this is water, this is water, this is water...

cohutta wilderness

Maybe forty miles west of Meaghan.

(photo by Floyd)

Molecula de Glucosa Expandidais by Damián Ortega

Somewhere between mexican coke and bottle cap snakes, lives the bottle cap sugar molecule.

(via boxvox)

floyd was actually downstairs before the girls on a saturday

They consoled her with a long hug. After breakfast, we are heading up to the mountains for the day.  We are planning to go to Fort Mountain and hike around the stone walls and the overlook, but we may wind up stopping at Amicalola or any other place that catches our eye.

…and so it was until the day a false sun exploded over trinity

The clock is ticking, brothers and sisters, counting down to Armageddon. The worm reveals himself in many guises across this once great land; from the intellectual elite cruelly indoctrinating our children with the savage blasphemy of Darwin, to the craven Hollywood pagans, corrupting them in the darkness of the local bijou, from the false prophets cowering behind our nation’s pulpits to the vile parasites in our banks and boardrooms and the godless politicians, growing fat on the misery of their constituents. The signs of the end times are all around us, etched in blood and fire by the left hand of god. You have but to open your eyes, brothers and sisters. The truth is that the Devil is here. The Anti-Christ, the Child of Lies, the Son of Darkness walks among us cloaked in the flesh of a man. Does the Lord not weep at this degradation? Does He not tremble with righteous fury? And shall he not seek retribution? I open my eyes and I see a black sky that tears apart and screams with a voice that is thunder, ‘Rise up, rise up brothers and sisters and take your place at my side. For you shall be my scythe and your face shall shine like a thousand suns and the streets shall be sanctified by the steaming black blood of the heretics.’ And together brothers and sisters, together we shall build a shining temple, a kingdom that will last for thousands and thousands of years.

This is the moment that Brother Justin Crowe finally comprehends the evil nature of both his gifts and his destiny. He has just discovered that his foster father’s greatest sin was saving Justin’s life. The black orbs that are his eyes become, from this point on, the indication that he is fully possessed by this evil nature.

Carnivàle with its Depression era dustbowl setting was canceled after only two seasons. The writers originally intended for it to span six seasons and culminate with the Trinity nuclear test at the Alamogordo. Floyd and I have enjoyed re-watching the series over the past week, and I find myself wondering how successful it would be if it were being aired now during our Great Recession. Comparisons between these two financial events are common, but re-watching the series in this context has forced me to contemplate the consequences if their similarities are extended into the future.

(image via Carnivàle)

those floating mexican skeletons were right, my life is over

On an unrelated note, for the past week, Floyd and I have been using the Batman voice to narrate the mundane details of our domestic existence. When I accidentally used the Batman voice to address another neighborhood parent at the school bus stop early one morning, Floyd was literally DOL and almost wound up ROSL.

(image via Community, updated watermark via mumblelard)

the fabled city of brass can be seen floating over a flame-swept sea of oil

My imaginary friend, the incomparably generous giantevilhead, father of of a fabulously cute daughter, sent me two Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition books to supplement my recent boon.

• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide by Douglas Niles

Thank you giantevilhead. The skull girls will be cataloging these acquisitions and placing them in the permanent collection of the mumblelard family library as soon as their daily internment at the local government school ends.

gratuitous picture of a delicate flower (with bed head)

In our house, calling someone a “delicate flower” attributes to them the most witheringly frail degree of contemptible wimpiness, but I have to admit* my excessive sensitivity to these stupid time changes. If I were to assemble a list of optimistic responses to the imminent end of civilization as we know it, I would have to put the demise of daylight savings time near the top of the list.

*I can admit it here in this forum but never to those blond demons that I live with. One hint of weakness and they will surely attack.

vintage 1977 han solo blaster pistol

My nephew, who is known by all as Uncle Dill, is turning five years old next week.  His parents will not let me give him a switchblade to mark this milestone, so I am doing the next best thing and giving him this fine weapon which I have carried for the last thirty years. He is a genuine Star Wars freak, so I think he is going to be very excited. I wish I could be there to see his face, but I will get to hear all about it when we meet them in Kingsport later this month.

obscure offering or cryptic threat

Sometime last night this strange bundle of duct tape bound wood was deposited before our front door. All day, I have anticipated a friendly message claiming credit for this gift, but it is early evening now and its origin and meaning have yet to be revealed.

manuscripts don’t burn

Despite a backlog of previously acquired and still undocumented thrift store used book scores, this copy of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov demanded immediate attention. Attempts to check this out from the local library have revealed that all cataloged copies have been misplaced in a variety of appropriately hellish bureaucratic ways. I haven’t read The Master and Margerita in more than ten years. This is the first English translation, and I know that it has its critics, but this is the translation that I read previously, and I am excited to read it again.

(gorgeous cover illustration by Robert Goldstrom)

bloom spies on a pair of girls who are relaxing on the strand. he masturbates.

I do not know if I am relieved or disappointed that Danny’s summary of this episode was not more graphic. Mostly disappointed, I think. Immature, yes. But also disappointed.

(via Danny Dries Ulysses - Nausicaa)

peer pressure is a witch

Finn, Fallie, and Floyd were all witches of one sort or another this year, but I put off my costume choice until the last minute. As I was going through the trunk of costumes and dress-up clothes, I tried on this “Desperate Gossip” wig, and the girls would not let me look any further; they decided that I had to be a witch too.  Floyd thinks that the wig frames my face in a flattering way, but Finn and Fall just thought I looked creepy.  At least one neighbor girl, that I have known since she was born, refused to speak to me for the duration of the evening.  I suppose that is an indication of a certain type of success.

weirding witch