shooting the eye again. At this point, Jeff shows up as well, firing at the eye too, as Sidore, lagging behind a few feet, appears. As Jeff and I are shooting, the tentacle starts whipping around; I yell to her to start firing. However, the backpack I threw her has multiple pockets, making it difficult to find the pistol inside. ‘Which flap? There’s too many bloody flaps!’ ‘Down the back!’ She finally finds the Seburo****, and fires at the eye.
After several more minutes of shooting, Jeff believes us to be in danger — most Angels explode when mortally wounded — and he shouts, ‘We have to pull back, it’s gonna blow!’ The three of us do a runner just as it flips JA’ off its main tentacle. We scramble behind another wrecked car a couple of yards away, but it doesn’t explode. Instead it stands to its full height — about ten feet — and whips its tentacles around in a frenzy, bisecting pillars and generally demolishing everything in its path. ‘If only I’d just stabbed it in the eye with a sword; that probably would’ve done it,’ I muse aloud. ‘I’m going to try it; cover me.’ Sidore takes aim at the Angel with the linear gun, a crayon smudge appearing on its body. Just then, a black cat with white mittens shows up in the courtyard a couple of feet near the Angel, and we recognise it as Jeff’s cat Cooper. Jeff becomes distressed, as either the Angel will attack his cat, or we run the risk of accidentally shooting him.

Aaand at that point, my alarm clock unfortunately woke me up, so that’s the lot. I find that a lot of my dreams are unfinished or unresolved, which leads me to the conclusion that I’m just not sleeping enough. As a character in a Kids in the Hall sketch once remarked, ‘If I don’t get my twenty-three and a half hours’ sleep every night, I get pretty cranky.’

Also, sorry for the copious Wiki links. Nice as Wikipedia is, my mates and I refer to the site as ‘Truth by Consensus’, as any old tosser can go in and maliciously change entries, thereby presenting lies as truth if the errors go unchecked. As of late, I’ve been seriously scaling back any Wikipedia links, but in the case of this post, well, I’m just bloody lazy. Mea culpa!

*For the uninitiated, those would be the Angels from the anime series Evangelion
**a mecha from the PS2 Evangelion game
***a Japanese shrine maiden at Shinto temples
****a machine pistol, created by manga-ka Masamune Shirow

Sdtrk: ‘All I need to hear’ by Candie Payne

Well! It has been UNTOLERABLY FUCK HOT the past couple of days, what with the late-80s-to-upper-90s that we’ve been beset with here in the state. Christ in shitty knickers, it’s been hideous. How can people willingly leave their homes and go out for ‘fun’ in weather like that?? It baffles me completely.

As it so happens, I was forced out into oven heat today, for my follow-up dental appointment to have my root canals sealed up for all time. We also started doing a crown or two. I’ll not get into detail, but let’s just say that it took longer than last time, hurt more than last time, and at one memorable point, I was gushing so much blood that I thought my mouth was having its period. I say no more.
Odhinn only knows why I’m even publically keeping up with my dental reconstruction tales, apart from legitimising the brand spank-me new ‘Body horror’ subcategory. Have you not seen it? It’s under the ‘What the’ category, and rightly so.

Before I returned home, though, I purchased the final volume of Death note (which I can’t wait to read) and Raw danger, the long-awaited sequel to Disaster report, for the PS2 (which I can’t wait to play). Now I have to catch up on buying vols. 6 – whatever of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, as well as finally breaking down and getting Armored core: Last Raven — Shi-chan and I are so out of the Armored core loop, it’s appalling. We’re only two missions in to Armored core: Nexus! sssh, don’t tell anyone.

Anyway, so apparently BBC America aired ‘Love me, love my Doll‘ (aka Nick Holt’s ‘Guys and Dolls’) this Sunday past. Checking my site stats as usual, I’d noticed a passel of hits resulting from Google searches for ‘love doll’, ‘davecat’, ‘sidore’, real doll’, etc etc. I had no idea that it was even going to be shown in the States, and frankly, I prefer that the majority of the film/telly appearances that Sweetie and I make are only broadcast overseas, for paranoid obvious reasons, but luckily, most Americans don’t know BBC America even exists, as it’s not owned by Rupert Murdoch, nor does it have anything to do with NASCAR. Nevertheless, Sidore-chan and I wish visitors stopping round because of that a grand Hallo! Unless, of course, you happen to be a cultureless troll; in which case, why aint’cha watchin’ NASCAR?
When I came home Monday eve, however, there was an incoming message via YIM, from a person I’d never heard of before, enquiring if I wouldn’t mind answering a few questions. Jennifer Haughton, an ex-pat from England, was writing a piece for University of Southern California’s campus paper about Dolls and their owners, having been inspired by seeing ‘Love me, love my Doll’. So after making certain she wasn’t a ‘bot — spambot, not robot, as the latter is obviously more preferable — we chatted for about an hour, and you can witness the results here. It’s a puff piece, but ultimately harmless…

Also, if you like horror, or just fiction with a sinister bent — and who wouldn’t? — you’ll be pleased to know that Monti’s little black duck sampler anthology is hot off the presses and ready to be downloaded. It’s available in many formats for eReading, or a .pdf for just plain tree-killin’ reading, but it contains three complete short stories, and the first chapter of a work in progress. Technically, the sampler can be categorised as Summer reading, so get downloading!

Finally, this would be post no.501. HERE COME THE DRUMS HERE COME THE DRUMS

Sdtrk: ‘Great destroyers’ by NON

Little sociological experiment: What you’re reading now was written Friday evening whilst at work. I wrote this to distract myself from the nigh-biblical amount of pain situated in the right side of my mouth. You see, *cue flashback dissolve* this past Wednesday, I had root canals done on two of my front teeth. The process itself, I have to say, was remarkably swift: at first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted both done at once, as I really didn’t relish the idea of being sat in the dentist’s chair for an interminable period of time, whilst they got to work with their rusty saws and blood-caked chisels, but after he painlessly finished one in under ten minutes, I relented, and he did the other just as quickly. Apparently, the nerves in both teeth were dead. Which is alright, really, as we weren’t all that close. So after scheduling to get the core fills for both teeth done next week, and despite the localised anaesthetic making me sound like Sean Connery, I jauntily walked out of there to attend to the rest of the day’s errands.
Two hours later, however, was a different story, as the blessing of the anaesthetic wore off, and I was feeling like someone had popped me in the mouth with a claw hammer. I ended my errand run early, drove home, and immediately tumbled headlong into bed, not waking up until my friend Tsukihime phoned me three hours later.

Now, here’s the funny (ha ha ow) bit: as I’d mentioned, during the drilling itself, I didn’t feel anything averse. In fact, I gave several enthusiastic thumbs-up whenever he asked me how I was. Then, while out and about a few hours later, my body suddenly realised that hey, someone had just been excavating in your feckin’ mouth, and the appropriate reaction was one of a heady and persistent ache. But! My pain level the day of the actual visit wasn’t nearly as bad as it was like two days later, which brings us to this eve. *flashback dissolve*

So! During the final leg of my wonderful amazing fantastical 5.30 – midnight Friday eve shift — yes, I’m aware it’s nonsensical and sucks cock, don’t remind me — that throbbing feeling above the teeth that had been worked on came back with a roaring vengeance, and I’d taken my last ibuprofen about four hours ago. I actually had to stand up and ask one of the managers if the office had a secret cache of IB I could possibly dip into, but alas, no. Hardly a surprise, cos they’re barely equipped with what they’re supposed to be stocked with half the time, at any rate. Luckily, a coworker had some 600mg prescription IB, which just managed to do the business. Lesson learned: Please pass the horse tranquilisers!

It’s been several days since my adventures in modern (pronounced ‘modren’) dentistry, and I have to say that my mouth still hurts. If I’m not careful when I eat or speak, I’ll nick the tip of one of those teeth with one of my lower ones, and everything goes red for a blinding moment, and every other word is preceded by an expletive for a minute or so. I mean, moreso than usual. For a couple of dead nerves, they certainly still hurt like blazing fuck. Knowing my luck, they’re probably undead. We weren’t all that close, y’know.

Originally, I think I had a point when I started writing this, but it’s long since fled; the pain undoubtedly drove it away.
Wow. I think this is the reason I don’t write too often about my personal experiences. Seven shades of uninteresting

Sdtrk: ‘Cracked actor’ by David Bowie

She’ll probably flense me for publically reporting this, but my friend Marika claims that as a child, she once had a squirrel urinate on her from an upper perch on a fence. All told, she got off pretty easy.

Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3
Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:00AM EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) – An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said Thursday.

With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.

The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.

“After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man’s garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh,” the spokesman said. “Then he killed it with his crutch.”

The spokesman said experts thought the attack may have been linked to the mating season or because the squirrel was ill.
(emphasis mine)

Maybe it’s time I started a subcategory dealing with cute animals behaving in a peculiar manner. Cos between the bus-riding moggy, the Mouse Torch, the kitty burglar, and the murderous packs of Russian squirrels, I’m ending up with more of these kinds of stories than I thought possible.

Perhaps this squirrel simply had a series of bad experiences happen to him, one piling on top of the other, until one day he just snapped and began his fatal rampage. Maybe he was fired from an accounting firm. Unfortunately, we’ll never know, but let his example be a lesson to you. I, err, honestly don’t know what kind of lesson we’re speaking of here, but let’s not obsess over details