Selling the Star Bridge

Twitter Sonnet #188

Money snubs the fake plywood checkout stand.
Deceptive bottle sizes multiply.
Bones swim in creeks of dry fantasy sand.
There's more skeletons than x-rays imply.
Nets of dead leaf sun shields smother the pores.
Newsprint melts between tiles of hard ink.
Scribes constantly scribbled Saxon high scores.
Norman noobs took too long trying to think.
Colourless wrinkles delouse a smile.
Bland eyes float on rivers of a spiked punch.
Horses contend with a haystack's guile.
Gentle tarantula hairs rigged by bunch.
Border flax fibres make false flora weight.
Wool stocking force fields cause static stalemate.

I was glad to learn to-day Comic-Con's staying in San Diego for at least five more years. Until to-day, I thought 2011 was going to be the last year, and that I was going to have to decide whether I wanted to contend with an L.A. Con. I'm pretty sure I'll be living on another planet five years from now, so I'm set.

When I saw the headline a couple days ago "Earth-like Planet Found!" all over the place, I didn't bother reading the story because some little bullshit antenna on me knew right away this was an overstatement. That when I finally read an article, I knew it was going to be something like, "Now, when we say 'Earth-like', er, we mean . . . round, big . . . and in space."

And sure enough, this "Earth-like planet" "has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere." And, "The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side."

Yeah. Next time you say "Earth-like planet", it'd better be somewhere our descendants can live and wear shimmering pink togas while tragically repeating the follies of the Roman Empire but with lasers.

I played lots of World of Warcraft at Tim's house last night, getting my human rogue, Galatea, to level 49 in Burning Steppes. Then I came home and lost four games of chess before getting a stalemate on one. It was ridiculous--I had a Rook, a Knight, and five pawns against his King, Rook, and two pawns, but because I just couldn't figure out how to corner him, I whittled things down to my King and one pawn versus his King. Then I pinned myself with my own pawn, trying to promote it. I really am my own worst opponent.