A couple months ago, I noticed my site getting spam posted as replies to news posts. On a whim, I checked this out and discovered over 200 spams posted in past comments so they didn’t show up on the front page. Nice to know my little site that gets barely any hits, using custom software mostly incompatible with other blog projects, is worth targeting. So I took the Brain Age route: anyone wishing to post comments in my site must be able to multiply or add two digits from one to nine.

As of yesterday, I am the proud owner of a Nintendo DS Lite. Forever the victim of relentless advertising, I also acquired New Super Mario Brothers and Brain Age. I started this new foray into portable gaming by attempting to ascertain the chronological state of my dusty old gray-matter. I’m invariably certain initial playthroughs are not intended for evaluation purposes, as it placed me roughly between ancient and decrepit. I’m not yet 60, nor was I 48.

Chicago’s annual book fair started yesterday. Jen and I had a great time trawling through stacks of books, and enjoying the wonderful weather that happened to grace the event. Jen especially was enamored with the presence of the infamous Ella Jenkins. Unfortunately Jen’s new camera was still a thing of wonder and unfamiliarity, so of course Murphy’s Law loomed ominously. Jen missed a rare opportunity to get her picture taken with Ella, simply because she forgot the Lithium battery for her new camera, at my apartment.

Please watch Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World. Yes, I know it’s old. Yes, I know it’s an hour and a half long. Watch it anyway. Oddly enough, Donald Rumsfeld was instrumental in pushing aspartame through the FDA. Makes me wonder what else is out there due to these kinds of shenanigans. The pivotal question on my mind: why not just research a new sweetener compound instead of covering-up research and forging ahead with a badly flawed compound?

There are seven. Though my lucky number is nine, I know that there are seven. I know that you don’t care. I’m aware that the universe doesn’t care. There’s a level of animosity beyond eternity I’ve heard and seen in my dreams. But even those are obtuse and unintelligible, sequenced in not terrifying sights disfigured by unshackled rifts in the unsettling darkness. Those twisted visages masqued by vibrating blurs, twisting in jerks and immediate explosive movements turned lucid and split.