Coffee is an occupational hazard here. I drank so much coffee today my head exploded into fragments.

One fragment described a high angle, low velocity arc that scraped the troposphere. When it returned to earth, it lodged in the skull of a man in China. It made itself at home there and now my thorax is occasionally under the impression that it is a pirate DVD seller from the town of Wu Xan. Which is just ridiculous.

Another fragment embedded itself in one of those featureless gray boxes you see at intersections all the time. Rather than being a phone junction box, it turned out this box was a router for the Echelon 3 spy and listening system set up by the shadowy agency that lurks behind the CIA, NSA, and FCC. Instead of damage, it caused a complicated cross routing that has caused three sleeper agents to activate, turn rogue, and get the girl in the end.

A third fragment passed completely out of the gravity well of the earth. Thanks to a double banked gravity slingshot of Mars and Jupiter, it has approached a creepily high velocity and is now catching up, albeit slowly, to the voyager probe. It is entirely possible that aliens, coming upon the fragment chasing the probe, would think that the dominant culture of the earth changed radically after sending the probe and launched a ballistic object to destroy it. Perhaps in some attempt to hide our collective lights under a bushel. I fully expect this to result in the destruction of the earth by a superpowerful race that is simply looking for something important, like a child shaking out a sock drawer looking for a hidden birthday present.


So, it's important to monitor your coffee intake is what I'm saying.

Also, I ranted to Sheri the other night about Sharper Image. Mostly about how they didn't represent technology of any interest and just packaged airplane catalog crap in silver to attract the magpie eye of the young over paid type. I stand by that. And yet, I actually want this animated robot chimp head more than any other useless toy I've seen lately.

Perhaps Sharper Image could make a living out of marketing toys that are not just super cool, but a little scary and disturbing. The beauty of that gift page is also that if you buy one, that's fine. But if you buy a second it's markedly discounted. As if one animated robot chimp head wasn't enough. I guess the demographic they are pointed at is willing to buy a second creepy gift if it's marked down. I firmly believe that two of these pointed at each other with a furby in the middle would summon some dark power from the void. And I wish I could prove it.

Here's hoping your holiday is filled with creepy monkey heads.  ¶ 11:24 PM