I awaken to the sound of a plane passing far overhead. Minutes after it passes I hear a low, distant thud. I wander unsteadily towards the sound for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly hours. As it is dark and hard to see, I cover much ground in searching for the source of the sound. I eventually come across a large, tarp-like device blowing and billowing in the wind. It is attached by several lines to a heavy crate. With some difficulty I open the lid of the crate to discover boxes of supplies: rations, warm clothing, drinking water. Much of the contents did not survive the impact and are destroyed or ruined but I find enough usable materials for temporary sustenance. There also seems to be a document contained in an envelope, but I am unable to determine if the pages have any content due to the poor illumination.  The crate is large enough to act as a temporary shelter. It is not airtight: the holes along two sides of the container are large enough to let some wind pass through, but the container is still much improved over my previous situation. I toss the destroyed items out and they quickly scatter to the wind. I climb in and, pushing the remaining items to one side, pull a blanket over myself and close the lid to rest.

I continue in eternal exile. The landscape does not change, in fact at times the winds blow even colder than I could have imagined. There is no hint at additional light and, in fact, the spans of what little dimness there is seem to grow shorter. The worst may yet be ahead. I drift aimlessly in and out of consciousness, parched, panged with hunger, waiting for a sign.

I just got a spam with the subject: Win in combat with excess kilos!

Does this mean that I’m supposed to gain weight in order to triumph in battle or that I’m already in combat with the excess weight and I’ve been commanded to succeed? I’m so confused… I just want to do the right thing…

I really needed this today. It had me laughing so hard I was crying. First I watched the Beatles number, which warmed me up, and then I watched the Queen number. By the time Freddie Mercury started coughing/hacking/wheezing/sneezing at the keyboard, I totally lost it. Tears down my cheeks from the laughter.

mental_floss Blog » Famous Bands Singing Nonsense.

Day two of my exile begins.

While still reeling from a great disorientation effected by my sudden exile, I awaken laboriously to record several observations about my environment. It is dark; there is barely enough light to outline a horizon. I appear to be in the middle of a vast expanse of wasteland. The ground is composed of loose sand that slowly begins to subsume a man walking erect. This makes traversing it extremely difficult and laborious. The only way to remain above the surface in one place for any length of time is to sit or to lie in a prone position. This is all the better, as there is a great coldness here and standing alone for too long can result in a tremendous loss of warmth. This coldness permeates all aspects of one’s being and cannot be warmed by any heater; there are also winds that blow incessantly, seemingly from every direction at once, that cannot be shielded by any jacket or coat of known composition.

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Here’s a helpful hint for those of you who use Gmail and get a lot of spam.

Gmail’s spam filters are pretty excellent when it comes to spam. I get a lot of spam and rarely does one slip by into my inbox. However I also want to check if real messages (ham) got put in the spam folder by mistake. Here’s how I check to see if something was flagged incorrectly without having to look through every single unread spam message, of which there could be hundreds piled up.