I’ve lost track of the number of times in the last 24 hours I’ve heard or seen some variation of the phrase “these things always happen in threes” in relation to the recent spate of celebrity deaths, usually referring to Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

NO, people, these things do not happen in threes. They only seem to happen in threes because you keep resetting the counter when it reaches three! If the saying was “these things always happen in sevens”, everyone would be counting a few deaths further back and wondering who number 7 would be, and then when someone famous passes away, you’d shout, “Aha! Seven again!” and reset the counter.

Now there is, perhaps, something interesting in the common choice of three as the number in which groups of related “things” happen. Two is just coincidence, but three makes a pattern, which might just fire off a few extra neurons in the pattern-matching hardware we call our minds…

First Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson – apparently today was a bad day to be a famous white female. While MJ will get the most attention, of course, it seems to me that Farrah’s fight against cancer makes for a much more compelling story than Michael’s fight to become a species unto himself. I’m sure negotiations are already underway over the rights to turn both stories into TV movies.

No, I’m not what you’d call a fan of his – I’ve been largely indifferent to his music, and found his later behavior (alleged and otherwise) to be creepy and sad at best. Fifty’s not a half bad run, but still, there’s a little pang of sadness for him in my cold, cold godless heathen heart. My condolences go out to his friends and loved ones, and to Farrah’s as well; those are the people who will have a missing place in their lives that will be remembered long after the rest of us have moved on to the next news cycle.

We lost Ed McMahon a few days ago, too, something I wouldn’t have mentioned except that I was reminded today of a story about him:

The navy sent my father to training outside Chicago in the year when the first Superbowl took place. He and a friend went into the city on leave on the night of the game and the first bar they found was a little more upscale than they might otherwise visit, but they settled on it because it had several TVs and wasn’t too crowded, so they could hear and see the game. Ed McMahon walked in just as things got started and sat down right next to them; they ended up watching Superbowl 1 with him, and he bought them drinks and sat and talked to them late into the night.

The site will be flaky and/or down on and off for the next few days – I’m performing overdue upgrades to a number of items after recovering from some glitch that was making me unable to log into wordpress for a while.

Science man Myers try say science people more handsomer than orcish not-people? Kerschplat begging difference. In spirit of reason argument, he present contrariness evidence, exhibit A: Christopher Hitchens.

‘Nuff being said.

While performing a much-needed pruning of the comment ads that my spam filter didn’t quite catch, I came across an actual comment – and I only approved the poster a month and a half too late! Thanks, George! Uh, sorry about the delay…

My domain disappeared for a while because it expired without warning and the e-mail account the registrar was sending password reminder e-mails to has been defunct for a while. Anyway, everything seems to have been straightened out now, and in the meantime I’ve finally found a new job after the one I’ve had for 11+ years disappeared in August. It’s a pay cut and a more annoying commute, but I really like the new place and it’s a good career move overall; assuming the overall economy can survive the next few months, in the long run it’ll probably all work out for the better.

No, I’m not talking about the fall of right-wing dominance in our government. Nor am I talking about the election of a president who is anything other than a wealthy white male.

I’m talking about something much more deep and profound: Opus.

Yes, Opus the penguin, star of Bloom County, Outland, and eventually a comic strip of his very own. He retired this week; his creator, Berkely Breathed, decided that the world is going downhill fast, and he wanted to save Opus from being corrupted by what is to come. In a letter to the LA Times, he says:

I’m destroying the village to save it. Opus would inevitably become a ranting mouthpiece in the coming wicked days, and I respect the other parts of him too much to see that happen. The Michael Moore part of me would kill the part of him that was important to his fans.

and:

With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I’m suspending my comic strip to assist the nation. The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America’s kids. I call on John McCain to join me.

I’ve been a Bloom County (etc) fan since I first saw the strip in the 80s; in my mind it along with Calvin & Hobbes and possibly The Far Side – all tragically lost to us now – are the comic strips to which I’ll always compare all others, and probably to the newcomers’ detriment. Opus and his cohorts are childhood friends I’ll likely never see again except in old pictures, but in the years to come, whatever they hold, I’m sure I’ll think of them often.

Opus’ final comic strip is here.

A letter from Breathed on his web site has this to say:

Opus is napping. He sleeps in peace, dreaming of a world just ahead brimming with kindness and grace and ubiquitous bow ties.

Sleep well, Opus, and may your dreams come true for all of us. Except for the bow ties.

Sorry for my absence in recent weeks; I’ve been job-hunting after finding out that the government grant which was paying for contract work I was doing had gone away rather suddenly, and I haven’t often mustered up the right combination of time and inclination to get a post up here, even with all the interesting things that have happened in the world lately.

So what’s happened to finally break my silence? Conservative-pundit-inspired shooting? Nope. The irony and hypocrisy of the Bush admin trying to tell Russia that invading a sovereign nation is a no-no? Nope.

It’s this horrible, horrible website. Somebody found one of those list of web design “don’t”s and tried to squeeze in as many of them per page as possible. It burns.

… and his name is Beaker.

There’s a new social networking site geared toward atheists, agnostics, etc., called The Atheist Nexus. I’ve never had much interest in these things, but maybe I’ll hang around this one a bit and see how it goes.