Syd Barrett is dead.

Trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro’
you have no word
trip, trip to a dream dragon
hide your wings in a ghost tower
sails cackling at every plate we break
cracked by scattered needles
the little minute gong
coughs and clears his throat
madam you see before you stand
hey ho, never be still
the old original favorite grand
grasshoppers green Herbarian band
and the tune they play is “In Us Confide”
so trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro’
you have no word
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!
Isn’t it good to be lost in the wood
isn’t it bad so quiet there, in the wood
meant even less to me than I thought
with a honey plough of yellow prickly seeds
clover honey pots and mystic shining feed…
well, the madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
“Cheat” he cried shouting kangaroo
it’s true in their tree they cried
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!
The madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
the winds they blew and the leaves did wag
they’ll never put me in their bag
the seas will reach and always seep
so high you go, so low you creep
the wind it blows in tropical heat
the drones they throng on mossy seats
the squeaking door will always squeak
two up, two down we’ll never meet
so merrily trip forgo my side
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!

He was…unique.

Because all the cool kids are doing it, I plugged my face into this Face Recognition software.

I am not happy.

[Read more…]

The Myers clan is at Body Worlds today. Expect a report later.

You may have noticed it was a bit quiet here on Pharyngula yesterday. I took the day off. My daughter Skatje has been away for a few weeks, visiting her sweetie-pie in Kentucky, and we had to make the long drive to the airport and back, so we decided to make a day of it in the big city as long as we were there. I also had to drop by the Big U and sign some papers.

When my boys and I decide to paint the town red, guess what we do? We headed to Dreamhaven Books, Comics and Art, Phoenix Games, Uncle Hugo’s (what is it with the remarkable concentration of geekdom on Lake Street in Minneapolis?), and The Source Comics & Games. After eating lots of Chinese food, we headed to the airport, only to discover Skatje’s plane was delayed.

So we sprawled on the floor of the Humphrey terminal and played Zombies until she arrived. I have discovered that when faced with the shambling horrors, I will roll lots of “1”s, slapping ineffectually at them until they grapple with me and gnaw on my brains. My sons Alaric and Connlann will grab shotguns, fire axes, and grenades and cut a bloody swath through them on their way to the helicopter pad, where they will fly away leaving me in a slowly closing circle of implacable moaning flesh-eaters.

When Skatje finally showed up (she had a fine time with her boy toy, who apparently works in a comic book shop and plays D&D), it was midnight, and we had the long drive home to face…we finally staggered into the house after a long day of nerd decadence at 3AM.

As you might guess, now I’m feeling exhausted and my brains have been repeatedly chewed upon. And you all know what weirdos we are here at Chez Myers.

I can’t bear listening to myself, so someone else will have to tell me how big a fool I made of myself on the podcast interview.

(You usual suspects don’t even need to bother to listen to it to tell me how big a fool I am—just go ahead and get it out of your system.)

We left Las Vegas on a 12:30am flight to Des Moines, IA, had an hour and a half layover, got into Minneapolis sometime around 7:30, made the 3 hour drive from there to Morris, and now I sit here a little shell-shocked and worn out. Give me a little time to bounce back and Pharyngula will be chugging along with fresh material again.

Now…coffee, or nap?

My geekishness has a limit, I’ve discovered. We have a long afternoon and evening to kill in Las Vegas before our plane leaves, and we visited the Hilton, which has a huge Star Trek themed room and exhibit, and Mary even offered to treat me to the Star Trek Experience for Father’s Day.

I’m sorry, but it was too, too geeky for me.

Usually, I can wallow in any SFnal environment just fine; I can hang out in comic book stores with the kids, no problem; I’ll even seek out fringe SF and devour it as my guilty pleasure. But a place with nothing but ST memorabilia, bins of tribbles, a blue guy dressed as an Andorian, televisions everywhere replaying old episodes, and clerks in Star Fleet uniforms? I shudder. No, no…too much. I had to turn down my Father’s Day gift.

Please don’t take away my membership in the community of nerds.