Recently-declassified documents revealed that the Jimmy Doolittle raid over Tokyo in April of 1942 had actually been conducted, not with modified B-25s, but with supersonic gliders. Some sort of land-clearing technology had been put to work in China to create a long straight glidepath - through mountains, forests, whatever was in the way - for the rocket-planes to crash-land down. But at least one plane had gone off-course after the raid and hard-crashed somewhere in extremely deep-wilderness China, and the crew had to survive on its own for the rest of the war, until forces could be dispatched to rescue them.

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For consideration: Mel Gibson had a greenlit film adaptation of their story already going into production.

Today's older and unposted image is from last July, when nathan_fhtagn visited our humble Bloomington for the first time. Being the sneaky, plotting maniac I am, I made a secret appointment with hecubuscathead to have her doodle henna on Nathan. I didn't tell him where we were going. Heather lives a long way down a slightly rural highway, so by the time we pulled my Buick into her driveway, I think Nathan was certain I was taking him to die in a vasty pit of arse eels or somesuch.

Nathan was pleasantly stunned, however, when he learned he'd be meeting a very good friend of mine for several hours of attention (and a free droolworthy massage!), and Heather was slightly floored upon meeting Nathan as he tends to produce wee glistening floaty hearts above many of the heads of the women he meets. She's certainly got the disease, of which only more Nathan (and more cowbell) is the cure.

Here is a shot of Heather's fine artwork on Nathan--a bit of her signature aztechnorganic henna goodness. She scribed a mechanical heart across his chest but it had unfortunately faded by the time I shot pictures. Henna doesn't much like to stick to chests and backs, but it deposited a lovely stain down his arm (and over his farmer's tan).

We've been converting the back bedroom into a study for Ailz. She's got a TV in there so she can watch the Shakespeare plays she's studying. And yesterday we went to IKEA and bought her a flat-pack bookcase. I'm good with flat-packs. This one has its shelves supported on metal pegs. I opened the packet and one of the pegs leapt out,  bounced joyously and went down a gap in the floorbooards. Never mind. Ailz produced a magnet on an extending thing like a radio aerial and we had the little bugger out again in no time. 

This is going to be our year of Shakespeare. Already we go to bed and lie there talking about the Sonnets and how Shakey reportedly drank himself to death in the company of Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton and what silly wankers the Oxfordians are and other significant matters arising.

I'm reading the Lodger. It's about a law case Shakey got involved in while lodging with a Hugenot family in Cripplegate. It's like you're circumambulating him. There he is, sitting in his study bedroom with the MS of All's Well That Ends Well spread out on the table, and you can almost reach him but not quite. It's  frustrating how much we know about his world- like who his neighbours were and what they did for a living- and how little about the man himself. 

Alert Nerd adopts the broadside, and so releases The Alert Nerdian.

• Ami Saraiya
  ex-Radiant Darling
  (tags: music)

Hollow Earth Radio

Buried under a pile of urgent jobs. If you want interesting stuff today, I’d just go over to Grinding instead if I were you. As far as internetting goes, I’m keeping half an eye on Whitechapel while beating some scripts to death.

That said, soon I’m going to have to buy some birthday presents for people. And some of the 2000 people on Whitechapel actually have money that spends.

So if you’ve got your own Etsy store that you sell your stuff from, please go to this link and tell me all about it? Ta.

It's really fitting that this week I'd decided to post old pictures here, because right now, so much is coming full circle. Someone I hadn't heard from in over a year said to me yesterday that "it's like a weird memory time nexus". And it is. I hardly know where I am at the moment.

Today, willowperson, who has been my roommate for more than two years, packs up her car and begins her journey toward living in Seattle. I've known Willow for nearly three years to the day and she's affected quite a lot of change in my life. We've been through a nasty car accident, broken romances with the same person, sickness, running a popular club night, traveling, my art show, photoshoots, conflict after conflict, and many quiet nights of crafting, drinking coffee at the Spoon, and playing video games. Willow's one of the first friends I've had during my stint with camera in hand, and thus I've documented so much of what we've done together.

This is the first (left) and one of the last (right) images I've taken of Willow.

Torchwood is back. I'm surprised it got a second series. But I suppose what Russell wants, Russell gets.

They've drafted James Marsters in. Essentially playing Spike- only without the bleached blond hair. Does he worry about typecasting?

This first episode was pretty slick. The title Bang bang, kiss kiss says it all. Captain Jack and the Marsters character have a history. They meet in a bar, smooch passionately, then proceed to knock seven bells out of one another. Nice.

The dialogue is wittier this time round.

But I'm in it for the sci-fi and I'd like cleverer stories, really. 

The characters are still pretty charmless.  I don't care for any of them.

And that ongoing storyline where Captain Jack is romancing the office boy. I dunno- bad business practice- sexual harrassment- all that sort of thing. Leaves a sour taste in the mouth. 

Torchwood is a good idea- quite brave too what with all teh gay- but I'm don't think they've got the recipe right.

So, you know, reading about Ron Paul's economic ideas, I find myself wondering: has any society implemented and used a system of fiat currency for some period of time, and then successfully returned to a system of hard currency backed by specie?

("Society" is defined as human organization on the scale of, say, at least millions of people. "Successful" is defined as "without collapse and replacement of government, economic catastrophe, or similar widespread and complete destabilization.")

Also, I could build a bulletproof vest out of the Wikipedia article on the Austrian School of economic theory, that shit is so impenetrable. Just sayin'. ("Proponents of praxeological method hold that it allows for the discovery of economic laws valid for all human action, while the interpretive approach addresses specific historical events.")

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For consideration: irony is a dude who wants to bring back a cash-only economy funding his campaign on people's revolving credit card debt

• Chimps are not people - court: World: News: News24
  in other news, the sky is blue and someone in Austria needs a fucking slap
  (tags: law mad git)

Unfortunately broken- but the carving is even more spectacular. 

Here it is in situ.....



And here- to complete the picture- is the church. 

 It was raining hard first thing, but by the time we got to Colne it had more or less stopped. Ailz and Ruth went shopping at the Boundary Mill complex and I took a walk round town.  Colne is built on a hilltop; there's a river with mills alongside it and a railway viaduct and a town hall by Waterhouse and a 12th century church with rare 17th century grave stones in the yard. Round about lunchtime the sun came out and I got to eat my egg crunch sandwich (egg mayo with peppers and iceberg lettuce) sitting on a bench in Pendle View Park. I don't suppose tourists come to Colne unless they're on the trail of the Pendle witches- and even then I shouldn't think they linger. I like towns that don't do a sit up and beg routine for outsiders. 

Colne's two most famous sons were both Hartleys- and presumably related.  One of them- William Pickles Hartley- founded the  jam company and the other- Wallace Henry Hartley- was bandmaster on the Titanic.

• Bug Labs: Products
  “BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine” — holy shit, I wish I knew Linux
  (tags: tech)

“Manned Cloud is a hotel with a capacity of 40 passengers and staffed with 15 persons, that on a 3-day cruise in 170 km/h permits man to explore the world without a trace: to re-experience travelling, timelessness and enhance the consciousness of the beauty of the world - and to experience spectacular and exotic places without being intrusive or exploitative. For me this project sums up a way of thinking that is the stake of tomorrow.”

Full concept here.

(Via larry@proteinos)

One of a series of steampunk photographs taken for her September 2007 solo gallery show, “Pipe Dream”. Model is Rachel Westrum (with Francesco Longo in background). Print available at Etsy for a mere seven Yanqui dollar. (In British money, that’s eighteen pence at current exchange rate.)

NIGHT LIFE, first book in the NOCTURNE CITY cycle, by my friend Caitlin Kittredge. Crime, horror, bitey people and shagging, by God:

Caitlin likes it when I run the author photos that let you see right into her lungs. No, really. Look at the expression of enjoyment.

Pendle Hill, Lancashire (as viewed from the churchyard of St. Barnabas, Colne)

From R von Stevens VIII: Red Robot socks for women and men. (Also offering Defaultie The Student Loan Owl socks at same link.)

Here, as operated by Melissa Gira:

And Irene Kaoru:

(thereby allowing me to plug two other friends and their new websites at the same time)

Back to digging through the stinking, steaming guts of my photo drive, searching for items I never edited or posted that are worthy of consideration. Here's what I unearthed from the gummy detritus this morning--another photograph from PIPE DREAM I hadn't shared before. Models are madbluenimbus and copperpot.


Glorious, isn't it. This was another one of those shots that appears posed but really materialized because we were goofing off. Rach found that covetable pipe at an antique store, I believe.

Let me know if you want a print and I'll list one in your specified size on Etsy.
EDIT: Small print here.

As I've been rifling through older folders of images, I've been rather horrified to discover that I am apparently a butt man--I have an obscene number of pictures of my friends' behinds, and I totally didn't do it on purpose. Remind me at some point when we're all bored to make an ass collage.

Feeling utterly useless recently. Not sure why--it's not like I haven't been occupying my life with projects, reevaluation, and reorganization. Just feeling pathetically on the fringe. I'm trying to spend as much time as I can spare with my Good Friends [tm], several of whom rescued me last week for tea and kitten love or Dark Shit Therapy [tm], and for that I am completely grateful. Tiny mews improve everything. Mew.