elixir consumed

Oscar Wilde

"We are the zanies of sorrow."

Sharon

As a place, her name meant a forest in Israel. Deep. Dark. Impenetrable. The one Sharon I knew growing up was gorgeous, the kind of girl I would have deemed unapproachable, unwilling to notice my existence. She wasn't at all. She was warm, salt of the earth, ready to laugh; a fellow conspirator. Each Sharon who followed had an advantage by gift of her name.

empathy

Jade Wasp

Long before the Green Hornet, there was the Jade Wasp.

My Pet Mammal

This is my pet mammal. He has been declawed and detoothed, so is relatively harmless. Just don't let him suck the breath from your lungs.

it

Here the sculptor loses it altogether.

focus

Here the sculptor begins to lose focus.

touch

Here the sculptor begins to lose touch with reality.

Security Cam #7

We found this image on this morning's facial recognition scans. Anybody recognize him? We sure don't.

Autie Mabon

Ol' Autie Mabon dropped by today.

Caused a shiver.

Captain Duodenum

Wearing his virtual reality pancreatic goggles, Captain Duodenum steers the vessel between the Islets of Langerhans.

hagskull

Shropshire agate hagskull cameo

Maxwell Edison

Hammers go bang?

Lleu Llaw Gyffes

Something small drops from Arianrhod, his virgin mother. Her brother, Gwydion, scoops it up, sticks it in a chest of drawers, later hears something screaming from inside. Lo, it's Lleu.

Arianrhod doesn't much care for Lieu, as he reminds her of her virginity, so curses him. She makes it where he can take no human wife. So Gwydion makes Lleu a wife made of flowers. She does just fine until...

(Here I should parenthetically interject that little Lleu Llaw lived his life under protective laws. He wasn't to be killed during the day or the night. He wasn't to be wearing clothes, nor be naked. He wasn't to be riding or on foot. And he couldn't be killed using any lawfully made weapon.)

...until his new floral wife cheats on him, then tricks him into giving up the recipe for his death. All she has to do is wrap him in a net at dusk, stand him up with one foot on a goat and one on a cooking pot, and stab the stuffing out of him with a semi-automatic spear, illegal at the time.

Upon dying, Lieu turns into an eagle, is turned back into a human by Gwydion, then, in turn, turns Petunia into an owl. You know. Myth stuff.

I swear I'm not making any of this up. I wikied it.

iDisc

The iDisc Jukebox plays up to seven CDs at the same time!

Higgs boson

Imagining the Higgs boson will give you a headache. You see, particles once had no mass. Then, the universe began and they did. In the nanosecond between was and is hides the boson of Dr, Higgs, theoretical physicist. Looks something like this guy here.

So now you've got your Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and two questions arise: Where's CERN, and why are all its letters capitalized? It's too complicated to explain, but while pondering, another question arises: What's a Hadron? Clearly, too many questions arise.

All you really have to know is that somewhere beneath France and Switzerland, particles, or something resembling particles, are whipping around inside two big, cold magnetic circles. When they get up to speed, a switch will be thrown, the tracks will cross and boom! Particles will collide. The boson will be observed, possibly laughing, but only for a split second. After which, either a black hole sucks us all in, OR (as scientists hope) an alternate universe is formed, one where science finds an answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. If only we could teach it in the schools.

Nazir

Nazir remembers his days guarding the sultan.

ghost window

RIP Richard Wright 1943 - 2008

Vatican Voucher

A chit's a marker, sort of an IOU. This one is a carved coprolite depicting a Vatican prelate, and it enabled the bearer to purchase goods for the Roman Catholic Church on credit. Storeowners came to use the name of such a token as an expletive, since it was usually valueless. It was known as a holy chit.

Who is Gyle E. Foofaraw?

This Saturday morning cartoon character is known for his constant exposure to radioactivity as he attempts to 'nucularize' his adversary, Chippy Zipmunk.

Ike

He's a monster.

merperson

Coral-morel-headed merperson assumes underwater counter clockwise holding pattern, surfacing from time to time to eye enviously the beckoning, palm tree suspended, but pinguin inhabited hammock.

Mashugana

Yiddish personification of Nutsoism

Beethoven

on one of his bad days

Miss Parker

The ninth graders behold Miss Parker, their new biology teacher.

Josephine

The fourth in line's no threat.

Obama's Evil Twin

McCain's Evil Twin

Gustav 2

Gustav One was just some Beeblebroxian guy. Gustav Two was a wet monster that spun over us for a couple of days and zapped out my electricity for 46 hours, thus depriving me of Wednesday's upload. So here he is, a day late.
(The gloss finish was an accident; he fell into the pot of hot wax I use for mounting his kind.)

Nelson P. Fresh

He never did approve of his son's ebullience, nor of his allowance to be poked and prodded. Truth be told, he thinks Poppin's a sissy.

Joey 'Thrasher' McTeague

His poor mother went through such hell giving birth to him, her midwife lobbied for years she be honored with a holiday. And so, in 1884, Congress declared the first Monday in September be known henceforth as Labor Day.