They used mercury for pretty much everything back in the sixteenth century. Medicine, certainly, but cosmetics as well. Being a female member of high society meant regularly applying coats of lead, crushed insects, and mercurial compounds to your face and teeth in an attempt to look younger. The inevitable result was that, by the age of thirty you had black teeth, permanently tinted skin, and only clumps of your natural hair.

For that matter, perhaps it WAS better to go with the few years of beetle-carcass-enhanced radiance since the chances were you'd be dead by thirty anyway giving birth to your twelfth child...

On a less disturbing note, a hearty tip of the tophat to the folks up in the Atlantis now. If you haven't watched the launch yet, do so. Not that it looks different from any other launch, but every so often you just have to step back and watch one, nod your head, and say, "Yeah, that's pretty freakin' rad, all right." Because it totally is.

- Count Dolby von Luckner

I'm drawing a blank on things to talk about today...

::Points frantically at something::

Hey! Is that a pig in the background?

::Runs away::