"Dusty Bibles lead to dirty lives / so I left mine behind when Mama died"

Journey West update: sometime around chapter late-60s, it suddenly got a bit sloggy going. Not sure what's up with that. I mean, the chapter where Sanzang is abducted by tree spirits for the nefarious purpose of hosting him at poetry party in a gazebo was amusing, but ultimately had no danger or tension. And then we get an episode motivated entirely by Monkey's randomly deciding to digress into knight errantry, ultimately ending with the most blatant deus ex machina to date -- and the most poorly motivated one at that. But if you want to find out whether they ever get to the west, as it says, I'll just have to read the next installment. While I go do that, have some linkage:

• Some people find the Yoshimoto cube(s) a bit mystifying. (hat tip)
  
  
• And in the department of awesomely bad taste: the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. Do listen to the clip, especially the guy's comment about what it takes to make something like this. (thx!)
  
  
• A relevant dissertation on teen social networking. (danke schön)
  
  
• Fifteen really cool long-exposure photographs. I'm using the lighthouse as my current desktop.(via)
  
  
• Tracking Obama's campaign promise follow-throughs. Check back regularly, sez I. (yays)
  
  
• How to write a (meterless) sestina in Microsoft Excel. (coolio)
  
  
• "Still, the overall effect is not "chokotto marin." It's "bitten by a radioactive French sailor from the 1920s."" See also this discussion of another view of Mt. Fuji.
  
  
• The biggest single component of the carbon footprint of Tropicana orange juice is fertilizer for the orange trees.
  
  
• A Midsummer Night's Dream a la The Beatles and the Warners.

And in the end, documenting the Bush administration, one Onion article at a time.

---L.