Nothing Really @ TheInsaneDomain.com

Books.
As I mentioned in my last entry, I have decided to do more reading. During a weekend road trip I read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I also picked up two new books:
Discarded Science - Ideas that seemed good at the time - John Grant
Darwin and the barnacle - The story of one tiny creature and history's most spectacular scientific breakthrough - Rebecca Scott
Hopefully they're good, so far I've scanned through the first one and found it to be interesting. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was quite different than I expected. Everyone knows the story but really, do we? (It's a short book so read it and just shut up about the old english used. ) The biggest surprise for me is that it wasn't written by the character of Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde but an outside observer; For some reason I had the idea it was otherwise. It was worth the time to read it and I found it interesting. If you want me to do a full book report, you'll have to pay me.

So long and thanks for all the fish.
Over the weekend I went to my grandma's funeral. Before you start getting all weepy, she was 93 and had lived a good life. I know it's getting harder to believe, but there are still those out there who get to a nice old age free of horrible diseases and then they die quickly; There is hope for all of us who worry far too much about this sort of thing. It was good to see some family that I rarely see normally, as well as family friends that I barely recognized. All in all, while it's always sad to have someone die, it was a good time and I enjoyed seeing all those that took the time to come visit. New things were discovered, as I hadn't known that my grandmother was one of the first women to become an accountant assistant (she did actual accounting work, not fetch coffee) at a major bank. She went on to train a lot of tellers and helped my grandfather set up a business that is still going today. That's pretty cool and I'm glad I found that out. Maybe I've been told before but now I remember it.

Jam a fish in my ear.
Having a babelfish would be SO useful. I'd love to have one jammed in my ear so I could hear any language and understand it. It would be useful to have some babelglasses, so reading any language is just as easy. Imagine all the interesting stuff I could read and get the REAL meaning to directly instead of relying upon other people and their screw ups, biases and general human errors.

History killing assholes.
It really pisses me off when I read or hear about ancient papers, books, codex, and other forms of writing being destroyed by religion-loving jerks, arsonists or other human-inflicted means. Jerks go parading around the globe throughout time and just destroy the shit they don't like, don't understand, doesn't agree with their ideas, or just for the fun of watching something burn. The rest of the world loses this information and then other jerks write their own version for everyone to believe. Makes you wonder what sort of nonsense future generations will be told about our moment in time here and what things will be lost to history forever. Oh wait, we might not make it that far and even the doomsday clock has been updated. Isn't it odd there is a doomsday clock? If we're in the last five minutes, there is just enough time to stop this shit but let's face it, humans don't work like that. We'll run out that clock and then bitch about it while the few left over try to figure out what to do with their new mutant arm that seems to be growing out of their ass. Then again, the doomsday clock started at seven minutes to midnight so really, the outlook has never been good. What else do you expect from a doomsday clock? Good thing I run off my own doomsday clock and it's got some more time on it.

Beneath the paws of the sphinx.
While watching a show discussing what may be beneath the paws of the sphinx (tee hee, they keep saying shaft.), I realized that there was an easy way to find out: we throw a giant cat toy past its face and when it swats at it, we see what it's been hiding. The bottom half is a cat so it will have to swat at the toy. The secrets of the past under the paws will be revealed!

Snowing.
This morning it was -24C (approx -11F) and it has been snowing most of the day. The driveway was shoveled yesterday, as there was just a bit of snow, but already today, within an hour, more snow than that has fell. At least it's nice to see, as it's light fluffy snow that sort of floats down. The cold is keeping my ass inside for as long as possible today, perhaps I won't even make it out until tomorrow to deal with the snow on the driveway. Luckily there are no sidewalks to deal with and shovel. For anyone who is wondering, yes, I'm still actually enjoying shoveling the snow and no, I won't do your driveway.

More random reading.
Optical illusions : Alice in Wonderland syndrome : Forced perspective :