capricorn

I've noticed, that either through intent or accident, we have a lot of goat-themed decor about the house--from the Picasso to the great-horned lamp.

jamming good with Weird & Gilly

Last week NASA released some photographs of the Martian terrain on sand dunes that look like they are covered with sagebrush.  This, however, is the result of shadows of sublimating crystalline pillars of dry ice frost now that it is spring time on Mars.  Even if it is sort of an optical illusion, it far surpasses the shadow that looks like a human face on Mars or a contrived Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich.  It seems a shame that there is all that unused real estate, by man or beast or sometging unimaginable on the other planets.  The only news on Mars, we would say, is when we send out rockets and robots there, or when those comets hurled into Jupiter.

Hoodoo

The people of Haiti are in trouble.  Please send help if you can.  Artze ohne Grenze.

baden baden

On these cold winter weekends, nothing could be finer than an afternoon spent at the spas.  Bad Kissingen, Bad Neustadt, Bad Bocklet, Bad Karma.  For the brave or the fool-hardy, some even have a chute from the inside to the outside pool, thick with a bank of lazy steam tampt down by the cold, cold air.  From the envelope of warmth, the fragile currents above the waters look deceptively inviting.

nomenclature

The wintery storm was not a total bust, as we await early dismissal, but the Germans seem to have developed a sort of naming-envy, American-style.  The weather men have called this depression Daisy, as one would name hurricanes or cyclones.  H says they used to just call it winter.  I am afraid they might take it to a further extreme and pop the suffix -gate on it, like the US has done with every political scandal or hissy-fit since Watergate.  Monica-gate, Finance-gate, Climate-gate.  Giving something a name has become more than just short-hand for the weather system that made a mess of the roads during a certain time, it gives it a personality like El Nino or La Nina, which one does not hear so much about these days--possibly non-compliant with global warming.