What?

Tell me this is a joke. This is a joke, right? My joke-o-meter must be off. This is a joke, right? Right?

Two Towers Protest. Because Tolkien's title isn't sensitive to the delicate feelings of a post-9/11 American audience.

Wha?

Funny, Hollywood doesn't normally go around changing film titles when a car bomb exploads in Bali, or Israel, or Ireland. Which leads, regardless of the joke (or not) stature of the preceding, to this question: What makes the US's pain so damn special?

Me and Maps

I'm a nut for maps. Don't ask why, although, I think I get why, now, after all these years. Wanna hear it? Being as you're my captive audience I'll just nod your head for you..."Oh, goody, you do? That's so sweet." Here goes. I love maps because they do two things that are integral to how I deal with the world:

1. They provide [literally!] a birds-eye view of a set of information.
2. They do it all in a little-itty-bitty package! So compact, so neat, so tidy! Just metric OODLES of information waiting for my fingers to come a-questing way-o.

And I, personally, am all about expressing the highest layer of understanding in the minimum number of bytes. Perfect match.

So, Faz puts up a link to these map collections at the Library of Congress, and I just about died. Seriously, tunnel vision, white light, Edgar Cayce yelling "the water's fine", I kid you not.

So, wondering what to give the El Sid as a gift? Wonder no more! Maps! Topo maps! Reproductions of antique maps! Street maps! Tube maps! Surficial Geology of Alaska maps (oh, wait, got one of those already)...Karta Ledovitago moria i Vostochnago okeana, from 1844, which includes the Russian Far East and Alaska, Diego Gutierrez's 1562 Map of America, Rio Colorado of the West..., drawn by F.W. von Egloffstein, 1858... Maps, maps, be they large or quite dinky!

Excuse me, I need to go lie down.