On the move now, walking down Beacon Street. I saw a bunch of people dressed as Iraqi women with tragic masks, carrying puppets that look like limp, dead bodies of children. Did you know 50% of Iraqi citizens are under 15 yrs old?

Hard to type and walk. Heh. I wonder if I'm the only mobile blogger here...

Someone hung a string of origami peace doves from a tree. Very pretty.

I see so many interesting signs. One girl had printed on her coat "The only Bush I support is my own." Heh! So far I think my favorite is "Regime change begins at home." A big group of people are playing percussion instruments and have a sign "Musicians against imperialism."

I'm really impressed by the amazing diversity of people here. Anyone who says the current peace movement in the US is just a bunch of hippies doesn't know what they're talking about. I see all ages, teens to senior citizens. I see people waving american flags and signs that say "republicans for peace." I see people who look like yuppies, hipies, students, soccer moms, black, white, asian...you name it. Has there ever been such diversity in a peace movement in the US?

Dude in a business suit walked by with a sign "War is not a business plan." Heh.

Starting to drizzle rain. Gonna put the ol' Sidekick away for a bit till it blows over.

I am at the huge protest in the Boston Commons. Over 50,000 people here. If there are any other Mobile Bloggers here, gimme an I'm at DangerJohn3 ! I'll keep taking pictures and posting anything interesting that happens in realtime.

OK, seems like I can't send a GIF attachment here.

Lemme see if this works:

Doh. Now let's try attaching the friggin file, eh?

:P

Hrmm....so I just realized I could take a bunch of my Hiptop photos and just slap 'em together and make an animated GIF. No retouching or color correcting the individual Hiptop photos (that would be cheating). Just using each pic as a separate frame in an animated GIF.

My first piece is called "Eek!"

:)

Would be neat to see what other people can come up with here!

When the first "Zelda" game came out for NES, I played it at a friend's house and it blew me away. Because of that game, I bought an NES. And because of all the sequels I subsequently bought the SuperNES and the Nintendo64.

I think Shigeru Miyamoto, the game designer responsible for the Zelda series (and all of the best games at Nintendo), is simply a genius. His games are always revolutionary, and they invariably change the landscape of video gaming as everyone else scrambles to catch up to his visionary ideas.

Anyway, I saw drewg's post yesterday about playing Zelda: The Wind Waker. I haven't been

playing console video games much lately (I peaked with Halo on my X-box), and I didn't realize the new Zelda game was out yet.

So I went to my friendly local videogame store. Put my faith in Miyamoto. Dropped the cash for a Game Cube and a copy of Zelda. Went home.

Once again. I'm blown away. This is the best video game I've played since Halo came out. Like all of Miyamoto's games, it is entertaining and whimsical without being childish. I feel like I am playing an episode of Samurai Jack, but with better animation. And calling his new style "cartoony" is like calling Disney's Fantasia "cartoony." This new style works in an artistic way that is far beyond the tired and ubiquitous "3-d realism" that is everywhere in videogames today.

And the first time in the game when I put a pear on my head to catch a seagull, and then peered out the eyes of the seagull as I flew up over a mountain....wow....I almost fell out of my chair in amazement. (people who have played the game will know exactly what I mean)

Anyway, sorry to rant. But in these current times of global insanity, to find something that lets you escape into a wonderful world of beauty and pure fun is something very precious.

Domo arigato, Mr. Miyamoto. Again.

Yay! It finally arrived! My Tantric 4-horned goat skull from Tibet. It is inlaid with silver and red coral. Beautiful.

Tantrism (aka Tibetan Buddhism) is my favorite religion. Many of the symbols and relics involve bones (animal and human), and amazing works of art are made from them. Bones are not seen as macabre in Tantrism. They are things of beauty.

I've always loved bones and skulls. To me, bones are echos of living creatures. Echoes of life. And I just think they're beautiful objects. It's a pity that our western society shuns and fears anything even remotely connected with death.

I bought the skull from a dealer in Singapore called Azibaza. Highly recommended.

Me, my brother Andrew, and his girlfriend Stephanie. We're driving from Boston to visit our parents in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Nice.

Wow. There are lots of peacocks roaming free around the zoo. A few min ago, one flew into the area where they keep the african wild dogs. Apparently, the dogs nailed the peacock and devoured it! I missed the action but I see the aftermath...feathers everywhere.

I don't know who's dumber...the peacock who thought "hey, a pen full of wild dogs...good place for a slow moving bird like me to hang out!".....or all the idiot humans around me saying "oooo, look, the hyenas ate a bird!"

They're african wild dogs, people. Read the freakin sign.

The dogs are neat....unlike other dogs, I've noticed they walk like cats. Both legs on one side moving forward at the same time, then both legs on the other side. I think there's a name for that particular quadruped locomotion, but I can't remember.