The Sporadic Curmudgeon

No, I haven’t been taken over by a malignant alien presence with a profound antipathy for the Red Planet. Several groups of astronomers are reporting that they’ve detected methane in the martian atmosphere. This is Very Big News.

Why? Because methane is destroyed within a couple of hundred years in the environment of Mars, which means that there’s an active source producing the smelly gas. There are basically only two ways methane is produced. Volcanic activity, which none of our orbiters have so far detected, and life. Yes, life. As in methane-farting life.

Oddly enough, back in the day our government used to blame UFO sightings on swamp gas, which is another name for the methane produced by decomposing vegetable and animal matter. Microorganism farts, in other words.

If this isn’t a huge cosmic whoopee cushion I don’t know what is. I hope that Dr. J Allen Hynek is laughing from the great beyond tonight.

It’s Sunday, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time this afternoon typing random words into Google to see what turns up.

And Lo! I have discovered bento boxes. Leave it to the Japanese* to elevate the humble box lunch to an art form. I think my favorite site on the subject is this oddly touching blog: this woman prepares these marvelous little lunches for her children, snaps a picture with her camera phone, and posts it.

* How come Japanese pop culture is so much more fun than anyone else’s?

Now this is just friggin’ cool! NASA has pictures of both of the martian moons Phobos and Deimos actually eclipsing the sun! You can read all about it at the official press release page.

I’m not positive, but this may be the first time in history we’ve witnessed an eclipse from the surface of another planet. Amazing.

For the amateur topologist who’s got almost everything: a genuine Acme Klein Bottle. Of course, these bottles are only 3-D representations of 4-D objects, but the idea’s the thing. And in this case, the idea is “what do you get when you glue two moebius strips together?” Which is a pretty cool idea if you ask me. Of course, topology’s been one of my favorite subjects ever since I stumbled across Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Recreations” column in Scientific American back in the early 70’s.

Note: My wonderful wife read this post, and I received a large Klein Bottle from her for Christmas. It now sits proudly on my desk at work, where my coworkers persist in thinking it’s a bong.

Well, I made it to the Mondo Erotica show at Gallery au Go Go for a few minutes. There was some very nice work there (besides my own, of course), and I curse the fates that have reduced me to my current pathetic weaklinghood. Translation: I really wanted to stay longer, but was having trouble standing up.

The painting in the photo is the infamous Zombie Girl, which I painted during a violent thunderstorm in San Antonio a couple of years ago that ripped the city up pretty badly. Oddly enough, even though much of my work is more explicit and twisted, this is the painting that consistently gets the strongest reaction. I think it’s one of my best, but my wife doesn’t even like to be in the same room with it.

I’ve put a few more shots of the show, including a great one of proprietor Dirk Vermin, on a new gallery page.

I almost died last week from an intestinal infection. No exaggeration, I was in the hospital for six days. It’s not the first time I’ve come a little too close to taking a dirt nap, but I’m finding out it’s not the kind of thing you really get used to. Still thinking things through; there are some big changes I need to make.

On the good side of things, I’ve got two paintings in the Mondo Erotica show tonight at Dirk Vermin’s Gallery au Go Go here in Las Vegas! There were going to be three paintings, but the city threatened to close down the gallery if the more explicit stuff was shown. Unfortunately, I’m still too sick to attend. I may manage to pop in for a minute or two, but just walking around is pretty tiring for me at this point. I’m very grateful to Dirk for the opportunity to show my work; it’s my first showing in Nevada.

I’ve changed the website; it’s now powered by WordPress. I’m also working on a new logo.

I’m intending to update the Gallery section in order to better represent my traditional artwork, which is mostly paintings of attractive naked people. Tired of hiding under a bushel, I guess. Life’s too short for modesty.