How Monopoly Money got to be the World's Strongest Currency

I wonder what political motivation John McCain could possibly have for seeking a pardon for Jack Johnson right now. Maybe I'm being a little too liberal here, but it seems to me a pardon implies some actual guilt on the part of Johnson. The White House apologising for convicting a black man for loving a white woman would seem more appropriate. But surely there are some more pressing issues right now that make John McCain spending his energy on a crusade about a 1913 conviction seem badly timed?

Last night's tweets;

Vacuum can't quite get the dust from the floor.
Mall parking garage was dark and empty.
Image search yields few shots of night time moor.
By the bank there is a big fallen tree.

I know it was a Tuesday night and everything but the mall was the emptiest I can remember seeing it since I went there on the morning of 9/11. I've heard a lot of big stores are going to start disappearing. I certainly can't imagine Starbucks maintaining all its locations--though the Starbucks was crowded yesterday.

This morning I read the new Sirenia Digest. Its first story, Caitlin's "A CANVAS FOR INCOHERENT ARTS" was a nice exploration of tension and the mystery of human interaction through the vehicle of fetishism. I was reminded of David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock, but I was also reminded of one of the things that prose fiction can do that visual media like film really can't take advantage of, which is absolute darkness. The peculiar mix of searching, fear, and comfort created by a completely lightless environment just can't be communicated better than with prose. A blank, black screen with maybe the sound of someone breathing can be effective for short bursts, but inevitably it removes the viewer from the film if prolonged.

The second story in the digest is Sonya Taaffe's "Till Human Voices Wake Us", which is a story I'd already read in her Singing Innocence and Experience collection, but it was nice seeing it again.

Last night I looked into upgrading my copy of Paint Shop Pro. I'd heard that after Corel bought the series, they'd essentially sabotaged it by simply adding increasingly bloated interfaces without actually improving any programme functions, so I installed version 8.1, the second to last version before Corel's acquisition. It runs a little slower, but I think I can manage--images do seem to look better when resized with 8. Hentai Kid recommended a programme called Gimp to me, which I'll probably try along with PhotoShop when I have more time to learn a new interface. I haven't tried using PhotoShop in years, but I remember finding it a bit clunky. Maybe it's improved.

This is one of my favourite title sequences for a movie--better than the movie itself, unfortunately;