I went through an entire box of Kleenex® last night. Finally got up and went out at 3am to buy the most expensive, most potent form of Echinacea I could find. I found some. I took six. So I was sitting here at four in the morning eating hardboiled eggs, cold spicy chicken wings and a Hershey bar (with almonds) washed down with copious draughts of orange juice. This has always worked in the past, but I think this time I was too late in catching it. That is to say: I caught it.

I've been working on something to post here, something attempting to explain how dangerous computers are, and the Internet, and especially Highbeam Research. This is a warning. A public service. If you start using Highbeam, at first it seems harmless enough, oh yeah, no big deal. You begin by looking around for information on your favorite subject, like, say, pig faming. And do you get immediate, useful, on-target results? Yes, absolutely. No doubt about it...

"His diplomacy, passion and infectious enthusiasm made him a very effective ambassador, which has benefited the whole of British pig production," said British Pig Executive chief executive Mick Sloyan.

BUT... if you sign up on Highbeam you should plan on -- sooner or later -- beginning to have fever dreams like this one I'm having right now. Here, I took a picture...

Soon, you won't give a tinker's dam about pig farming or baseball or RSS or whatever cockamamie thing you started out thinking you were interested in. No. All you'll care about will be outlandish things like neo-fascist gnostics and Russian Theosophists and weirdball New Age theories about how the earth is really hollow and there are UFO bases inside from which Hitler and the Waffen SS will soon return to conquer the world and establish a million-year Fourth Reich. I swear to god such matters never even crossed my mind before I started using Highbeam. I think it's some kind of plot, personally. I think they've taken control of my mind and are sending me these sorts of query results on purpose!

for the love of all that's good and holy, do yourself a favor and don't get too deep into this thing. I'm serious. I don't know how long I can hold out against the mind-control rays -- I'm feeling the pressure build even as I attempt to write this warning -- but if you're seeing this post via some newsreader, unsubscribe now. Don't think, just do it. If you've bookmaked this blog, delete that bookmark immediately. Resist the voice in the back of your mind threatening dire results. Pay no attention to the intimations of dread that will surely beset you. It is The Influenz speaking, not your own will and natural intelligence.

For me, alas, it is too late. Just as with the Echinacea. So as soon as I work my way through another half dozen boxes of Kleenex® (Lotion Tissue with Aloe and Vitamin E), I'll be back with many more strange tales from the crypt. I can't help it. Look for a true story of my personal (if somewhat tangential) connection to poet Ezra Pound when he was in St. Elizabeth's (mental) Hospital in Washington, DC so that they didn't have to execute his ass for treason during WWII. And how he was pals with Madame Blavatsky and -- are you ready for this one? -- Gurdieff. All true. All too too true.

So kiss pig farming goodbye, Dorothea, bella. We have passed irrevocably beyond the bounds of Kansas, and that man behind the curtain doesn't know any more than you do. Any more than I. All we can do now is press on deeper into the chthonic uncanniness of Millennium #3...