Happy New Year.

あけましておめでとうございます。

Perfection: Comedian Steve Hughes on Being Offended.

"He called me an idiot."

"Don't worry about it. He's a dick."

"You're not morally superior, you're just gullible and conformist.

Remember in the old days before "Health and Safety" - remember when it was called 'common sense?'

"Health and Safety" - which is a small oppression of our physical movements so we can't do anything without permission from the State. And "Political Correctness" - oppression of our intellectual movement so no one says anything anymore in case someone gets offended. 

"What happens if you say that and someone gets offended?"  

Well they can be offended... What's wrong with being offended?

So what, be offended, nothing happens. You're an adult grow up, deal with it. 

"I was offended."

I don't care.

"I want to live in a democracy but I don't want to ever be offended again."

Well, you're an idiot."

"I know one thing, that I know nothing." - Socrates

Orbital Machine Higher Intelligences. Plus Jack Kirby, King of Comics.

"...the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." - J.B.S. Haldane, geneticist and evolutionary biologist.

Much, much more awesomeness at the link.

The Secret Sun: "I'll Show You How to Bring Me to Your World":

"The topic of radio or microwave transmissions beamed into people's heads is a tricky one. With more reliable anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals on the market you actually hear very little about it these days, though there is a considerable body of evidence on record showing that military and intelligence agencies were most certainly interested in developing the technology...

The Soviet interest in this field also plays a supporting role in one of the great Gnostic dramas of our time, Philip K Dick's "2/3/74" experience, which he later explored in his massive Exegesis, as well as the semi-autobiographical Valis Trilogy...

Nikola Tesla wrote in his notes and letters to friends of a mysterious series of signals he had come across while studying the microscopic perturbations of electrical fields. So concise and numbered were these perturbations that he was certain they were the residual effects of some form of mysterious communication taking place. He essentially believed he had come across a signal very similar to something that SETI would look for several years later...

Of course, entire religions have been built around people claiming to hear voices from Heaven... 

OMAC: One Man Army Corps. Jack Kirby's opus prophesied smart bombs, virtual reality, plutocratic governance, water wars, and of course, the Gulf and Iraq Wars. OMAC wore a pre-punk mohawk and the Eye of Horus on his chest, tying him symbolically to the Sirius/Canis Major star system but also to both RAW and the Geller/Puraich axis. And who created and powered OMAC himself? An orbital machine intelligence.

Here we are looking at several remarkable yet relatively-obscure men from entirely different walks of life, all a generation removed from the 60s counterculture, all highly touted now as visionaries all experiencing or writing about what they describe as contact with an orbital machine intelligence connected at least semiotically to the Sirius star in the Canis Major constellation, all at or near the same time..."

Tim Minchin's quite awesome.

"I really like Christmas...  It's sentimental, I know..."

Xmas in Liberia.

Low key, having only been back a week or so after our traveling about...

Our Spartan, yet fully functional decorations & presents.

Me with my super-cool and mega-awesome Kindle Fire, gifted to me by my wife earlier this month, since we can't ship lithium batteries via post here to Liberia.  

I have overly thoughtful and generous friends, as well.

Xmas gift haul.

 Xmas dinner was a relatively quiet gathering at a house on the Embassy grounds with a handful of folks.  Sandy made some awesome cookies to take over, that unfortunately we forgot to snap a pic of.  But they were similar to the ones below.

Pic via 

Instead, Sandy met her needs for cooking up Xmas food and having plenty of leftovers by whipping up a turkey and a bunch of sides on the day after the holiday, which we did indeed, and continue to, enjoy.

She cooks a mean turkey.

First plate of awesome.

Aftermath.

Second plate of awesome...

...till next time.

"This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time" - Charles Bukowski.

You and me both, Winston.

Three Weeks in North Carolina and London.

Three weeks abroad, back to NC for a family wedding, and then a week in London on the way back.  Photobombing it all in one post.  Good times.

The things I do for a taste of familial love, I swear.

Super Happy Fun Play Time!

Fine craft beers. Rogue Chocolate Stout, Rogue Double Chocolate Stout [now maybe one of my favorite beers ever] and finally - wait for it - the utterly indulgent Rogue Bacon Maple Ale. Yes, you could taste the bacon, and yes, it was awesome. It's things like this that ensure that either - 1. America Wins at Everything, or 2. America is Doomed. [Special super secret bonus points for unintentionally color coordinating my Fight Club tshirt with my pink bottle of beer. Because I am unstoppable.]

Old friends.

Random Afternoon Double Chocolate Stout Beer Battle Throwdown!!!! The winner? Well, me, clearly. Of the beers, however, I'm going with the Rogue as the bolder, thicker, richer and more robust drinking experience. Though the Young's was pretty good as well.

Nuptial Success!

Any wedding with virtually inexhaustable supplies of Asahi Super Dry portends a long and lasting relationship.

Big Ben in old Londinium.

First shopping stop in London, England? - The Japanese Store. I kid you not.

The Sherlockian Mecca.

The tobacco in the slipper, correspondence affixed to the mantle with a knife, as God himself intended.

Post Sherlock Holmes Museum, why the Sherlock Holmes Pub, naturally.

Sherlock Holmes + Alcohol! It could only be better if there were a 7% Solution of Cocaine, taken intravenously...

The Full English Breakfast = Awesome.

The Mrs @ Buckingham Palace.

At the Churchill War Rooms, the Japanese Peace Sign doubles as a 'V for Victory!' True Story.

Churchill judges you.

She's the bomb!

Kaitenzushi is glorious.

Big Ben from the London Eye.

Fish and Chips.  How could we not?

At Windsor Castle.

Stonehenge, obviously.

Bus trip!  [It's the Adachi-Gene.]

The hot springs in Bath.

Base Ops in London.

Shopping at Harrods.

The Globe.

Where better to catch the new Holmes film than in London, I ask you?

Gordon Ramsay's Bread Street Kitchen was a worthy reminder of just how good well crafted food can be.

Before and after the show "Noises Off!" @The Old Vic Theatre. Funny show, cool theatre.

Perhaps my favorite flying tradition.