I’m sick as a puppy kicked with boots of botulism, and have spent the past week building myself a cocoon of self-pity out of spit, phlegm, slime and mucous. My brother and I have taken turns to laugh hysterically at our miserable state and inactivity; I have listened to old episodes of How to disappear completely and drunk copious amounts of tea. As an aside, I have little faith left in the healing powers of whisky – massive headache followed our attempt at Scottish healing.
The running shoes I brought are still in their bag. The book I brought has only been opened once. All meetings with friends came to naught and I’ve spend some ten hours looking for a new cellphone because I have come to hate the Samsung I’m currently stuck with. On the bright side, I did get to ride a taxi from downtown to Kungsängen, which put my suburb in a more accessible place, albeit only mentally.
As things stand, I’m looking for ways to get home to Gothenburg in time to infect everyone in the city with whatever it is that I have. The streets will run foul with the stench of decay and poor hygiene, and civilisation as we know it will be no more! That, or I’ll just have a cocktail and go home and sleep post fireworks.
Below is a Explosm.net cartoon, followed by one from XKCD.com. Both required reading in these times.
Tan Le, co-founder and president of Emotiv Systems, gives a live demo of a mind control device that uses a person’s thoughts to input computer commands.
→ Fora TV: Tan Le at The Entertainment Gathering, Dec 12 [via Tobias]
BILLION DOLLAR BILLBOARD – By Lee Beavington
Damien gasped.
“Look at the stars! They’re MOVING!”
His friends ignored him, stumbling over the beach with bottles in hand. Damien dug his toes in the sand and craned his neck. He tried to rationalize the tiny, shifting white lights. Too far to be planes, too close to be planets. The several dozen scattered twinkles rearranged themselves in the cloudless sky. Maybe he had had too much to drink. Unless..
A moment later he read the constellation of satellites.
DRINK DUKE BEER!
Then the satellites dispersed. A friend slapped him on the back. “Do as it says, eh? Bottoms up!”
→ From the webpage of G. W. Thomas, where a different author presents a very short piece of fiction each day. I recommend you subscribing to it by email here: www.gwthomas.org