How e-voting threatens democracy.

Harris discovered that she could enter the vote database using Microsoft Access — a standard program often bundled with Microsoft Office — and change votes without leaving a trace.

The rising sun was big and orange, divided horizontally into a brighter upper half and a darker lower half that shrank and melted into the brighter upper half as it rose over the hills until, finally, you couldn’t look at it straight-on anymore.

Four magpies flew across the bridge, and perched briefly on a streetlight before flying on. The streetlight flickered off as if the magpies had stolen its light.

At breakfast he said, that was the best five euro I ever spent. That fortune teller reminding me that I have a happy life did me more good than a month of therapy.

How would you know, she said, you’ve never had therapy.

No idea why she’s trying to get me to a therapist. I like my nightmares, insomnia and being depressed now and then. Part of me fears that if that suffering were to end, something really nasty would happen. I have a happy life, I don’t want to jinx it.

I have a happy life. I’m a happy guy.

They say, though, as long as you fear you’re crazy, you’re not crazy. So if you think you don’t need therapy, maybe you do.

Magpies were a Leitmotif in Parcival. The version I read, anyway.

I’m a big Parcival fan. Der reine Tor. The pure fool. Listen, I don’t recommend being a fool, not to anyone. The word does have a negative connotation, after all.

Still: maybe being a fool is not the same thing as being stupid. It’s just not being wise, or conventionally wise.

Maybe it’s stepping outside this big social construct and looking at things honestly. Court jesters were fools, after all. Their job was telling the truth, after all. Nothing funnier than the truth.

After all.

Man, I could use a fu*king cigarette.

It is foolish to look behind the curtain, at the man behind the curtain. It is foolish to look behind the mirror. It is foolish to look at things from the outside. It is foolish to trade your only cow to a stranger for magic beans. OTOH: gold! A giant woman (in one version)! Golden eggs! Singing harp!

It is foolish to make eye contact with someone from beyond the pale. OTOH: I don’t care about money. I am happy.
I am happy.

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Somehow, I was cranky yesterday.
I was deciding to quit smoking, once and for all, and that always makes me cranky.
So, sorry if I said anything snarky to you or insulted your moustache.
Or anything like that.
Today, I have no cigarettes, and the guy who gives me cigarettes is out of town, so things look good there. Don’t bother to wish me success or anything, though, cause, eh, you know.
Anyway. Brace yourselves for really nasty, snarky posts for like the coming twenty years if I manage to find the will to really quit this time.

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I highly recommend this article, if only for the snazzy graph, and the moustache. Reading that, I had the same feeling of envy and wonder I had a couple years ago when that Peter Pan guy’s site was so popular.

This is what the article says about how to improve your blog: 1. provide something unique; 2. provide something valuable; 3. be first; 4. do your research; and 5. learn to write very well.

Not just well, but very well. If you just write well, you’re f*cked, in a nutshell.

What great and unique ideas, you say. Why didn’t someone else think of that already, you ask. Why is your blog so popular, Mig, since you don’t do any of that stuff, you also ask.

Because, I say, that guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, while I do, obviously. Here is the secret formula:

Mig’s top-secret formula i.e. How to Really have a Popular Blog:

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A necrodefiled vampire walks into a bar…

She stopped in front of the crafts shop, examining something in a display basket out in front of the store. I wondered if she planned to swipe it. I walked around her.

Before that: “No thanks,” I said. “Is powerful talisman,” she said. “Will protect you from your enemies, who caused your traffic accidents with their bad wishes.” “Seriously, no thanks,” I said. She shrugged and walked off, not really in a huff, but I wondered if now I had made a third enemy, a fortune-teller who was going to curse me now.

Before that: She extracted a little embroidered coin purse from her larger purse and removed a pinch of herbs, held them up for me to smell. I smelled nothing. “See, smell that? Powerful herbs, brother” she said. I nodded. “Powerful, okay,” I said. She put the herbs into the little square of paper she had begged from the cleaner and folded it up into a tiny package. “You add a little salt and a little bread. You don’t eat it, just carry it in your pocket to protect you.” She took out a little wooden rosary, asked me my name and said a long prayer over the package, including my name. “Here,” she gave me the package. “How much do you want to give me for it? It will protect you.” I shook my head. “I already gave you five Euro,” I said. “That was for the palm reading,” she said.

Before that: She didn’t let go of my hand. “There’s more. You are happy now, but you have enemies. No, you have two enemies. Intriguing against you, wishing you ill.” “No fooling?” I said. “Wishing you and your family ill. You need protection.”

Before that: Over her shoulder, I saw the dry cleaner cashier wore a bemused expression on her face. We both ignored her. The fortune-teller took my hand. Her hands were warm. “Don’t worry, my color won’t come off on you, my hands are clean,” she said. “Same here,” I said. “My hands are clean too.” “You have a happy life,” she said. “You don’t have a lot of money, but you don’t care about money. Family, happiness are more important to you.” “That’s correct,” I said. “How do you know that?” “It’s all in your hand,” she said. “You are not too worried. You don’t have worries. Your forehead is smooth.” I can tell your fortune too, I thought. You are an outcast, I thought. You have had a run-in with the police — I had seen her picture in the newspaper a couple years ago, when she (or someone a lot like her) and an accomplice had been arrested for bilking a woman out of thousands of Euro with a protection-from-bad-luck scam. You have lost children, I thought, to death, or to life. You are very short, and very old, and very scary-looking, I thought. “You have a scar,” she said. “Is it on the left side or the right side?” “Amazing, dude, I have scars all over,” I said. “You have had a traffic accident. No injuries, only damage to the car.” “Twice,” I said. “My fault both times.” She nodded sagely. “You are married, but not to your great love.” Wrong, I thought, but I played along. “Why not? Divorce? Something else?” she asked. “Just didn’t work out,” I said. She nodded some more. “You had worries about your children. Health, or school.” Boy, right there, I thought. They were both tiny preemies. “They’re fine now, though,” I said. “You have golden hands, you can do anything with your hands.” “Thanks,” I said. I sure hoped she was right about that, I had to make a bunch of sushi later in the day for guests who were coming over. And gyoza, and yakisoba, etc etc. My turn came and I picked up my suits, paid, palmed a five Euro bill from the change. “Here, come outside, I’ll read your palm some more,” she said. I gave her the money.

Before that: I went into the dry cleaners to pick up my suits. I was third in line, two ladies were in there before me, a sixtyish Austrian woman who picked something up, and a tiny old Gypsy. The Gypsy was taking sweets out of an Easter basket on the counter. “That’s enough, now,” the cashier said. “Just a couple more,” she said with a thick Eastern-European accent. “I have kids, kids have to eat sugar,” she continued shoveling chocolate eggs and bunnies into her purse until the cashier removed the basket. “Could I have a bag for the candy?” the old woman asked. No one was looking at the old woman. We all avoided eye-contact. This I found crappy, so I stopped avoiding eye-contact. “We don’t have any bags.” “Give me a piece of paper, then.” The cashier gave her a tiny square of note paper. The old woman turned to go, then approached me. “Give me your hand,” she said. Alright, I thought. Gypsy palm-reader.

Before that: “Your eyebrows are turning white,” my hair stylist said. “I noticed,” I said. She held up a big hand mirror so I could see my hair all over. I nodded sagely. Big deal, a pig shave is a pig shave, even if it takes forty-five minutes and includes a soporific scalp massage and is called a styling. Main thing is: it’s short because Gamma loves to run her hands over it when it’s good and short. Nothing like a six-year-old girl running her hands over your scalp with an expression of glee on her face, is there? (Later when I got home and she did it, she said, “Now the hair on your head is shorter than the hair on your back.” A couple minutes after that, I had my wife shave my back.) My cell phone rang. It was my wife. She told me to go here and there to get some stuff; “and you could pick up the drycleaning too,” she said. “But hurry, we have a lot of cooking to do.”

Before that: She wasn’t happy I was leaving to get a haircut, because we had guests coming over later in the day. “It will only take a jiffy,” I said. She looked skeptical. As if she thought something unusual would happen if she let me go out by myself.