The moon in your cup

I think OnLatte might have the best idea of all for consumable lunar art. The idea is to imprint a picture of the full moon on top of your latte, and as you drink it down, the eclipse would advance.

previously

First person vocation processing

Saint Francis of Assisi and his Stigmata,
originally uploaded by Leo Cloma.

If the United States Army can devise a video game for recruiting, couldn't the Catholic Church with her priest shortage do something similar?

I picture a first-person preacher where you travel through Assisi and environs and experience both cruel oppression and sublime ecstasy, with your spiritual score updated based on your actions. I think the Stigmata scene would have to be unlocked only after you have progressed to a pretty high level so that it would be especially meaningful.

That might serve well to boost interest in the OFM, but how about the rank and file diocesan clergy ranks? I think in this case one could rework the classic book by Georges Bernanos Diary of a Country Priest struggling with the day-to-day challenges of leading his flock, only giving it a little bit of action and flash, to appeal to the younger set. Perhaps you could choose a setting which isn't provincial France of the 1930s and instead pick an inner city parish where the parishioners (and the unchurched) would have a somewhat different outlook on life.

To incorporate more exotic locales, one could turn to the lives of the missionaries. But one would have to have a certain degree of cross-cultural sensitivity to avoid offense.

Memory aid 2008

quipu,
originally uploaded by mobebu.

The Incans invented a method of keeping accounts using the number and placement of knots on a bundle of cords called a quipu. It provided the user a flexible and durable way of keeping a tally of one's flocks, crops, or houses.

Losers interviews with the Gods

The rolls are closed now, with only seven winners ("Earth" not being a god-name, strictly speaking, and Pluto having been cast out into the darkness). What would be the reaction of the divine also-rans, I wondered?

Apollo	So sister Venus gets a great big cloudy inner planet and I get nothing? Except for that spacecraft that nobody under thirty even heard about? It's not as if I didn't have enough classical hexameters to my name, all told, to establish me as a cut above the minor gods (Mercury, I'm looking at you).
Ceres	You know, NASA, General Mills and Post would have been happy to fund a mission to visit me. I'd have liked one which had some definite signs of vegetation, though, so maybe I could be slotted in for the next Earthlike extrasolar planet, hmm?
Diana	Blatant anti-butch bias. Yeah, you heard me. And I do not want to hear about how Earth's Moon is really mine, that really is pretty much a load of bull and everyone knows it.
Juno	First off, I've about had it with that movie, so you don't have to think up anything funny to say. Hubby mine dearest is up there in his massiveness, surrounded by all his precious little trollops to boot, am I right? And for me, they set aside a little bit of rock? Not good enough! Mark my words, I'll have you all saying that it really was not good enough!
Minerva	I figured I had those scientists in my pocket, being all about learning and all, not to mention the Classicists (Athens, anyone?), but I guess the kind of wisdom I specialize in doesn't work when it comes up to dumbasses. They might have thought to associate my alter ego with something other than some runner-up in the asteroid belt - that, to me, is just insulting.
Vesta	The way I see it, people were just scared that if there were a planet, there might someday be a colony, and if there were a colony, the settlers would be known by everyone else as "Vestal Virgins." Alls I want to know is, what's so bad about being a virgin? It's not as if everyone didn't start out that way. Besides, the little dinky stone they gave me, that might have a colony too, so you're not off the hook.
Vulcan	I am the one who like invented technology, without which your society would be in a pretty mess, I should point out. I could have had all these moons with metallic names, and geek-themed craters, and nobody else could rock a volcano like me. They shoulda let Gene Roddenberry have some say in things, you know what I mean?
Bacchus	Aw, hell with it. How 'bout a tall frosty one?

SQL nerd alert

Drop,
originally uploaded by mag3737.

It's Mr. DROP TABLE;