I don’t know what would possess someone to dress up like this. Large amounts of cheap, nasty beer? A bet that he lost? A dare? The trouble with pictures found on the Net is that too often, you never know the story behind them.

Saw a couple of personalized license plates yesterday that were more interesting than usual. One of them read “A QT GUY”, which is something Jo might find amusing. The other one read “EUPHIO ?” referencing one of Kurt Vonnegut’s lesser-known short stories.

Finished Stross’s Halting State. He apparently didn’t have any literary reason for using second-person in that book. The idea that people might pay to engage in real-world training sessions if those training sessions were disguised as an MMORPG is interesting. I don’t know how practical that idea is, but some game companies are probably investigating it. Thousands of people have spent money on “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band”, after all, so it’s probable that thousands of people would spend money on “Spy Simulator 1.0″ or “Counter-Terrorist Unit Code Alpha” if such games existed.

Went grocery shopping yesterday and saw a number of odd things. Small packages of sliced ham were 21.2 cents per ounce. Large packages of sliced ham were 21.8 cents per ounce. A 24-pack of store brand pop was $4.88, while 4 12-packs of the same brand were $9.00, meaning 2 12-packs were $4.50. Stores have relied on customers being innumerate since the 1970s if not before, but laws require stores to list price per ounce (or similar information) for everything. Maybe now they’re relying on the fact that too many people can’t do arithmetic without a calculator.