The first item of interest (and wow, it's a doozy!):
Don't ask me what prompted me to want to get directions from my house to Xinjiang Uygur, China... Please. I mean it. I'll have to actually go looking for a reason, and that will involve all kinds of psychic trauma, and we're all better off not going there. Suffice it, gentle readers, to say I did.
What I found was certainly quite eye-catching. To duplicate, do the following.
1) Go to Google Maps
2) Enter in San Jose as your starting point, and Xinjiang Uygur, China as your destination
3) Get driving directions
You get the following. Note carefully, the journey takes one, apparently, from San Jose, CA to Seattle, WA by car. One is then directed to KAYAK ACROSS THE OCEAN to Hawaii, navigate across the island before re-embarking in one's kayak to Japan, and thence, finally, to China.
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The humorous bit is contained in this part of the text directions:
Notice, I've been directed to kayak across the ocean. Next comes this bit:
Where I arrive in Hawaii, trek across the island, and then on again in my trusty kayak across the bosom of the Pacific Ocean once more:
Until I reach Japan! At this point, I'm instructed across the country to once more attack the challenges of the Pacific (at which point I think Google is either getting cocky, or its faith in my ocean-faring prowess is gaining ground). This time it directs me to use a Jet Ski! Of course, the planning is left up to me - I'm going to have to figure out a way to cart all that fuel, for one, but at least this time I can spare my arms, no?
Think I'm making this up? Really? Click on the map to get the text directions, if you don't believe me. Go on. I'll wait...
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Item of Interest #2:
As must be glaringly obvious, I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's work. His book, American Gods, will probably remain my favorite book for the rest of my life. Well, okay, that's a bit of an ambitious and possibly rather shortsighted statement to be made on my part, especially seeing as he keeps getting better and better with each new work he publishes, and seeing as I have not (yet) read the work of every author out there, but still...
In American Gods, there is a scene, and since I can't find my copy of the book, I can't tell you exactly where, in which Shadow, the main protagonist, puts a quarter into the slot of an old-fashioned automated diorama. This diorama portrays a drunk in a graveyard - as the scene unfolds, the drunk drinks from his bottle, and various ghosts and ghouls pop out around the diorama.In traipsing around the web this morning, I've come across the website for the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco. The "Drunk In A Graveyard" Automaton is apparently located there... I say apparently because I've been watching YouTube videos from this place all morning, and no one has taken any video of it.
*Sigh*. I'm going to have to go there, aren't I? Just to get down to the truth of it all. Well, I stand firm. I will not be denied in my quest for this essentially useless but ever so cool bit of information. This is the same slightly masochistic set of instincts that's someday going to require me to visit the House on the Rock...
Seriously, go check out the link for this place. Play this music:
...while you watch the compilation of their favorite YouTube videos. You'll have nightmares for weeks - well, I will, anyway... The yummy kind that make for great stories.
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Item of Interest #3:
Neither here nor there, but it looked cool enough to mention: There's a zoo in Germany that houses a handful of Spectacled Bears. These bears have apparently lost all their fur as winter approaches, exactly when they should be growing a really thick coat. That's not the interesting part.
The interesting part is this: naked bears look like something out of the Pleistocene, almost sloth-like.
These kinds of things pique my interest; they're ways to think about something you see everyday, in a new, maybe almost alien light.
Okay, all. I'm off to pick up the Hiatt family scion from school, taking the Gargantupuppy with me for a bit of breeze up her might snoot.
Ciao, 'n shit...
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