Psychological shrapnel?

Rather than inputing new data into my neural nets this morning, I have just been bombarding them with high explosives and virulent toxins.

I've been reading Cheap Complex Devices and am now going back to watch Chapter 18 of Broken Saints. And then I'll read some more of the "Notes on the Source Code" .. And watch Chapter 19.

And maybe my neural nets will sublime¹ and drift languidly out of my nasal and oral orifices at that point.

CCD, ostensibly a collection of short stories, is in some way related to John Sundmans's novel Acts of the Apostles. (Mind you it's no way I could explain, briefly or at all, so there are no spoilers here.) I've talked about Acts here before. So, briefly, it's a fun little hackerish novel with a good thriller plot line and some very interesting memes about the world. You should read it. I have a single paperback copy that is up for grabs. And, now both books are available in PDF format on the author's website: http://www.wetmachine.com/

CCD is a complete mindfuck, in a slim package (harsher than RAW's Schroedinger's Cat, and much more sharp,pointy,barbed than any Vonnegut I can recall). I don't recommend it as light reading, and I'm not sure I recommend you read it at all. It's very cynical in places, will offend almost everyone at some point along the way, is quite hard to follow except when it's impossible to follow. You will definitely need to read Acts first before you try it. It may prove enlightening, however..

Broken Saints is actually deserving of a simillar recommendation, (mindfuck, offensive to all, enlightening, etc) except that it flows wonderfully, dragging you along even when you don't know wtf is going on. Plot, character development and exposition happen slowly but quite steadily. There are cameos and in-jokes galore. http://brokensaints.com (if you missed it the first 5 times).

¹: sublime, vi: to shift from solid to gaseous form directly. Not to be confused with either Sublime (a defunct pop music group of dubious value) or Evanesence (a current pop music group of dubious value which needs the Aqua-Audacity treatment (ie quick and dirty track edit to remove annoying male vocalist from otherwise catchy mildly irritating pop music)

And Happy Beltaine, all!

Dear God

"Dear God" by XTC (and covered by .. everyone)

Dear God, hope you got the letter, and...
I pray you can make it better down here.
I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer
but all the people that you made in your image,
see them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get
enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard
loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God,
I can't believe in you

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make
mankind after we made you? And the devil too!

Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on
a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you
should take a look, and all the people that you made in your
image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and
so do you, dear God, I can't believe in

I don't believe in, I won't believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners, no devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you
drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the
whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon
my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in
it's you... Dear God.

tried to clean up the formating some, suggestions welcome
provoked in part by vidicon's entry early Beltaine morning