In a very famous book, “Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger (the book that seems to have motivated the killing of John Lennon) the protagonist makes the point that digressions are usually more interesting than the subject. I believe this idea psychically scarred me; contrary to my tongue in cheek representation of myself as having Alzheimer’s: i do not. But I write on scholarly topics and my mind, full of facts and lascivious images, tends to drift. So my apologies for my 2 OTs. I will attempt to stay on topic. To continue the thought; there is one line in the OT (Old Testament) not off topic. But maybe it is off topic) book of Samuel 1 that seems to refer to a particular Assyrian legend… Can one go OT in an OT thread? Or is this OT to the second power? The original inhabitants of the near east were the assyrians (I find no need to capitalize a defunct culture), ancient egypt (no capitalization for same reason) and hittite (the same). the armenoid migration created the semitic cultures which gave us the first historical literature; Gilgamesh. though the Vedas are arguably older, but I comment only on the more of less west. Catcher in the rye was right. nothing like going off topic and having a place to do it.
Free Association always leads to the interesting stuff 
Meandering ramblings make for pretty poor points of reference for folk trying to glean info in future, but they always make for the best conversations 
I often have a daydream that I’m in a field of rye that’s on the edge of a cliff, and there are children running through the rye toward the edge, and it’s my job to make sure they go over. Kids are annoying.
Which reminds me … The trebuchet was a wonderful invention 8->
Grammatically, extinct cultures are supposed to be capitalized. “The Aztecs built a large pyramid here.” for example. Or the dubious claim on my tin of Maya snuff: “The Mayans were probably the first to use snuff, calling it ‘anjel’ which stands for ‘angel.’”
Have no fear but you are currently hooked up to the cryogenic sleep chamber, Traveling across the universe; None of this is real ,what your experiencing is just your imagination. We will be reaching our final destination in 50 years, Please continue and be careful if you die your dead and will not get a refund.
NO REFUND!!! X(
HR_pufnsnuff - McCartney lives! basement_shaman - i really do know the significance of the number 42. Everybody thinks they know, but… I am from an extinct culture but feel capitalizing would lend me far more importance than I feel. I am near cryogenic: keeping an icepack on my C-5 disc for up to 20 hours a week. Also living in Israel and not speaking hebrew (the knowledge of which is an impediment to study as the modern and talmudic hebrew bears little if any relationship to ancient hebrew. About 1/3 of the sounds were lost and what is surprising is none of my fellow Jews are lamenting searching), anyway, I tend to freeze when approaching hebrew speaking girls as non-verbal pickups can be prosecuted.
8-| #-o :-@