This past Friday, on All Fools Day (April 1), I stopped for death three times, and death was kind enough to pose.

More on this (including photos) on Monday evening.

Update: Attention deficit strikes again! I spent the evening working on a post for the bulletin board at badastronomy.com. You can view the full post and thread here, or read on below.

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out the truly shocking anomaly in this picture - a human face, clearly carved into the rock! On closer inspection below, we see the visage of a bespectacled man! This cannot possibly be the work of coincidence or blind chance, as the nearest Lenscrafters is at least 36 million miles away! But the most shocking aspect is yet to be revealed... For, after extensive analysis in which I pulled the high res image into Photoshop and played around with the various filters and thingummies until it looked cooler, the astonishing truth was laid bare before my unbelieving eyes! Look below, if you dare... For this face can be none other than that of acclaimed science fiction author Stanislaw Lem! The unpracticed mind immediately boggles with the explosion of questions raised by my analysis. Has Lem drawn his best ideas from unwholesome communion with Martian Lagomorphs? Did Lem position himself as a deity by revealing the secret of optometry to the incredulous and astonished Areans? Has Lem made water on Mars? And what is the true nature of the connection between Lem and the Lunar Excursion Module...? These questions I leave for others to resolve, as I must go to polish the mirrored pyramid I wear on my head as protection from NASA's orbital mind control lasers. Remember, never be afraid to seek the truth, no matter how subjective that truth may be...

In my own defense, I can only point out that an April 1st celebration was entirely appropriate...

I'll elaborate on the 'death' images next time... Just so no one gets worried, nothing serious has happened to me or mine; I merely encountered some deaths in the natural world that gave me to think about mortality.

Until!