What's that you could say? Oh, just that I've been just a tad more silent than, say, a tomb might be? Well you know what? You'd be utterly wrong; I've been to some great parties in tombs.

In fact, I've been in Croatia. Well, Croatia with about a good dollop of Rome, a couple sprigs of London and a dusting of Bangkok thrown in.

And reading Douglas Adams, as might be immediately apparent to those of you who are acquainted with that most noble of institutions, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

( Rome. )
( Croatia. )
( Books: Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert, Hunter S. Thompson, Douglas Adams, A.S. Byatt. )
( London: Arcadia and Wicked )
( Bangkok. )

Housekeeping:

• Is anyone available to beta a Supernatural fic over the next few days? It'll be around 2-3k.



• I was inspired to write a short little Mafia Verse' drabble by one of the places I visited. I dunno though, is anybody actually that interested in the mafia 'verse anymore? Let alone a mafia 'verse drabble?



• Obviously, I've been away and unable to keep up, so if anything's happened that I should know about, drop me a line. What's new? What's crackin'? Apparently HBP sucked hairy elephant balls?

So I just finished The Secret History, by Donna Tartt (yes, I'm ridiculously late to the party, stop laughing), and my mind is satisfactorily blown. Rather than attempt to impart my impressions through words, at which I would no doubt fail miserably, I instead choose to use pictures, quotations and music.




Spoilers for the book beneath the cut.

( Dionysis [is] the Master of Illusions, who could make a vine grow out of a ship's plank, and in general enable his votaries to see the world as the world's not. )
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.
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( Mix: As Serious As your Life. )

So my Third Monday fic is finito and off into the oblivion of cyberspace. 'Twas folly to think I could keep this thing short and sweet. IT ATE MY BRAIN. Fellow Third Monday-ers, you have all my sympathies, and I recommend a cocktail of French Champagne, too little sleep, a shot of adrenaline to the heart and a first aid kit for the typewriting injuries you shall sustain in the last minute rush.

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So I've been reading a massive, massive tome that is a compilation of all Hunter S. Thompson's correspondence and other random writings - apparently he was a mightily prolific writer of some kind. Who knew? ;) But in all seriousness, the man is crazy-brilliant. He sent all the money he had to his little brother to pay for his college tuition to keep him out of Vietnam, even when he was knee-deep in debt and lawsuits, and once shot a houseguest in the spine with a plastic bullet from a .22 pump action shotgun for attempting to steal a tape out his tape recorder. ♥

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Old News. Still Current.

More than 60 000 people have been infected by the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe.

3,161 people have died from the disease since August 2008.

Morgan Tsvangirai, newly sworn in Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (and maybe, with a little hope, its saving grace) : "Cholera in Zimbabwe is a man-made crisis. The problem we have here is coupled with (the) fact of negligence on the part of government to provide the necessary facilities. It shows the collapse of the health delivery system,"

From CNN.com

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And because my entries these days seem to unswervingly require verve and colour:

( The Photo Mosaic Meme. (Contains slight nudity). )