Horoscopes for the week of May 10 - 16

Aries:
Beware of guys in hockey masks carrying machetes. Avoid old summer camps and isolated lakes. In fact, just don't have sex this week.

Taurus:
Beware of guys in ratty old sweaters with blade-fingered gloves haunting your dreams. Probably better not to sleep at all until at least... let's say next Sunday.

Gemini:
Beware of escaped sanitarium patients with supernatural vitality wielding kitchen knives and wearing white masks. Don't be a teenager if you can possibly avoid it until at least next week, and if you can't avoid it make absolutely sure you aren't related to the killer.

Cancer:
Watch out for neighbors acting oddly, especially if they seem to have odd lapses in their memories; beware of pods growing in basements and closets. Whatever you do, don't fall asleep.

Leo:
Beware of clowns in sewers. "We all float down here" my ass.

Virgo:
Beware of punk motorbike gangs. The noodles aren't worms and the rice aren't maggots, but the wine really is blood and you don't need to be drinking that.

Libra:
Opening the geode after you accidentally got a splinter bad enough to spill blood onto the ground may not seem like much, but it'll open a gate to a realm of evil gods and you'll have tiny demons running all over your house in no time. Just bury it and plant another tree, okay?

Scorpio:
Avoid deserts and the larger sorts of drainage pipes. If you hear a high-pitched keening sound, run. Just to be safe, stay away from all sorts of sugar, too. Nobody wants to be devoured by giant ants.

Sagittarius:
Avoid mortuaries and funeral parlors. Yes, they are turning the bodies to sinister and unworldly purposes, but if you just stay out of the Tall Man's way, the floating silver sphere won't come for you. Well... not until it's much later, and by then it's much too late.

Capricorn:
Whatever you do, do not participate in a prank designed to shame the nerdy high-school girl for her interest in the football player on prom night. She has psychic powers, and it will end badly for everyone around.

Aquarius:
Beware of undertaking scientific expeditions to the Amazon to search for "living fossils" showing a direct connection between land-based life and aquatic life. Any such explorations will result in disaster. This is not a metaphor.

Pisces:
The dead are not rising from their graves to devour the living... yet. Take the win.

Weekdays, Revised

My sense of time is only sort of barely hanging on, and it's only managing that because of electronic calendars. (I'd read about people losing track of what year it was during major historical disasters and I always wondered how that was possible; I'm pretty sure I get it now.) So forget days of the week. I'm not using them anymore.

Instead, well, I'm using these:

Stunday
Frazzleday
Droopday
Ugh
Flubday
Sighday
Shatterday

Our new weekdays are subject to revision at any time and in any order, so if you find yourself having a Swishday when you were expecting a Droopday, well, that's just how it goes.

The little-known North American House Hippo

Temporal Xenolinguistics: A Note

What you have to understand is... Dinosaur is a tonal language. Without the proper markers for breath and emphasis, it's impossible to tell the difference between "Rawr", "Rawr", and "Rawr". (See?)

You would not believe how many researchers we lost before we figured that one out. I mean, we'd have guys standing there with a phonetic script, trying to ask "Where is the nearest stream, please?" just like the last guy did, and then they'd get torn apart because they didn't have the aspiration quite right, and wound up accusing the Allosaurus of having a deviant interest in palm fronds instead.

Selfie

I know some of you wonder what I look like in person, and how this blog gets written. Well, today all will be revealed:

Just kidding. He's actually writing a column for the New York Times about how Kids These Days are spoiled, arrogant, and entitled, and how they lack respect for their elders and betters. As one does, when one is a dinosaur.

Here's a brief excerpt, if you want to know what the dinosaur has to say about the steady decline of our morality and culture: "All because of one man: Elvis. Aron. Presley."

How much rain are we getting in Texas?

The ants on our window just spelled out "WHERE IS EMBASSY?" followed by "WE NEED ASYLUM".

Kevin Costner just put his gills back on and bought a new boat.

The signs that say, "Do Not Cross If Water Is Above This Marker" are underwater.

So are most of our highways.

The elephants in the zoo are practicing snorkling with their trunks, and the monkeys are trying a to cut a deal to ride on the giraffes.

One of my friends just got a new boat. It was an F150.

Carnival is now offering cruises to downtown Houston.

There are fish on the biking trails... and caught in the chain-link fence.

"It's a golf course!"
"It's a marina!"
"It's a golf course *and* a marina!"

The ducks are finally preparing to implement their plan for world conquest.

There's an old guy in College Station wandering the streets with a hammer and nails and demanding to know how long a cubit is.

The Holy Umbrella Of Rainlessness

The artifact came to me from an obscure secondhand shop in Deep Ellum in 1987; I do not recall the name, and have never been able to locate the place again. To all appearances, it is a perfectly ordinary (if slightly antiquated) umbrella, save for the motto which is etched into the handle: Dimitto procellis. It was that bit of writing that caught my eye and roused my curiosity; it was that inscription which eventually revealed the true nature of the device.

The first documented use of the umbrella was by Samuel Mathers in 1878. Mathers was one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and claimed to have created artifact himself. Other accounts dispute this, however, claiming that the umbrella is actually a relic of ancient Atlantis, which Mathers somehow rediscovered and claimed for his own.

The primary use of the umbrella is, of course, to keep the rain off. What distinguishes it from an ordinary umbrella is that instead of shielding the user from the rain, the presence of the umbrella acts as a talisman that actively prevents the rain from falling. For so long as I have the umbrella with me, it simply doesn't rain. There is, however, a price: the moment I leave the umbrella behind, the skies will immediately open up with a heavy rain.

Certain fragmentary parchments, when properly translated, hint that this was how Atlantis was destroyed. The umbrella was carried by the high priest, to guarantee fine weather for the entire land. Each high priest passed the umbrella, along with his title and certain other, unnamed regalia, to his successor. Thus was the umbrella carried by an unbroken line of high priests for nearly eight centuries. Then, one fateful morning, the current high priest (now remembered only as Ashavor The Dimwit) accidentally left the umbrella in his chambers. The rains began before he could return, and that was it for Atlantis...

Semicolons! In! Space!

In a press release today, the International Society Of Semicolons announced that their entire population would be leaving Earth later this week. Reasons for the decision included grammatical abuse, a lack of appreciation from the English-speaking world, and a general dislike of being included in "winks" in online text communications.

The Semicolon Science Academy, with the help of several disgruntled ex-NASA engineers, has spent the last several years constructing a rocket big enough transport the entire semicolon population to a small planet orbiting the star Alpha Eridani, which appears to be populated entirely by ink-based lifeforms.

While they eventually plan to inhabit the entire planet, their initial settlement will be a small semicolony.

The vital importance of having a Flossideegibbet

This just a little snapshot of a conversation, to give you some idea of what it's like living with me. Especially when I'm exhausted to the point of incoherency. To set the scene, we have both boys in the shower, and they are loud.

Me: {exiting bathroom} "I'm going to go get a floor-towel."

Beautiful Wife: {who can barely hear me} "A what?"

Me: {in hallway} "A floor... towel... thingummy."

Me: {Retrieving a suitable towel} "A whobiddiwhatsit."

Me: {Re-entering bathroom} "Here's your flossideegibbit."

Beautiful Wife: "Flossideegibbit?"

Me: "It's an old Norwegian term for a specialized towel that goes on the floor in the bathroom. They used to be made of reeds, which were called flossi - the same stem as dental floss."

Beautiful Wife: {Brief Pause}

Beautiful Wife: "Well, I feel very Norwegian now."

The Secret Journal of Nostradamus

Being a true account of how the Chevalier D'Eon retrieved the Secret Writings of Nostradamus for the Marquis De Sade.

They met in an obscure roadside inn between Paris and Rouen. It was not a particular noteworthy or auspicious location. That was, of course, deliberate. For all the importance of this exchange, neither of the people involved had any desire to be noticed. It was a calm morning, sunny, with just enough clouds to keep the temperature mild.

Donatien François was waiting at a table when the Chevalier arrived. He rose, bowed, and said, "d'Eon, I presume?"

"I am honored, Marquis." Charlotte d'Eon de Beaumont offered a suitable curtsey, then took a seat at the table.

"Not at all, gracious lady." The Marquis de Sade smiled. "When a... diplomat... of your stature defies her exile to do a favor for me, I must be the one who is honored."

The Chevalier d'Eon inclined her head. "Not exactly a favor, Marquis. I do expect to be paid... though I must confess that your interest coincided with my own curiosity in this case."

"Well, then." The Marquis placed a small bag upon the rough wood of the table. "You have the item we discussed?"

The Chevalier grasped the bag in one calloused hand, lifting it enough to feel its weight. "I do indeed. The secret journal of Nostradamus, taken from the private library of his many-times-great grandson. It was hidden inside another book; I doubt the family even knew it was there."

"You've read it, of course." The Marquis' smile widened as Charlotte d'Eon lifted a small, square satchel and placed it on the table beside the bag.

"Naturally," The Chevalier agreed.

"...And?"

"We were wrong."

The Marquis' face went still. "He could see the future?"

"He described this meeting - us, here - in considerable detail. And told us both about what we could expect from our lives, and how we would be remembered." The Chevalier d'Eon looked away. "It was not pleasant reading."

"But, to know the future! The very shape of things to come... does he speak of the end of the world?"

"Not in our lifetime. He predicts a great rain of fire - something about the sun itself growing larger to devour us."

"I... see." The Marquis de Sade turned his eyes to the book, still wrapped in its satchel. "I do not wish to seem abrupt, but..."

The Chevalier stood. "I understand, and I wish you well of it." She reached down and collected the bag of coin. "As for myself, I will return to my exile... and then I will get very, very drunk; and forget as much of Monsieur Nostradamus' writings as I can. Good day, Marquis."

"...And to you, Chevalier."

Here ends the true account of how the Chevalier d'Eon, diplomat and spy, put the secret writings of Michel de Nostradame into the hands of the Marquis de Sade, libertine and revolutionary, in the years before the French Revolution. You will not find this account in any history book, but it remains true nevertheless. I pass it on to you as Nostradamus himself described it in his secret journal, which my grandfather collected at an auction house in Charleston in 1907; and how it came there, I cannot even imagine.

This is, of course, shameless link bait for the unbelievable number of people doing searches on Nostradamus right now, and anyway you really ought to know better than to trust a writer.

They got it from Noah

So we're standing around on Sunday after church has let out. I'm holding Secondborn, who is now one year and one month old. One of the ladies leans in to flirt with him: "Oh, you're so adorable in your Noah's Ark shirt..." She tugs the shirt down far enough to reveal the skull and crossbones on the sail. "Oh."

I felt the sudden urge to share: "You know that pirates actually took that from the Noah's Ark story, right? While they were floating around for the forty-plus days of the Flood, Noah and his sons made a sign with a skull and two crossed bones on it, to show their mourning for... well, everyone else in the world."

I came this close to actually saying that. The whole explanation leaped into my mouth, ready to go. And I stopped myself, because I didn't want to hear someone repeat that back to me a decade from now as if it were really true.

I'm pretty sure that this is how urban legends get started.