Maggie woke up to see the lizard sitting comfortably over the now stationary fan. She hated lizards; this one particularly so because it was huge, scaly, and somehow reaffirmed the alien status of the place she lived in. It had a body like baby croc, she thought, and big beady eyes staring at her with lizardly lust. Sweating more than she had in her entire life, Maggie got up to draw the curtains back, but one glance outside made her change her mind. The electricity kicked back in, the table fan whirred back to life, and the bastard lizard lazily moved down to the table, one eye still leching. She had tried telling the manager (Ha! Manager! Seedy-motherfucker-who-ran-this-joint, more like), but it just hid itself every time the slimy bastard came to the room. He was more interested in the underwear anyway, the fucker. Last night she had closed the hole in the wall with her bag, but it found a way out from somewhere else. Today morning she actually hit it with her shoes, but it got up again and licked her bag. She was never going to touch the bag again.
The phone rang again. She finally got up and put on a tee shirt. She knew the little hole in front of the phone was where the Ukrainian lesbian prostitute dancer from next door was standing, trying to get a peek. As she picked it up, the lizard moved away from the table, almost as if it knew who it was on the line.
“Uhrr… Hello?”
Maggie hated her own voice in the mornings.
There was no mistaking the smoked out voice from the other end.
“Firangi bhenchod, it’s time.”
She hated it when he called her Firangi.

A huge Lego toy has mysteriously appeared on Zandvoort beach in Holland. Nobody knows where it comes from.

A great photoset of intriguing 19th century magic acts and circus posters. Needless to say the above is my favorite. I think Gogia Pasha is going to be my new alter ego. Serious Gogia Pasha! Aur uska Serious bhoot mahal. This is world domination stuff, this. Fried Gold.

From Warren Ellis ’s Bad Signal:

Starting Monday, Eliza Gauger and John Brownlee defect from Wired Blogs’ “Table Of Malcontents” to their own site.

http://www.ectomo.com/

Keep an eye.