entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Ever since my Ecuador vacation, my sleep period during weekends rarely lasts more than 5 hours; i can snooze a bit afterwards, but it's definitely not true, bona fide sleep.  This is... suboptimal.  However, one silver lining that we've found is getting up before dawn and driving over the hill to Santa Cruz to experience the sunrise on the beach, where 2wanda took some pictures, and then head to Linda's Seabreeze Cafe for breakfast, after which we drove to the next beach and Kim took some more pictures.  I took one, too:

After that, we drove back north, past San José to Mountain View, and dropped by the farmers' market, hoping to score some pork belly from TLC Ranch; they had none, alas, so we consoled ourselves with some of their excellent bacon.  On the way out, there were volunteers registering people to vote, so i took the opportunity to cease being a registered Republican and once again join the glorious ranks of the Scorched Earth Party.  The volunteer who reviewed my form laughed when she saw my party declaration, and also when i said, "Join the 10% with the lead pipes!" but Kim thought she looked nervous, so i dunno.

The good news is that my soccer team won our division again.  The bad news is that we got kicked up to the next division and have since lost our first two games, the second one badly to a team that was superior in every way.  The ugly news is that i took a shoulder to the ribs while clearing an incoming pass.  This is the latest in a series of dings: got kneed in the back three weeks ago, which flared up after the game two weeks ago; and a week after this, i got kicked in the shin right below the knee with the edge of the shoe which caused a huge hematoma...

There's still a bit of residual swelling and numbness.  But, hey, i love the game...

I suddenly remembered today that i saw a picture of U2 with their fathers some years ago and that i really liked it a lot.  So i asked Google and it found the picture right away.

The Prime Minister of Silly Walks and the Michelin Man lead Canada into the Third Millennium

If i told you that a bunch of Christians prayed in front of a golden bullock for money, you'd think i was just being a bigoted asshole, right?

Thanks to Joe Bay for the link.

Via Zed at meme_machine_go, a series of photographs of sand under magnification.

I sure hope i don't have a case of the Mondays tomorrow.

The source picture for my new icon was first printed in ESPN Magazine.  If you can't read the caption, it says, "It's a scene befitting Wes Craven: Pepperdine's Jason Walberg turning BYU's Johnathan Tavernari into a human bowling ball.  Tavernari got the shot off, but missed.  More to the point, no foul was called.  Amazingly, Tavernari never lost his focus.  In the second half, he drained back-to-back threes in an 86-67 BYU win.  The Cougars now own the longest home winning streak (37) in the nation.  Keep an eye on them.  Or two." Photo credit: Chris Detrick, The Salt Lake Tribune