mysfit's adventure at the San Francisco Zoo

the only elephant

so i'm not quite sure about a zoo without elephants or camels, but there you have it. i went to the san Francisco zoo this weekend and since i was visiting my folks, i got to play with my mom's digital camera. hopefully, jennsee will not be angry with me for inundating the tourist with photos. the best part of my adventure was seeing the snow leopards - these wondrous big cats you must imagine in you mind - their long tails and spotted fur like snow - for they refused to be photogenic in the california sun. though, we lucked out with timing for just as we reached their cages a zoo-keeper consented to wake these lazy beasts.

the ranting fish has a big mouth

So jennsee ranted and raved a bit at everything the other day and today i feel like saying f--k the f--king world - maybe the stars are out of whack or something.

First and foremost, I've recently decided that the government has no business taking away my right to choose to wear a seatbelt or not. They are really cracking down on this now with a "click it or ticket" campaign - catchy, no? Now they can pull you over for no other reason than you weren't wearing your seat-belt. At first, I thought the seat-belt law was a good idea as it does in fact, save lives and of course, you should buckle up your kids. Well and great, but this is a law which tells the individual to do something which good for the individual (and this is the important part) in regards to his/herself alone or else pay the fine. There are many things I could and probably should choose to do that would be good, not for the society I live in nor for myself in regards to the society I live in, but for myself alone - but it's not for the government to decide these things for me. My wearing a seat-belt effects no one's safety but my own and my car is my private vehicle (or would be if I owned one) - next they will ticket me for not tying my shoes or wearing a coat in cold weather.

In this country our government is supposed to speak with the collective voice of the people, this is true and apparently the collective voice of the people are crying out to have their personal decisions made for them - sad really. This may seem a trite complaint on a good idea, but I think this sets a dangerous precedent. I see this as an attempt on the part of the government to save me from myself and I challenge anyone to come up with another law which forces the individual to make a good decision which directly or could directly affect no one but the individual him/herself. I've been wracking my brains and cannot think of one.

Sixteenthly, I am so worn out by the feeling of being manipulated by the media, by the government, that I'd like to file for Societal Member's Comp. Like Worker's Comp, this new program will compensate people for injuries taken as a direct result of living within society. SMC comes with a life supply of "I-Really-Care" pills and "I-Don't-Care" pills as well as an instruction booklet detailing how and when to use the pills. Currently, "I-Really-Care" pills come in two flavors: 'surprisingly-like-peanut-butter-M&M's' and 'wow-I-could-swear-these-are-Mike&Ikes'. The SMC scientists are expected to come out with a new flavor of "I-Don't-Care" pills by the end of the month - currently they are only available in 'mmm-Sour-Patch-Kids-like'.
To help justify my case for the SMC, I plan to submit conversation parts A, B, and C. Please view, as you too may qualify to receive Societal Member's Comp.

The last thing I was going to rant about today was Star Wars and George Lucas in an attempt to expunge from myself the disgust at a man who has that much money and that kind of a franchise and yet still cannot hire good script-writers or main characters who can act. But I'm so sick of it all, (like jennsee says it's everywhere, so much so that I don't even feel the need to link this), that all I have to say is I guess some stories are more powerful than the storyteller.

fishy responses

transcribed from tape. interview with monkey 0

1. You are clearly a ghost samurai. How did you get into this racket, how's the pay, and is that your real moustache?

that's a good question, monk, and one that i'd be glad to answer. it all started when i was young boy in the uzen province. i joined a dojo at the age of 5 and didn't look back. i moved quickly through the ranks and became the best swordsman in the shogunate. unfortunately, being a sucker for the ladies, i was poisoned by a female ninja who worked for an opposing warlord. the pay was great while i was alive, tho it wasn't really a monetary compensation that i received. it was a status thing, so i was comped everywhere i went. in retrospect, i lived my life a little too hedonistically and got what i deserved in the end. now that i'm dead, i have no need for pay. the moustache is mine, tho i didn't grow it. it belonged to my master uesugi kenshin who once told me

Fate is in Heaven, the armor is on the breast, success is with the legs. Go to the battlefield firmly confident of victory, and you will come home with no wounds whatever. Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death. When you leave the house determined not to see it again you will come home safely; when you have any thought of returning you will not return. You may not be in the wrong to think that the world is always subject to change, but the warrior must not entertain this way of thinking, for his fate is always determined.

circumstances led us into battle together. i was voctorious, removed his moustache, and attached it to my faceplate. it is both a trophy of battle and a reminder of my master and my own mortality.

2. Would you rather have a jet pack or a special robot arm which dispenses superb espresso and vintage Barolo?

tho robotic limbs have their advantages, i would rather have a jet pack than a robot arm. i like wine, but i've never had occasion to drink a barolo. i do not like espresso, nor do i like coffee.

3. When you're on the train and you see the signs that say "do not throw anything from the train" (or "ne jetez pas aucun objets dans le fenestre" as they say in France), what do you get the urge to chuck out the window?

george w. bush.

4. Name your favorite foods for:
4a. zombie attack

chilled monkey brains. (also my favorite food for liberating indian children from mola ram and his gang of thugees)

4b. true love
chocolate sex, wine, and roses.

4c. zero gravity

milkshakes.

4d. waking up not knowing where you are or how you go there but you're covered in it

egg n cheese sammich.

5. We'll end with a simple one: nature or nurture?

noodles.

later, our very own jenn see asked me these revealing questions...

1. the universe: infinitely expanding, or goes in cycles?

it cycles as it expands, but on one of those old-timey bikes with the funny wheels.


you are number six.

2. if you were a plant, what would you be?

ficus, i think...yes....a ficus.

3. which fictional character do you have the biggest crush on?

recently, natsuki.


okay....

but it all goes back to caitlin fairchild of gen13


ummmm................

4. if we make a movie of your life, who should we get to direct it? who would star? who would play me?

wes anderson, maybe, could direct? bill murray and owen wilson come with the turf, but additionally i'd like to have jack nicholson and scarlett johansson to play you.


scarlett

i will of course portray myself....

5. what's your favorite word? who's your favorite musician? how are the 2 related?

oscillate & jimmy knepper. he was a little too old to oscillate when i met him, but he could still play like a mofo. charlie parker, tho...he could oscillate.


jimmy knepper


knepper and charlie parker


& i think we can consider "what fish represents your dark side?" to be a requisite.


manta ray

and as a parting thought, i leave you with this.

goodnite you little fishies...

what sprang from the head of the fish

a little disclaimer to ease my nerves and some background info about me, if you were curious...

i have been writing poems since 2nd grade and yes, i still remember the first poem i ever wrote - no, i will not tell you, so don't even ask...

i don't remember when i gave up on rhyming and structure - it was so long ago - but i do remember the swelling sense of freedom it gave me and so i never looked back, though i do occasionally write some experimental form poetry, it almost never rhymes...

but sometimes and without warning rhyming happens in lyrical form- so here is the latest which sprang from the head of my fish:



the world smells of gasoline
but i'm a painted lily
singing songs to you
in passing phrase
of days i could not see

i wish that you could breathe my air
and help me bring the sun
but you, my dear
are far from here
chasing vodka with the dawn

they're burning all the houses down
and torching fresh cut grass
but we've been dead
for longer years
than the pope's been chanting mass

the world smells of gasoline
but i have lost my mind
and you got lost
between the drops
when we left the frame behind


i haven't found a name for this - suggest a title if you dare...

the fish brings you...

" Ten Reasons To Go To Work Naked "
(this was emailed to me and i wanted to share)

10. No one ever steals your chair.

9. Gives "bad hair day" a whole new meaning.

8. Diverts attention from the fact that you also came to work drunk.

7. People stop stealing your pens after they've seen where you keep them.

6. You want to see if it's like the dream.

5. To stop those creepy used truck salesmen from looking down your blouse.

4. " I'd love to chip in...but I left my wallet in my pants."

3. Inventive way to finally meet that 'special' person in Human Resources.

2. Can take advantage of your computer monitor radiation to work on your tan.

And the Number One reason to go to work naked : Your boss will never say, " I wanna see your ass in here by 8:00 ! " ever again.

when the fish asks you if you're a god you say yes

jerry and rocketboy, first in a while...



i lost rocketboy upon our arrival at these great smokies. he was there, i swear he was, but i turned to light a cigarette and he was gone. i figured he might have just gone ahead so i followed the trail before us...me.
that was almost a year ago.
and here's me, still following this spine up the east coast of the former continental united states, great beast that it was. i might have been looking for my lost comrade. i might have just been following the path. probably both.
as the north carolina (formerly) snow skirls before and behind me, i get depressed. it was this search, this compulsion to follow a path that's off the beaten, that got me started so many years ago. i'm still chasing the same dreams. the only proof i have is a pair of worn out shoes.
i get depressed because i've come full circle, and i hate circles, daddy-o.
no recourse, save one, and an unreliable one as the case is. i don’t know how to use this timespike. i have the gist of it, in a point and shoot kind of way, but there’s no precision involved.
something i’ve noticed about travel by timespike. the more i do it, the longer i stay in the flow, the more my rough edges get worn down. time is not something to trifle with.
there’s also my growing concern and paranoia that the device will stop working, run out of batteries. what then?
i think i’m losing my resolve.
i cast the spike and wait for it to catch. it’s less reliable now than it was when i found it, when i met rocketboy. man, how the fish used to bite. thirty two minutes pass before i feel it this time. not the longest, but notable.
the timespike pulls me out of now and plunges me into

now.
swinburne island, just off the coast of another that i know. i recognize the crematorium and the cold wreck of the narrows bridge. it is sunny, tho. and there are sunflowers everywhere. there’s nothing else here, save a boat, but that’s all i really need. it floats and i’m not going very far.
the sea is calm and slips beneath the prow as i scoop the oars. i’m reminded of youth, but that’s a different type of spike.
i reach the opposite shore and follow the beach a little before i head inland. things are familiar, but everything is so blasted to incoherence that i could be anywhere, and once you’re anywhere….
‘hey jerry, you have a smoke?’
i turn and there stands rocketboy. i hand him his cigarette and hold the lighter ready.
‘where you been?’
i shrug in response and flick the lighter to life.

not a fish at all

ok, so i know i've promised much in my life- i know i promised you pictures of mowing the lawn and being the goddess of destruction as i run my lawn-sharpened mower over the weeds of chaos and mother nature in another of man's chaotic attempts to bring order to the yard - but after two days all the dandilions (who were just laying down and biding their time) popped right back up - scaring the cat - and the lawn looks like it needs to be mowed again. So, I'm feeling a bit sheepish and not like a fish at all, much less a goddess...

besides, I still haven't finished the roll of film - or maybe i have - but this camera is new at least to me, and requires decisively non-digital film. It may rewind itself eventually - i hope.

so instead here is a picture of a duck:

-from P.I.P. Handicrafts


now quit your quacking...

mysfit reveals exclusive interview to the fish

These questions came from Emily :

1. What religious imagery most moves you?
All of it. I think religious imagery is a very important part of life for all people who have a religion. Symbols can help you to clear and focus your mind, letting you become in tune with whatever deity you believe best defines god for you. Religious imagery fascinates me and realizing that people gleam hope, die/kill, sacrifice and live for such symbols, I am deeply moved - sometimes to tears and sometimes to laughter. I hope you don't think this is a cop-out answer.

2. What is you favorite at the movies snack/candy?
Reeses Pieces

3. Would you describe yourself as extroverted or introverted and why?
Years ago, I realized that I was an introvert who has spent her whole life pretending that I am an extrovert. It might have worked by now.

4. Did you do it?
No... of course I didn't... I wasn't anywhere near it... I was at the movies... alone... I was on the moon with Steve...

...I mean, do what?

5. What kind of fish best depicts your dark side?
Ok, this might be the hardest question yet. What kind of fish and my dark side... I don't have a dark side. No, really, I'm all light and shining and goodness and - alright, my dark side... hmm, I guess my glib, off-the-cuff response would be the puffer fish, because of the toxic spines that I shoot out at people I'm mad at...

Though this response might change as I think about it more.


The Official Interview Game Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.

3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

always laugh loudly from under umbrellas

in the grandest tradition of tuesdays around the world, my fish brings you this lovely yellow umbrella. may it help you to conquer the world, or failing that, your fears at least...

it's monday and the fish won't settle on a topic...

so i keep trying to compose my thoughts into something both cogent and coherent, but not only am i feeling lost at work today, but i think that i have a near terminal case of a little thing we could refer to as Monday-ADD...

So, Good Morning, afternoon, evening, summer, winter, spring and how are you going today?

WELCOME TO NEPTUNE!!

Welcome to a few episodes of my fish as i could only do an episode at a time, this may be a little tangential and entirely fragmentary so from the first....

This weekend we celebrated both those wonderful people we call mothers who granted us existence and the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII and the defeat of the Nazi's. It was kind of a strange weekend.

I celebrated spring and being a goddess of destruction/creation by mowing my lawn(more thoughts about this another time, when i'm coherent). This is spring to me: ladybugs and lilacs. Not lawn care. I know many of you are wondering at this point what a lawn is and why you have to care for it. Soon I will include a picture... I will say one more thing about this just now - I hate raking.

I've decided for the catch today, that I am going fishing for a literary fish and just leave it at that. For those of you who don't understand what I mean by this, check out the sidebar and go to my to other site (or something) but don't enjoy it as i am still trying to find time to spruce it up.

I built my first computer yesterday, from the inside out. It was really neat - something else to cross off my list of things to do before i die. Unfortunately, i don't remember what i put in it... so don't ask.

These sugar-free candies are killing me - i want a cookie.

[YOU WILL LISTEN TO HAPPY ANARCHY... YOU WILL LOVE IT... YOU WILL LISTEN TO HAPPY ANARCHY...]



end transmission

for promotional fish only

there's no show to plug.  we're taking most of may to record a bunch of preliminary tracks for the next album.  paris hilton thinks it's gonna be hot.  there is a favor tho that i would ask of all of you.  we're trying to get onto the warped tour via ernie ball's side stage.  ernie ball is not a film star from those blue movies your grandpa used to watch.  he may not be a real man at all,  but he does make guitar strings...incidentally the type that joe uses, so now you know what to get him for christmas and birthdays.
tangents aside, we still need your help!  this is the last week of judging and it would make a better case for us if you could bump up the number of plays for us.  all you have to do is visit 

http://www.battleofthebands.com/happyanarchy 
just click play


you have to let the song play all the way to make it count.  use this as an opportunity to introduce a coworker or family member to the band.  easy, right?  after you do that, send the link to everyone in your address book and ask them to do the same.  send an email to your local and state representatives and see if they can get a bill passed to get us some plays.  they seem to like getting involved in things they have no business being into.  we just have to spin it a bit, get the right angle, like if we don't get this gig then todd won't be able to get his medication and the american people can't let that happen.

thank you!

see us: www.happyanarchy.com
write us: happyanarchy@happyanarchy.com


-t-

Special Relativity

(I've been meaning to post this for a while. It's a few years old, but it's probably one of my favorite writing pieces that I've ever done. So Enjoy! Since bloggie doesn't like spacing, all the italicized parts, except this one, are supposed to be indented.)



On the first floor, I welcome the checkered floor, the high ceiling, the empty room. Not sure how to proceed, I hesitate. The light, withdrawing from the corners, condenses into a single stream, intensifying the center of the room. The process, instantaneous, hurts my eyes. I walk into the stream.

It’s not that I have a problem with my body, she breathes, I just don’t understand why I only have one.
I only have one mind, I reply, but so does everyone else. Everyone is I.








On the second floor, we gaze at each other through glass windows and listen to the TV hum. Sadly she smiles at me, her white teeth grinning.

It’s new, she says.
I know, I reply.
I’ve―never tried it, she says.
I know, I reply.
It doesn’t really do anything, she says.
I know, I reply.
I love you, she says.








On the third floor, I wait for her. Time has a constant effect after a while, like freefalling.

No one really listens, she told me once.
I’m listening, I replied.

Straining, I hear the memory of her song. She would breathe my thoughts into wave patterns to bounce down hallways and bend through water. She never asked any questions.








On the fourth floor, I am faced with a reflection of me. Despite trying not to, I see her in the process of reflecting. The face stretches to fit the image of dimension and vertigo hits me.

On the fourth floor, I am faced with a reflection of her. Despite trying not to, I see me in the process of reflecting. The face stretches to fit a frame of reference and vertigo overtakes me.

On the fourth floor, I am faced with a reflection—

You’re trying too hard, she says.
I know, I reply.








On the fifth floor, she meets me. Standing just outside my vision spectrum, she sings to me in ultraviolet rays. My shadow sways in time with her melody. Passing through me, she takes him, twirling through corridors and leads him to higher frequencies of movement. I try to follow but all I find are specs of dust floating, unsettled by their passage. I only see spots.








On the sixth floor, I find my shadow, beaten and broken, bleeding.

You affect me, she says.
I do not reply.








On the seventh floor, I find my shadow drawn to me. I find the furniture drawn to me. I find the air drawn to me. I wrap myself in the fabric of the seventh floor and wait for her to be drawn to me. She approaches cautiously, as if unsure whether I am actually there. I know she feels me, but I am not as she remembers.

You don’t have to be afraid, I say.
I’m not, she replies.
Will you sing for me, I ask.
I will not, she replies.
What will you do, I ask.
I don’t know, she replies.
I love you, I say.








On the eighth floor, she waits for me, counting variables and constants. The echoes of my footsteps reach her before I can.

I hear your rhythm, she says.
I don’t understand, I reply.

She explains the stars to me. She explains that to be a body is to rely on potential. That a body suspended in limbo becomes the standard measurement of time, the gauge of motion, the origin.

I hear your rhythm, I say.
I don’t understand, she replies.
I can hear your heart beat, I say.
I am infrared, she replies.

I explain that to be a body is to rely on gravity. That identification requires separate movements through time, but to be alone is to be without identity. I tell her that she is my identity and she sings to me.

Holy Mackerel!

"and the fish shall rise up and take their revenge..."

In a startling apt post, our dear friend from Thysdrus informed me of this astounding event. Please view with caution - not for the light-hearted:

"Fish Floors Old Fisherman in revenge attack"

the fish makes up words

;
as in the past tense of squeeze.

“What did you do to her ass?”
“I squoze it.”

childhood fish-back

Welcome to my time-portal and please don't mind the squiggly flashback marks.

Last night I re-watched a childhood favorite of mine: Return to OZ(1985). The creepy sequel to the Wizard of OZ(1939) (though I have to admit, parts of that movie freaked me out when I was a kid as well - oo, flying monkeys). If you have never seen this - you should. If you need an excuse, introduce any child that you know to it.

Tik-Tok meets Dorothy

Often when I re-watch movies that I loved as a kid, I realize just how stupid they are, or that they are just not all that I remember them to be. The strangest experience of this is when I watched the Neverending Story(1984) a few years ago. I still love the movie, even after re-watching it, actually especially after watching it. That's just it - I love the memory of the movie. Watching the movie itself was a bit unsatisfying as the acting and effects were very cheesy. It's the story-line that really carries the Neverending Story.

Unlike the sequel to the Neverending story, the Return to Oz was actually good. The best thing though is that Return to OZ was still just as great now as I remember it to be as a kid and unlike the first movie, this one is not a musical. Fairuza Balk plays a great Dorothy in her first movie ever.

You may remember her from such movies as The Craft(1996), American History X(1998) and Almost Famous(2000). It's interesting to note that the Dorothy in this movie is obviously a young girl and seems much younger than the Dorothy in the first movie played by Judy Garland. The Tik-Tok man is one of my favorite characters and I was pleasantly surprised to realize that Nicol Williamson plays the Nome King and the Doctor. He also plays Merlin in another of my favorite childhood movies and probably still my favorite King Arthur movie, Excalibur(1981).

Nicol Williamson as Merlin

I'll try not to give too much away but the plot is pretty simple, as long as you don't talk about the CHICKEN! Dorothy Gale is saved from electric therapy by a mysterious girl during a thunderstorm. She falls into the flood waters and is swept away to OZ. In OZ, she finds that the Emerald City is in ruins and the people are turned to stone. The city is inhabited by the movie's replacement of the flying monkeys: a creepy gang called the wheelers and the Scarecrow, who had become the King of Oz, has been taken prisoner by a devilish creature called the Nome King. Incidentally, there is a villainess, and though she is no Wicked Witch of the West, she does have many replaceable heads. Can Dorothy save the day and return to Kansas? Of course she can, but then you didn't need me to tell you that.

head wheeler

This movie pulls a lot from the books which followed the Wizard of OZ. There were something like 15 OZ books written by Frank L. Baum and I read them all. After a while they got really repetitive - Dorothy ends up in OZ after some storm or something, lot's of things go wrong which Dorothy and her friends have to overcome and then she somehow makes her way back to Kansas. But they are pleasant books to read to kids as bedtime stories.

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date

No time to say hello, good-bye
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late...

i am following my fish

Without the need to cast my bobber adrift on the web and find the perfect catch today, I have freed my mind to find a more ethereal, thought provoking fish. So now as I gaze across the vast blogginess of the bloggosphere and see the poet blogs, the photo blogs, the story blogs, the movie, music, art and cultural blogs, the blogging blogs and other blogs and I think about fish in a broadly categorical sea.

So where in all of that, is my fish that I am following?

What is the point of this post?

Blog: short for web-log; an electronic log of well, whatever you feel like logging electronically.

Cooking blogs and booking blogs; author blogs and shopping blogs; industry blogs, cinematic blogs and style blogs; active blogs, didactive blogs, disentangled quiet blogs... Onto other blogs - all the fish in the sea (see sidebar list) and I like to cast my line.

So here in my fish, where I feel the most comfortable, I place the things I find at the the end of my line for all my friends in far away places, even those I have never met.

"I am following my fish because my fish knows where to go."

one grip, two frood, red starfish, blue tattoo

It is with great sadness and infinite joy that [we/i/you] ask the fish to stand still, sit down and jump up and down for this Starfish:

-picture from Natural Perspective

Actually for any starfish. Personally, I have a personal relationship with starfish in general and their essential star-like features. But here's two reasons why this is not just the catch of the day but the catch of the week. One, my mother and two, the end of the world. Which would you like to hear about first?

Do you have a grip on your life?
(Warning: the tattoo in this story is not blue)
1) At the prime age of 55 (or so) my mother got a tattoo of a starfish. She had released her firm control on reality and taken a plunge into the deep blue sea. Thus embracing the rebel within her soul. Sound strange? It would if you knew my mom. Let me give you a bit of history:

I got my first tattoo just after my 18th birthday. It's a small affair on my ankle and since I always wore boots, my mom was none the wiser. Except at those occasional times that I would walk nonchalantly down the stairs in a towel after a shower, forgetting to check if she was around. Then when she asked, I'd tell her it was a temporary tattoo that I'd bought in a vending machine outside a grocery store. She'd believe me, of course, and we'd move on with our lives. Now granted, she only saw the tattoo once in a while, but I mean come on... anyone who buys temporary tattoos or anything from those little machines in front of grocery stores knows that you almost never get what you really want, at least not twice. But my mom, blissful and innocent in the ways of grocery store vending machines, believed that the tattoo was fake for the better part of a year. Until one day in a hotel:
"That's a real tattoo isn't it?"
"Yeah, mom."
"Oh."
And that was it. I mean what could she say. It's not that my mom is naive or anything. It's just that like all parents they believe what they want to about their kids until they absolutely can't. Now, for my other tattoos, I got her drunk to tell her - no mean feet as she doesn't often drink. This worked much better.

So a few years later...

My brother took my mom to get her open-water scuba certification. In the vastness of the ocean, my mom's identity was challenged. Being a Virgo, she has driven her fingers deep into the marrow of her life and has always played it with puppet-strings. But before the ocean, we humans always stand naked and alone - utterly at the mercy of Mother Nature. She knew this and she did it anyways. I can only imagine that feeling of panic when the dark waters of uncertainty closed over her head and - gasp - opened up the magnificent world which thrashes and thrives beneath the waves. It must have been exhilarating to realize that she could let go, release the strings and just float along with the fishes.

Compared to this, how hard is it to go to a tattoo parlor, face down a large man covered in flaming skulls and tell him that you want a starfish tattoo on your ankle? No - not a seascape, just a starfish. No - not the size of a hand - smaller like a penny. No really, I don't want any sand or sun or shells or waves - just a starfish thank you. Yes, I'm sure. Thanks, really, it's a great deal, but I just want a starfish! Yes, I'm serious... and I'm sure - just a starfish please! What do you mean you can't - it's simple - it's just a star with sand-like coloring! And no, I don't want any sand!


What is your reality quotient?
2) As for the other starfish, are you sure you still have time for this? Well anyways, I do. It's the end of the world and I feel fine.... Well, I sort of do and I sort of don't and I sort of sort out the sorta sorta sorta... argh, I'm stuck in loop as it were. Saw The Hitchhiker's Guide Movie this weekend and was delightfully surprised that they pulled it off with all of the British flare and zany antics which wouldn't be the Guide without it (though I spent the rest of the weekend with singing dolphins in my brain):
"The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."
I'm sad because it reminded me that a frood has moved on from this world to those [above/outside/different/non-existing in a very real way] other worlds that I know nothing about. The inestimable hoopy Douglas Adams died in May 2001 while working on the screen play for the movie. Ah well, I'm sure he's chillin' with the fishes at the Restaurant. (hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy)

For those of you only [familiar/not familiar at all] with the Hitchhiker's Guide series, here's a quote from one of his essays called How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet:

"I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are."

So, in honor of Douglas Adams and those of us who will miss that hoopy starfish, I put out my thumb, look to the stars and wish I knew how to see the Marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altairan dollars a day.