Barnacles!

Yesterday there was a story posted on the website for one of the local news channels about the whale that stranded on a local beach and had to be euthanized. Originally, when posted, the first sentence read: New information has been released regarding the sperm whale that came into the mouth of Tampa Bay over the weekend. Do you suppose that was intentional? The story has since been...altered...for less innuendo. I believe I actually saw that whale in the bay last weekend while crossing the big southbound bridge on the way to visit my parents. I remember something large, gray and not quite boat-like going under the span but not emerging on the other side. I barely even registered it at the time, except to think that it wasn't a boat and way too large to be an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. The whale was apparently old and in poor health, which is why it was euthanized after it had beached. These are the kinds of things that make the news here. Well, that and temperatures dipping to a sub-arctic 32 degrees. It's warming up now, so there is great rejoicing and thawing of extremities.

I had a massive squee moment earlier today after reading that Good Omens might make it to the big screen - FINALLY! According to the insane genius Terry Gilliam: "I'm the only one who can make it, because that's what Neil (Gaiman) and Terry (Pratchett) have said. I'm the only one." And yes - I know this project has been off and on countless times. But I have hope! As a bonus, the article also mentions Gilliam's Don Quixote-themed project (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) that would ideally star Johnny Depp, which I think would pique the interest of a certain Depp fangirl I happen to know. Plus, Neil Gaiman's children's story Coraline has been adapted into an animated film that is set to be released at some point this year (and features the voices of Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French from Absolutely Fabulous!). According to the IMDB page for the film, Gaiman supposedly has stated publicly that the soundtrack would be performed by They Might Be Giants. There is not enough server space on Blogger to handle the amount of exclamation points I wanted to place after that last sentence, so for the sake of the integrity of the whole internet I will just have to contain my excitement.

On a related note, I went to the bookstore this morning with my pockets bursting with the promise of unspent holiday giftcards. I came away with a Koontz paperback in the Odd Thomas series that will get me through the weekend (because it's like junkfood for the brain, see?), another collection of Gaiman's short stories, and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco, which was discounted to less than six dollars and then had 25% off of that, so was a bargain that could not be passed up. All that and I still have one giftcard. I was pretty late for work - get me in a bookstore of any kind and I lose all track of time - but everyone's still on holiday break time (the ones who were there, anyway), so it didn't seem to matter much. Little much does these days, I get the feeling...

Man, the things one finds on the internet:



For whatever reason, I crave calamari right now. I don't know if I'll still feel this way tomorrow, but I think I may have to think about that for lunch. After all, you know how I feel about cephalolpods...