Interesting article today on UFO Digest (as if anything posted on a web site so nonchalantly titled as that could be UNinteresting) about the search for the Con Rit - a gigantic sea monster of a centipede supposedly roaming the oceans.

Throughout the ages there have been numerous sightings of Con Rit, and one such encounter was in 1899 when the crew of the HMS Narcissus spotted a giant creature near Cape Falcon in Algeria: The sailors reported sighting a sea monster that possessed an immense number of fins, and measured about 45 metres (150 feet) in length. The creature propelled itself forward with its fins with enough speed to keep pace with the ship. In all the sailors were able to observe it for about half an hour. Some sixteen years before the Cape Falcon sighting, in 1883, it is alleged that the headless corpse of a Con Rit was washed ashore in Hongay, Vietnam. Eyewitness Tran Van Con claimed the carcass to be 18 metres (60 feet) long by one metre (3 feet) wide and covered in 60cm hexagonal armoured segments throughout its length. The creature was dark brown above and yellow on its underside, and when he touched it, it sounded metallic, much like the sound produced when tapping a horseshoe crab shell.

Still not exactly sure what a giant sea centipede has to do with UFOs but hey! I mean, they already have Mantis Aliens so why not giant sea centipede aliens?

Does a fossil of a trilobite squished by a shod human foot cast doubt on the generally accepted timeline of human history? Maybe all those nutty Christian assholes are onto something with their whole “OMG DINOSAURS REALLY DID CO-EXIST!!!!” jargon.

So this summer, I took some time off to go on tour, which was of course an interesting experience, to say the least. Among the more compelling things to happen during this tour was a dream I had after one of the last stops on the tour at the Granada Theater in Lawrence, KS (which was, probably not coincidentally, one of the drunkest stops of the tour as well). In this dream, I somehow had figured out that consciousness was nothing more than a signal being beamed into our brains, brains that acted as nothing more than satellite receivers or perhaps more fittingly, TV sets, taking this signal and playing it out on the screen that is “reality.” Although I have had many bizarre dreams in my day, this particular dream seemed particularly epiphanic, but I didn’t really think a whole lot about it since I was A) hungover as F B) riding in a van for 10 hours to Omaha and C) not really sure exactly what I was supposed to with this new “knowledge” or who I was supposed to share it with or whatever. So I just kind of forgot about it .

UNTIL TODAY, when I read this chapter today from Your Eternal Self, the forthcoming book from R. Craig Hogan. Among the enjoyable insights provided, is this nugget provided by a Reuters interview with British physician Dr. San Parnia:

He speculated that human consciousness may work independently of the brain, using the gray matter as a mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a television set translates waves in the air into picture and sound.

Reading this, as well as the rest of the chapter (which I recommend if you have the time) made me remember this aforementioned dream, which I had totally forgot about until now. Though this by itself is pretty cool, there is yet another coincidental fact making it seem, IDK….SPOOKY. This coincidence is: the night that I had this dream, the show we were playing was being filmed by a camera crew for inclusion on the deluxe edition of Emery’s new CD, I’m Only a Man, which (drumroll)……….CAME OUT TODAY!!!1 I mean, I’m not saying I’m just saying. Actually what I’m really saying is, read Chapter 2 of Your Eternal Self, then go down to Best Buy and get the deluxe edition of the new Emery record. Then maybe the secrets of the Universe will be revealed to you as well. Goodnight and Good luck.

Six people have died from brain-eating amoebas that call warm, shallow lake water home. It enters the body through the nose and then attacks the brain, eating away at the cells until the victim dies. The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, killed 23 people from 1995-2004 and has only infected several hundred people worldwide since 1960.

The sudden spike in cases may be due to warmer water temperatures around the US due to global warming.

Just what I need, another reason not to go swimming in open water anywhere.

So last night I was trying to explain to Surrogate frontman Chris Keene over some cans of Schlitz the part in the Eagles’ “Hotel California” where , if you play it backwards, it talks about Satan organizing his own religion and about how on the inside cover of the LP, Anton Lavey can be seen kicking back looking all satanic and shit. But his dubiousness made me doubt my conviction on this matter. After all, my original research on this matter was conducted in the pre-internet dark ages, sitting in my bedroom, stoned off my fucking ass, playing my dad’s LP backwards on my turntable with my finger and tripping out hella. But that was, 10, maybe 11 years ago. Maybe I had just made it all up. So I made it my quest, my mission for the day, to get to the bottom of this shit for once and for all, or at least for once.

First off, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just making it all up like I have a habit of doing sometimes. Thankfully some French dude was cool enough to put up a YouTube clip of the part of the song that played backwards talks a bunch of dark shit. It’s in the second verse,where Don Henley sings “There were voices down that corridor/I thought I heard them say.” Played backwards, this part says, rather clearly (at least for backward shit) “Satan, oh he came, and organized his own religion / Yeah when he knows he shouldn’t” I mean, whether or not this is just an aural coincidence or not was still to be determined, but no one can say that it’s not a little bit creepy, than randomly some words backwards sound a lot like a meaningful sentence, and not just a meaningful sentence, but a sentence about some super satanic ass shit?

Next I needed to determine if the face in the crowd on the inside gatefold of the record was indeed good ol’ Anton or just some other random. I figured the logical first step to this would be to find the actual image online and look at it again for good measure (since my copy of the record is still in Dad’s closet where I originally found it way back when). Strangely enough, the best I could find is a distant blurry shot on someone’s eBay auction. Apparently the group shot only appeared in the original vinyl artwork, and not on subsequent CD versions. So you’ll just have to take my word for it (or got get a copy of the record) that in the windows in the top left is a super creepy dude kind of peering out of the shadows, which many people believe is Anton Lavey himself. Eagle’s guitarist Joe Walsh, however, has denied this saying:

Absolutely not. Any reference to Satan or anything like that is completely in the eyes of whoever is thinking that. That’s a reflection of how sick they are. The guy in the window is one of the Elektra/Asylum publicity guys. The lighting just happened to be bad and he was really shy, so he was just peeking around the corner.

Which would seem pretty open and shut, one would think. However, the guy who actually shot the photo, John Kosh who was Art Director for the album had this to say about the photo:

Kosh eagerly confirms that there is a mysterious figure on the balcony, visible only on the LP version. “I assume he’s a friendly spirit, because we got the picture and it worked!” says Kosh, laughing. “If he is of the spirit world — which I doubt — he’s benign, so it’s fine by me.”

Overall, the band has repeatedly and adamantly denied any dark overtones to the song, documented pretty extensively here. But of course, if I was still getting paid out major dough in royalties and licenses on a song I’d hesitate to confirm its satanic subject matter too. All I’m saying is this is some weird shit. For more fun with backwards shit about Satan in rock songs, check out this site.

Ah the American Dream, to have an expansive green lawn! To have flowing fields of bountiful crops! Why, there couldn’t possibly be a downside to this, could there?

A new study shows that fertilizers from farms and lawns are responsible for frog deformities cropping up in ponds and lakes across North America. The finding not only has implications for worldwide amphibian declines, but could shine light on such diseases as cholera, malaria, West Nile virus and diseases affecting coral reefs.

To the future!!!!!!!!!1