Picture from today

It seems from comments there is some trouble grogging this fine piece of art...

Can't you see, it's an artistic comment on the workers of today, who are getting younger, less educated, and more streamlined.
The worker who is eating is several steps in front.
The population in the backgrounds have their blinds closed to the situation. But not fully, because they are voyeurs after all.

The potted plant is the unborn generations.
The mail slot is communications media.
And the brick in the upper left the artist's ego.

"We like the Moon"

I've visited this nutty thing several times over many years, and it never fails to crack me up!
(Warning, loud music.)

Update: apparently not everybody is on the floor. Color me surprised.
Somebody recommended Viking Kittens instead.

Nikon D40

If even the Nikon D80 is too big and too expensive a digital SLR for you, you should take a look at the spanking new Nikon D40. I can't believe it's selling for $600. And it is super-compact, something I always had a weak spot for. (I must have owned like fifteen compact cameras over the years.)
It also reportedly has excellent low-light performance. So if you combine it with for example Nikon's lovely 18-200mm zoom with Vibration Reduction, you will have a camera you can use hand-held in almost any light, even indoors, so combined with the small size this should be a wonderful travel and walk-about camera.
(Take note that not all Nikon lenses will have autofocus on this camera. If you have or buy any lenses for it, they must be "AF-S" or "AF-i" lenses for the autofocus to work. Those have built-in autofocus motor.)

I am so impressed with general developments in digital photography. Just five years ago you had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for performance like this. (And they weighed three times as much.)

All Saints

All Saints are back. Hurrah!
They are one of the very, very few bands I think are real pop music and at the same time have profound artistic value.

If you think about it, it's not strange that it's rare: if you combine breath with depth, you get a big volume, and it's hard to fill.

Their new CD Studio 1 may have a lame title, but it's still the real All Saints.

American Gods

There is a joke -- not a funny one, the other kind -- about the difference between England and America. Wich is that England is a place in which a hundred miles is a long way, and America is a place where a hundred years is a long time.
-- Neil Gaiman

I've just read Neil's American Gods for the second time (this time as audio book, which lets me use my body and eyes for other things while reading). And it's a splendid book, warmly recommended. Rather demanding of the reader though, and rather gruesome in places. But funny and intelligent and intriguing.

Ascension

Humans can't think in too positive terms, it's not real for them. So to make a glorious ascension, for instance, seem acceptable, you also stress the painful side of it if you want to talk about such things.

You'll also notice that in every story which has a person who achieves amazing powers and enlightenment (like Phenomenon or Stranger In A Strange Land), that person also has to die. Otherwise the audience rejects the good tidings as being pie in the sky.