Mars

A young friend of mine had his birthday party on Mars - well Mars 2112, a NYC restaurant to be exact. To get to the restaurant you enter what looks like a large elevator only it has seats. You sit in one of the bucket seats and the large screen in front of you turns on and shows a tape that makes it appear that you're in a spaceship that is lifting off the earth. It feels real because the "spaceship" you're sitting in vibrates and shakes. After a journey of a couple of minutes (you've gone through a few wormholes) you land on Mars. The hatch opens, you disembark (it took a minute or so for me to find my space legs) and you appear to be underground. The lights are reddish as you try to find your way through the corridors. There's a restaurant area, a bar and a game arcade plus aliens and mad scientists strolling about. I had some Cydonia Spring Rolls and a slice of chocolate mousse birthday cake. All in all it was a novel experience that I'm not likely to repeat on my own as the prices were a bit out of my usual range. At least I can say that I've been to Mars *g*.

Fire Thunder/Tampon Rant

Well it appears that Cecilia Fire Thunder has been suspended as tribal President of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and that they will now ban all abortions on the South Dakota reservation (read about it here).
There's a petition in support of her that you can sign here.
We're on the slippery slope of losing all rights to our own bodies - The Handmaid's Tale may one day be considered non-fiction.

On another gloomy note I read in today's New York Times how Washington wants Internet companies to keep records of customers' web-surfing activities ostensibly for the purpose of catching pedophiles and terrorists - yeah right. Watch out - Big Brother is coming.

On a lighter note I'm leaving you with littera_abactor's hilarious Tampon Rant. ROTFLMAO.