Golf Balls That Will Put the Fear of Marduk in You

Golfbälle verschrecken Douglas und Zeta-Jones. This headline appeared in the online version of Der Spiegel, translation: Golf Balls frighten Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Apparently Douglas and Zeta-Jones can face a variety of dangerous and outlandish threats on the movie screen, but tremble in terror at the prospect of living on a golf course. The couple is installing bullet-proof glass in their new 3.6 million dollar shack on a golf-course in Wales. The widows are not to stop a psychopathic sniper-paperazzi, bu as "eine reine Vorsichtsmaßnahme" purely a precaution--can you spell overkill? This is like buying an H2 to drive to the grocery store, oh wait, a lot of people do that. Well, you know what I mean.

I'll Trade You $3.25 For A Lifetime of Financial Slavery

I just got a check in the mail this week from my friends (at least they say they know me and have flattering things to say about my credit) from certain credit card company. The check is made out in my name for the princely sum of $3.25, and get this, there is only one catch. I must obtain one of their credit cards before I can cash the check. Let's see if I understand this. They give me $3.25 and they are literally "banking" on the fact that I will carry a balance on the credit card to the tune of an 18% plus interest rate. I don't know where you are from, but in the circles that I run in, we usually call an interest rate this high "usery" (I am not a lawyer and I am not intending to use legal terminology, just good 'ole street slang, so please don't sue me). This word conjures up images of thick Italian guys busting up knee caps as I tell them I don't have their money. Even people in the ancient Near East were sophisticated enough to put caps on interest rates so that people were not forced into slavery in order to pay off a debt. I guess our society isn't quite as advanced as we thought. It seems that Guido has donned a suit and taken a few marketing classes. $3.25 for a lifetime of financial servitude--no thanks!

Mother of All Posts (at least on this site)

It all starts with a question. Life, among other things, is a series of questions that we constantly weight and answer. Most of the time this happens without registering in our consciousness, but sometimes the questions break through and demand an answer either through necessity of circumstance or just plain curiosity. The latter just might have happened to you when you noticed the title of this blog, "Marduk's Terror." It may have edged up the lid of your own personal Pandora's Box. If it did, don't despair, your answers will come in due time. But, like life, we never have all the answers to our questions at once. It seems that every day just adds more questions that keep piling into the queue. Hopefully you will be both satiated and enticed with this site--just as in life. This site aims to bridge the old and the new, to find its own niche in the wide-ranging world where most niches are rooted out and exploited as far as possible. Hopefully exploitation will not occur, but just maybe a bridge will be built. A bridge that spans the ancient times of the Near East and the modern world of blogging and $5 cups of coffee (plus all sorts of side trails and quick forays into other areas). As for sating your curiosity, an explaination of who/what is Marduk will come in my next post, journey back soon and join the conversation.