Utterly random points

So, I thought the barbecue sauce guy was weird, but he has possibly been surpassed by the eggbeater bandit.
New Walter Jon Williams books are automatic buys in this house (as you know if you’ve been reading for a while), and now he’s not just selling me his books, he’s putting anime on my Ziplist.
I may have mentioned that I’m dreading Miller’s movie adaptation of The Spirit. Part of the dread comes from my usual issue with adaptations of things I enjoy in their original form, and part of it comes from how incredibly wrong the promotional campaign makes the adaptation look. However, having now looked at a number of clips from the film I can base my dread on actual fact. Oh, the movie that could have been.
“The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.” That’s Gibbon talking about Rome in the big book. Obviously religion as a useful mode of social control is an old, old story.
Man, I should totally have Christmas cards printed up with this image, just to send to born-again relatives.