Ok, so I couldn’t resist the gratuitous Churchill reference.

I’m off to Maine tomorrow. For those who care, it is Princeton Maine, about as far from anything you want to be near as you can get (yet surprisingly close to Canada).

I am going on this trip with longtime comrades in arms, Ed and George (aka wangch61). The trip should be a good opportunity to relax. Unless my phone works while I am up there, I will not be updating or inputting anything, but will inundate with photos and stories on return.

There will be a large lobster boil the day after my return to civilization, which I invited grimbil and his lovely g/f to. I’m psyched they are interested in attending.

So yeah, this post was really for those of you who only know me from LJ so you don’t think that my sudden lack of inane linkage or pointless quips signals my demise.

I just hope that I can keep the balance between booze and family aggression for one more year…

I’m definitely going to miss < a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/chellez/>chellez… don’t think I’ve ever taken this trip before with someone missing me as hard as I am going to miss them.

My dad is super psyched about it. I hope he learns to chill out one of these years, before and after we go. He’s always fine once we are there, but the back and forth is always the problem…

At least it isn’t work, right?

Ok, so, I _may_ have a buyer for my car. I called GMAC, and the current lean on the car is 5485.80. After June’s payment of 381.42, that will leave me with 104.38 left over, if I can sell it for the verbally negotiated price.

That would be sweet as shit!

Trying not to get my hopes up, everything with this car has been a bummer since the beginning of time.

All I can hope is that this works out.

My Results from the BELIEF
SYSTEM SELECTOR
(amusing but not very apt)

1.  Theravada Buddhism (100%) Click here for info
2.  Unitarian Universalism (93%) Click here for info
3.  Mahayana Buddhism (89%)  Click here for info
4.  Taoism (79%) Click here for info
5.  Neo-Pagan (77%) Click here for info
6.  Liberal Quakers (74%)  Click here for info
7.  Secular Humanism (70%) Click here for info
8.  New Age (69%) Click here for info
9.  Non-theist (57%) Click here for info
10.  Hinduism (54%) Click here for info
11.  Mainline – Liberal Christian Protestants (53%) Click here for info
12.  New Thought (51%) Click here for info
13.  Scientology (51%)  Click here for info
14.  Jainism (49%) Click here for info
15.  Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (44%) Click here for info
16.  Sikhism (41%) Click here for info
17.  Reform Judaism (39%) Click here for info
18.  Orthodox Quaker (37%) Click here for info
19.  Bahá’í Faith (34%) Click here for info
20.  Orthodox Judaism (17%)  Click here for info
21.  Mainline – Conservative Christian Protestant (16%)  Click here for info
22.  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (14%)  Click here for info
23.  Eastern Orthodox (14%)  Click here for info
24.  Islam (14%) Click here for info
25.  Roman Catholic (14%)  Click here for info
26.  Seventh Day Adventist (12%)  Click here for info
27.  Jehovah’s Witness (3%) Click here for info

I didn’t think it got much more Depressing than Johnny Cash’s NIN cover… however, after hearing his rendition of The Mercy Seat, I am sadly (no pun intended) mistaken.

Your
Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Score
Category Your Score Average
Hacklust 22.64%
Has conversations in between massacres
52.4%
Sensitive Roleplaying 24.05%
All the game’s your stage
51.4%
GM Experience 4.35%
Worldbuilder, storyteller… Master.
67%
Systems Knowledge 76.27%
Local rules guru
89.1%
Livin’ La Vida Dorka 31.03%
Carries dice in pocket ‘just in case’
60.5%
You are 34.18% pure
Average Score: 66.7%

Joe is going to give up the coveted leather chair of antioch… it is the third most compfy chair I have ever sat in.

The first was this 18th centruy chair up in maine – now sold, unfortunaltely ::shakes fist at sky::

The second was a recliner I got from the Robinson household – 20 years broken in. I did some light repairs to it, and it became fully functional, until it met with Coleen O’Connor my sophamore year at college. Good by poor chair, hyperactive drunks should never have known ye….

This chair is going to be a project methinks – I am going to try and repair any minor wear and tear, and redo the seatcover (which, as you can see by the pic, is rather in need of it).

I guess I could always just make a cover over the cover – and stuff it with some extra padding… hmm, interesting ideas.

Anyone else have any?

So for starters, check out this video…one of the more surreal cartoons I have seen in a good long time, and definitely worth the download.

Just spent a whole mess of time on philosophy – specifically tying to get a clearer picture/discuss the finer points of my friend Matty’s version of it. His view is that in a dimension linked, but apart from ours, there exists an infinite supreme rationality, which is the unifying element of reality. All parts of our existence, within time, are encompassed by this great rationality beyond black holes, in a place removed from time (hence the multiple concurrent states of being).

It all started out as a conversation on the merits and downsides of suicide – and moved on from there. While I am sure everyone involved in the conversation have very different opinions and expressions of reality, and how it works, Ed was good enough to quasi-moderate, at least insofar as determining some baseline definitions.

Time – the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues. That was the second definition, as provided by Richelle. Props to her, we probably would have diced semantics for 50 minutes if she hadn’t hopped into the dictionary.

Energy was a harder condense into a definition. Ed’s basic definition is that energy is work over time. Matty’s whole structure of the universe had to support a timeless realm or dimension adjacent to ours, so time and energy became a mincing fest. Eventually the distinction went back to the definition of time, where events (energy) took place. Matty’s view of human existence is that the entire thing is one “instance” – that is the entirety of our life cycle, from birth to death, is one singular point in eternity. Working this into a geometric model, I asked him if humanity would be better graphed 2d as a line or a circle.

We ended up with a human existence, and the energies it produces, and which react to it, as a singular point on an x,y grid. If you have lost the convo at this point, that’s ok, because there were large paragraphs of clarification, no longer clear, in between all this. I moved from the 2d model to a Mobius strip, which I think could geometrically encapsulate his world view in an explainable manner, even if I disagree with its existence/theoretical applications.

I still disagree that a combination of all instances, in a timeless state, would result in a rational consciousness. Matty argues that when you remove time from an equation, emotion gets weeded out. I agree that is possible that there could be a timeless state with a collective experiential consciousness that exists within it – but its relation to our world and purpose is negligible, if at all connectable. Matty argues that we are a part of it – therefore “living” makes us part of its greater purpose.

Too many holes and paradoxes imo. I don’t think you can ever have a watertight worldview. Nonetheless, I’ve been working on mine since I was around 12 or 13, and I still have plenty of holes.

some things never change. wrote a quick paper for a co-worker who is swamped during finals. I used to make so much doing this when I was in college… other than that, a quiet evening. Watched a movie with Richelle (her account is better than anything i am going to throw together), made some hamburger helper, researched, read, and wrote…


Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines “unmoved”: “Un*moved”, a. Not moved; fixed; firm; unshaken; calm.” It is the duality of the semantics of the definition which best explains Aristotle’s dependency on an “Unmoved Mover” in order for the framework of his Metaphysics to stand on its own.  Aristotle’s Mover is not an omniscient anthropomorphic god; Aristotle’s Mover is one of mathematical indivisibility, and experiential detachment.  Aristotle’s Mover is refinement of the earlier axiom “All things desire God” – perfection is the ultimate attraction of form, but only in a specific and selective method.  The infinite iterations of matter seeking perfection lead to the movement and cycles of the world around us.

Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is one “whose very essence is actuality”.  Debunking the preceding theoretical models of movement, creation, and divinity in Part 6 of Book XII, Aristotle dismisses vague ideas about the eternal nature of movement.  Movement did not always exist, nor is it supported “by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife”, or the supposition of “potency prior to actuality”.  All things in Aristotle’s creation strive towards the ultimate realization of their particular form; it is what drives living things to procreate, and nonliving things, like the seas or the cosmos to move.  The Mover is a great pool of tranquility within the endless iterations of change and action it’s existence bring into play through the universe.

The Mover, as it comes to be defined, is an immaterial, indivisible entity – buttressed by the truth that matter is divisible, and matter is changeable, and therefore imperfect.  This divinity is a far cry from the free willed, emotionally ruled gods of elder Hellenistic roots, as well as some of the later divine instantiations Aristotle was used to defend (i.e. the Christian Trinity).  The Mover is eternal in the way that time is; it moves constantly, the past and future exist as evidence of this motion in “the now”, but, at the same time, that movement does not directly touch the physical, only cause change within the physical.  The mover affects the physical, but, at the same time, is apart from it.

As Aristotle states in Part 8 “The first principle or primary being is not movable either in itself or accidentally, but produces the primary eternal and single movement.”  The stars want to find their numeric substantial counterparts, and roam endlessly about the circumference of a great circular cosmos – always striving for a single point, yet constantly in motion, unable to attain it.  The spheres of the cosmos rely on an infallible and immobile entity which they strive to achieve a likeness of in their particular form of perfection.

The first aspects of the opening definition have been firmly grounded – something which is immaterial cannot conform to the physical laws of movement, and its essence of perfection make it a fixed cause of the motion of all things in their desire to attain that perfection.  However, the second half of the definition is the problematic one.  How can a god who can be weighed down by the operation of self-consciousness still manage to provide a perfect model to move all things? How could this Mover, immaterial out of mathematical necessity in order to remain perfect, have a tactile knowledge of the physical world which revolves around it?  Supposing it did, how would that affect its perfection?
 
The majority of Part 9 is spent dealing with these aforementioned potential paradoxes.

Aristotle dismisses the first concern raised easily – attributing self-consciousness to a function of common sense which an immaterial being could not have.  Much more effort is spent on contemplation on what such a being could spend time pondering.  The concept of the Mover constantly thinking of nothing is quickly addressed: “For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps.”  Aristotle’s observations about “the good in nature…present both as the leader and the order” suggest that perhaps the Mover contemplates the infinite web of the perfect forms.  Whatever the specifics, Aristotle sums up by defining Divine thought as “thought thinking itself”. 

The repercussions of the potential pratfalls of a god sheltered from his creation, which is likewise tied to the god’s existence – and at the same time shielded from it, is one of the strongest legacies born of this particular book of Metaphysics.  Aristotle created a god which can be known by theoretical science, and those sciences are dependant on that god for their existence. The gulf between the two forms, the Divine, and the Natural (or Physical), however, prevent Science from ever discovering too much about that Mover.  This philosophical conundrum led to the rise of three separate religions (Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Neoplatonism), which over time sought to better illuminate the mysterious relationship between the Mover and Matter.  This change within thought, striving towards the perfection of its ideal, would probably have pleased, or at least amused Aristotle.

In summation, Aristotle’s Mover is an entity which lives up to both halves of the definition of “Unmoved”.  Aristotle’s physical/mathematical structure of the material world required an immobile immaterial of infinite perfection entity as a centerpiece.  The lack of self consciousness or sensory and transitory experiences on the part of this god removed it from the physical experiences of the world.  The Mover is not affected by the inherent beauty or chaos of the near infinite changes of matter, in their myriads of attempts to attain their singular perfections of form.  On both a physical and ethereal level, Aristotle’s Mover achieves the perfection of the form of “Unmoved”.

Because grimbil finally saw the matrix – i can discuss some of the finer points of the internal imagery with someone who cares.

The Merovingian Mythos:Its Symbolic Significance and its Roots in the Ancient Kingdom of Atlantis

The Frankish King Dagobert II, and the Merovingian dynasty from which he came, have been romantically mythologized in the annals of both local legend and modern mystical pseudo-history, but few have understood the true meaning and origins of their alluring mystery. The mystique that surrounds them includes attributions of saintliness, magical powers (derived from their long red hair), and even divine origin, stemming from their supposed descent from the one and only Jesus Christ. However, the importance of the divine origin of the Merovingians, and the antiquity from whence it comes, has never to this author’s knowledge been fully explored by any writer or historian. As Boyd Rice and I will explain in more detail in our forthcoming book, we have uncovered mountains of evidence which indicates that the origins of the Merovingian race, and the mystery that surrounds them, lies ultimately with a race of beings, “Nephilim,” or “Fallen Angels,” who created mankind as we know him today, and with a civilization, far more ancient than recorded history, from which came all of the major arts and sciences that are basic to civilizations everywhere, even unto today. As we intend to show, all of the myths and symbolism that are associated with this dynasty can, in fact, be traced back to this earlier civilization. It is known, in some cultures, as Atlantis, although there are many names for it, and it is the birthplace of agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, navigation, architecture, language, writing, and religion. It was also the source of the first government on Earth – monarchy. And the first kings on Earth were the gods.

Their race was known by various names. In Greece, the Annodoti. In Sumeria, the Annunaki. In the Celtic lore, the Tuatha de Danaan. In the Semetic scriptures (Torah, Talmud, Old Testament, and other Apocryphal texts like the Book of Enoch), they are called The Nephilim, “The Sons of God,” or the Watchers. They are described as having attachments such as wings, horns, and even fish scales, but from the depictions it is clear that these are clothes or costumes worn for their symbolic value, for these symbols indicated divine power and royal blood. The gods themselves had their own monarchy, with laws of succession similar to our own, and they built a global empire upon the Earth, with great cities, temples and monuments, and mighty nations established on several continents. They created mankind as a slave race to work on their farms and in their gold mines, among other things. The Sumerian legends are very clear: man was made to “bear the yoke of the gods.” Man was separate from the gods, like a domesticated animal, and there was a great cultural taboo amongst the gods against sharing any of their sacred information with humanity, even things such as writing and mathematics. These gods ruled directly over Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, and their rule is recorded in the histories of all three civilizations.

This global monarchy was the crowning glory of the Ages, and the period of their rule came to be called the Golden Age or, as the Egyptians called it, “The First Time,” when the gods watched over man directly, like a shepherd his flock. In fact, they were often called “The Shepherd Kings.” One of the symbols of this world monarchy was an eye hovering over a throne, and this eye now adorns our dollar bill, presented as the missing capstone of the Great Pyramid of Giza, underneath which are written the words “New World Order.” Clearly this “New World Order” is the global monarchy that our Founding Fathers (not a Democrat among them) intended for this nation to participate in all along, symbolized by a pyramid as a representation of the ideal and perfectly ordered authoritarian empire. During the Golden Age of the Gods, a new king’s ascendance to the global throne would be celebrated by the sacrifice of a horse, an animal sacred to Poseidon, one of the Atlantean god-kings and Lord of the Seas. (Recall that Merovingian King Clovis was buried with a severed horse’s head.) In fact there is an amusing story about how King Sargon’s rebellious son Sagara tried to prevent his father’s assumption of the world throne from being solidified by stealing his sacrificial horse. The horse was not recovered until years later, and Sagara, along with the “sons of Sagara,” i.e., those members of his family who had assisted him, were forced to dig their own mass grave. This grave was oddly called “The Ocean.”

It was just a rebellion such as this that lead to the downfall of the entire glorious Empire. At some point, it is told, some of the gods broke rank. This is again recorded in just about every culture on Earth that has a written or oral history of legends. Some of the gods, finding human females most appealing, intermarried with them (breaking, of course, a major taboo within their own culture), and creating a race of human/god hybrids. Some of these offspring are described as taking the form of giants, dragons, and sea monsters, while others are said to have born a normal human countenance, with the exception of their shimmering white skin and their extremely long life spans. This is the bloodline that brought us Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, Jesus Christ, and many others, in other words the Grail Bloodline. Legend has it that these beings taught mankind their secrets, including the above-mentioned arts of civilization, as well as a secret spiritual doctrine that only certain elect humans (their blood descendants) would be allowed to possess. They created ritualistic mystery schools and secret societies to pass this doctrine down through the generations.

However, these actions (the interbreeding and sharing of secrets with humans) incurred the wrath of the Most High God, and a number of other gods who were disgusted by this interracial breeding. This sparked the massive and devastating battle of the gods that has come down to us in the legends of both the “War in Heaven,” and the “Deluge.” Then, in order to cleanse the Earth”s surface of the curse of humanity, they covered it with a flood. Interestingly, this flood is mentioned in the legends of almost every ancient culture on Earth, and the cause is always the same. Often the waters are described as having come from inside the Earth. “The Fountains of the deep are opened,” it is said. “Suddenly enormous volumes of water issued from the Earth.” Water was “projected from the mountain like a water spout.” The Earth began to rumble, and Atlantis, fair nation of the gods, sunk beneath the salty green waves. As we shall see, this is analogous to part during the “War in Heaven” when the “rebellious” angels or gods were punished by being cast down “into the bowels of the Earth,” a very significant location.

To be certain, some of the Atlanteans managed to survive, and many books have been written about the Atlantean origin of the Egyptian, Sumerian, Indo-Aryan, and native South American civilizations (bringing into question the validity of the term “Native American”). Little, however, has been written about those who escaped into Western Europe, except for a passing reference in Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, in which he writes:

“The Gauls (meaning the French) possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes who lived in the first century before Christ. He represents that three distinct people dwelt in Gaul: 1. The indigenous population, which I suppose to be Mongoloids, who had long dwelt in Europe; 2. The invaders from a distant land, which I understand to be Atlantis; 3. The Aryan Gaul.”

That the Merovingian bloodline came from elsewhere is clear because of the legend that surrounds their founder, King Merovee, who is said to have been the spawn of a “Quinotaur,” a giant fish or a sea monster, who raped his mother when she went out to swim in the ocean. Now it becomes clear why he is called “Merovee,” because in French, mer means sea. And in some traditions, Atlantis was called Meru, or Maru. (It is also the name of the famous “World Mountain” of Eastern tradition.) For these gods, navigation above all was important to them, for it was their sea power that maintained their military might and their successful mercantile trade. (Mer is also the origin of the word “mercantile.”) The Atlanteans were associated with the sea and were often depicted as mermen, or sea monsters, with scales, fins, and horns. And they were variously associated with a number of important animals, whose symbolism they held sacred: horses, bulls, goats, rams, lions, fish, serpents, dragons, even cats and dogs. And as we will see, all of these things relate back to the sea imagery with which these gods were associated.

Now lets go back to the Quinotaur, which some have named as being synonymous with Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and, according to Plato, one of the famous kings of Atlantis. Others have seen it as being emblematic of the fish symbol that Christ is associated with, thus indicating that he was in fact the origin of the bloodline. However, the roots of this Quinotaur myth are far more ancient. The word itself can be broken down etymologically to reveal its meaning. The last syllable, “Taur”, means “Bull.” The first syllable “Quin,” or “Kin,” comes from the same root as “King,” as well as the Biblical name of Cain, whom many have named as the father of a particular branch of the Grail family. The Bull King who swims in the ocean is a recurring theme in many ancient cultures, most notably, ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, he comes from that dynasty of kings who reigned over the antediluvian world and who were all associated with the sea, as well as this divine animal imagery. These kings included Sargon, Menes, and Narmar. Their historical reality morphed into the legends we have in many cultures of gods said to have come out of the sea at various times and taught mankind the basic arts of civilization: agriculture, metallurgy, architecture, navigation, mathematics, medicine, etc. They were known by various names: Ea, Enki, Dagon, Oannes, or Marduk (Merodach). They were depicted as half-man, half-fish, half-goat half-fish, or half-bull, half-fish, but as we have said, in many of these depictions it is clear that this affect was merely achieved by the wearing of costumes, and that these god-kings were using this archetypal imagery to deify themselves in the minds of their subjects.

Dagon, Oannes and Enki are essentially synonymous, and interestingly, Marduk or Merodach is his son, just as Merovee is the son of the Quinotaur. Dagon was depicted with a fish on his head, the lips protruding upward, making what were referred to as “horns.” This may be the origin for the custom (common in the ancient world) of affixing horns to the crown of a king. It has also been historically acknowledged as the origin of the miter that the Pope wears. (Now we understand why, in the post-mortem photo of Berenger Sauniere lying on his death bed, this small parish priest is seen next to a Bishop’s miter.) The Christian Church has always been associated with fish. Christ himself was, as was John the Baptist, and the early Christians used the fish sign of the “icthys” to designate themselves. From Dagon’s name Oannes we get the words “Uranus,” “Ouranous,” “Jonah,” “Janus,” and “John.” Perhaps we finally now understand why the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion assume the symbolic name of John.

The syllable “Dag” merely means fish, which makes it interesting to note that the Dogon tribe of Africa, who have long baffled astronomers with their advanced knowledge of the specifics of the faraway star-system from which, they say, their gods came, claim that these gods were “Fish-Men.” This author wonders if the words “Dag” and “Dog” aren’t etymologically related, especially since the star from whence these fish-men supposedly came is named Sirius, “The Dog Star.” From Dagon comes our word “Dragon,” as well as the Biblical figure of Leviathan, “The Lord of the Deep,” a title also applied to Dagon. In fact, many of these gods received the titles “The Lord of the Waters,” “The Lord of the Deep,” and “The Lord of the Abyss,” which appear to have been passed down from father to son along with the throne of the global kingdom. They are specifically associated with the Flood of Noah, which as I have mentioned, destroyed their global kingdom and was somehow linked to their disastrous breeding experiment with the human race that lead to the Grail Bloodline, to which the Merovingians belong. For this they were consigned to the Abyss or the Underworld, which is why these gods were known as the Lords of both.

Enki was also known as the “Lord of the Earth,” and it is because of this “amphibious” nature of their progenitor, reigning over both land and sea, that the Merovingians are associated with frogs. But this “Lord of the Earth” title is significant, for this is a title also given to Satan. And it has been historically acknowledged that Enki, as the “Fish-Goat Man,” is prototype for the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, which is itself recognized as the prototype for the modern conception of Satan or Lucifer.

Furthermore, a well-known and pivotal episode in Enki’s career was his rebellion against his brother Enlil over the succession of the global throne. Enki eventually slayed Enlil, something that is recorded in the Egyptian myth of Set murdering Osiris, and perhaps in the Biblical story of Cain murdering Abel. Cain eventually became King – in fact that’s where the word comes from, and now it makes perfect sense why Enki would be called the “Quinotaur.” The identity of Enki and Enlil with Cain and Abel can be further proven by the fact that Enki and Enlil were the son of Anu (in some Sumerian legends, the first god-king on Earth), whereas Cain and Abel were the sons of “Adamu – the First Man.” Adamu and Anu appear to be etymologically related.

This family feud erupted into a long and overdrawn battle between the gods, who were split into two factions over the issue. These appear to be the same two factions who were at odds over the mating of gods and men to create the Grail Bloodline. Those who supported Enki, Satan or Cain were clearly the ones who were inclined to breed with mankind, perhaps in attempt to create a hybrid race that could assist them in retaining the throne for Cain. But they were overpowered. After they lost the “War in Heaven,” they were cast into the Abyss, according to legend, now the realm of Satan, and the Earth was flooded so as to rid the Earth of their offspring.

Yet according to the legends, those gods who had created the hybrid race attempted to contact one of their most favored descendants – called Uta-Napishtim in the Sumerian legends, or Noah in the Jewish – and helped him to rescue himself and his family, preserving the seed of hybrid humanity. (Uta-Napishtim contains the Sumerian and Egyptian word for fish, “Pish,” and perhaps we can see why some authors have claimed that the character of Noah is in fact based on Oannes/Dagon/Enki as well.) We see remnants of this in the Vedic legends of the Flood, in which the surviving family is warned about the Flood by a horned fish called the Manu (who turns out to be the Hindu god Vishnu in disguise). He tells them to build an Ark, and then tie its mast to his horn, then proceeds to tow them to safety upon a high mountain. So clearly Vishnu is the same as Enki, Dagon, and Oannes, and clearly he is the one who saved Noah from the Flood. Yet this same kind deed became attributed, in the Old Testament, to the same God, Jehovah, who had caused the Flood to begin with. In fact the word Jehovah, or “Jah” is said to have evolved from the name of another Sumerian sea god-king, Ea, “The Lord of the Flood.” Likewise, Leviathan, or Dagon is responsible in some references for “vomiting out the waters of the Flood.” This occurs at the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelations as well. Leviathan, like many of these sea gods, was the Lord of the Abyss, or “Absu” in Sumerian, and these waters were believed to he holding the Earth up from underneath, in the regions of Hell. And yet “Leviathan” is almost surely etymologically related to the Jewish name “Levi,” and therefore the “Tribe of Levi,” the priestly caste of the Jews from whence part of Christ’s lineage came.

This dual current, being associated with both the Heavenly and the Infernal, with both Jesus and Jehovah, Satan and Lucifer, is something that has marked the history of the Merovingian dynasty, as well as all of the other Grail families, and the entire Grail story itself. It is at the heart of the secret spiritual doctrine symbolized by the Grail. This symbolism hits you immediately when you walk in the door of the church at Rennes-le Chateau and see those opposing statues of the demon Asmodeus and Jesus Christ staring at the same black and white chequered floor, which itself symbolizes the balance of good and evil. This principle is further elucidated by the words placed over the doorway, “This place is terrible, but it is the House of God and the Gateway to Heaven.” This phrase turns up in two significant places. One is in the Bible, when Jacob has his vision of the ladder leading to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending. The other is in the Book of Enoch, when Enoch is taken for a tour of Hell. The existence of this phrase at the entrance to the church, coupled with the images that meet you immediately therein, render the meaning obvious. For Berenger Sauniere, who arranged these strange decorations, this Church represented some kind of metaphysical gateway between Heaven and Hell.

For this reason, the double-barred Cross of Lorraine, symbolizing this duality, has come to be associated with the Merovingians. In a now famous poem by Charles Peguy, is it stated:

“The arms of Jesus are the Cross of Lorraine,
Both the blood in the artery and the blood in the vein,
Both the source of grace and the clear fountaine;
The arms of Satan are the Cross of Lorraine,
And the same artery and the same vein,
And the same blood and the troubled fountaine.”

The reference to Satan and Jesus sharing the same blood is very important. A tradition exists, one which finds support among the Book of Enoch and many others, that Jesus and Satan are brothers, both sons of the Most High God, and they both sat next to his throne in Heaven, on the right and left sides, respectively, prior to Satan’s rebellion and the War in Heaven. This may be just another version of the persistent and primordial “Cain and Abel” story. It makes sense that Satan should both be a direct son of God, since he is described as God’s “Most Beloved Angel” and “The Brightest Star in Heaven.” (Note: The Book of Enoch refers to the Watchers, or Nephilim, as “stars,” with various “watchtowers” in the houses of the Zodiac. Bear in mind that the ancients saw the sky above as a giant “Sea,” the waters of which were kept at bay by the “Firmament of Heaven” – that is, until the Flood.)

However, this symbol is far older than the modern conceptions of Christ and Satan, or Lucifer. As Boyd Rice will explain to you in another article, this symbol can be traced back to the hieroglyphs of ancient Sumer, where it was pronounced “Khat,” “Kad,” and sometimes even “Cod.” This was another title for the kings who were known as god of the sea, and the word “Khatti” became associated with his entire race, and the region that was their capitol, “Amarru,” “The Land to the West” (like Meru, the alternate term for Atlantis). This land was symbolized by a Lion, which may explain the origin of the word “Cat,” as well as why the lion is now a symbol of royalty. We would argue that this was at the root of the word “Cathari” (the heretics associated with the Holy Grail who occupied the Languedoc region of France that the Merovingians ruled over), and Adam Kadmon, the Primordial Man of alchemy, as well as the Mesopotamian kingdom of “Akkadia,” which itself has morphed into “Arcadia,” which further morphs into Acacia, the traditional Sprig of Hope and symbol of Resurrection after death. Perhaps this sheds further light on the phrase “Et in Arcadia Ego,” which pops up more than once in association with the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Merovingians. This phrase was illustrated by Nicholas Poussin with the scene of a tomb, a human skull, and three shepherds. The tomb and skull clearly represent death, while the Sprig of Acacia implied by the word “Arcadia” translates to “resurrection from death.” The Shepherds, furthermore, represent the divine kingship of the Atlantean gods and the Grail bloodline, for these god-monarchs were also known as the “Shepherd Kings” (a title, notably, taken up by Jesus as well.) This indicates that it is the Global Monarchy of these Atlantean gods that shall rise again from the tomb, perhaps through the Merovingian bloodline.

This archetype of the Fallen King who shall one day return, or the Kingdom that disappears, only to rise again in a new, Golden Age, is a very common one, and one as I have shown in another article to be integral to the Grail legend. It was also one used quite effectively by the last of the Merovingian kings who effectively held the throne of the Austrasian Empire – this magazine’s mascot, Dagobert II. Dagobert’s entire life, as historically recorded, is mythological and archetypal. His name betrays the divine origins of his bloodline. “Dagobert” comes, of course, from Dagon. Now the word “Bert,” as the author L.A. Waddell has shown, has its roots in the word “Bara,” or “Para,” or Anglicized, “Pharoah,” a “Priest-King of the Temple (or House.)” So Dagobert’s name literally means “Priest-King of the House of Dagon.” Interestingly, a rarely-found but nonetheless authentic variation on Dagobert’s name was “Dragobert,” emphasizing his lineage from the Beast of the Deep Waters, the Dragon Leviathan.

Dagobert made use of the myth of the Returning King early on in life. His father had been assassinated when he was 5 years old, and young Dagobert was kidnapped by then Palace Mayor Grimoald, who tried to put his own son on the throne. He was saved from death, but an elaborate ruse was laid out to make people think otherwise. Even his own mother believed he was dead, and allowed his father’s assassins to take over, placing Grimoald’s son on the throne. Dagobert was exiled to Ireland, where he lay in wait for the opportunity to reclaim his father’s throne. This opportunity showed itself in the year 671, when he married Giselle de Razes, daughter of the count of Razes and niece of the king of the Visigoths, allying the Merovingian house with the Visigothic royal house. This had the potential for creating a united empire that would have covered most of what is now modern France. This marriage was celebrated at the Church of St. Madeleine in Rhedae, the same spot where Sauniere’s Church of St. Madeleine at Rennes-le-Chateau now rests. There is an existing rumor that Dagobert found something there, a clue which lead him to a treasure buried in the nearby Montsegur, and this treasure financed what was about to come. What came was the reconquest of the Aquitaine and the throne of the Frankish kingdom. As Baigent, et. al write in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, “At once he set about asserting and consolidating his authority, taming the anarchy that prevailed throughout Austrasia and reestablishing order.” The Fallen King had risen from his ashes, born anew as Dagobert II, and had come to once more establish firm rule and equilibrium in his country. The similarities to the Parzival/Grail story don’t even need to be repeated.

Sadly, Dagobert II would himself play the role of the fallen king just a few years later, in 679, and the circumstances are decidedly strange. You see, since the time of the Merovingian King Clovis I, the Merovingian Kings had been under a pact with the Vatican, in which they had pledged their allegiance to the Mother Church in exchange for Papal backing of the their united Empire of Austrasia. They would forever hold the title of “New Constantine,” a title that would later morph into “Holy Roman Emperor.” But that “allegiance” on the part of the Merovingians towards the Church began to wear thin after a while. Obviously, given their infernal and divine origin, their spiritual bent was slightly different from that of organized Christianity. In addition, as direct descendants of the historical Christ himself, they would have possessed access to the secret teachings of Christ, no doubt shockingly different from the one promoted by the Church, and reflecting more the “secret doctrine” of the rebellious gods that we’ve talked about in this article. Any public knowledge of this or the blood relationship between Christ and the Merovingians would have been disastrous for the Church. Christ would therefore be a man, with antecedents and descendants, instead of the “Son of God – Born of Virgin” concept promoted by the church. Seeing in Dagobert a potential threat, the Roman church entered into a conspiracy with Palace Mayor Pepin the Fat.

On December 23, while on a hunting trip, Dagobert was lanced through the left eye by his own godson, supposedly on Pepin’s orders. There are many aspects to this event that appear to be mythologically significant. For one, it took place in the “Forest of Woevres,” long held sacred, and host to annual sacrificial bear hunts for the goddess Diana. Indeed, this may have taken place on such a hunt. This was near the royal Merovingian residence at Stenay, a town that used to be called “Satanicum.” Then there is the date itself, almost precisely when the astrological period of Capricorn begins. Capricorn, as we have mentioned, is based on Enki, the horned sea-god that spawned the Merovingian bloodline. It is also close to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day in the year, when the Sun was said to “die,” mythologically, and turn black, descending into the Underworld. This “Black” period of the Sun is associated with the god Kronos, another horned sea-god, ruler of the underworld, and king of Atlantis who figures repeatedly in this Grail/Rennes-le-Chateau mystery. Secondly, the murder is said to take place at midday, which, as I have mentioned in another article, is an extremely significant moment in time for mystery schools of the Secret Doctrine, like Freemasonry. The parchments found by Berenger Sauniere and the related poem, “Le Serpent Rouge,” make a special mention of it. This is when the sun is highest in the sky. Hiram Abiff was murdered at midday, while resting from his work, just as Dagobert was murdered at midday while resting against a tree. The fact that it was done by a family member is significant too. This is similar to the “Dolorous Stroke” that wounds the Fisher King in the Grail story, something which also took place at midday and was inflicted by the King’s own brother. In the Grail story, the brother who wounds the Fisher King is himself known as the “Dark Lord,” and during the fight he is wounded in the left eye, precisely as Dagobert was wounded. The same thing happened to Horus in Egyptian mythology, fighting his uncle, Set. The “Left Eye of Horus” came to symbolize the hidden knowledge of the gods, just as the “left hand path” does today. Dagobert’s death appears to follow the same patterns as many of other “Fallen Kings” or murdered gods whose death must be avenged. And it is meant to symbolize the concept of the “Lost or Fallen Kingdom” the same way the Dolorous Stroke does in the Grail story.

Clearly it meant the end for the Merovingian kingdom. All subsequent Merovingian kings were essentially powerless, and they were officially thought to have died out with Dagobert’s grandson, Childeric III. 49 years later, Charles Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne was anointed Holy Roman Emperor. But in 872, almost 200 years after his death, Dagobert was canonized as a Saint, and the date of his death, December 23, became “St. Dagobert’s Day.” Write Baigent, et. al.:

“The reason for Dagobert’s canonization remains unclear. According to one source it was because his relics were believed to have preserved the vicinity of Stenay against Viking raids – thought this explanation begs the question, for it is not clear why the relics should have possessed such powers is the first place. Ecclesiastical authorities seem embarrassingly ignorant on the matter. They admit that Dagobert, for some reason, become the object of a fully fledged cult… But they seem utterly at a loss as to why he should have been so exalted. It is possible, of course that the Church felt guilty about its role in the king’s death.”

Guilty, or afraid? For surely they knew that this “Priest-King of the House of Dagon,” with his divine lineage, so beloved by his people that they worship him like a god 200 years later, would of course be avenged for his treacherous murder. Surely they knew, as most Dagobert’s Revenge readers know, that the Merovingian bloodline didn’t die out, surviving through his son Sigisbert, and continues to jockey for the throne of France to this very day in various royal bloodlines throughout Europe. Surely they knew that this kingdom would rise again, and that the Lost King would return someday. The seeds of their return have already been planted. France is united into the political mass that Dagobert had envisioned it be when he united Austrasia. And the “Holy Roman Empire,” which the Merovingian Kings were clearly attempting to form with the help of the Vatican, has now become a reality, in the form of the European Union. During WWII and immediately after, the Priory of Sion, that secret order dedicated to the Merovingian agenda, openly campaigned for a United States of Europe. They even proposed a flag, consisting of stars in a circle, that is identical to the flag used by the European Union today. (This flag was carried by a divine white horse, a symbol of Poseidon and world monarchy.) Furthermore, the World Empire of the Atlantean Kings who spawned the Merovingians is closer now than it has been since the gods left the earth during the Deluge. The United Nations, a feeble example, will surely give way at some point to a united world government strong enough and glorious enough to be called an Empire. The Fallen Kingdom of the Gods is clearly returning, and the new Golden Age is upon us. And if this author’s hunch is correct, this is, indeed, a glorious time to be alive.


There are many documented cases of electromagnetic effects in conjunction with paranormal phenomena. In houses experiencing poltergeists or other ‘ghostlike’ apparitions, electrical appliances and light fixtures often display unusual behavior. There are many documented cases of paranormal communication through electronic devices – the Raudive voice recordings on radio, TV apparitions, and mysterious phone calls. Similarly, UFOs and other paranormal occurrences often cause interference with car engines and other electrical, and some feel UFOs hovering near power lines may cause blackouts. Those who have seen UFOs often receive dehydration and ‘eye burn’ – a result of’ high-frequency actinic (Ultra Violet) radiation – which is observed in people who have sighted “Sasquatch” and other apparitions, as well. The presence of unusual EM activity in ‘windows’ of paranormal activity is often demonstrated by the tendency for compass needles and other electronic instruments to behave wildly.

The range of EM effects in nature is still not widely understood. While it is known that ionizing (nucleonic-particle) radiation can be harmful, the full range of effects for non-ionizing (photon) radiation is not known. It has been demonstrated that very low frequency (VLF) waves of greater wavelength than conventional radar can cause interference with electronic equipment – such waves, being generated by a thermonuclear explosion, as some scientists surmise, might knock out the entire electric and communications grid of North America, an additional jeopardy posed by the Bomb. Such waves may also trigger electric fuses and switches: this is known as ‘HERO’ effects and is a recognized danger by the military. High-frequency EM waves – microwaves, X rays, cosmic rays, etc. – are dangerous to organisms because of their heating effects on tissue. What is not known is the effect of ELF (Extra Low Frequency) waves on biological organisms, because ELF radiation is given off by most of our electrical equipment, especially VDTs (video display terminals) and electric appliances.

Some of the recent research suggests that EM behavioral effects include changes in perception (visual and auditory), circadian rhythms and other biological ‘clocks’, reaction time and reflexes, and orientation/navigation ability in animals. Some report feelings of disorientation, nerve paralysis (note carefully… this occurs in conjunction with UFO reports), and discomfort. ELF radiation, when in the range of brain activity (below 20 Hz), can cause EEG (electroencephalograph) changes. There are numerous mechanisms reported for this cause: suppression of melatonin production by the pineal gland, changes in acetycholine receptors in the brain, possible ionization effects on the CNS (central nervous system), or thermoregulatory (temperature-control) changes. Others suggest that there may be effects at the cellular level, and that, to wit, “cells are rapidly oscillating semiconductors,” perhaps due to properties of RNA or calcium oxidation in the cell membrane. Some researchers in this area – Becker and Marino – feel that DC current stimulates cell growth and regeneration, and that conversely, wrongly-attuned EM fields may have adverse health effects, possibly causing cancer, natal problems, and cataracts, among other disorders reported.

Since the direct effects of ELF fields are very small, most researchers tend to ignore any hazard they might pose: heating and electrification effects in conjunction with most power-frequency (PF – 60 Hz) fields tend to be extraordinarily small. But they have neglected the fledgling field of radiobiology and the ‘biocommunication’ aspects of EM energy. EM fields surrounding the body may be a form of ‘bioinformation,’ the organizing fields that tell cells in the body where to go and how to function – which may be Lakhovsky’s bioenergy, Reich’s orgone, the Saxon-Burr L-Fields, the ch’i of the acupuncturist, the bioplasma of Russian physicists, and the ‘aura’ seen by Kilner’s UV glasses and Kirlian photography. Further, organisms may use EM waves to transmit information: this is, after all, how many insects send signals from one antenna to another. The possibility that human telepathy may be just such a form of transmission -”biological radio”- has fascinated many scientists. Unfortunately, some of the evidence for that hypothesis is weak, because ESP clearly works m EM-shielded Faraday cages. (One might surmise that some ESP transmissions may occur through previously undocumented, and unshielded, types of radiation, and only partially in the spectrum blocked by the cage.) Certainly, the fact that ESP does not fall off in range like most other signals (the inverse square law) – it worked out in space – suggests it is not a ‘standard’ form of EM wave.

It is the fact that EM energy may cause perceptual changes that may be of most interest to paranormal researchers. EM stimulation of the temporal lobe can cause auditory hallucinations, and strong EM fields cause people to see phosphenes or moving motes of light. Some Russian researchers report that a strong electromagnet 2 cm from the nape of the neck can cause people to see visual hallucinations. Wilder Penfield found that electrical stimulation of areas of the brain caused people to see images from their past as vividly as when they were “there.” The early Mesmerists thought that hypnosis operated through a magnetic fluid – ‘animal magnetism’ – and there still seems to be something in connection with hypnosis, trance states, and the ability of animals to ‘fascinate’ others through radiation from the eyes. Nonetheless, the ability of hypnotized subjects to experience a wide range of incredible sensations has been well-documented – when told their arm is burning, the subjects’ arm will display discoloration and scarring. To the consternation of paranoids everywhere who claim people are ‘beaming’ their thoughts, Andrija Puharich has found that ELF waves may indeed have the ability to control behavior if they are at beta wave (5 – 8 Hz) frequencies, and that various agencies (CIA, etc.) have researched the possibility of behavioral control in this area.

One thing that is notable about the Fortean “window areas” are a high degree of geomagnetic disturbance. The same EM fields causing the disturbances in electronic hardware may also be disrupting the ‘wetware’ of the brain. Nonetheless, some EM phenomena ,generated in these zones – in particular the so-called “Earthlights” – are very physical and real. The very odd behavior of some Will-O-Wisps / Spook Lights /Ball Lightning has suggested to Vincent Gaddis and others that these may be forms of intelligence, “electro-animals,” with purposive behavior. One simplistic explanation of the Fortean occurrences in these areas is that contact with these EM entities produces hallucinations, and causes the person to see whatever his belief system is likely to accept – a flying saucer, a hairy ape, a ghost, an angel, a talking tree, or whatever. An alternative explanation, advanced by Paul Devereaux, is that these energy-balls are subject to Psychokinetic molding, into whatever we want to see.

John Keel notes that in most UFO sightings, what is first seen is a bright light – which is then followed by the outlines of a structure. UFOs may be nothing more than just superspectrum entities: the fact that they often change coloration – from red to indigo to vanishing altogether suggests to Keel that they are specters transiting through, and then leaving, our visible-light spectrum. Some of the UFO’s flagrant violations of the laws of physics – in particular, angular momentum – do suggest it is not a physical object. The physical effects of the UFO – stalling cars, strange electronic signals on radios and phones, ‘eye burn’ and CNS effects – suggest that it has a powerful EM field associated with it, if it is not itself and “EM entity.” John Michell concludes that the propensity of UFOs to follow Aime Michel’s straight lines – and the ley lines connecting ancient monuments – may be due to their geomagnetic origin, i.e. they are part of the World Grid.

But UFOs may be more than just generated by the earth, like Earthquake Lights (EQLs) – they may simply be more able to visit our part of the superspectrum during times of abnormal EM activity in these “window zones.” The gateway between our territory and their “Borderland” may be open during those times. Many other kinds of apparitions seem to follow the UFO pattern – during ghost sightings, many people claim to see tiny balls of lights, then the ghostly outline of someone they know. Keel noted that during the wave of “Mothman” sightings in West Virginia, many witnesses claimed to see only two points of light at first, which then resolved into the smoldering eyes of the winged beastie. Many Sasquatch sighters report him to be surrounded by an eerie, shifting glow. During reported cases of UFO paralysis or missing time, Keel also observed, the victim often reported being hit by a bright beam of light. Keel connects this to the phenomenon of illumination – like the beam that zapped the Jewish tentmaker, Saul, and turned him into a prophet…. many of the UFO witnesses so ‘zapped’ experience paranormal healing, increases of intelligence or psychic ability, and begin receiving telepathic transmissions (from the superspectrum?).

One definite paranormal mystery that many investigators have noted is that some of our shortwave radio channels appear to be broadcasting some truly strange things – for example, the repetition of certain numbers over and over in Spanish. It is possible that some of these things are intelligence exercises – forms of CIA covert communications, etc. – but some of the recorded transmissions are definitely too bizarre for even this explanation. In the movie Poltergeist there is a memorable scene where out of the ‘white noise’ of a UHF television channel emerges the arm of one of the entities. The suggestion is that through the upper reaches of the EM spectrum – i.e. the Superspectrum – the entities, normally outside our perceptual reach, may be able to communicate. Keel notes cases of paranormal voices and strange electronic signals coming forth from TVs, police radios (turned off!), telephones, and computers, and surmises a hypothesis. Are these signals posthypnotic activators for ‘sleepers’ who have been programmed’ to see or do certain things? (aren’t we all sleepers….?)

Perhaps the human brain ‘tunes in’ to certain bandwidths, picking up the transmissions of the “Great Phonograph in the Sky,” stuck in its weird prophetic / apocalyptic / mythopoetic grooves? It might be the case, as Keel notes, that there are ‘low frequency’ as well as ‘high frequency’ messengers, and we might be careful in considering who our contactees are ‘beaming’ for. Perhaps the electromagnetic structure of the ‘etheric’ body – i.e. the purported ‘Kirlian aura’ – has special receptors for different types of transmission; might this be what the Hindus identify as chakras , the radar dishes for kundalini ? If the brain is, as Ken Wilber and Itzhak Bentov suggest, a frequency analyzer, might not under certain duress (the “Nagul’s blow” for “summoning attention”, etc.) suddenly open to a wider bandwidth than normal? The exploration of the electromagnetic basis of life and consciousness has but just begun, and it is a terra incognita bound to contain a host of surprises. Who knows what we might be able to see in those rare Superspectral ‘windows’?

Many of the UFO entities claim to come from “another time and another light.” This may be a garbled way of explaining that they exist beyond the known (or knowable) EM spectrum. Paranormal entities often insist themselves that their form is not fixed and that they appear as they choose to be seen. Carlos Casteneda always maintained that the ‘allies’ normally appeared as balls of light when one was seeing them as they were, but that a bright luminous egg or cocoon was also the true form of human beings. The fairies were said to be opalescent and to give off bright light (‘faerie fire’) when dancing at night. Certainly many ghost or apparition sightings initially appear as moving balls of light, which when stared at seem to take on the misty outlines of some sort of human form. In many cases, paranormal investigators utilize infrared and ultraviolet detection systems, which often reveal the otherwise ‘invisible’ activity behind poltergeist and “bedroom invader” attacks to be similar energy formations. The nonmateriality and insubstantiality of some paranormal entities may be due to the fact that they are not in fact “flesh and blood” at all but essentially are electromagnetic in nature.

This certainly does not explain all classes of Fortean phenomena. Other strange occurrences which do not involve balls of light and leave very real material after effects (i.e. they are not simply EM-induced hallucinations.) happen in these “window zones.” It may be that intense geomagnetic activity may open gateways to other places besides the superspectrum, places where even more bizarre things can come through, or where people can peer at things taking place in other parallel dimensions to our own. Keel notes that the awful, sulfuric smell and hissing noise in many of these cases might be caused by the sudden appearance of a powerful EM transmitter displacing the air, and that the boom or explosive noises caused by their disappearance might be the sudden rush of air into the vacuum created by their disappearance. One day we may figure out how to see these gateways in the same way that the superspectrum entities do, and use them to travel to other realities.

This link is pretty cool… it shows alla shit you can do with CSS… I’m so out of it in some ways – it’d prolly take me most of a weekend to figure out some of that shit.

Rememember that game for the mac? Oh I do – lots and lots of fun…

1. Postprandial means: (a) occurring after a meal; (b) occurring
after a surgical operation; or (c) occurring after meeting the
Pope?

2. Theorbo is: (a) an instrument for measuring the specific
gravity of liquids; (b) a kind of stomach-pump; or (c) a 17th-
century musical instrument like a large lute?

3. Xebec is: (a) a long-legged burrowing rodent related to the
guinea pig; (b) a musical instrument played by striking the
strings with hand-held hammers; or (c) a three-masted
Mediterranean sailing ship?

4. Morpheme is: (a) a basic unit of language; (b) a sedative
drug; or (c) a corrosive liquid used to etch the lines on a
printing plate?

5. Pisiform means: (a) fish-shaped; (b) pea-shaped; or (c)
resembling an ant?

6. Talaria are: (a) the filaments of blanket weed; (b) a nomadic
people of Mongolia; or (c) winged sandals as worn by the god
Mercury?

7. Cribriform means: (a) perforated like a sieve; (b) shaped like
a bed; or (c) constructed with a heavy timber framework?

8. Boustrophedon means: (a) a mythical creature with the head of
a lion and the body of a horse; (b) a one-sided Irish drum
played with a single stick; or (c) a method of writing in
which the lines go alternately from left to right and right to
left?

9. Sitophobia is: (a) irrational fear of eating; (b) irrational
fear of bats; or (c) irrational fear of sitting?

10. Chichevache means: (a) the use of oriental motifs in
furniture design; (b) a beef stew originating in Normandy; or
(c) a fabulous monster that lives only on patient wives and
that was, therefore, all skin and bone?

So I haven’t really posted too much of value since I got back from Texas.
The remainder of my trip was wonderful. chellez‘ family was really neat, and I hope to get them up soon.

The return flight was a lil bumpy due to some last minute delays and whatnot, but we got home, and in time for chellez to catch up on SFU and get the new episode in.

My bro brought the dog down, watched SFU with us, then moved on shortly thereafter.

Work has been very stressful in terms of people wanting things from me – applications which really shouldn’t be my responsibility anymore in terms of developement that refuse to go away…

In other news, hung out at grimbil‘s joint last night fro some fiiine bbq. I purchased a bigass mug for him to take care of, under the condition that I get custody on visitation days. Also determined that the new tropical sprite is available in NY. Good news for me! Weeeeee….

I just hope noone uses my bigass cup as an impromptu urinal.

Richelle has been migraney, and I have been trying to do whatever I can to make things easier for her. Mine sort of evaporated into thin air – very odd for me, but then again it was not a common migraine in terms of my pattern. I just hope it stays gone.

Matrix tonite! I am sooo looking forward to it. And I will be mucho pissed if it ends up sucking.

Today has been the day that will never end.

From grimbil and wangch61 and chellez

Pick a band and answer the below questions using song titles. My band is Tom Waits.

01. Are you male or female:
02. Describe yourself: A Good Man is Hard to Find
03. How do some people feel about you?: Telephone Call from Istanbul
04. How do you feel about yourself?: Drunk on the Moon
05. Describe an old girlfriend/boyfriend/interest: Warm Beer and Cold Women
06. Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend/interest: Lucky Day Overture
07. Where are you?:Just Another Sucker on the Vine
08. Where would you rather be?: Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night
09. Describe what you want to be: Innocent When You Dream
10. Describe how you live: Empty Pockets and Broken Bicycles
11. Describe how you love: Just The Right Bullets
12. Share a few words of wisdom: God’s Away on Business

Since I have learned to use the lj-cut tag, I will not subject everyne to my personal book of Exodus over the last few days. While this is hardly 40 days and 40 nights, it is certainly a journey.

Suffice to say, in the short version, I made my plane, I landed safely, I made it to my destination, and am currently the only one up in the house, quietly digesting a very good burrito.


Phase 1 – Getting to the Airport
I ended up having to leave a little earlier than I intended on Wednesday. I had called a Shuttle Bus thing to get me to the airport, who told me, around 10am that morning, that they would be there between 3:30 and 3:50… Unfortunately, I had only checked 4pm as ok with the boss. Hopefully, noone noticed.

Got into vanage, made excellent time. In the 30 minutes it took to get to the airport from uptown Manhattan, I got three phone calls from my suide business – all technical dope problems. That was the only thing I was worried about while I was away – that something would happen and I would not be able to fix it remote. Nothing so dire yet, but the nickel-dime calls are really getting to me.

I got three more today, but that is getting ahead of myself. Calls will be made tomorrow to remedy all.
On my way into the airport, roomate Rich called to remind me about the one thing that I knew somewhere in the back of my head that I had forgotten, but could not recall until his call – payment of rent.

He covered, Chernobyl was put on stall for a bit, I just need to cut some checks and apologies when I get back. Perhaps I will get Rich a 10 gallon hat for his troubles.

On an unrelated side note – I got 227 emails today. That is really heavy for a Thursday. I am going to have to figure out a way to check my mail while I am in Maine, or I will come back to a quota-locked account.

I found my e-ticket kisok, had my tickets printed handily in record time…then proceeded to the gate. Noticed that gate had about 60 people in line at security stalls. 180 to pizza joint, figuring if in an air mishap, only bloody remains of me were going to be found somewere over a state like Alabama, they might as well smell of fresh basi and tomatoes. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the Alabamites, no trace of my bloody corpse can be found within the state lines. Yet, I guess I should say, I still have to fly back.

After a slice, and a few more phonecalls, it was back to scope out the security line.

Phase 2 – Getting to the Gate
I know security is tight. I know the bad mans are out to get us. At least, that is what I keep saying so I am not incarcerated without process or other options under the auspices of the Patriot Act. However, is it really neccisary for me to remove my clogs, which have buckles that contain less real metal than my earrings, or the freaking sterling silver bracelet I wore throgh the beeper? My feet felt gross all flight, having shuffled through the filth of lord knows how many other people’s socky leavings.

Be sure to wear socks next flight all, that is my big advice of the eve.

The security people were all copping attitudes. I undestand your job sucks, I understand all the terrah of the world is flowing beneath your little wands and past your fake aluminum-painted-gold badges…don’t take it out on me. Play raquetball, get a shrink, torture houseflies with lighters – I don’t care what you do… DO NOT yell at me about “blocking your workspace” whilst standing at the end of a conveyor waiting for my shoes, because they were taken off six items from the rest of my stuff.

I know why they station cops at those things – it is not in case someone wants to plow through security, it is in case someone wants to give a little back of what security dishes out.

Temper flared, I went to sit in the incredibly hot waiting area for a silly amount of time until my flight boarded. I listened to a first class brit and american discuss the finer parts of the recent war, royalty and democracy, sars, cuba, north korea, and soccer vs football. All the while, I got the first two pendants in Zelda – Link to the Past. Tuned the talk-show duo out about 20 minutes pre-boarding to read. I ended up finsihing a 340 page book less than halfway through the flight. Glad I got a backup. Oh yeah, that brings me to….

Phase 3 – Flights and Everything After
So when I printed my e-ticket, I got to choose my seat. I chose something in the 20 rows, aisle, so I could get on early, and hopefully still bolt on landing.

Apparently, this same section was rather attractive to a pair of african immigrants, who did little but jabber, in some african dialect, about the visuals of “Two Weeks Notice” and order copius amounts of coffee all evening.

Luckily for me, the flight was not sold out, so I was relocated to a row ahead of them, with a compfy trio of seats all to myself.

Board of fare was a meatloaf sandwich, a bag of baby carrots, a mini soda, two packets of ketchup, and almolns-carmel cluster, and a mini bag of ruffles (with mini bag sized ridges). I opted to not buy the booze, as I wanted to meet richelle’s mom sober, and I have a really hard time spending 5$ on a shot of booze, even if it does come in a pretty complimentary container I can take home to store my vicious neurotoxins in.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, plane.

The instructional video is now no longer given by flight attendants (on Continental anyhow). They have mini flat panels that fold down fromt he overheads every three seats or so, and a prerecorded session is droned at you, with a myriad of awful actors, and phony best wishes by the CEO.

I much rather the flight attendant improving thier version. However, the slow visuals of the seatbelt apaprently helped the Larry and Valkie of South Africa – who up until had no idea how to get the bloody things on.

Flight was pretty much uneventful. Finished book, played much Zelda, then turned off after an inopportune death, realizing as I closed it that I forgot to save (doh).

Nearly fainted in pain during descent, when my slightly conjested sinuses condensed into walnut sized snot drills, and began boring towards my eyes via the forehead. I really didn’t think I was going to make it.

I did, but it was pretty unfun.

Richelle and her mom met me at the airport, without incidence – to that point. The wrap up of last nights trip and todays activities truly lie….

Phase 4 – ::clap clap clap:: Deeep in the Heaaart of Texas….
Apparently, Richelle and her mom were running late in picking me up. Wherefore, they made the last 30 mile stretch in 10 minutes, which apparently broke several land-speed laws. While no tickets were involved in that portion of the trip, on the return, Karma was paid in full. Richelle’s mom was doing 71 (the psoted speed was 70) when the local speed limit suddenly dropped 20 miles, thanks to a nearby township. Just beyond this magic point of no return was a lovely local rural policeman with a lazer gun, and a vendetta against speeders.

After we were pulled over, and some explanations were made, it became abruptly clear that Richelle’s mom’s insurance card was not going to turn up. Phone calls were made, answers did not come until today, when it was discovered that her car was, in fact, uninsured. Maybe I just shouldn’t be in cars at all, mine or other people’s!

Apparently, insurance was not transferred to new car – purchased in February. The cop was nice enough to issue a warning on insurance, was not nice enough to withold 115$ ticket.

Texas has no points system for driving violations. I wonder how insurance companies keep track. An interesting study for another sleepless night.

Home was gained shortly after the speeding escapade, with some quick good evenings, and a bit of sleep.

I say bit, because between the local canine (who is a pretty neat dog, despite its affection for me), and the clock which chimed on the hour in the living room (blessedly silenced for this evening) a bit was all I saw.

First impressions involve a large number of “Jack-In-The-Box” chain resturants, several derisive aggie remarks, and a surprising physcial and atmospheric resemblance to places in Florida which I have lurked in. Richelle’s family has a wonderful house, and thier dog likes me.

Today was very much a confirmation of the incoming impressions.

Richelle’s family is great. Her mom and she have a lot in common – since I love Richelle to peices, her mom and I are getting along really well. Her stepdad is a total card too, and I was pretty worried about getting along with him, but not so much anymore.

Day 1 in brief –
Woke up, traded anecdotes, until Richelle went to take a nap, and her mom went to the store for supplies.
I installed Windows XP on the machine I am currently using to write all this – after much troubleshooting, a bit of furtive cursing, and the addition of a new soundcard, and 128m of ram.

It runs reasonably well for an AMD K6 with shared video ram, and a 466mhz processor. The onboard sound is fried, and kept crashing Windows. If I had not had some warning about that, I would have probably succumbed to a “Hulk Smash!”(tm) moment well before I got it up and working, which I eventually did.

Richelle awoke, and expressed a desire to galavant, and show me the layout of the local area. At that point I had the machine patching, so I thought food sounded like a good idea (Around 1pm local time). Showers were taken, and preparations were made, when Richelle’s freind James appeared out of nowhere just before our exit toward vittles.

I got to meet him in person, which is really cool. He seems like someone who would be a real blast to hang out with – I can see why Richelle has stayed close freinds.

After about an hour, James had to go, and we deprted, ravenous, to fulfill Richelle’s gnawing desire for a cherry vanilla slush thinger. I wolfed down a burger, and we ended up in a Best Buy, where we appropriated several things:

  • The new Castlevania game for GBA – Aria of Sorrows
  • A muy cheap spindle of 100 700mb cd’s
  • A CD-MP3/AM-FM Tuner player thinger for Richelle
  • A DVD of “Spirited Away” (To Grimbil – I think your next party should be a halucanogenic anime getogether!)
  • Batteries for MP3 palyer thinger

After Best Buy, we returned home for some more chit-chat, patching, getting computer up to date and virus protected, munching on chips and onion dip, and general chillin out. Richelle’s stepdad came home, and he took a bath in preperation for a dinner engagement he and his wife had with Bill’s son Travis (Richelle’s stepbrother), and one of his close freinds from Bolivia.

Richelle and I were left behind, and decided that we were going to go to Freebirds, which is a local burrito preparation place of much renound. Rightly so – they make damn good burritos. However, before we got to that point, I noticed Bill had forgotten his checkbook (one thing I cannot believe about down here – how many people take checks! I think _everywhere_ does – very odd), in his haste/confusion of looking for his still-missing camera. Bill, and Richelle’s mom both have cell phones – they left them at home. Travis has a cell phone – it was off. We ended up driving the checkbook to them, which is good, because they had no other way to pay. Bill borrowed my camera to take pictures, so there may be an early website update with the batch coming off the camera tomorrow. We shall see. Net connection here is steady, but hardly speedy (about 10k/sec =/).

So we went to Freebirds, where I got a wider view of Aggieland(tm), and the folks who make it up. It strikes me as an overlarge UCF, with a bigger millitary slant. Many of the vibes I am getting locally keep throwing me into mini-flashback about my first big Florida trip. I am trying to shrug them off and focus on the good time to be had in the here and now.

Burritos, as mentioned several tiems, were damn good.

After food, I fiddled with the wiring on the DVD palyer in the living room (center channel was off, making spoken parts of DVD’s relatively unhearable). I am probably going to rewire/diagram everything tomorrow, so that they are running all sound out through the tuner, allowing for 100% surround sound, DVD or otherwise.

Richelle’s folks came back, and we chitchatted about life, school, homeopathy, language, and a wide variety of other ecclectic topics. Bill’s storytelling methods remind me so much of my grandfather it almost hurts. I miss his stories sometimes… Bill is a real hoot, and Debbie is ust a pleasure to spend time with.

They all dropped off early. I wanted to stay up and watch discovery – which is running a special on mammals life cycles. The section it was covering concerned carnivores. In the first 10 minutes a rabbit, a baby bird, and a baby seal were all eaten by assored predators. Richelle went to bed, and I came in here to log all this – Note I didn’t mind the deaths, but I don’t like watching TV unless I’m watching it with someoen generally.

I am probably going to crack a peek at Castlevania before sleep tonite. Tonmorrow’s only agenda items involve knicknack appropriation, and eating of Ham which is going to be prepared by Richelle’s mom. I MUST rememebr to send Ed a postcard.


Up to date as of 2000, have no idea what has happened since then:

Magneto

Profile:
Real Name: Magneto travels under the identity Magnus. Whether it’s his true name or not is unknown. The closest the X-Men have come to discovering his real name is Erik Magnus Lehnsherr although it may not be his true identity.
Date of Birth: Unknown
Aliases: Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, Grey King, White King II, Michael Xavier, Erik the Red
Past Affiliations: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Hellfire Club NY, New Mutants
Current Affiliation: Ruler of Genotia
Status: Assumed dead

History:
Part 1: Discovering his powers

Magnus was born September of 1927. Near the start of World War II, his family was deported to a concentration camp. Magnus’ family was gunned down quickly and dropped into a shallow grave. Although Magnus himself was unhurt for his magnetic ability had deflected the bullets from himself, he was presumed dead and dropped in as well. But he dug himself out of the grave, and a nearby soldier sent him off to Auschwitz. There, Magnus spent the duration of the war witnessing some of the most grotesque displays of human cruelty. Upon the end of the war and the Holocaust, Magneto first discovered his powers when his daughter, Anya, was trapped in a burning building, yet a mob which had witness him use his mutant powers earlier that day, stopped him from saving her. After attacking the crowd, Magnus latter killed a couple of bandits that attacked him on the road, using his powers. For fear of his abilities, Magnus’ wife, Magda, left him, and died soon after in childbirth. She left behind twins who would were raised by gypsies and grew up to become Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

Part 2: Meeting Charles Xavier
After searching unsuccessfully for his wife, Magnus decided to travel to Israel, Magnus worked at a hospital helping Holocaust survivors. There he met Charles Xavier and soon became good friends. They both used their powers to help the patients and began to share a dream of mutants and humans living together in peace. One patient by the name of Gabrielle Haller, became good friends with Xavier and Magnus, but was later kidnapped by the neo-Nazi terrorist organization HYDRA. Xavier and Magnus teamed up and using their powers, defeated the terrorist organization, lead by Baron Strucker. Shortly after defeating HYDRA, Magnus grew disgruntled with the humans’ lack of tolerance for those that were different from themselves. Fearing another Holocaust, he started taking and aggressive stance towards humans, believing himself and other mutants to be superior to ordinary human beings. He stormed out of the hospital in Isreal, stating to Xavier that “Humans can’t even live in peace with themselves!” After leaving, he decided that there was only one way for mutants to be safe from humans: for the mutants to rule the humans.

Part 3: Magneto is born
Magnus then went to work for the CIA, helping track down Nazi war criminals, while at the same time working for the Israeli government and turning many over to it. Magnus codenamed himself Magneto in the CIA, thus the ruler of Magnetism came known to the world for the first time. During his employment, he met a beautiful doctor named Isabelle. One night while in a hotel room, Magneto’s boss, Control, along with several other men stormed the room and soon killed Isabelle. Control quickly ordered Magneto be killed as well, for they had discovered his cooperation with the Israeli government. Outraged, Magneto declared himself the mutant Magneto, a mutant superior to all homo-sapiens, and easily killed all the agents.

Part 4: Magneto Strikes
Magneto soon created the Brotherhood of Evil mutants, and it consisted of himself, Toad, Mastermind, the Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. Magneto struck first by attacking and capturing the American missile base of Cape Citadel. There he ordered that all mankind acknowledge him as their master or else he would begin World War III. Xavier sent in the X-Men to stop him. Lead by Cyclops, and backed by Wolverine and Storm, the X-Men attacked Magneto, but were easily knocked unconscious. When they arrose, the missiles were being launched, and Magneto might have succeeded if it wasn’t for Storm who knocked the missiles into the ocean. Magneto struck again the next day at a chemical plant. He quickly succeeding in causing fear and chaos within the plant by destroying many containers and pipes that contained many dangerous chemicals. Soon, the X-Men arrived lead once again by Cyclops, and backed by Wolverine, Storm, and Rogue. Magneto quickly defeated them, and was on the brink of killing them when Prof. Charles Xavier appeared. Magneto offered Xavier one last chance to join his cause, but after he declined, he moved to kill him. With Magneto about to blast him, Xavier entered Magneto’s mind and forced him to remember the war and all the suffering he had felt during it. In a desperate attempt to get away from the memories, Magneto blasted a hole in the plant’s wall and flew away. Since then, the X-Men had many battles with Magneto.

Part 5: Magneto’s Bermuda Island and the Savage Land
During his “conquest” of the world, Magneto was captured by an alien called The Stranger along with Toad. He escaped back to Earth and battled the X-Men again, but this time, Xavier called The Stranger back and Magneto was soon recaptured by the alien. Once again Magneto escaped The Stranger along with Toad and they returned to Earth. Upon returning to Earth, Magneto built his next base on an island within the Bermuda Triangle. But, Magneto became distracted with thoughts of regaining control of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who had by now joined the mutant superhero group the Avengers. Once again Magneto challenged the X-Men, but through their combined efforts with the Avengers, they were able to defeat him, but Magneto escaped once again. In the Savage Land, a place that exists in the Cretaceous state right below Antarctica, Magneto constructed his new base of actions. He kidnapped the swamp-dwellers (early humans) and using his magnetic powers, mutated them and forced him to becoming his slaves. He soon gained the title of The “Creator” among them. Once the X-Men learned of his actions, they attacked his citadel in the Savage Land which collapsed on top of him.

Part 6: The Fantastic Four
Once again, the X-Men left believing Magneto to be defeated, but he was not. After they left, Magneto crawled out from under the wreckage and made his way to the coast where he collapsed. Later, he was found by Prince Namor, who ruled the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. His next plot was an attempt to capture Sue Richards, the Invible Woman from the Fantastic Four. But her husband, Reed Richards, used a device that made Magneto’s own powers work against himself, and in fact, captured himself with his own powers. The Fantastic Four then placed him in “non-magnetic prison cell” which kept him from escaping with an “anti-magnetic force field”. However, Magneto escaped once again. Magneto then embarked on a plan to mutate all the non-mutant humans in the world, and nearly succeeded in killing all of the non-mutant humans using nuclear energy to power his “universe machine.” However, Magneto failed once again and detonated the nuclear engery container in an attempt to kill himself.

Part 7: Infant Mutants
Magneto once again survived and afterwards, attacked the X-Mansion and beat off Charles Xavier and the Young X-Men. Quickly, the Avengers came to their aid and were captured by Magneto, only to over through him and imprison him deep underground in an energy-globe. However, Magneto escaped once again when a comet approached the Earth and caused a shift in the globe just enough for Magneto to use his powers to escape. Magneto struck next at the United Nations building, by lifting it high into the air. Using a mutant Magneto had created himself, Mutant Alpha, he once again attempted to conquer the world. But Mutant Alpha evolved at an accelerated rate, and instead of helping Magneto rule the world, it turned on him and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. And it decided to give them a second chance, reducing all of the Brotherhood to the age of six-month old babies. Xavier took the infant mutants to Muir Island, and were entrusted to the care of Dr. Moira MacTaggert. Xavier planned to make all the, now baby mutants into mutants that would work for the good of all. But an alien from the Shi’ar empire, Davan Shakari, restored Magneto to his prime, and all his memories. Under Shakari’s influence, Magneto attacked the X-Men once again. Magneto soon created an extensive base in Antarctica under a volcano, and proceeded to track down the current team of X-Men. He found out that they had been captured by Mesmero, but soon stole them for himself. He put all them into chairs, which negated their powers and reduced them all to six-month old babies. He then left a robot named Nanny to care for them, but Storm managed to lead the X-Men to an escape which left his base destroyed.

Part 8: Asteroid M
Magneto then retreated to Asteroid M, that he had put in a stationary orbit above Anya’s grave. There he took time to think about his actions, and his beliefs. When Magneto came back, he lifted his island in the Bermuda Triangle out of the sea and ordered all of earth to give up their nuclear weapons and let himself rule to bring peace to all. Once again Xavier sent in the X-Men to battle him, and at one point, Magneto nearly killed the young, mutant, Jewish girl, Shadowcat. He immediately retreated back to Asteroid M, and Magneto seriously questioned his beliefs and decided to stop his actions to rule the world. While he was at the asteroid, another alien who had ran away from their own species, outcast as a “mutant,” crashed into Magneto’s asteroid, and sent it plummeting to the Earth.

Part 9: A New Love
Near death, Magneto was pulled out of the Atlantic Ocean by the fisherman Lee Forrester. Shortly after, he announced that he was changing his ways. Magneto had fallen in love with a non-mutant woman named Aleytys Forrester, who had saved him from being killed by the alien Beyonder. Later they broke up, and Aleytys’ current whereabouts are unknown.

Part 10: Magneto’s Attempt to become a Superhero
Magneto turned himself over to the World Court, to be tried for crimes against humanity. His lawyer was none other than Gabrielle Haller, the man Magnus and Xavier had saved so many years ago. Magneto would have been found guilty, had it not been for the intervention of the sibling-twins of Baron Strucker, Fenris and Andrea, who attempted to kill Magneto, Xavier, and Gabrielle Haller. The courthouse was destroyed, and Magneto and Xavier were left alone as Xavier’s body began to deteriorate. Corsair and Xavier’s love Lilandra came through a Stargate to bring Xavier back to the Starjammer (Cosiar’s ship), where Shi’ar technology would heal him. Then, Xavier made Magneto promise to protect their dream, and asked that he would take over as Headmaster of the School for Gifted Youngsters. So, Magneto became to headmaster of Xavier’s school for a while. The X-Men were independent of Magneto, however he was able to supervise the New Mutants, and after a while he applied for and was accepted as the White King of the Hellfire Club. With the passing of the “Mutant Registration Act,” Magneto once again returned to his old ways.

Part 11: Return to the Savage Land and Cortez
In the Savage Land, Zaladane had taken over. There, Magneto, Rouge, Ka-Zar (the ruler of the Savage Land), and S.H.I.E.L.D. teamed up to defeat Zaladane. Zaldane captured Magneto and nearly killed him by stealing his powers for herself, but he was rescued by Rouge and Ka-Zar, and later killed Zaldane against Rogue’s wishes. Magneto then briefly became associated with the Acts of Vengeance and there he built an even better Asteroid M. Once again Magneto retreated to the asteroid base to be alone. One day, a mutant named Fabian Cortez came to Asteroid M with a group of escaped mutant prisoners who came to be ruled under Magneto, and were later called the Acolytes. While Magneto attempted to dismiss them, Cortez manipulated him and increasing Magneto’s powers, he made Magneto dependent on him. Cortez manipulated him as to start conflicts once again with the X-Men and cause ignominy in the world opinion.

Part 12: Cortez’s Deciet
During this event, Magneto learned that while during his “second infancy,” Moria had altered his genetic code in an attempt to make him able to cope with his powers more easily. Believing that it had been an attempt by Xavier to control him using Xavier’s powers, Magneto captured Xavier and Moria, and forced him to perform the same operation on the X-Men, who had been captured and brought to Asteroid M by Acolytes. But Moria only gave the X-Men a superficial change that would only allow them to be mind controlled until they used their powers. The battle that followed left Magneto severely injured, and when Cortez pretended to heal him, he only amplified Magneto’s powers even further to hide his injuries. When the former Soviet Union fired a pulse cannon towards Magneto’s space station in an attempt to kill Magneto and the mutants aboard it, Cortez tried to set off some nuclear missiles on the asteroid in retaliation. Magneto used his powers to prevent the station from blowing up and allowed the X-Men to escape, yet could not prevent the asteroid from falling to Earth, and the Acolytes were killed, yet Magneto himself survived again. Once again Magneto returned to Antarctica and went into isolation.

Part 13: Avalon
Magneto came with a new dream, to create a mutant homeland in space aboard a spaceship which used to be Cable’s called Greymalkin. At the funeral of Illyana Rasputin, who had died of the Legacy Virus, Magneto asked the assembled mutants to accompany him back to space to his mutant homeland of Acolytes, and among the mutants to come was Illyana’s brother, Colossus. Soon after, world leaders on Earth initiated the “Magneto Protocols” which were global electromagnetic shields to render Magneto’s powers useless on earth. Magneto retaliated with an electromagnetic pulse to disable all the electronic devices on Earth. The X-Men soon assaulted Magneto on Avalon. During the battle, Wolverine severely injured Magneto and he retaliated by pulling all the adamantium out of Wolverine’s skeleton, leaving him near death. Xavier reacted to the attack on Wolverine by shutting down Magneto’s mind, causing him to become a human vegetable. In space, Acolytes retrieved a cocoon from space that was home to the mutant Holocaust. Holocaust then fought Exodus and destroyed Avalon, plummeting the spaceship to Earth. Magneto survived again with Colossus’ help. After the fall of Avalon, Magneto was believed to be Joseph.

Part 14: Joseph
After hiding for a while, Magneto soon resurfaced and sent another electomagnetic pulse around the globe. Astra, a former Brotherhood member, returned and Joseph, a clone Astra had made of Magneto, attacked him while he was controling the magnetosphere. When the X-Men intervened, it left the clone to control the magnetosphere, which had nearly turned Magneto into pure electromagnetic energy. Magneto was briefly beaten and the clone killed. Before the battle resumed, a U.N. ship landed in the Arctic Circle, and offered Magneto rule over the island nation of Genosha in return that he pledged to never open hostile aggressions towards the nations of the world again, and Magneto agreed. After the days stressful events, Magneto found himself unable to use his powers, exasperated from their extensive use.

Part 15: Magneto, Ruler of Genotia
Magneto soon set about transforming the country into some of its former perstige, and succeeded in changing the standard of humans bigoted against mutants, to mutants bigoted against humans. Magneto was opposed by the son of Genegineer, as well as Quicksilver and Rogue. Magneto defeated the rebel forces, Rogue left, but he was able to convince Quicksilver to stay as minister in the cabinet. Later, Magneto was captured by Apocalypse along with many X-Men and used as a part of a machine which channeled the power of The Twelve into the Apocalypse. Magneto’s inability to use his powers soon short circuited the machine, and in the following fight, he discovered that he could use Polaris’ powers and use them as if they were his own. Once Apocalypse was defeated, Magneto returned to Genosha with Polaris, and began teaching her to expand her powers and how to control them. Magneto set about restricting the liberties of the non-mutant humans and soon Carrion Cove started a rebellion for they felt that Magneto must never be allowed to use the genetic manipulation chambers, which could allow Magneto to regain all of his lost powers. Although he was opposed by the U.N., Rogue, Acolytes, Cortez, and the Avengers, Magneto made it into the chamber and healed his body, causing him to become even more powerful than before.

Final Part: Magneto’s End?
When Colossus sacrificed himself to cure the legacy virus, Magneto found that he had many healthy followers instead of sick and dying. He quickly declared war on humanity once again, and kidnapped Charles Xavier to use as an object to rally his subjects. A new group of X-Men lead by Phoenix along with Cyclops and Wolverine were successful in freeing Xavier. As they were leaving, Magneto tolled them that they wouldn’t win because they refuse to do what’s necessary to get ensure that they won. Wolverine retaliated by stabbing Magneto in the chest. Magneto is presumed dead, but as we all know, the Master of Magnetism is not so easily killed…

Rum,vodka,gin,triple sec, midori, sour mix, ice, mason jar.
Where the fuck is the Bush coalition looking for WMD when I need them?
I’m going to end up packing a herring and three hats for my trip… god damn Fat Tuesday specials!

In other news, of too the land of 10 gallon hats and bronc horns on the front of the pickup tomorrow. I think it is going to be an adventure indeed. I have to remember to get hot peppers for my bro (who I turned down a request for Texan weed on), and to send Ed a postcard.

Speaking of Ed, I got him his thermistor/variostor catalouge finally (thanks to Chelle). We had dinner at The Bayou, which is where UN inspectors clearly have ever been. The manager/waitress was in a math class with Eds when she was in 8th grade, and he was in 7th. She was defintely “interested” in him… Genneine was her name – going to have to remember that too, and that Ed is not into the pear shaped womens =)

Even when they have mohawks and multiple pericings… or maybe he’s just not into pears with accessories….

1. In “The Ugly Duckling”, what does the ugly young bird grow to
be?

2. In the story of “Cinderella”, who does Cinderella eventually
marry?

3. Which author wrote the stories “The Tinder Box” and “The
Princess and the Pea”?

4. In “Jack and the Beanstalk”, what did Jack exchange for some
magic beans?

5. Name the Seven Dwarfs in Walt Disney’s 1937 film “Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

6. Which composer wrote the music for the ballet “The Sleeping
Beauty”, first produced in St Petersburg in 1890?

7. Which puppet was the hero of a story written in the 1880s by
Carlo Collodi?

8. Which fantasy written by Charles Kingsley in the 1860s had the
sub-title “A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby”?

9. From which European country does “Beauty and the Beast”
originate?

10. The Brothers Grimm were famous as collectors of folk tales.
What were their first names?

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is…
Category Your Score Average
Self-Lovin’ 33.3%
When I think about you – or anyone – I touch myself
58.7%
Shamelessness 57.1%
It takes a couple of drinks
74.9%
Sex Drive 34.2%
I got needs, baby, you gotta unnastan’!
72.6%
Straightness 0%
Knows the other body type like a map
37.3%
Gayness 92.9%
Repressed, are we?
75.9%
Fucking Sick 64.6%
Dipped into depravity
86.2%
You are 46.55% pure
Average Score: 67%

Lots to update, I guess…Haven’t really been very religious about updating. Must be that whole athiest thing ::chuckle::

Righto, so work has totally disrupted the big post i was gonna do – this is going to be a piecemeal affiar at best. I can smell it already. Damn mondays.

An amusing link, and, a surprisingly simple but difficult game:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pearl.shtml

Goddammit, I started this on Monday, and am going to end it Tuesday morning.

Shows what my Monday was like!

This is a right scary article.

I need to move to Costa Rica, where people from your sidejobn won’t wake you out of a cold medicine-induced haze to fix thier hom machines.

::sigh::

Foreword to The Unix Hater’s Handbook
By Donald A. Norman

The UNIX-HATERS Handbook? Why? Of what earthly good could it be?
Who is the audience? What a perverted idea.

But then again, I have been sitting here in my living room—still wearing
my coat—for over an hour now, reading the manuscript. One and one-half
hours. What a strange book. But appealing. Two hours. OK, I give up: I
like it. It’s a perverse book, but it has an equally perverse appeal. Who
would have thought it: Unix, the hacker’s pornography.

When this particular rock-throwing rabble invited me to join them, I
thought back to my own classic paper on the subject, so classic it even got
reprinted in a book of readings. But it isn’t even referenced in this one.
Well, I’ll fix that:

Norman, D. A. The Trouble with Unix: The User Interface is Horrid.
Datamation, 27 (12) 1981, November. pp. 139-150. Reprinted in
Pylyshyn, Z. W., & Bannon, L. J., eds. Perspectives on the Computer
Revolution, 2nd revised edition, Hillsdale, NJ, Ablex, 1989.

What is this horrible fascination with Unix? The operating system of the
1960s, still gaining in popularity in the 1990s. A horrible system, except
that all the other commercial offerings are even worse. The only operating
system that is so bad that people spend literally millions of dollars trying to
improve it. Make it graphical (now that’s an oxymoron, a graphical user
interface for Unix).

You know the real trouble with Unix? The real trouble is that it became so
popular. It wasn’t meant to be popular. It was meant for a few folks working
away in their labs, using Digital Equipment Corporation’s old PDP-11
computer. I used to have one of those. A comfortable, room-sized machine.
Fast—ran an instruction in roughly a microsecond. An elegant instruction
set (real programmers, you see, program in assembly code). Toggle
switches on the front panel. Lights to show you what was in the registers.
You didn’t have to toggle in the boot program anymore, as you did with the
PDP-1 and PDP-4, but aside from that it was still a real computer. Not like
those toys we have today that have no flashing lights, no register switches.
You can’t even single-step today’s machines. They always run at full
speed.

The PDP-11 had 16,000 words of memory. That was a fantastic advance
over my PDP-4 that had 8,000. The Macintosh on which I type this has
64MB: Unix was not designed for the Mac. What kind of challenge is there
when you have that much RAM? Unix was designed before the days of
CRT displays on the console. For many of us, the main input/output device
was a 10-character/second, all uppercase teletype (advanced users had 30-
character/second teletypes, with upper- and lowercase, both). Equipped
with a paper tape reader, I hasten to add. No, those were the real days of
computing. And those were the days of Unix. Look at Unix today: the remnants
are still there. Try logging in with all capitals. Many Unix systems
will still switch to an all-caps mode. Weird.

Unix was a programmer’s delight. Simple, elegant underpinnings. The user
interface was indeed horrible, but in those days, nobody cared about such
things. As far as I know, I was the very first person to complain about it in
writing (that infamous Unix article): my article got swiped from my computer,
broadcast over UUCP-Net, and I got over 30 single-spaced pages of
taunts and jibes in reply. I even got dragged to Bell Labs to stand up in
front of an overfilled auditorium to defend myself. I survived. Worse, Unix
survived.

Unix was designed for the computing environment of then, not the
machines of today. Unix survives only because everyone else has done so
badly. There were many valuable things to be learned from Unix: how
come nobody learned them and then did better? Started from scratch and
produced a really superior, modern, graphical operating system? Oh yeah,
and did the other thing that made Unix so very successful: give it away to
all the universities of the world.

I have to admit to a deep love-hate relationship with Unix. Much though I
try to escape it, it keeps following me. And I truly do miss the ability (actually,
the necessity) to write long, exotic command strings, with mysterious,
inconsistent flag settings, pipes, filters, and redirections. The continuing
popularity of Unix remains a great puzzle, even though we all know that it
is not the best technology that necessarily wins the battle. I’m tempted to
say that the authors of this book share a similar love-hate relationship, but
when I tried to say so (in a draft of this foreword), I got shot down:
“Sure, we love your foreword,” they told me, but “The only truly irksome
part is the ‘c’mon, you really love it.’ No. Really. We really do hate it. And
don’t give me that ‘you deny it—y’see, that proves it’ stuff.

I remain suspicious: would anyone have spent this much time and effort
writing about how much they hated Unix if they didn’t secretly love it? I’ll
leave that to the readers to judge, but in the end, it really doesn’t matter: If
this book doesn’t kill Unix, nothing will.

As for me? I switched to the Mac. No more grep, no more piping, no more
SED scripts. Just a simple, elegant life:

“Your application has unexpectedly
quit due to error number –1. OK?”

Donald A. Norman
Apple Fellow
Apple Computer, Inc.
And while I’m at it:
Professor of Cognitive Science, Emeritus
University of California, San Diego

Today is turning out pretty weird.

For starters, one of my coworkers, Susanne, just told me she is pregnant. She was ecstatic about it (rightly so) and I am very happy for her. I am apparently the first person she has told outside of her immediate family and husband.

I’m kinda flattered, but, at the same time, I feel awkward. I like Susanne a lot, but I never considered her that close that she would choose me as the first person to break news like that too.

Then I walk in, and this is waiting for me in my inbox:

Screen all Patients Presenting with Fever and Respiratory Illness for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

A suspect case of SARS is a person presenting with:
1. One or more signs or symptoms of respiratory illness, including cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, hypoxia, or radiographic findings of pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome
AND
2. Documented fever that measures greater than 38ºC or 100.4 oF
AND
3. Travel within 10 days of onset of symptoms to an area with documented transmission of SARS* OR close contact** within 10 days of onset of symptoms with a person with possible SARS

* Areas with documented or suspected community transmission of SARS as of 4/22/03:
• People’s Republic of China (i.e. mainland China, including Hong Kong)
• Hanoi, Vietnam, Singapore, Toronto, Canada and Taiwan
For the most up to date list of affected areas, see the CDC website: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/

** Close contact is defined as having cared for, having lived with, or having direct contact with respiratory secretions and/or body fluids of a patient known to be a suspect SARS case.

If you are evaluating a patient with a suspect case of SARS:
1. Place a surgical mask on the patient immediately.
2. Put the patient in an airborne infection isolation room immediately.
3. Notify Infection Control Beeper #7497 (9 AM-5:PM, Mon-Fri).At all other times contact the ID fellow/attending through the page operator.
4. Report all cases of suspect SARS to the NYCDOHMH Bureau of Communicable Disease by calling (212)-788-9830. After hours or on weekends, call Poison Control at 212-POISONS (212-764-7667).
5. Contact and airborne precautions should be implemented. Contact precautions include the use of gloves, gown and eye protection. Hands should be washed with warm water and soap after leaving the room and removing gloves. Airborne precautions require the use of N-95 (or equivalent) disposable filtering respirators for all individuals entering the negative pressure room.

Feh.

Anyhow, some comics to try to lighten up the day.












I think ima go see Xmen2 tonite.