Hi, all. I just wanted to let you know that we here at You Bitch! are not without the Spirit of Christmas. We went to the grocery store today and bought 5 bottles of wine and a crate of Carlsberg, so it's shaping up to be a merry one, indeed.

I'm a Christmas guy, despite my lack of devoutness, or any other property that would reek of character. It's probably because I like getting presents, and I plan to clean up this year: The crappy little British tree that's shedding needles all over my living room carpet as we speak plays host to a gleaming pile of brightly-wrapped packages, each of them the potential Perfect Toy that I expected throughout childhood, but alas never received. But hope springs eternal, and after a good shaking of each and every one of those packages my optimism is strong.

So, let's all get 'faced and wander into pointless arguments with dear relatives. It's what Christmas is about, and it will end in tears. So enjoy the food while you can.

Last night, I sat down with the Sistas, and we opened up the Game of Life. We'd procured it for a measly £1 at a local charity store a few months ago, and were cracking the box for the first time. It being a used specimen bought on the cheap, the usual defects were there: broken pegs, dog-eared 10,000 bills and promissory notes. Unfortunately, the rules were also missing.

We googled for the rule book, and came up with dozens of different versions of this bastard game. There are more variations to this game than I would have thought. It never really seemed like the organic type of game that would evolve over time. When I was getting my ass beaten at it as a child, it seemed that the adults so thoroughly dependent upon its intricacies that the slightest variation thereupon would render it unplayable.

This being the UK edition, the rules and numbers are different from the one I grew up with in the US. My playing companions, being Germans, were also used to different rules; notably, the German version probably doesn't require you to pick a career until the half-way point.

We managed to cobble up a thoroughly unplayable system of compromises from the various rules, where they made sense (or didn't). Nevertheless, I got my ass handed to me, just like always. You can read the rest of the story over there.

So, does anyone out there happen to have a copy of the ©1992 Milton-Bradley Game of Life (UK Edition)?

Also, I found the scanned handbooks to all Milton-Bradley Games, ever. Check 'em out. Don't miss the first-edition rules to Axis & Allies!

This image just came crawling across my emails, embedded in an advertisement for the karaoke game, Lips.

I have no idea what those little monsters are supposed to represent, crawling all over those terrified teens. It looks like some of the sicker shit the Japanese come up with for the comic books, don't google it kids.

Then again, I wish I'd had a couple of them in High School. What am I talking about? I could use a couple of them right now.

Whatever they are, they are creepy little bastards.

So, does everybody like us now? Or do we have to wait until January?

I love this.

From A Softer World, of course.

British women have interesting taste in footwear. I captured the following image from the front page of eBay, sometime in the middle of July:

These things were all the rage this summer, and last year as well, if I remember correctly. There's nothing like a fishbelly-white pair of legs sticking out of a pair of hairy boots to make you think Sexy!

I'm not sure why a woman would choose to wear mukluks in the middle of summer. English summer, mind you, isn't much distinguishable from any other time of year here, but still: It's the principle. It's simply taboo to break out the mukluks before Labor Day.

While traipsing around the Farnborough Air Show over the weekend, I saw this:

I have no idea what they're selling. It's in English, I suppose, but it's like they wrote the entire thing with leftover pieces of one of those refrigerator magnetic poetry things. It sort of reminds me of Naked Lunch.

And then, I saw someone with the Best Job Title Ever:

How's that for a business card? "Customer Support Bombardier". In Belfast, no less.

There were a few planes for the budget-minded, for example the legendary MiG-29's, "upgraded to NATO standards":

Nice Mario Bros. paint job, Ivan. But it was nice to get a chance to kick the tires on it, albeit not too hard:

Apparently NATO standards don't include rotating the tires once in a while. We watched the two MiGs take off on Monday morning, flying back to whatever Communist hell-hole they were on loan from. They left trails of black smoke behind them, like they had a leaky gasket somewhere. What a rickety piece of shit.

There were all the things you'd expect from an airshow, even a World War II-vintage Avro Lancaster flying around, which was a special sight. One thing I didn't expect to see, though, were Muttley and Dick Dastardly:

Huh? Are the pimping a Laff-a-Lympics movie now?

You may think you have distractions in your workplace, but take a look at what's been outside my office window all week.

That's some exotic hardware being collected for the Farnborough Air Show, which starts next week. So far, we've identified:

• Apache (Longbow maybe? It had the pod)
  
• WWII-vintage Spitfire
• F-15
  
• F-16
• F-18
• F-22
• Avro Vulcan
• Eurofighter Typhoon
• Airbus A380
• Whatever trainers the RAF Red Arrows are flying these days
• many more that we haven't been able to ID yet

All of these beautiful flying murder machines are out in our back yard, kicking ass and tearing shit up. The Avro Vulcan is probably the most striking aircraft I've ever seen, and it snuck up on us a couple of days ago. I just looked out the window and it looked like a huge manta was about to attack the building. But it just started doing some lazy loops and turns, and eventually disappeared. It didn't land at the airport, sadly.

We are having a fine time in the office, but I felt bad for the customer I had on the phone when the Red Arrows started their 30-minute rehearsal today. They actually took off with the smokers going, in formation. Show-offs. I went out onto the roof of our 5-story parking deck to watch them go, and man, what a glorious chaos of noise, smoke, and low-flying metal.

My desk is right across the street from the runway where all this is happening. Being right on the airport, we're pretty used to hearing planes taking off and landing. The windows are thick, sound-proof slabs that are supposed to block any noise that comes at them. But when an F-22 buzzes your office building (as one did Thursday during a meeting), there isn't much any glass can do about the roar of those wonderful, CO2-pumping engines. In fact, any time a military aircraft is getting started the noise level is so intense that the entire office stops working, walks over to the windows, and waits for the show to start.

When the F-18 started doing loops and vertical climbs, a buddy and I went out to have a cigarette and enjoy the show. Right when we opened the door, it blasted past us at about 200 feet off the ground. Every car alarm in the parking lot went off. It was fucking awesome.

Oh, Harry Potter, you sly, precocious rascal. How I thrill to the adventures you have, and hiss whenever Messrs. Malfoy and Snape ooze across the page. Hmph. The third book of the series is less boring than the first two, and somewhat longer. It also includes a word or two that wasn't in the movie, which makes this the first of the series to qualify as "worth reading".

It is not really a bad book, but when you've just read the previous two books in rapid succession, you'll notice a certain formula developing. Namely, not enough sex. Not that it's promised by the garish and childlike cover, or the complete lack of sexual identity among the characters. There was only the mildest hint that Harry even notices chicks, with the allusion to Chang Choi Hoi or whatever her name was, the little Chinese maiden, being somewhat pretty, and causing a lump in Harry's throat. But Harry's thirteen in this book. When I was that age, even the smell of a girl's pencil box caused a lump in my pants. Harry doesn't even look up her skirt when she's riding a broom. Why? Because Harry is a homo. He would rather play sports and eat chocolate than whack it to the eight-minute reel of upskirts and keyhole peep-shots that loops permanently through the mind of any normal thirteen year old boy.

I also liked the movie much more than the previous two. I enjoy any movie with Gary Oldman, no matter how bad it is. Even Batman, where Oldman was Worst Commissioner Gorden Evar. In Prisoner of Azkaban, he was on the screen for a grand total of 47 seconds, but I still enjoyed his performance. I still think he could've brought a bit more of the Sid and Nancy vibe to the screen, though.

Tell me that wouldn't have been sweet! Now, though, I've got some serious reading to do. In the time it took to lay this book aside and write this here review, I'm already halfway through the Sixth Book of the Year, and looking anxiously forward to the Seventh. Tallyho!

More, more.

Hmm...you know you're an old fogey when you see a list like this, and it's completely, utterly the opposite of you:

When it comes to desktop operating systems, your choices are really pretty narrow. You either run Windows, or you do some Unix-like OS. There are the 12,000 different Linux distributions. There’s always FreeBSD if you prefer your Unix without a Finnish flavor. You could go the vendor route and run AIX or HP-UX. Sun has Solaris, and as much as you might want to, you can’t forget SCO. And of course, there’s always Mac OS X. Although it may sound like variety when it comes down to it, it’s still Windows vs. Unix.

[From 5 of the best desktop operating systems you never used | Classics Rock | TechRepublic.com]

I used each and every one of the Five Best Operating Systems I've Never used quite extensively. The operating systems in question?

OS/2
I used OS/2 as my primary desktop for about 3 years between 1994 and 1997. I played with it on and off up until I finally got rid of my last PC back about a year ago. It was ugly, it crashed on bootup more than it actually, you know, booted up, and had the most hideous fonts you can imagine (about like the ones you see in Java apps to this day). I guess it made sense to forego eye-candy like antialiasing and hinting. Nevertheless, it let corporate behemoth IBM feel like a scrappy little underdog for a while.

NeXT[sic]
I used NeXTSTEP back in college, and it's probably the best OS ever made, taken in context. It was Steve Jobs' playground, with goofy, exotic hardware choices and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare installed by default. To this day, I still use the lookalike WindowMaker for my desktop at work; it's lean and mean, and looks like a million bucks. At home, I use Mac OS X, which is the intellectual heir to NeXTSTEP, and enjoy the benefits of its heritage. DisplayPDF is a fine thing.

BeOS
In my old office, we actually had a gaggle of BeBoxen. They were terribly ugly machines, but BeOS rocked back then, and is still the best, most full-featured operating system for old hardware. I installed BeOS Max on a creaky old Vaio Laptop with 1998 specs just a couple of years ago, and everything zipped right along and worked splendidly. Try that with any modern Linux distribution and you'll be hating life.

DESQview
This was not an operating system, as noted in the article, but a task-switching shell that basically served as a front-end to QuarterDeck's QEMM386 DOS memory driver. It did what it said, swapping DOS programs in and out of EMS, and it did it pretty well. It was a nice toy for WordPerfect and Lotus junkies. I used QEMM386 on all my machines, and used DESQview for things like running Crosstalk IV sessions in the background while updating AWK and SOUP packets with whatever the fuck am I talking about?

GEOS / GeoWorks
GEOS was a sweet shell for the 8088 and 80286-based computers. It ran like greased butter (?) on that hardware, which seemed to be available for free everywhere after Windows 3.1 came out. I had it running on a sweet old IBM PS/2 Model 50 for a bit, until I woke up and discovered girls.

I wonder why people make lists like this. Are they really fishing for the Get-Off-My-Lawn demographic?

It's almost like vacation. Doing the Training this week, checking out the various services and security issues that confront your everyday Linux admin. For example, there's "Creating your own Certificate Authority in 2 easy steps":

1. openssl genrsa -new something-or-other blah
2. make thisthinghere && then that otherthing

Easier than it looks, I tell you, I'm gonna ace this exam.

And then there's some stuff you put into /etc/hosts.allow. Or hosts.deny. The kids today apparently like to put them all in file, so they can more finely tune the filtering order. In that case, you get rules like, "*.cracker.org: ALL: DENY" in hosts.allow, which is confusing for an old-timer like me, who remembers when if it didn't run under inetd you didn't need it, anway, now get off my lawn.

Poking ever more knowledge into my age- and alcohol-addled brain may sound like a risky proposition. But The Company can be assured that, as long as free food is involved, I will make whatever efforts are necessary. And there is free food involved here.

I fully expect the Google-hits to go nuts tomorrow when everyone's Samba caches start expiring and the "Shared" sidebars start disappearing. Gruber posted a recommendation for OpenDNS:

OpenDNS is a totally free service that provides very fast DNS service to anyone, with a bunch of other optional features. Not new, but somehow I’d never heard of it before. Came in handy for me today after Comcast’s DNS servers crapped out.

? [From OpenDNS]

OpenDNS does everything right except for one thing: RETURNING BOGUS IP ADDRESSES FOR HOSTNAMES THAT DON'T EXIST!!1! That's what NXDOMAIN is for. Bad OpenDNS.

Found by A-Heldin in the Ladies' Bathroom of Stansted Airport

"Unfinished Tales: Of Numenor and Middle-earth" (J.R.R. Tolkien)

If you tried to read The Silmarillion, and were put off by its biblical prose and Byzantine character mesh, then stay away from this book. It's basically the same style, minus the cohesion of the completed book.

Me, I'm what you might call a Silmarillion guy. When I first read that book, I was in a trance for days afterward, completely blown away by its texture and tone, and by the absolute solidity of the world it presented. The Chorus of the Valar at the Creation is one of the most stunning stretches of fantasy writing ever.

Tolkien's stuff is the only fantasy or science fiction work that I can totally geek out on. I can tell you without much accuracy but with many details the relationships between Sauron and Melkor, the Rings and the Jewels, how that creepy-ass Galadriel turned away from the light of the Trees with the rest of the Noldor. Knowing the backstory, it's that much cooler to see a Balrog come out of its hole in Moria to lay down some old-school First Age whoopass on Frodo; that must have been like seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex showing up on a Civil War battlefield. I love that stuff.

So, I was sad to see the Silmarillion come to the Third Age and lose the distance from Frodo and Co. that the massive timeline of Tolkien's Middle-earth makes possible. The 'Tales is more of the same, with that great, lumbering voice that I bet Tolkien wished he could have written in all the time. You've got to love a book that has you looking up names in the index at least once per paragraph. And props to whoever decided to put Ulmo on the front cover up there with Tuor. He never did get the word count he deserved.

I wasn't really planning on writing about the Silmarillion the whole time, but that's basically what the Unfinished Tales represents. Put the two together, and you've got the Extended Director's Cut Edition. But you know, maybe it's time I read something this year that doesn't have its own booth at DragonCon.

March. If she comes in like a lion, she goes out like a lamb. At least, that's what the Google tells me. I've heard this saying about many things, including March, April, and some of your spicier Thai dishes. Hey-ooooo. But this is not a post about squeezing gags from topics of questionable funniness. This is a post about the Weather.

When I stepped outside the office today, the wind was absolutely howling. I was walking with a 40° list down the path to the smoking corner. There's an airport landing strip that runs along next to the building, and you could hear the pilots revving up the jets as they landed, surging them in that unsettling rise and fall that always accompanies Bad News during airplane shots in shows like Lost.

It was the kind of wind that makes you worry just a bit about your safety. It still is, in fact. Outside, there's that strange whistling going on that tells your that the caulk is going bad around your windows, and every now and then culminates in a good shaking of the house. If I was a hot cocoa type of dude, I would be snuggled up with one right now. But I'm not, so a Foster's it is.

So, established is it that March came in like a Lion this year. High winds, sudden temperature and pressure changes, needling high-speed rain. We'll see how that old wives' tale works out in about 4-1/2 weeks time.

Dear Science,

I am but a humble man, an Engineer of sorts. I realize that in the rarified world of theoreticals, being a technological doesn't carry much status. At the cocktail parties of science, I will be served the well Scotch, and not the single malts from the top shelf. Nevertheless, I have something to ask of you, and beg just a moment of your attention.

I have become convinced that science, by which I mean you scientists, is intent on destroying the human race. Please stop this. I am not referring to intractable flesh golems when I say this. Nor do I mean trying to prove that Black Holes exist by creating them right in the middle of United States, my goodness what could possibly go wrong with that.

I'm not against the accidental Icarus-style destruction associated with flying too high, delving too deep. This is how races are supposed to be snuffed out of existence. What I am referring to is the systematic intent to destroy humanity.

Exhibit A: Female Orgasm Electrode Implants

Meloy's study, published in 2006 in the journal Neuromodulation, reported that 10 out of 11 of the patients felt pleasurable stimulation from the device, including increased vaginal lubrication. Five of the women had previously lost their ability to have orgasms; four regained it with the device. (The fifth never used her device during the nine-day trial because of work stress, she said.)

Exhibit B: Furniture-Moving Robots

The authors show how coordinated pushing by robots can change the pose (position and orientation) of objects and then they ask whether planning, global control, and explicit communication are necessary for cooperatively changing the pose of objects.

Exhibit C: Stopping Evolution

In 1998, scientists discovered an enzyme, telomerase, that had the astonishing ability to "immortalize" certain kinds of cells that normally died within a short time. When that discovery was announced to the public, the press put an almost inevitable spin on it: aging was about to become an artifact of the past. Never mind that the scientists in question never claimed that telomerase had anything to do with the lifespan of humans: the discovery became a story because it appealed to our ancient interest in cheating death and living forever. A huge, lucrative industry now caters to that interest, offering the public pills, potions, and powders that are meant to reverse and undo the effects of aging.

As if men didn't have enough to worry about, our two main functions have been wiped away with Exhibits A and B. Our tertiary role, that of continuance of the species, is mopped up by Exhibit C. Obviously, science, you don't know the first thing about being a man.

Fuck you, science.

Every now and then, you'll see something and think, man, that would make one badass movie. Things like, Survivor Type , by Stephen King, for example; or this week's National Geographic podcast, Giant Sea Spiders Found. But if there were a List of Things That Would Be a Badass Movie, the #1 slot would belong to a certain Captain William "BJ" Blazkowicz.

Who is this Captain William "BJ" Blazkowicz, you ask? Well, he's just the guy blasted his way into the most heavily-guarded stronghold of insane Nazi medical experimentation, killing everything and everyone in his path, including Hitler in an enormous Assault Mech Powered Armor Suit. Twice. That's who.

In my spare time, I often google around for old games, obsolete software, and other things that feed my cognitive dissonance. The other night, while finishing my beer and planning another evening of tossing-and-turning insomnia, I came across this, and promptly slept like a baby:

On August 3, 2007, GameSpot reported that

Variety confirmed Return to Castle Wolfenstein and that the writer/producer team that was involved with Silent Hill will be involved with the Wolfenstein project.

Sadly, another entry on The List was Doom 3, which was made into a shitty, boring movie two years ago. But how, how, could anyone make a shitty movie about this?

Nazis raising the dead, bloodied-up steampunky cyborg Super-Soldiers, and a gun-wielding leather-clad Dominatrix. What's not to love? Plus, the people making the movie are the guys who made Silent Hill. That film, you might recall, featured Hot Large-Breasted Zombie Nurses:

A very good sign.

RTCW screen shots stolen from the eye-opening Deaf Gamers: Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Machete-ing my way through the jungle of Harry Potter books left behind by my mother, it's number 2 in the series. This one was a notch down from the first one, I find. It was a bit longer, but failed to cover much new ground. Harry hates his foster family, he fears Hogwarts will be closed, everybody in the competing school house, Slytherin, is an idiot or a bad guy, yada yada.

Like the first book, this one is fully covered by the movie. There's nothing here that wasn't in the script, and vice-versa. Rent the movie, if you must, but avoid the book.

Nevertheless, there are five more Harry Potter books on the shelf in the living room that I have to read, lest I be disowned. I need a break, though, so Book Four of the year will be a bit more highbrow.

Spending a quiet Sunday here, doing Weekend Coverage for The Company. It can wear you down, going through your queue, waiting for some lackeys in Oceania to call you a lazy bastard in stuttering Pidgin.

Whenever it gets me down, though, I just think about the Happiest Video in the World, and everything seems to be right again.

If that doesn't make you happy, you must be some kinda Liberal. Go cry about acid rain or something.

:'-(

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Book 1)" (J.K. Rowling)

I blame my mother for this one. She's obsessed with all things Harry Potter. She came to visit us for Christmas this year, and brought with her all 7 books and 5 DVDs. Owing to a healthy batch of presents, and a good bit of shopping, she was forced to leave the book collection here. I picked up the first book, having been unimpressed by the film, and decided to give it a whirl.

The first thing I noticed from the book was how dead-on identical J. K. Rowling's style is to that of Roald Dahl. There's the same sort of fairy-tale darkness lurking behind what is presumably a story for children. Think of the innate creepiness in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach to get an idea of what I mean.

All in all, it's an easy, entertaining read. If you've seen the movie, you can skip it. There's nothing in the book that wasn't explained in the amazingly well-adapted screenplay.

The psychiatrist looked at his watch. Sighing deeply, he looked around the room, checked his fingernails. It always looked better when a few more minutes had passed than were strictly necessary. Perceived value, and all that. He cracked his neck left, then right, then looked at his watch again. It had been long enough.

"Mr. Osterhase," he said quietly, "when you hear the clicker, open your eyes." He held up a plastic yellow device about the size of a matchbox, and pressed it between his thumb and forefinger. Click!

Damian's head, which had been lolling against his chest, eased upward, his eyes opening. "Wow," he said, "I feel great."

"Mr. Osterhase, do you remember anything we just talked about?"

Damian raised his eyebrows. "Of course," he said. "I'm pretty good at remembering stuff." He got up, thanked the psychiatrist, and passed the receptionist on the way out the door without speaking. "Fucking quack," he said as he walked away. "Two-hundred forty fucking Great British Pounds Sterling right down the fucking drain."

Deciding a walk would help calm him down, he avoided the bus and headed for his apartment on foot. Twenty minutes later, he reached his building, and walked into the ground-floor newsstand.

"Mr Damian," the man behind the counter called out, "how nice to see you today. Anything I can get you."

He stood at the counter for a moment, as if deep in thought, and reached for a pack of chewing gum. "I guess I'll take this," he said after a moment, and put a five-pound note on the counter. He pocketed the gum and his change without looking at either, and slowly walked out towards the door. Turning, he asked the cashier, "what was your name again?"

Heading up the stairs to his apartment, he pulled his keys from his coat pocket. A packet of gum fell out on the floor, unnoticed. Damian tried his front door, and was relieved that it was unlocked. Pushing it open, he called out the usual, "honey, I'm home!"

He heard her answer from somewhere in the house. He tossed his jacket on one of the living room chairs. Slouching onto the sofa, he put his feet up and reached for the remote control. His hand hung in mid-air. An open pack of cigarettes was on the coffee table. He quickly swiped it from the table and held it up. "She doesn't smoke," he said. "And I sure as Hell don't. Can't stand the smell."

His wife came in from the bathroom wearing her shower robe and a curious grin on her face. "And? How was it?"

He frantically hid the cigarettes under his jacket. "Well, I just paid over two hundred smackers for a forty minute nap. I don't feel a bit different. It was a complete waste of time."

She looked at him, and he noticed her eyes dart suspiciously to the table before him. Disappointment washed the brightness from her features, and she gave him a hug. "There, there, baby, at least it was worth a try." He held her tight, and noticed that her hair smelled of cigarettes.

"So, honey," he began, "where did you go while I was at the doctor's?"

She looked surprised. "Well, nowhere. I came right back here."

He thought again about the cigarettes on the table. "Anybody come by for a visit?"

She shook her head and looked questioningly into his eyes. Was he imagining a pang of guilt lurking behind her innocent expression? He walked around the living room, his mind racing. He needed a moment to think. Why was she lying? What was she trying to hide?

He went into the bathroom and examined the cigarettes. Marlboro Reds. A man's cigarette. In his house. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet and held his face in his hands. After a moment, his anger overtook his pain and he looked frantically around the bathroom. There was the shirt she had been wearing when she had dropped him off at the hypnotherapists. He held it up to his face, and could barely believe the rank nicotine funk that was pouring off it.

Throwing the shirt into the sink, he grabbed one of his own shirts from the hamper. It, too, smelled like an ashtray. Jesus, he thought, was he smoking right here in the bathtub while she scrubbed his back?

He walked back into the kitchen, numb inside. She was standing with her back to him, calmly scooping coffee into the machine. "Maybe you can go back for a second visit? You know, talk the doctor into giving you a freebie?"

He quietly slid open the knife drawer, and pulled out the first one that met his fingers. "Freebie," he said, chuckling bitterly to himself. "Yeah, and I guess that would be a good way to get me out of the house for another couple of hours."

"What's that?" He plunged the knife into the back of her neck, and she went down without so much as a twitch. He winced as her skull cracked against the tile. He calmly walked over to the phone, a destroyed man. He dialed the police, and begged them to come get him.

Watching through a two-way mirror, the Detective stood motionless while Damian sat at a metal table and drank coffee. The side door opened and a uniformed police officer entered the darkened observation chamber. "Detective Penske, the hypnotherapist is here."

Penske walked out the door and greeted the doctor. After formalities, he got to the point. "What exactly was the purpose of your meeting with Mr. Osterhase this afternoon?"

"Well, I'm a hypnotherapist. I helped him stop smoking. We do this by removing the desire to smoke, and indeed the the very idea of being a smoker, from the patient's personality."

Penske looked at the door to the observation chamber and shook his head. "Nature hates a vacuum, Doc."

Owing to a rather good harvest this Christmas, I've been blessed with an embarassment of riches when choosing my first book, Foucault's Pendulum.

This is the second book of Eco's that I've read. The first, the excellent Baudolino , much like Pendulum, shows an unhealthy fascination on the author's part with pseudo-Christian mythologies like Joseph of Arimethea, Templars, and the Holy Grail. I was waiting for Prester John to show up in this one to convince me that all of Eco's books are the same.

This one went down well, with the typical chaos of Eco's back-and-forth, mind-bendbending intellectual dialogues. I have to admit, though, that the last 40 pages or so were a bit of a let-down for me.

The Library of Congress has a few of their pictures up on Flickr.

Enjoy.