The Unfinished Ode To The Magical, Mind-Reading Ovary

The ovar-y can tell, you see—
If the semen's unwanted, t'will learn.
If t'was rape, it'll spill a fluid which kills
Ev'ry single last one of those sperm,
Like nat'ral 'Plan B', but targeted, see,
'Cause those egg-laying organs read minds!
When they sense that it's forced (the only true rape, of course!),
They lay out their chemical mines…

This poem's unended; my brain can't be bended
To put more of that tosh into verse.
To utter such crap and pretend that it's fact;
Good grief, it's fuckin' perverse!
—Daz

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Amazing

I can't draw to save me life, which is probably why I get so blown-away by works like this. One of the playing-cards in the picture above is real, the other is a drawing. Which do you think is which?

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Rocket Ship To The Moon

Ive just read that Neil Armstrong has died, aged 82, of complications following heart-surgery.

In the floor of St Paul's Cathedral, under the centre of the dome, these words are inscribed:

Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.

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Tombstone

Here’s a bit of fun. The Tombstone Generator. [Link removed as it no longer works.]

You get five lines, with, though I haven’t counted, about twenty characters (including spaces) per line. Within that limited framework, I think this, below, sums up my atheistic view of death quite well.
—Daz

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I’m Knot A Royalist, But I Do Like A Nice Windsor

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

Which is to say, I think I've finally caught up on it. Been a touch overworked and under-slept the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of posts. But though the sleep's all caught-up, I now have about 50-zillion emails and blog-posts to catch up on and virtually no idea what's been happening in the outside world, either on or off line.

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Terry Pratchett: Shaking Hands With Death

Reading this article on assisted death, at the Why Evolution is True website, I was reminded of Terry Pratchett's 2010 Richard Dimbleby lecture on the subject.

It's a well written and moving piece; and well delivered on his behalf—for reasons explained in the introduction—by Tony Robinson. And I'll shut up, now, and let you watch it.
—Daz

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Brian Cox’s Travelling Circus

I remember, some time back, when Brian Cox's Wonders Of The Universe series was on the goggle-box for the first time, having several conversations with various people about how bloody dire the series was. I gave up on it—literally switched off in disgust—when he prepared to explain some of the effects connected to the speed of light by indulging in a ten-minute-ish segment, almost devoid of any useful commentary, wherein he sat in the back seat of a fighter-jet travelling at some multiple or other of the speed of sound. Which doesn't, no matter what the uninformed may think, based on phrases like "the sound barrier," share any resemblance with, or make any useful analogy to, the speed of light. The whole series, or at least the bits that I watched, seemed to be like that—visual spectacle, inserted at the flimsiest of excuse, taking precedence over the explanation of scientific theory and fact which was the ostensible raison d'être for the show. One suggested alternative title at the time was Brian Cox's Travelling Circus—with much reason.

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In Which I Answer Unasked Questions

So I thought I'd answer a few questions that I haven't actually been asked. Which sounds kinda like I've become the Reader in Invisible Writings at Unseen University. But no. These questions have definitely been asked; just not of me, exactly.

Certain subjects come up again and again in the list of search-terms which have landed folks on this blog, and often-times they're phrased as questions. Many of them will have found an answer on the page that Google, Bing or whatever, sent them to in response to the search, but some are, well, kind of tangential—and it's those that I thought I'd try to provide some direct answers to.

So, Gentle Reader, let's be about it, shall we?

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Who’s Closed-Minded…?

You won't admit any ifs or buts.
You're happy in your comforting rut.
Your mind's in a box, with the lid screwed shut—
Yet you say that we're closed-minded.

If a new fact arises, we change to embrace it;
If it don't fit your book, you refuse to face it—
It just can't be true if your myths don't encase it!
Yet you say that we're closed-minded.

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Flummoxed

My sister sent me this. It's one of those silly chain emails we all get from time to time. Sis, though, doesn't normally send 'em on, having much the same opinion of gushy emails about angels, silly numerology and easily debunked virus scares and other urban legends that I have. This one gave her to pause, though, so she asked several people, including me, to take a look at it, 'cause it flummoxed her.

And now I'm flummoxed, too.

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