• Mood: overcommitted and overstuffed
• Music: kingfish pies - midlake

oddities, a scanner darkly, giant robots!

On the bus into work today I sat next to a girl with an ant on her leg. Up and down her tanned thigh it crawled, occasionally ducking under her flirty white skirt. She seemed not to notice it at all, but then she was also sitting on a bus seat in a miniskirt, which argues insensitivity of the thigh. Or perhaps I was hallucinating. Or perhaps she was actually a colony of ants inhabiting a pretty girl suit for dark, insectile reasons known only to the nest.

While we're speaking of such things, A Scanner Darkly is extremely good (and actually showing at sensible times at the Phoenix, for a change). The weird semi-animation is alienating and unsettling, the Thom Yorke score twitchy and pervasive, the plot is a drug-hazed tangle of twists, recordings and digressions, half the characters don't know who anyone else is -- and the other half don't know who they are. All in all, classic (Philip K) Dick -- especially the scramble-suits.

Another odd moment in the local electronics store: as I was grumbling at the selection of headphones on offer, a small plastic plane shot out from behind a shop fixture, rolling along the floor. It's not very often that your brain yells "MOUSE! No, plane..."

Oh, there are some robots for juggzy and timscience over in my userpic gallery. From the picture below, back (Last? previous?) will take you to user-icon sized pictures, and forward (next?) will give you large-size ones with funny diagrams and groovy retro styling. [Rant about LJ's scrapbook function deleted.] As ever, other people may scarf them, but please DON'T credit me.