[insert witty title]

I sat down just now to write a little bit for the internet and realised that all my notes, bookmarks and books were back at home in Durham. Lost, for a second, I decided to ask Google "What should I blog about today?". True to form Google came through for me and yielded the following link: Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke

For those that don't know, Marmaduke is one of the worst ever newspaper cartoons. It is utterly asinine and devoid of humour. I have precisely no idea why it continues to run in newspapers today. Joe Mathlete helps us to place these comics in context, and by extension highlights the humour inherent in the everyday adventures of a clumsy great dane. Here are a couple of my favourite ones:

Dog Catchers
God
I Haven't the Foggiest
Marmaduke is an asshole

On a completely different note, I recently watched A Scanner Darkly and was reminded how much I enjoy the works of Philip K. Dick (for those unfamiliar with PKD some of his other novels were translated into the films Total Recall and Blade Runner). I really love the feeling of dystopian horror that his books instill in me, and how he used the tools of science fiction as a way of probing at the very soul of man. He was also quite poetic in his descriptions of contemporary life.

"Life in California was a commerical for itself, endlessly replayed. Nothing changed, it just spread further and further in the form of a neon ooze. 'How the land became plastic', he thought, remembering the fairy tale 'How the sea became salt'. The truck drove on past gas stations, tawdry cafes and motels. Nothing is so alien, bleak and unfriendly as the ring of gas stations -- cut rate gas stations -- on the rim of your own city."

Additionally PKD is responsible for one of my all time favourite passages from a science fiction book (The Galactic Pot Healer (1969)):

Getting to his feet he crossed the waiting room to the Padre booth; seated inside he put a dime into the slot and dialed at random. The marker came to rest at Zen.

"Tell me your torments," the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion. And slowly; it spoke as if there were no rush, no pressure. All was timeless.

Joe said, "I haven't worked for seven months and now I've got a job that takes me out of the Sol System entirely, and I'm afraid. What if I can't do it? What if after so long I've lost my skill?"

The Padre's weightless voice floated reassuringly back to him. "You have worked and not worked. Not working is the hardest work of all."

That's what I get for dialing Zen, Joe said to himself. Before the Padre could intone further he switched to Puritan Ethic.

"Without work," the Padre said, in a somewhat more forceful voice, "a man is nothing. He ceases to exist."

Rapidly, Joe dialed Roman Catholic.

"God and God's love will accept you," the Padre said in a faraway gentle voice. "You are safe in His arms. He will never--"

Joe dialed Allah.

"Kill your foe," the Padre said.

"I have no foe," Joe said. "Except for my own weariness and fear of failure."

"Those are enemies," the Padre said, "which you must overcome in a _jihad_; you must show yourself to be a man, and a man, a true man, is a fighter who fights back." The Padre's voice was stern.

Joe dialed Judaism.

"A bowl of Martian fatworm soup--" the Padre began soothingly, but then
Joe's money wore out; the Padre closed down, inert and dead--or anyhow dormant.