O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!--Hamlet (I.v.164)

 (Photo by Joel Suganth)

 Working the midnight shift in the Open Salon morgue every night might well induce hallucinations.  For me though, toiling away at 2 AM twelve nights in a row -- on momentous strategic matters, to be sure -- was more like sitting straight through a double bill of Fellini's Roma and Satyricon while high on... something, yup, trust me, I done it.

Well, anyway, plodding through past posts I kept coming upon some weird, some wonderful, some awful pieces, crafted by mariners who have apparently departed these shores.  I thought they were worth seeing once more before  these electronic footprints on the sands of time are washed away forever by the inexorable cyber sea.

1.  The Acne Guy :  Amaresh Ambarkar is my absolute all-time favorite in the Shameless Commerce Department (pace Click and Clack).  Runner-up: a guy named Harshit ( hey, you can't make this stuff up -- probably some kinda full-disclosure name mandated by the OS legal department) Agrawal peddling, no not toilet seats, but "legal Internet TV". Well, I went to your site, pal, and I think what you're selling is justa bunch of... all right, all right, too easy.
2. The Gamour Girl :  No typo.  Everyone should have a whiff, if not a touch, of G'Amour before they shuffle off this mortal coil.  No thumbs, but don't tell me there weren't a lot of dogs there having a sniff.  O for a hit counter!
3. Blog advice for the ages :  From the divine MissV  in One Day, Five Things -- "First rule of thumb: People you are sleeping with should NOT be directed to your blog to find out how you are. It's just bad form."
4. Really sad, but.....ROFLMAO... oh, you meant :  This from a one-post author about Cosmo the cat -- "Cosmo’s odd gray spots gave his white face an eerie and perpetual leer, which seemed to fit well his incessant humping. Sadly, Cosmo had feline AIDS, but in his last days, even hours, gasping and starving, he still made amazing love to this afghan and seemed to take some comfort."  You see why a dog might find this, well, a bit odd, if not downright hilarious.
5. Most Guaranteed to Grab title :  An impromptu attempt at coherence.  Mumble, mumble,mumble, say what?  Alluringly subtitled: Time, Synchronicity, & I Ching!  You had me at the Synchronicity, babe.  OTOH, probably makes more sense than me in my stoned Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus spouting days ... but, enough self-revelation from me. For the real McCoy:
6. Most self-revealing post :  Ten (embarrassing) things about me.
7. Hounded from Hell? : This is not really funny as the guy alleged cyber-harassment and has been seen no more.  What struck a chord was this cyber-war was over high gas prices !  Now I'm old enough to remember fights breaking out at gas pumps in the '70s, but here in VirtualWorld!!
8. Hound from Hell : The alleged harasser in the fray above gets my vote as the most potty-mouthed poster I have come across in my archival peregrinations -- J.D. Noir, take a bow.
9. The most stunning image by someone who posted only once:

 "This picture was taken in Varanasi, when I looked out from a balcony on to the steps leading to the river , when I noticed two people returning from bath, the shadows they cast looked like cave paintings.  It somehow relates to me in terms of archetypes, young people having shadows that are as old as humanity."  Joel Suganth, please come back.

And finally:

      10. Monsieur Chariot :  Ah, Monsieur Chariot, Monsieur Chariot, je voudrais que vous reveniez, s'il vous plaît.  Please come home. This bon vivant nonpareil ; this habitué of the dazzling salons of the ancien régime  and, Vive la révolution! those of Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant;  this boulevardier whose éclat, élan, and panache had graced our pages all too briefly, has gone missing. And Open Salon has lost a certain je ne sais quois. So Monsieur Chariot, I hope you come back soon.

Benedick, speaking of Caveat Canem Claudio:

".....and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes..."

                                     ---- Much Ado About Nothing (II.iii.17)

Orthography? Zounds! I'M OUTTA HERE.

WOOF.