Unfortunately, not a joke, a man has been convicted of killing his three year old son because he thought the boy might be ... gay.

Via Panadagon.

Here is a story about an interesting encounter an American witnessed in a Tokyo restaurant. One interesting passage:

The Witnesses were determined to convince the Krishnas that God had but one name and that name was Jehovah. The Krishnas pointed out that if God was indeed infinite He ought to have an infinite number of names. The Witnesses said that our real nature was as spiritual beings. The Krishnas didn't seem to have a problem with that. They differed about what the actual form of God was. The Witnesses were convinced His form was unknowable while the Krishnas knew exactly what God's face looked like, and not only that, they knew what He liked for breakfast and what He did in His spare time. Both agreed that God was perfect and man was not. That's one thing pretty much all religions have in common -- this idea of perfection. The people we meet, the people we ourselves actually are, and world we see in front of us don't match this idea called "perfection" we carry around in our brains. In fact nothing we encounter ever does. Yet we stick to believing in perfection rather than believing in what we really encounter.

Love that last little bit.

One of my favorite political (and non-political) bloggers, South Knox Bubba, has apparently called it quits, without explanation (update: he has a short explanation up now). He'll be missed.

I just received my first Israeli spam. It's written in Hebrew, and links to a "*.IL" website (won't show their name, out of spite for sending me spam). I can't read any of it, except for one little fuzzy picture of a piece of paper with a picture of the moon on it which says, in English, "LUNAR DEED". It looks like they're selling land on the moon. Oi!

Another famous resident of Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Here is an informative Wiki article on the history of the Heavy Metal Umlaut. Something to keep yourself occupied while waiting for Harry Potter to arrive.

From the wonderfully bad Makers Of Smooth Music compilation (people sent lyrics, along with a fee, and the house band put them to music), here are the lyrics to a song called "How Long Are You Staying".

disco disco disco
i am going to mount cisco
i am going to buy crisco
bake a cake so i can
disco disco disco

disco disco disco
how long are you staying
i mostly eat marisco
so i can
disco disco disco

disco disco disco
i am getting tired
waiting to be hired to do
disco disco disco

if i don't get hired to do
disco disco disco
i will take a gun
and become a sisco

disco disco disco
i am going to get fired

disco disco disco
you make me so tired

disco disco disco
if i don't get fired
i am going to jalisco
and dance on a wire

disco disco disco
if i don't get crisco
when i get to mount cisco
i am going to jalisco
and become a sisco
and then move to frisco
become the sisco
and move to frisco
disco disco disco

It's just so awfully wonderful.

We're finally travelling under our own control. After a day in airports and airplanes, we're in our beautiful car, me and my beautiful wife, going back to our beautiful house, and I ask myself, because that song is on, "how did I get here?".

I got here, the suburbs of Raleigh NC, because 8 years ago all the jobs were here. This place was home to dozens of companies eager for programmers and biotech workers. They were hiring and the developers were building new houses, new strip malls and new office buildings. I noticed, when we drove down the first time, that Raleigh smelled like freshly excavated earth - construction. Everything here is new. I can go a week and not see a building more than 25 years old. Farm land, old neighborhoods, forests, swamps - all constantly devoured by developers.

And so we're driving home, past chunks of land that were horse pastures 6 months ago, past strip malls being built across from existing strip malls where you'll find another dry cleaner, another nail salon, another Super Cuts and another Matress Factory - one of each in every plaza. A huge variety of the same. I'm thinking about the city we left, 7 hours ago: Rochester, NY. ...