From left to right that's Gretchen (a girl from Chicago who wanted to be in the picture), Michael Mullen, Ronan Carroll, and me looking like I'm constipated or something. I think I was worried about my dad's ability to use a digital camera (he usually messes up somehow) and the batteries in my camera dying as we posed.  

Here's a decent shot of Slainte Mhath performing on the Celtic Rock stage. 

This is a nice group shot I got of Tempest performing at the Celtic Rock stage. I have a great deal of pictures, but I'll spare those with weak modems (like me). 

This is the fantastic traditional Irish band, Teada. They're performing in the "pub" (actually a tent with a bar). 

It's been a while since I've done anything resembling a proper update, so I thought I'd post a little something before I went to bed.

First, do you love bees? At ilovebees.com you'll be introduced to depths of brain-wracking questions and queries - much of them about artificial intelligence and the identities of such characters as the Operator, the Queen, the Spider, the Flea, and the Sleeping Princess. (For the record, I don't believe the Operator and the Queen are the same character.) The whole thing can be confusing, so you might want to check a few guides: here's a wiki about the whole thing, and here's a quite in-depth guide, though it seems to be about a week behind. Here's a quickstart site for you.

I adore that site, it's incredibly spooky and intriguing. It's essentially an ARG (which would be Alternate Reality Game), much like Majestic was. But without the fees. You can email (or call) certain key figures, though.

In other news: I finished my novel yesterday. It stands at 281 pages and around 80, 662 words.

I bought the first DVD of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. This couples in an interesting way with my discovery of the Operator today.

Superopie visited today as well. It seems he bought two of Joseph Campbell's books today, so he returned my copy of Joseph Campbell & the Power of Myth.

I'm already plotting ideas for my second novel.

Ideas for the title of my thesis/book? Thus far the best I can come up with is any sort of variant on an "In Which..." title. Viz. In Which the World is Saved Quite Lackadaisically.

I'm quite close to finishing The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In fact, all I have left to read is the epilogue.

The Irish festival (yes, this is quite old in some people's terms) was terrific. The best thing was the new-found interest my parents have found in the Celtic rock I love so dearly. They've gotten several of their friends to listen to it, so they're spreading as well. My dad insisted I make copies of Tempest's 15th Anniversary Collection, which we purchased during their show. I also bought a t-shirt from the tour, and got the album's liner signed by the band. I spoke for a few moments with Michael Mullen and Lief Sorbye. I also have a picture of myself, a cute girl from Chicago, Michael, and Ronan Carroll. I'll try to post a few of the more interesting pictures tomorrow.

We also saw Slainte Mhath; those of you from EKU should recognize them as the band that performed at our St. Patrick's Day event. I bought one of their shirts as well.

I saw a third band I went to see, Teada, in the Pub tent. I bought their first CD, and they're a fantastic traditional group, with a wonderful bodhran player (I must find people to study, yes?).

There were various other things at the festival as well, but those are the best of the highlights.

Fans of Harry Potter may be interested in the Celtic goddess Rosmerta.

I didn't know until yesterday that druid is actually the plural of the word.

As Opie hadn't heard of this before, I thought I'd provide a link to one of my favorite (theoretically) daily humor sites: The Daily Victim.

And for no reason at all I thought I'd send you to a quite ancient Lethal Doses strip.