The only detail I remember from that night’s dream was watching CNN. Tells you what kind of hair-raising shenanigans I was up to in my unconscious that Saturday night, when friggin’ CNN was the most memorable piece of it.

The dream basically ended with me reading CNN’s ticker. The last item I saw said something along the lines of, “Fans shocked by Howard Stern’s apparent suicide”. I had just enough time to be surprised and puzzled by this news before I woke up and realized it hadn’t really happened.

The next day, Sunday, a friend was over. As we were enjoying potent coffee and putting a dent in my son’s absurdly oversized birthday cake from the day before, we were talking about the usual topics- military policy, foreign policy, non-fiction books we were reading, politics, and chicks- and CNN was on in the room. I happened to be looking at the tv when I saw the words “Howard Stern…” start to creep across the screen on the ticker, and I about fell out of my chair.

Holy shit!, I thought, did he really kill himself? Did Howard really kill himself?! And I frakking dreamed about it just a few hours before?! I’m a psychic! A precog! And how do I parlay this into a payday?

And then the rest of it came over “…weds his girlfriend in NYC”.

Ah.

Well, suicide after a fashion, I suppose.

I gave myself half-credit and a little more cake.

Two weeks to the traditional tapping of the keg and the start of the 175th Oktoberfest.

That’s THE Oktoberfest, not your local beer festival that lamely goes by the same name and serves swilly beer for a couple hours in the park while a band plays Kenny Loggins covers and most of the people around look like they’d rather be someplace else.

Bavaria, friends. Munich. Dirndls and lederhosen. Oktober-fucking-fest.

If you care to see how the world’s greatest party is shaping up, look here.

If you care to cry yourself to sleep tonight certain that you will never have that much fun, just remember to cut lengthwise down the vein, not perpendicular.

[Wik] Or, you can thank Jebus that the game Herzerljagd, advertised at the above link and which asks, “Can you see those sweet girls on your screen? Maybe you can win their hearts, but at first you have to shoot them”, doesn’t load right and is unplayable in IE.

At least, I sure hope they do.

Growing up I always enjoyed Scandinavian mythology. To be sure I read alot of Greek tales as well and I found them no less exciting, what with the crazy monsters and the brave heroes and the beastiality. But the Norse tales were, I dunno, edgier somehow. That world was battle, broadsword, and blood on the ice, a far cry from the Mediterranean climes, vineyards, and olive groves of the Greeks. I knew what deep snow and arctic chills were about; I don’t think I could have picked an olive branch out of a lineup. While the Norse tales were more challenging, due perhaps to their obscurity relative to the domination of Greco/Roman sources on subsequent publication, their telling always resonated with me in a way the Greek stuff never did. They were both fantastical, but the Norse tales will always seem more…real.

Which brings me to the Ragnarok, the final war of Gods and Men.

As best I understand the Norse cosmology, when men die they go to one of three places: Hel, a horrible place of shadow and icy mist reserved for that sorry lot who die in their sleep of old age, and from which none return; Volkvangr, Freya’s hall, for folks who died in violence but not neccessarily in glorious battle, not sure what becomes of these folks in the end; and of course Valhalla, Odin’s hall.

Valhalla was reserved for the bravest warriors who fell in battle. Odin’s servants, valkyrie, would choose the greatest of the slain (and indeed may have caused their deaths in the first place, by “fettering” or otherwise crippling the hero at the critical moment- there is seemingly some overlap between conceptions of Norse valkyrie and the Celtic Morrigan here), and wing them to Valhalla. There, the spirits of the Earth’s mightiest warriors fight by day and feast by night, training to serve under Odin’s command at the Ragnarok. And even though Fate has foretold the result and the ramifications of the final battle and the end of the universe, no party- Men, the dread Jotun (giants), or even the Gods themselves- can alter it.

So where does that leave me?

I don’t have a battle, even a metaphorical one, that would hope to qualify me for Valhalla. And I’m not going to be the guy who tries to get in, you know, by default. I’m not going to tell thousands of burly vikings that I should be included because, yeah, I didn’t fight an actual battle but I *DID* improve the database interface between IT, Advancement, and Admissions and got 5′s across the board at my last annual review because of it, which was kinda like a battle because Jean in IT is so prickly and it’s almost impossible to get a meeting with Janet in the Business Office to finalize the budget.

No sir.

My only hope is that Asgard’s army will need administrators. Maybe on some fateful day the valkyrie will come, desperately in need of a chubby douchebag administrator to help do some import and config work so Valhalla’s database can talk to Volkvangr’s, and thereby contribute to the final battle.

Because unless that’s the case, I’m probably going straight to Hel.

I was the first human explorer to set foot on Mars.

The dream began with me stepping onto the planet, so don’t ask me anything about the trip, the balance of the team, the mission objectives, or even the mode of conveyance- wasn’t there.

The surface had much more terrain excitement than is seen in actual imagery. My dream-Mars was all crushed stone, almost like a carpet of gravel with bits of bigger rock here and there. It looked like the remnants of a long-extinct glacier, or huge flood- possibly two sides of the same coin, I thought. I walked around a bit, quite satisified with my spacesuit, which was very lightweight and not at all uncomfortable; in fact, I may not have been wearing a helmet at all. In short order I found that the landing site was on a shelf, really a titanic mesa, and from the edge I looked down into a huge canyon. I could see the bottom- the ambient light was pretty good, and not nearly as red as prior missions would have you believe-and one edge, but the rest of it went off to obscurity.

That’s when I saw the hut.

Further down the mesa’s rim I saw a small structure, unmistakably an Earth-type dwelling space. I walked over, perhaps a half-mile (hard to gauge Earth distances on foreign planets, dontchaknow), and walked inside. I don’t remember there being a door. The hut enclosed a single space that mimicked my own bedroom, at least in size and the layout of the bed. Yes, the bed- there was a king-sized sleigh bed in the middle of this hut.

Then things got weird.

On the bed, just kind of hanging out, was my stepfather, who has been dead for over three years now. Or so we all thought. He explained that he had faked his death and moved to Mars to just kind of get away. You know, leave it all behind for awhile, and he wasn’t particularly excited to see me. I was trying to make sense of that when I realized there were two other people in the room. I think it was one of his brothers and his sister-in-law, neither of whom at this writing is either dead or pretending to be. They knew he had been faking, and had gone back and forth to Mars a couple times to visit.

The whole scene was making me a little uncomfortable, so I went back outside to the mesa’s edge. I looked again down into the canyon, and was thinking it would make a pretty good lake if someone filled it. After some moments of indecision, I figured I’d go back inside and try to get some more details. As I turned away from the canyon I saw movement farther down the rim. I could make out two, maybe more, figures slowly walking toward the hut opposite the place I had started, but at about the same distance. In short order I found them to be tourists from Earth, startled to see not just one but several people already there. They had paid a premium for the exclusivity of the destination, and were kinda pissed that it wasn’t quite so exclusive.

My stepfather, meanwhile, was getting kinda pissed that all of a sudden all these people had showed up uninvited at his place.

The BBC reports “Fierce fighting in Somali capital”, a “battle” complete with

…heavy artillery fire in Mogadishu. Both sides claimed to have won the battle, fought with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, inflicting high casualties on the other.

Sounds serious. And it would continue to sound serious if you didn’t read the whole piece. One side says it killed 10 enemy fighters (likely exaggerated); the other side says it killed 21 (likely exaggerated). Another four hapless souls, noncombatants, were killed in the crossfire.

So this fierce battle with heavy artillery exchanges and high casualties actually yielded under 40 dead?

I’m not trying to come across as bloodthirsty here, but I think the BBC is overstating things a bit. By which I mean a lot. I don’t have a number of casualties in mind that, once reached, we’ve left “skirmish” and are into “battle”. But if you tell me there was a fierce battle with heavy artillery and high casualties…I’m thinking Verdun and Kursk and Normandy and Inchon and Hue City and Khe Sanh. I’m thinking Mars and Marduk and the right-effing-hand of Satan. I’m not thinking of so much high-explosive posturing.

And hey not for nothing but if these clowns shoot artillery like our old friends, the Liberian infantry, handle small arms it’s no wonder these wars take 30 years to fight.

By the close of FY09, all Ministers are required to own one of these. The expectation is it will be worn at all Ministry functions, in the creation of Ministry content, and at all viking metal shows. This directive supercedes prior guidance regarding the wear of perfidious garments.

In the event of zombie attack or Ragnarok, continued wear is at Minister’s discretion.

[Wik] Of course no outfit would be complete without a matching purse.

Deutsche Welle’s picture of the day for 25JUN:

Am Mittwoch (25.06.2008) wurden in Kerbela, 80 Kilometer von Bagdad entfernt, 115 weibliche Polizisten in ihren Dienst entlassen. Sie hatten in der irakischen Stadt die Polizei-Akademie besucht.

On Wednesday in Karbala, 80 kilometers from Baghdad, 115 female police officers left for their service. They attended the Iraqi city’s police academy.

[Wik] Dig it- Murdoc found another pic from what might be the same activity. Not sure whether the chador/burqa is ideal field gear, but they seem to have it together in the weaponry department.

AKs and Glocks- like peanut butter and chocolate.

Ha ha that title ought to pull in some perv traffic from Google.

But no really, I saw a big snake today. I’m out with the Li’lest Lethal who, while strictly speaking is no longer sick, he can’t go back to school until he’s 24 hours fever-free. Since he’s feeling himself and it’s a gorgeous day out, and he’s been up since 5 waiting to do something, around 10 I took him to a nearby conservation area a coupla towns over.

Now Johno and Mrs. Johno suffered one portion of that property, a largish hill (elev ~1250 ft) that we made them ascend one hot and stuffy summer day. You might have thought that when we got to the top, where a chill rain was feeding the blustery wind tearing at the bald top of the hill it might have been a little relief from the relentless sun and heat, but no not really. Just cold. And wet. Oh, and I made Johno pull a Radio Flyer about halfway up too, over the rockiest, most jagged bits.

Where was I going with this?

Oh right, I said that next time we’ll do a circuit of the pond about a mile away from the hill. It’s easy, no surprisingly miserable local weather patterns, and it’s all very Thoreau-ly pleasant. Ha. Ha. Ha.

‘Cept for the snakes.

To be fair, it didn’t try to bite myself or my boy. We were well off the trail, skirting the edge of the pond. We were gently and cautiously squelching our way along the moss and plants where the water just starts to creep up the fairly steep and rocky slope that describes the whole southern end of the pond.

We had already spooked a few big frogs who had hurled themselves into the water with a screeching “meep!” at our approach, but the Lesser Lethal hadn’t actually seen them. I wanted him to see some though, so we kept going. It didn’t help that, being not yet 3 years old, my boy finds it impossible to stay silent for more than 3 or 4 consecutive seconds.

When there was a burst of motion from the clump of fern immediately to my right; a bit of black lightning shot from it, straight across where I was about to step, and into the water: thrush rush splash.

From what I could see it was black all down its length, roughly 30″, and probably no thicker than half my wrist. And that’s about all I got from the encounter. Oh, and that it was frigging fast. Made no effort to warn or fight; went straight into escape mode, and apparently safety to this snake means getting in the water.

I’m thinking it was a Black Racer:

or a Black Rat Snake:

[Wik] And I think it goes without saying that, had that been a zombie, we’d'a both been dead. Eh, undead. I’m trying to treat it as a lesson learned, but am still feeling like I failed. Gotta be way more alert and aware than that when the zombies come.

As the capitol of Connecticut, one might be forgiven for associating Hartford with the caricatures of liberalism: lattes, chardonnay, fundraisers at the Bushnell, and a city teeming with bleeding hearts.

That population moved out to tony West Hartford a generation ago.

The only bleeding heart left within Hartford’s city limits yesterday afternoon belonged to the 78 year old man who was paralyzed in a hit and run in full view of numerous witnesses who continued to go about their business. The link to today’s Hartford Courant includes video of the accident and the Chief of the HPD’s remark that it’s “unclear” whether anyone even called 911; the unit that arrives on scene at the end of the video was actually on its way to a different call and happened upon the guy laying (nearly) dead in the middle of the street.

Aside from the Chief’s uncharacteristically candid observations came this astonishingly callous remark from Hartford City Councilman Matt Ritter:

“It’s been a tough few days…Most violent acts, the vast majority tend to be targeted, as the chief will tell you, at someone who was up to no good. Then this happens, this spate of incidents where it’s random, and that’s scary.”

What Councilman Ritter has failed to grasp is that when the people who are up to no good are trying to off each other, their horrendous marksmanship makes for stray bullets killing everybody around the target, be they thugs, people sleeping in their beds or kids playing outside. More significantly, folks’ first reponse to small arms fire in the street is not typically, “Good! Finally! More gangbangers offing each other. Thank God.”

It’s not ok, Councilman, to have to live with rampant violence, whomever it may be directed toward.

Some other news of the day from New England’s Rising Star Scar:

Man Killed in Drive-By Shooting in Hartford

Hartford Chase Results in One Death

Activist Faces Brain Surgery After Beating

Hartford Toddler Dies of Stab Wound

And in recent news, most of it in the domain of standing headlines:

2 Men Wounded In Shootings

Hartford Police Investigate Shootings

Two Held in Hartford Robberies, Shootings

That’s all just since the end of May; summer hasn’t even started yet.

The Ministry was seemingly contacted by Bill Murray last fall at a crisis moment.

Expressed as a dream manifestation, the message- a plea for help from Murray- should have come via the Ministry Dreamgate Terminus at Muscle Shoals but appears to have been shunted to the south Asian substation in Karachi for reasons unexplained at this time. There it languished for several seconds before redirection to Byzantium Prime, Domnu-West, and Lytani, and finally going unflitered straight into my cerebral receiver. Had the communication been routed normally through MDT Muscle Shoals, I might have been able to decode, interpret, and react to it properly. As things stand, the misdirection allowed it to become garbled and the message was lost, nested in imagery of golfcarts and college reunions.

A shame, really, because it was the first oppoprtunity to deploy the Ministry’s newly-formed Bill Murray High-Energy Reaction/Interdiction Team, formed for just such an emergency.

I’ve already tasked the Directors of the dreamgates in question to investigate the ethereal messaging in the relevant timeframe. Ministers or minions who have ideas about how this could have happened are asked to comment below.

End communication.