Mike is just leaving the post office when he runs into Amy. He's shy and frail and she's beautiful and strong, so he knows she won't even recognize him, let alone say hello. He doesn't even bother to look her way as they pass, not able to live through the agony of rejection, even if it's momentary and all through the eyes. Besides, he has an hour to make it to the bank before they close and he has no time for chit chat. No time to reminisce about high school like they were the good ol' days.

He's about to pass her, he's passing her, he's just passed her when she grabs his arm. She grabs his arm hard, the way his mother used to in the grocery store when he was acting out. This wasn't a friendly grab. Neither is Amy's.

"Hey," she says in a gutteral whisper. "I remember you. You're Mike, from biology."

It was actually chemistry, but he wasn't about to correct her.

"You wanna see something? Something really, really fucked up?" She says this with a slightly sexy rise of her left eyebrow. Not raise, rise. Her eyebrow practically levitates.

"Of course," is all Mike can stammer. She tightens her grip on his arm and without word yanks him toward the alley.

"My car's around here. You won't fucking believe this."

She drags Mike around the corner, pulling him along at a fast clip, toward the '78 Camaro tucked neatly into a spot between a Taurus and a big rig.

She pops the trunk. The first thing that strikes Mike is the smell. Then the glow. A greenish blueish glow coming from beneath some black plastic cover inside the trunk.

"Come here. Look," she says.

Mike steps forward, leaning over the lip of the trunk to see.

Carl loves his wife Kelly. They're celebrating the 5th anniversary of their marriage today, and what a beautiful day it is. They're on a cruise down the Baja Coast, traveling through the Panama Canal, and finishing off in Cozumel. All in all, nearly 3 solid weeks of romance.

At the moment, they're in their cabin getting ready for dinner. Kelly's in the tiny shower, singing as she closes her eyes and revels in the warm steamy spray. She lathers herself up and sings, probably a Creedence track or some 3 Dog Night.

Carl isn't listening. In fact, Carl's left the room.

He's out in the hall in his underwear. He swears he just saw something incredibly odd down the hall, through the door, out on the deck. Carl, oblivious to the fact that he's in his underwear (but probably safe because they could also pass as a men's bikini swimsuit in the South of France), begins to move down the hall toward the door.

Out on the deck, Carl squints his eyes in the bright sun. He can't believe his eyes.

Sheila finishes signing paperwork at her desk, stacking the forms in perfect piles according to priority. She seals an envelope, checks her e-mail and answers 2 phone calls in 23 seconds. She's flawless. She's on fire. When it comes to Data Management and Customer Care Representation, she's a dream.

Then 5 o'clock comes along. That's when the co-workers shuffle out with a wave and mumbled "see ya tomorrow." Leaving her alone.

She removes her glasses. Pins her long, stringy beige hair into a tight knot. Removes her bright blue suit jacket, rolls up the sleeves of her pressed white blouse.

She climbs under her desk, feeling for the seams in the carpet. Peels away a piece of loose carpet and pad, exposing a trap door roughly cut into the wood. A rudimentary handle has been attached by thick, rusty screws drilled at odd angles. She grips this and pulls. The trap door opens.

A man was arrested for sprinkling his dried feces over pastries at the local grocery store.

120 whales beached themselves on a remote beach on the island of Tazmania.

Another man was arrested for distributing pictures of his penis on cars over a 40 mile radius.

And today, in yet another sign of the Apocolypse upon us, we have Remote Control For Humans:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173500,00.html

by Yuri Kageyama

"Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., (search) Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center.

It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation — essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.

I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced — mistakenly — that this was the only way to maintain my balance.

The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.

There's no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique.

It's a mesmerizing sensation similar to being drunk or melting into sleep under the influence of anesthesia. But it's more definitive, as though an invisible hand were reaching inside your brain..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173500,00.html

Oops! There goes the Presidency!

I must admit to licking my chops over the prospect of a complete meltdown within the Republican power base the last few weeks. AFter last November's distastrous Presidential election (Kerry was a groan-inducing cardboard cutout, the election was rigged), I kind of tuned out of my usual activist political news combing and friend-spamming. But the rumblings in the wretched bowels of the inner sanctum of the current regime in power has pricked my ears up. I'm like the cat who rears up on his hind legs, silent and still, nose twitching in the wind for the scent of prey.

And our prey has materialized.

Tom De Lay has been indicted on conspiracy charges stemming from a racketeering scam. Senate Leader Bill Frist is under investigation by the SEC for selling millions in stock (uh oh!) JUST before the stock tanked (his brother is the head of the company; insider trading anyone?); Colin Powell's ex-aid when the Colin was Sectretary of State has just come out, guns blazing, full-on calling it a "Cheney cabal" bent on twisting intelligence to suit their needs in the buildup to the war (better late than never); Harriet Mier is upsetting those poor right-wing Bible thumpers for not hating abortion or fags enough; and, low and behold, Patrick Fitzgerald is about to ask the Federal Grand Jury for indictments against KARL ROVE and SCOOTER LIBBY, the two most corrupt and disgusting public figures ever to slime there way to the top of the shit heap.

This last little bit of sick smelling bile could even climb so far as to threaten poor little Dickwad Cheney. Hate to cause his pacemaker to skip a beat, but guess what Dick? Your shit is going down. You see, it's against the LAW to reveal the name of an undercover agent, even if that agent's husband is going around ruining your little plan to scare Americans into a war that never needed to be. It sucks when a guy with solid credentials like Joe Wilson, an experienced diplomat and expert in uranium programs around the world, goes to Niger and finds out that loe and behold, that yellowcake memo was indeed a forgery (obvious to anyone) and Iraq never bought yellowcake uranium from them. Oops!

But we can't have someone going around and exposing the lousy set-up that was meant to give basis for invading a sovereign nation illegally! Where would the justification come from if it wasn't the everpresent threat of a "mushroom cloud"?

The Administration was downright criminal in its use of Sept. 11th in all the speeches in the run-up to the war. I remember literally screaming at the television whenever Rummy, Cheney, Bush or Condi pulled that bullshit maneuver. How is it that an amateur newsjunkie (myself) can see through the lies and connect the dots to know that this was a conspiracy? I saw it all the way up. I knew it was coming before the dust settled from the twin towers falling. They were gearing up to use it all to go into Iraq, sanity-be-damned.

But no matter how they manipulated Congress to pass laws and no matter how many Executive Orders shutting down access to papers and no matter how much they strong-armed the weak-kneed Democrats (Kerry, Clinton, Feinstein, Biden, Lieberman - who all voted to give BUSH war powers in the buildup to the attack, essentially condoning this insanity; I will NEVER forgive you), the truth is finally catching up to them, ripping open their protective little bubble, spreading its cheeks wide and sealing its sphincter over the newly opened gash, and letting out a long and noxious fart on their little parade of hate and fear. They're about to crumble.

Does this mean it's over? Not by a long shot. Nothing's more dangerous than a lunatic psychopath backed into a corner, their little secrets found out. That's when they get desperate. Don't be surprised when, after the indictments and resignations and calls for impeachment (we fucking MUST impeach this motherfucker!!!) if they don't - out of shear desperation, knowing their cabal has been cannabalized - come up with some reason to attack Syria and Iran. Yes, they know that the clock is ticking, that time is running out. They've been exposed, so this war-mongering right-wing Christian fundamentalist Apocolyptic power-mad global domineering cabal will do anything they can, anything left in their quickly dwindling power, to try to finish the Master Plan before they're thrown kicking and screaming from the halls of power.

B'bye, Bush. When you're impeached, just shrug at the camera and say "oopsie daisy!"

Today's post focuses on the strange.

First, we have "Five Toes", the world's first documented feline with TWO TONGUES (and yes, 5 toes):

http://www.local6.com/news/5097535/detail.html

Next, there's this incredible little Quicktime video featuring plant life from other planets invading OUR OWN:

http://www.1st-ave-machine.com/video/anime_final.htm

And in a twisted bit of gender-bending strangeness, we have this BOY IN BANGLADESH WHO WAS CARRYING HIS TWIN AROUND IN HIS ABDOMEN FOR 16 YEARS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4624307.stm

In the not-to-distant-future, you will finally be able to DOWNLOAD YOUR MIND:

http://www.geekinformed.com/content/view/229/2/

Finally, the Germans have invented a PAPER-THIN TV SCREEN, which means everything in the near future with be animated and alive! Magazine covers and ads, cereal boxes and movie posters will soon be alive with motion:

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1591602,00.html?gusrc=rss