Tomorrow is Australia Day, the day when we celebrate the arrival of Europeans on the Australian continent, in a flotilla of eleven rickety boats now forever known as the First Fleet. This fleet is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, on a voyage of 252 days, in 1788, only forty-eight people died on the journey*, thus making the first crop of euro-australians some of the hardest, sturdiest bastards ever to cross an ocean in chains. Think about it. You wouldn't survive that long in an 18th century dinghy now, would you?
So anyway, this being the case I'm spending my evening productively. Meaning of course I'll be whiling away the evening in idle pursuits, such as feeding wasabi peas to the dogs when Esther isn't looking, rearranging the CDs and books so I can no longer find anything, listening to the Non-Prophets and more generally, spending the hours in sloth and indolence. Specifically that means beer at left hand, mouse at right, and the Rotten Library on the screen.
Now, some of you may know Rotten as, simply, the web's prototypical shock site, and yes, there is that. But if you only see the front page, you're missing out. Deeper inside, where casual readers fear to tread, is some excellently dismissive and acerbic writing with well-researched and always-surprising essays richly interlinked into a web in which it's very easy to get lost, die and become mummified.
I cruise by Daily Rotten occasionally, and it always pleases me when I discover something new in the Rotten Library. For instance, some education new articles showed up tonight. For instance, I was previously unaware of TGN1412, of the origins of Hollow Earth Theories, and of Wonder Showzen. Now, of course, I'm fully informed.
Noone can say I don't spend my evenings productively. Now go away, I'm busy.
p.s. Ain't that the truth?
* according to some sources, documentation is flaky