Twitterpated

• 13:21 Why can't I ever just sleep straight through for as long as I need to? #
• 13:48 @kattmoff Man o nam! #
• 13:49 @JaredofMo I guess you'd have to rely on context in that situation. #
• 13:49 @JaredofMo I'd say to just shoot it. If it's good enough for Elvis, it's good enough for everybody. #
• 13:50 @JaredofMo But will they give me electronic emphysema? #
• 13:56 today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30967440/ A winged Chinese cat. No, I don't think it can fly, unfortunately. #
• 13:57 @JaredofMo I sometimes WISH I could buy pizza every day. #
• 14:00 Wally likes to press the space bar, for some reason. #
• 14:02 Wally usually only comes to see me when @NowIsStrange is in bed. I think I'm Reagan's favorite, though. Cats and their favoritism. #
• 14:03 Why must the American Idol audience applaud at every positive comment, and boo at every negative one? #
• 14:03 All I can figure is it's one of the stipulations of being there, because the majority can't possibly like EVERY contestant. #
• 14:48 Hey, there are new Young Fresh Fellows and Minus 5 albums coming out in July! #
• 15:08 bit.ly/11LF3t
  Some schools have banned hugging. Sounds like the plot of a bad movie. #
• 15:08 The movie would probably involve Robin Williams deciding to hug people anyway. #
• 15:11 bit.ly/hotD2
  Woody Harrelson mistakes man for zombie #
• 16:02 @kittysneezes I just pre-ordered them both today. #
• 17:18 Star Trek Marshmallow Dispenser www.alloverla.com/jay/STMARSHMALLOW.htm #
• 17:47 @samuraifrog Nothing to do with Michelle Marsh's melons, I assume? {g} #
• 18:21 Interesting but kinda depressing interview with Andy Partridge tinyurl.com/mx5hog #
• 18:23 Well, off to go bowling, and then to Atlantic City. #

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The Devil and the Deep Blue Hole

I owe you fine people a mythology post, don't I? I'm sure no one cares that I keep my one-per-week schedule as much as I do, but it's a tradition here by now, no? Anyway, I live in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and I decided to take vilajunkie's advice to do a post on local folklore. Really, I don't KNOW that much local folklore, but everyone has heard of the Jersey Devil, right? The most popular story is that a woman named Leeds (or possibly Shrouds) had already had twelve children, and decided that, if she had another, it would be a devil. Some versions of the tale have the woman involved in witchcraft, and sometimes even credit Satan himself as the father. The child is often described as having cloven hooves, bat-like wings, a forked tail, and a horse's head. Whether he had that form from birth or changed into it shortly afterward is a point of contention among different stories. This cursed birth apparently took place in the eighteenth century, but there might well have been tales of devilish creatures in the Pine Barrens even before that. According to the Wikipedia article, the Lenape name for the area was Popuessing ("place of the dragon"), and the Swedish name Drake Kill (essentially "river of the dragon").

One nearby place where the Devil is thought to hang out is the Blue Hole, a former swimming hole that some hold to be bottomless, and is often said to have been created by a meteorite. I've been near it, but never actually seen it. It's not to be confused with the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize, although maybe if it really IS bottomless, the two are connected. {g}

My Waking and Sleeping Life in Review

I went out with bethje and Dorothea last night. First, we went bowling, and I didn't do very well. I never do very well, but I think I scored somewhere in the nineties last time, and this time I never even broke seventy. Oh, well. After that, we had dinner at the Olive Garden, and then went out to Atlantic City. My two companions did some gambling on the roulette machines, but I just spent that time reading Battle of the Labyrinth. Using the machines is kind of fun, but I'm not big on gambling because I always think about how I could buy stuff with the money I put into the one-armed bandits (which are often more like buttoned bandits these days). Yeah, I know there's a chance of winning, but even people who win usually seem to put in more than they get out in the long run.

I've been having some bizarre dreams in the past few nights. I had meant to write about the ones I had the night before last, but now I can't remember it. I should probably start writing them down as soon as I wake up, if they're interesting enough. Last night, I had some dreams that were kind of related. The first one I can recall had Beth (or someone playing the role of my wife for the dream, anyway) and me picking up girls at some kind of amusement park and planning to take them back to our hotel room, but they left before we could get back there. I guess we don't have a future as pimps. {g} Later, it somehow changed to a story about some guy arriving at what might have been the same hotel after an adventure, accompanied by a woman he'd just recently met. The two of them had sex, which I knew because the owners of the hotel had monitored their behavior for the entire night. I think there was supposed to be some kind of conspiracy behind the whole thing, but my dreams often hint at grander things than I actually see in them. The story somehow became a book, which was sort of like Slaughterhouse-Five in that the main character mentally jumped around in time. I think there was a revelation that he became involved in time travel whenever he needed to, but he didn't realize this at first. Really, it seemed like it could have been a good story if it weren't for the fact that the dream itself provided so few details. I also remember something about being trapped in a military recruiting station, jumping through a closed window to escape, and waking up right then.

Finally, while I'm not looking for dates, I tend to find the results of these quizzes interesting. I'm not sure what was up with some of the questions, though. Even though I'm sure some people ARE still opposed to mixed-race couples, would they actually admit it in this day and age?

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