The Hidden Testament.

"He lived with regret at his own table– for his own sake have mercy upon him."

---Tolstoyish

The universe surrounds us with its laws and notions, and in many cases it takes a clever and discerning mind to tease Nature's ways out into the light where they can be clearly seen.

Perhaps there exists in potentia the Greatest Book, the Ultimate Bible, the Definitive Word the way that the fabulous kingdom of Amber hides within its endless reflected and distorted images.

Hidden deep within the enormous library of possible books, then could be the ur-Book. What can not be found by logic might be stumbled upon by oracles, and as such, the algorithmic  genii may as yet prove fruitful.

"The book had produced. Night was disturbed by the words to avert the latter, and hope, I not suppose, the pathless seas, and from my solitary isle like abhorred."

--Schmipsum

Of course, this is just a expansion of my favorite hobby. Considering the Doc Savage Canon as if it is reflections of real events is walking the thin edge of paranoia and conspiracy. I always feel the classic example of this is the Holy Blood/Holy Grail madness, crowned by Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum*  Its a hobby that is given an extra thrill by the possibility that at some point  I will become convinced by my own research that Clark Savage was real, and at that point will become irretrievably mad.

The Insane Gods of Chaos are sprung, like all Gods, from our foreheads, after all. Using software Markov Generators and Completion Anticipators ups the game, improves the  mirror we gesticulate in front of.

 Now its time to start running these programs upon the Canon, and see if we can shake out new adventures from the echos of the Ultimate Book.

"I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust within the rock."

 --Edgar Allen Poe

*Proving yet again that a intelligent academic can exceed any madman's excesses.

"Your 'Right' or my 'Right'"

I've  had these days, although it usually does not require beer to bring one on:

The strip is from the Whiteboard, of course, and is the only webcomic I've read that the mad scientist is

• 1: A talking polar bear, and

• 2: Not the main focus of the story.

I never would have thought that paintball would be a more important plot element than Mad Science, but as Mrs. Cosmopolite would say,  It takes all kinds.

Assignment (word starting in T)

Los Monstruos del Terror, AKA Dracula vs Frankenstein AKA Assignment Terror*
is a disappointment. Audacious premise, promising opening. A good laboratory** and a lunatic plot.
Its unfortunately spoiled by being:
~Third part of a trilogy, assuming you've seen them all, which I have not;
~Wooden Acting and dialog ...but not wooden enough to be any good;
~An obsession with strapping girls into the Chair of Torment, and then spending more time monologing than tormenting. The Chair of Torment was nowhere near as cool as the Wheel of Torment in Deathstalker IV, and fades in comparison to the finest example in cinema: the Machine from Princess Bride.

" Beautiful isn't it? It took me half a lifetime to invent it. I'm sure you've discovered my deep and abiding interest in pain. Presently I'm writing the definitive work on the subject, so I want you to be totally honest with me on how the machine makes you feel. This being our first try, I'll use the lowest setting...As you know, the concept of the suction pump is centuries old. Really that's all this is except that instead of sucking water, I'm sucking life... I've just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don't know what that would do to you. So, let's just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?" -- Count Rugen

This film needed way more than thirty seconds of gogo dancers to rescue it, but I did like the idea of the Book of Monsters.

*Probably should have been called Assignment Terrible.

**European film makers usually get the set details right.