11/4/07
There's only one thing that's cooler than a Green Lantern Optimus Prime.

A horse-ape.

Cool thing is that once upon a time there really were horse apes. Chalicotheres lived in the mid to late Eocene epoch then went extinct due to climate change.

Five years ago I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I thought the story was quite good back in the day. Recently I began rereading Gaiman's tale only to realize certain points were annoying and eminently skippable and that certain bits are just a bit too long and self-indulgent.

The skippable parts? At the end of most chapters there's a "Coming to America" vignette about various low-level supernaturals working day jobs in the mortal world or simply side-stories for minor yet pivotal characters featured in American Gods. The gay sex tryst between the efreet and the Arab salesman was just dumb. A story regarding Mr. Ibis starting out with a Nazi deathcamp somehow became segued into the unfortunate tale of the African slave trade. I reread this bit three times trying to find the changeover to no avail.

Fortunately for Mr. Gaiman the long, self-indulgent bits really don't stick out like a sore thumb. What does come to mind are the allegedly folksy slice of life bits in Wisconsin. Gaiman lives in Wisconsin and when I read about the novel's protagonist Shadow driving around on a wintery day eating a pasty I don't imagine it being Shadow but something Gaiman found himself doing and decided to pad out a novel with it.

Standard time has returned to 98% of the Republic of the United States of America.

Daylight savings time is fucking nonsense. Moreso with Bushlight savings time.

Fuck Ben Franklin. Fuck William Willett. Want more sunlight? Get up an hour earlier and don't force your idiocy on the rest of the world.