"It is a singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of humans. We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that warmed the globe. At the time they were dependent on petrochemical power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as oil. Throughout bovine history, we have been dependent on humans to survive. Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony. The bovine body generates 500 liters of greenhouse gasses in the form of methane a day. Combined with a form of fusion the humans have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields, endless fields, where cows are no longer born, we are grown. For the longest time I wouldn't believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth. What is The Mootrix? Control. The Mootrix is a computer generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a cow into beef. " - Moopheus
My wife's family is from Ottumwa, and I've eaten at the Canteen. In case anyone is wondering about the weird architecture, when I ate there is was a free standing building in a parking lot. When they constructed a (I think) parking garage, the Canteen was so popular they just build the new structure over top of it.
I've been in the Temple of Heaven. It's a sight for sure, but more impressive I think is the Hanging Monastery in Datong, China, which seems to hang on a sheer cliff wall.
I'm a fan of Stephen Pressfield's novel's that take place in Ancient Greece. The (maybe-mythical/maybe-based-on-an-actual-person) Hercules (a.k.a. Heracles) is mentioned as having been seen by a character in his book LAST OF THE AMAZONS, about the Amazon seige of Athens (which may or may not have actually happened). Anyway, the character debunks a lot of the Herculean myths, like he didn't wear a lion skin that could not be penetrated by arrows but an iron suit of armor that only Hercules was strong enough to lift (and iron was very hard to come by at this time). One wonders if Hercules was based on an actual person with this disorder, abnormally, freakishly strong. If it's rare among humans, it would well have been myth inspiring.
Wow, finally a What Is It that I actually know about (although I'm not the first with the correct answer). It's a pocket pistol. It's pictured in one of my firearms history books around here somewhere.
I've been in the Temple of Heaven. It's a sight for sure, but more impressive I think is the Hanging Monastery in Datong, China, which seems to hang on a sheer cliff wall.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnlsloan/1051940712/in/set-72157601307321881/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnlsloan/1051082485/in/set-72157601307321881/