I really hate the fact that livejournal does not provide visitor logs. I am very interested in my readership, but too lazy to put up some tracker pixels. Well, I have been looking at the image logs and found some very interesting things.

For instance, it appears that my photography has a very broad appeal. This "Sara Beth" blogger who used this blackout photo I took (without giving me any credit) appears to be a fan of Ayn Rand.

Sara Beth, Ayn highly disapproved of using copyrighted material without giving credit of any sort.

But then there's "El Chupacabra" who posted this image (also with no credit to me) in the Ozzfest 2004 section over at siN's Metal Forums with this heartwarming quote: "Each time I look at that Incubus pick, the metal is just sucked out of me. lol"
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This could be a good photo cover for Atlas Shrugged, but instead it turns on Ozzy fans. Go figure.

In case you missed them, blackout photos are here and here.

Hmm, I think I should try to sell at leas one of my photos to a respectable publication of some sort. I wonder what it takes to do that. Hmmm, maybe I should invest in this.

Wow, it turns out that not only the inter-net, but also newspapers can be a source of information about edible parasitic fungi. I found this Reuters article rehashed in the pages of the Fair and Balanced newspaper.

Basically there's this fungus called Cordyceps sinensis. Its spores infect caterpillars of Hepilus fabricius moth. These spores grow inside the caterpillar's body, killing it. Once the dirty deed is done, a mushroom stalk grows out of the caterpillar and releases spores to infect new caterpillars.

Chinese have been using dried and ground up infected caterpillars as an ingredient in medicinal tonics since ancient times. But only when the Chinese track and field team won the World Championship in 1993 and their coach claimed that caterpillar eating was a factor, everybody started paying attention:

"The record Wang is referring to is among the most controversial in athletics history, the 10,000 metres mark of 29min 31.78sec she set in 1993 and her coach Ma Junren claimed was down to a diet of turtle blood and caterpillar fungus. "

I don't know about turtle blood, but I am totally paying a visit to a herbalist on Avenue U for some caterpillar-fungus things. There are some very cool Chinese herbalist shops there with whole walls of medicine drawers like the ones that spider-like boiler man Kamaji had in Spirited Away.

Isn't it nice to be able to pre-order a book being very certain that it's going to rock?

Sight unseen I pre-ordered John C Wright's The Last Guardian of Everness and Jeff Rowland's "WIGU Volume Two : The Luckiest Boy In The World". I recommend that you do the same.

The new userpic is by Jeff Rowland by the way.