Lately, the face of spam has changed. It's morphed from an ugly hairy guy in a dim room going,"heh heh..." as he sends out billions of "Enlarge your Penis" mails... into an ugly hairy guy with a dictionary picking out unlikely words to fool spam filters... THEN saying "heh heh..." as he sends the spam. As much as I LOATHE spam, and get a moment of satisfaction to every time I report a spammer to spamcop.net, I have to hand it to them. Some of these new titles are downright catchy. I'm glad not to see stuff about my manhood enlargment, (?) or getting loans fast. I kind of have to give a sort of grudging credit to whomever came up with the title "Decreeing Billow!" I've started saving some of the most interesting of the titles. I've collected such gems as

polygon griffin (creatures of myth come alive in an old video game!)

cuff referee (surely a ref from one of those grass-stain remover commercials. Or maybe one who monitors other's cuffs for stains.)

blank lignum (what a shame. I prefer my lignum heavily decorated.)

church man (a little known evangelical superhero.)

Decreeing Billow! (still my favorite. It sounds like a character from a William Blake poem. Listen! I'm "the fiend hid in a cloud's" cousin, and I've got an announcement!")

More to come...

Nihao's taken to grooming Boo at length, much to his dismay. I've never known a cat to be as disheveled as he likes to be. His fur is just a little too long to be smooth, and sticks out at funny angles. Then Nihao goes to work, and Boo emerges a few minutes later, his face and head gleaming with wet, slicked down hair like a little Dapper Dan man. He consoles himself by rolling on the wood floor, collecting al sorts of particles and dust, which stand out against his blackness. My feline Swiffer.

It's the sort of thing that makes you think a filmmaker was snorting about when he wrote it. In the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," one of the more obnoxious relatives is seen during a get-together relating her completely implausible story: "I was suffering these headaches, and the doctors, they did a scan and found this lump in the back of my head... and when they removed it, they found it contained....(dramatic pause) TEETH. That's right. I'd had a twin sister all these years. INSIDE ME."

Now, my morbid curiousity has assured that I know about many bizzare twists of nature. But I had never before understood what is known as "Fetus In Fetu." I'd heard stories about people having tumors removed with teeth in them. What I didn't understand until last night is that it is the beginning of an actual PERSON that they have removed. Apparently Fetus in Fetu, or vanishing/phantom twins happens at the very beginning of a pregnancy when the cell divides to become twins, and the normal one curls in on itself, envloping the other cell, which actually continues to form inside the first one. The fetus in fetu can form an umbilical cord of sorts to its host--the normally developing baby, and continue to live like that for... well, for years. One of the examples on the Discovery special we saw last night was a seven year old boy who had an enormous lump removed. Not just a lump... horrifically enough, it had limbs, discernible facial features, and loads of long dark hair.

There has never been a documented case of a fetus in fetu actually being conscious--or having a fully formed brain, for that matter-- Most of them have never developed a head to begin with... which makes the whole thing...I don't know...easier to think about? Do I want it to be easier to think about?

Semi-Spoilers ahead:
And now, on to the Easy to Think About section. I played 'Beyond Good and Evil' a couple weeks ago, and my overall impression is that it's a fun little game. It was cleverly designed, the gameplay was challenging without making me repeat parts incessently, and it was satisfying to beat. There are always going to be parts in a game where I rage at the designers, and aside from a couple ridiculous fights (including the final boss, which went on FAR too long) my main complaint is that they couldn't leave well enough alone. The story conludes with a spine-tingling happy ending... but wait. The designers are French. ie: must add on angsty bit after credits roll. I can understand wanting to set up a sequel, but this was over the top: The credits roll, panning along the children's drawings in the lighthouse that was home to the main character... how sweet.... and finally we arrive at the place where the beloved uncle of the main character stands overlooking the sea. (So glad we put in all that hard work to rescue him. ) But the music changes! Suddenly he's hunched over and.... hrrk! A quick flash showing he's been INFESTED with eeeevil!!
Aaaand cut!

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Advice for the day: make sure you choose a competant insurance company who will bother sending your proof of insurance to people like, say.... the place through which you have your car loan. 'Cause if they don't, you're suddenly slammed with an enormous bill including fantastically overpriced "default insurance." And if you don't immediately pay said new mongo bill, you will be sent incessent collection notices, and your credit will be WORKED. Then people at both companies will do their best to be unaccomodating and shift the blame onto whoever else they can. It is only after you burst into tears and ROAR at them that they will suddenly realize they are completely at fault and rectify the situation. Slowly.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

Tax time is nearing again, and for the third year in row, I'm la-dee-dah, because our numerical genius tax law expert friend has asked if she can do them again. No. You read right. She ASKED. Because she LIKES it. I want to give her big trophy awards for being saintly and able to understand tax codes (the two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand) and get us lots of money back.

Yaaaaaaay!


This is odd... after the better part of four years, I no longer work at the bookstore. I will now be full time at a medical billing type of place, which promises little to no material for good storytelling. Which is maybe exactly how I want it. I still have lots of residual bookstore tales to tell. Maybe I'll just stick to that for awhile.

Now I get to be one of those customers who berates other customers for being a self-centered idiot.

Final story: I was driving with the boy yesterday and looked over to see a lonely, bedraggled wig in the snow at the side of the road. All sorts of questions leap to mind: Was someone driving in a convertible in this weather? Did someone get fed up and rip it from their pate? Did someone get fed up and rip it from someone else's pate? I laughingly pointed it out to boy, who looked at it and then me, blankly. I explained that I was laughing at the wig, and he seemed relieved. "Oh....I thought at first it was a partially deflated dog. Which wouldn't have made you laugh."