mocking my taste in music

As a pleasant lead up to our local production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead that Beth is organizing, I’ve found Hamlet as a text based adventure game:

It’s so unfair! You’re in trouble again, just because you called your uncle – or rather, your new stepfather, Claudius – a usurping git. It’s true, though. Your real dad was SO much better than that guy. Too bad he was found mysteriously dead in the orchard a couple of weeks back. Anyway, your mother (who was, incidentally, looking quite something today in a sparse leather number, er…) sent you to your room, and here you are.

Bedroom
You are in your luxurious palatial boudoir, all of ten feet square. There is a four-poster bed, and not much else. A portrait hangs on the wall. An exit leads north.

Also found on the internet today, Soviet space monkey pants for sale on eBay and a gallery of vintage toy rayguns, (I remember playing with number 70 once. The frontispiece was that strange dry metal that reminds me of badly melted tin.). The news is less futurist and more dystopian. In addition to the unrelenting Katrina clusterfuck, there’s loyalist riots in Belfast and Typhoon Khanun flattened 20,000 houses, and destroyed large swathes of crops, industrial units and infrastructure in Zhejiang province. This puts my wake-up “we’re going to cut off your electricity” phone-call in a bit of perspective. I may be too broke for reliable groceries, but at least I’m not swimming to the store.

However, if I had a dime to spare, I would support Planned Parenthood, Philadelphia, in a heartbeat. They’ve come up with a rather choice way to deal with protesters called Pledge-a-Picket. (Click on the link to take part.)

Every time protesters gather outside of our Locust Street health center, our patients face verbal attacks from them. They see graphic signs meant to confuse and intimidate. They are sometimes blocked from entering the building and occasionally they are videotaped. They are offered anti-choice propaganda and free rides to the closest “crisis pregnancy center.”

Staff and volunteers are also seen as targets. We are all called murderers, are lectured to about committing sins, and are told we will pay the “ultimate price” for our actions.

You can stand with others in the community against these acts of intimidation and harassment.

Here’s how it works: You decide on the amount you would like to pledge for each protester (minimum 10 cents). When protesters show up on our sidewalks, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania will count and record their number each day from October 1 through November 30, 2005. We will place a sign outside the health center that tracks pledges and makes protesters fully aware that their actions are benefiting PPSP. At the end of the two-month campaign, we will send you an update on protest activities and a pledge reminder.