Giant Pumpkins

About a month ago, I heard word that a certain grower of round winter squashes was releasing some of his progeny into the wild, and got all excited. I've never been much of a green thumb, but in the interest of trying something new, I sent him a tiny padded envelope, and promptly forgot all about it.

Well.. yesterday I got a surprise. Giant Pumpkin Seeds!



I don't know if you can tell from the picture or not, but these things are massive! They're about the size of the last joint on my thumb, and I've eaten enough roasted pumpkin seeds to know that's abnormal.

Also: check it out! I scored one of the 1003lb pumpkin seeds! That's a freaking half ton pumpkin!

There's nothing much to do with them until spring, but I can see a few days devoted to the growing of giant mutant squash in my future.

Some links:

A really fabulous piece by Neil Gaiman (personal hero) on how you can't choose when and where to stand up for free speech, even when it's in relation to the perv-o lolicon fetish: Icky Speech

You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.

Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

If I could find a way to express myself as clearly and concisely as that, there would be a lot less hair-pulling going on. So it goes.

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This is fantastic, too. Two guys built a telescope in their backyard with a refrigerated camera that can take pictures whos quality rivals that of the biggest chunk of cash floating in orbit. And the guy hand-cranks his scope to account for the rotation of the Earth! I am Jack's inflamed sense of wow.