The war on guerilla art has begun. Banksy, that great and mysterious Bristolian, is leading the resistance.

Really read the articles linked above — the emergency box at Santa’s Ghetto is genius.

In elder days, when þe earþ was young, when everyone talked like Shakespeare, and þe English language was not yet spread þroughout þe world, the alphabet extended beyond the twenty-sixþ letter. Þere was once anoþer letter, named ‘þorn’.  Þorn originally stood where þe letters ‘t’ and ‘h’ now substitute in combination; and doing a much more satisfactory job þan þat untoward twosome. An insightful guy by the name of Alex Peak is advocating þorn’s resurrection — and I raþer agree . . . þough þe possible confusion resulting from ‘þ’s similarities to ‘b’ and ‘p’ could be, at times, awkward.

“But Mr. Andrea Bocelli, does Elmo have to?”

Despite what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have us believe about Professor James Moriarty’s height-induced demise, he’s still apparently alive and well today.  And teaching at a college near you!

And what’s more, the evil brainiac of Dynamics of an Asteroid fame is well-liked by his students.

And what’s more than that: there’s two of him!

Staple-style.

That famous bit of amatuer piano showmanship, ‘Heart and Soul’, appears to be nearly universally derided.  Seems far too many people have heard the song far too often, and played far too poorly.  Except me.  I still like it.

Perhaps because I’m the one a-playin’.

But whether or no, I discovered something rather interesting lately — originally, ‘Heart and Soul’ was not the simple beginner piece it is today.  In fact, if you look at the original score, you’ll see that it’s really rather difficult, with a bunch of very complex chords; maybe even more deserving of being split between two pianists, than the usual rendition.  And the familiar melody doesn’t come into play till nearly the very end: though that’s still the best part.  Take that, you elitists!

I find beverage slapstick a good deal funnier than the Three Stooges’ hammer-and-2×4 style — all the fun without the serious injury (Garbloop!  My Keirsey Temperament rises to the surface).

Note: you’re best off not trying to imbibe a beverage of your own while watching this.

In 1903, a doctor by the name of Walter Kidd (not the Scottish pro-soccer/football-player) wrote an unusual sort of book, the like of which the world has probably never seen before or since.  A book entitled The Direction of Hair in Animals and Man, about . . . just that.

As he admits in the introduction,

No doubt many of the phenomena here described are intrinsically uninteresting and unimportant.

Unless, of course, you’re planning on one-upping Dr. Frankenstein by creating a musk-ox from scratch.  In which case, you can read the whole thing online!

Also, yesterday (or does it count as today?  2 AM is an ambiguous time to classify), after seven hundred and twenty-six digital deaths over the course of the summer, on the 727th descent into the caverns, I completed Spelunky!

What’s that, you ask?  A devilishly difficult cavern-exploration/gold-collecting/troglodyte-killing/trying-to-stay-alive game, that is in a way a homage to both Indiana Jones and NetHack (which, incidentally, homages Indy itself).  With randomly generated levels, bullwhips, well-armed shopkeepers, golden heads that defy abduction, and permanent death, Spelunky‘s a blast — but hard!

I think I can truthfully (and mostly unashamedly) say that this is my second-greatest accomplishment of 2009.

(Oh, and I see Spelunky also apparently is modeled on a game called La-Mulana, which in turn is a tribute to the games that ran on MSX computers in the Greatest Decade.  Hmm, I’ll have to look into this . . .)

To me!  . . . Yesterday.  (And Smokey Bear, the day before that!)

I decided I’d celebrate in the good ol’ Hobbit tradition, of giving gifts to other folk rather than the other way around. And in looking for ideas, I came across the Hobbit Happy Birthday website: a green little corner of the web with party suggestions and music by the Brobdingnagian Bards.

And I gotta say, this inverse gifting is great.  For as a wise little boy once said:

It is more blessed to give than to receive, for the givers do not have to write thank-you cards.