Someday Our Children Will Blog on Mars

Emerging technology will create Martian atmosphere sufficient to sustain human life. Terraforming rocks. (So to speak.)

Sith Lords Command $627 Million in Lost Wages

Where are the Jedi knights when the American economy needs them? Saving some stupid bun-headed princess, I'm sure.

Screw You and Your Double Fudge Swirl!

Ice cream vendor punches boy in face. Vendor loses job. No mention of the fate of the Fudgesicle.

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheremones

Brain differences may indicate a "biological basis of sexual preference." Oh, gosh, really? I thought men were gay because their mommies dressed them in pink and dominated their fathers, and because they wanted to complicate their lives by "choosing" to be gay. Well, shiver me timbers. Can we CC: this to that Jurassic battle axe Phyllis Schlafly?

I Left Indiana Just in Time

Fake Indiana police officer likes to frisk unsuspecting female motorists.

Birth of Black Hole Witnessed

And a million nerds worldwide sigh in ecstasy. Or, maybe that was just me.

Stray Dog Rescues Abandoned Kenyan Baby

And she's a really cute African mutt, too. Look at all the sweetness in her eyes.

"...if it happened the way it has been relayed, it is one of those amazing things that happens in life that defies human explanation," said a government official.

It does not defy human explanation. It's called the mothering instinct, and it's very powerful. Why is it that when a little blonde kid falls into a gorilla pit and is rescued by a female gorilla, we call the ape "almost human," and when a dog looks after a dumped baby girl it's called a "miracle," when really, those animals are just acting on the same instincts that should have kept that baby's parents from abandoning her in the first place?

People Used To Do This In The Last Town I Lived In

And nobody got arrested there!

Kentucky Man Charged with Drunken Horse Riding.

He Died With His Pajamas On

He also died of gangrene. King Tut, that is.

CTA Tattler: An All-CTA, All the Time Blog

Haw. The CTA Tattler is a blog devoted to all things Chicago Transit Authority. It's really cool.

"Her bladder now empty, she started to walk back through the car. Another passenger shouted out: "You filthy nasty bitch, you best get yer ass of this train...". My friend disembarked and the fate of the filthy nasty bitch remains a mystery. But we have the lingering odor to remind us of her and her dissatisfaction with CTA policies."

Hopefully I will have nothing similar to contribute, but then so far my schedule keeps me riding with the commuter crowd, and not the one a.m. drunk crowd.

Things I Observed on the Train Today

I am managing to find Chicago versions of people I know from back home on the train every time I ride. This morning I sat right in front of a woman who could successfully impersonate a former client of mine. Age, haircut, style, manner, bearing, taste in jewelry and clothing, choice of reading materials, the whole deal.

Also, I should get a Cubs hat?

The Virgin Mary Doesn't Drip Here Anymore

The Underpass Virgin Mary is no more. The city I claim as my own has enjoyed a cement wall stain, I mean visitation from the Holy Mother, for the last month or so. The faithful and possibly unemployed have been flocking to an underpass under the Kennedy Expressway to offer flowers and prayer, sometimes to the point of obstructing the usual flow of traffic in that area.

Today a Chicago man was arrested for painting the words "Big Lie" over the smudgy image, which inspired the faithful to then pray and mourn. Mourn. The loss of a water stain.

"The stain was likely the result of salt runoff, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation."

The cause of the stupidity that inspires this kind of religious devotion to a natural phenomenon has, of course, multiple causes.

In 1996, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to a bank in Clearwater, Florida, where an image said to resemble the Virgin Mary appeared as a function of the corrosion of building materials, until a teenage boy hurled a rock through the window.

The Skeptic's Dictionary on this phenomenon, which is known as pareidolia, "a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct."
Just for fun, a cognitive psychologist's academic web page about a cinnamon bun that looked like Mother Teresa.

Netflix Synchronicity

I rent a ton of DVD's from Netflix, which is cooler than cool. Wide range of movie choices (not like Blockbuster, where if you don't want the latest Vin Diesel thrill-omedy, you're pretty much SOL), dropoff at your mailbox, easy as pie.

I'm on the 8-at-a-time program, which keeps me pretty media-satiated. You can have a maximum of 500 titles in your queue at any time, and of course mine is usually at maximum. I go by friends' recommendations, online reviews, links from my own ratings, and so on.

What's interesting is that most of the time there is dense puzzle of 6 Degrees-type links among the movies I have stacked on top of my DVD player. For example, the other day I was watching "Harold and Maude," a strange and charming 1971 movie about the unlikely love that grows between an creepy, morbid teenage boy and a vivacious, youthful 80 year old woman. It's one of those movies I've seen in critics' "My 10 Favorite Movies" lists since I was 15 and desperately seeking a wider cultural range than was available in Indiana, urgently reading the Village Voice and other NYC based publications. I've probably put it on a "must see" list a million times and never could find the title.

Finally found it, got it, watched it, enjoyed it. Loved the elderly actress Ruth Gordon. Was mesmerized by the weirdo, pasty, middle-aged-while-still-young Bud Cort, and wondered what else he might have been in.

Halfway through the next movie selection, "But I'm a Cheerleader!", I was looking for information on the Incorrect Movie Database and found out that Bud Cort had grown from prematurely aged teen to actual middle aged person and was, in fact, playing the father of the lead character in "Cheerleader."

Yes, I do realize that all things are connected, and that Kevin Bacon is at the center of the universe, and that threads of relevance can be found anywhere a person is willing to look, but when things like that pop up without any such intention, it's just kind of cool.

My New Car Can Comfortably Seat Thousands

My new car has thousands of axles.

It also allows me to share space with sweet old ladies who stare at me for up to five minutes at a time, a group of chaperoned developmentally disabled adults who enjoy exploring their nasal cavities while lolling their heads back to look out the window backwards, young men with approximately 12 plastic grocery bags packed with purchases (and no seat), and cocky financial types, all dressed in identical khakis and black leather jackets, chatting about deals and mergers and acquisitions.

And that's just this morning.

Woe Be To the Fugly

Ugly children may get parental short shrift.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like bad news, but think about it. Why do we always assume that the long shrift is the preferable one? Maybe they're really better off.

Texas Justice: Twice as Thick as Regular Justice

I have landed in my new hometown and am happily watching a friend's baby this week while I settle in and prepare for next week's job interview. Things are both terrific and overwhelming at the same time.

The baby is sleeping right now and I'm indulging in an old habit: pointless daytime television. Specifically, Judge Milian, Judge Mathis, Judge Judy, and Judge Larry Joe Doherty are warming the bench with authority as endless streams of people with crappy social skills argue over $50 haircuts and plane tickets. I have nothing further on this subject, I mostly just wanted to make the joke in the title line.

Also, I'd like to declare that the lingering smell of warm baby on my shirt is quite nice. Babies rock.

From 550 to 10 Million in a Few Short Hours

Today is the big day. I am moving from a town of about 550 people to a town of about 10 million. Going to pick up the moving van in a short while, get packed up, and shove off. The building I'm moving into has a larger population than my entire town right now.

(Okay, actually tomorrow is the moving day...I will wake up early and stuff my kittygirls into carriers and climb into the cab of a little moving van and go, but today is my last day here in my home state.)

I woke up a few minutes ago to the soothing strains of dogs barking outside my window, and the occasional car rolling by. If I walk out my back door and go past one block, there's a cornfield. The town's population is 99.2% caucasian. (I keep trying to figure out who that other .8% is.) My new neighborhood is a bustling urban hotspot teeming with activity at all hours of the night and day, and it's a rich mix of ethnicities and languages and cultures. (My brother has informed me that my new zip code is statistically one of the most demographically diverse in the nation.)

In my new home, also, all the comforts of home are within walking distance of my apartment. Gym, library, veterinarian, grocery store, coffee shop and bank are a short stroll away. Here, I have to hop into my car and go anywhere from 1 to 30 miles roundtrip for these amenities.

Part of my urban experiment involves the unloading of my major consumer expense, my car. Yes, I will be studying public transportation maps and learning to ride the trains and buses everywhere I want to go. A few short rail rides from my new home are theaters, art museums, science museums, parks, festivals, sporting events, cultural happenings, and a million things I haven't even thought of yet.

Enough marveling and pontificating now...gotta pack the truck and sedate the pets (and maybe my mom). Wish me luck.

It's True, It's Actual, Everything is Satisfactual

Star Wars came out in 1977. Let me just start with that fact. It came out in 1977, which is easily verifiable with a quick clickie click and a double-check of resources. Okay, fine, its longer name is "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope," and the original title was "Adventures of the Starkiller: Episode 1 - The Star Wars."

Details aside, a fact of our rapidly changing modern lives is that after a certain point in the evolution of the "information age," some kinds of everyday ephemeral arguments should just cease to be. But they don't.

Case in point: during college, I had an internship at a local BBS-turned-ISP. I did some PR-type things and spent time with my 90% male, 95% geeky colleagues, discussing everything from HTML editors to cross-platform compatability to movies and snack cakes.

One day at a nearby restaurant, my boss (the business manager), a couple of techs, the master sysop, and the business owner and I had some fries and chitchat. At one point, the business owner, a nice but nebbish and somewhat spacey guy, begins to reminisce about Star Wars. The question arose as to the year it came out. Most of us knew it was 1977. Most of us said it was 1977. The owner, who I shall call Silly, went off on this whole "No, it was 1978, and I remember because that's the summer we spent at the lake, and we went to the theatre several weekends in a row to see the movie again and again, and..."

Furtive glances were exchanged across the table. Silly, being the boss, couldn't be mocked and smacked down as easily as a tech, and out of some sense of misplaced respect, we didn't press the point, but we all sat there thinking: "Dude. You own an INTERNET COMPANY. The internet is a source of information. Specific information. About things like movies. And release dates. You have no excuse for ever being wrong about anything ever again."

And yet, with instant information just a click away, we are still vulnerable to operating on outdated and incorrect data. Arguments in bars and restaurants about what a tinhat is, the atomic weight of beryllium, and whether song shifts in Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" synch up perfectly with the scene changes in the "Wizard of Oz" go on needlessly. And if they occur online, that's nothing but absurd.

Upgrade, people, upgrade.

Relocation Anxiety Dream

I'll be moving from rural Indiana to Chicago in a few short weeks, and my subconscious is working out some low-level anxiety by giving me funny apartment anxiety dreams.

Last night's dream: I showed up with a truck full of stuff, ready to move in, and (though I've seen it before) it was not quite as nice as I'd hoped.

My new place was on the ninth floor, which was inaccessible by elevator. The hallway was open air, and there were vagrants coming in from the fire escape.

The apartment itself had no interior walls, and the apartment lady said "Oh, yes it does, in fact, they're better than usual walls, they are customizeable!" And she yanked a piece of cardboard out of a slit in the wall and scraped it across the floor. "See?"

Then I noticed there were holes in the windows, and my cats were scared to come out of their carrier. Then a bunch of people ambled in with drinks and cigarettes in hand, and I couldn't get them to leave. I started screeching about second-hand smoke, and how, where I live now, the people down the hall from me smoke with their door closed, and even then my clothes smell of cigarette smoke. YELL, YELL, YELL, I went, and the crowd started getting angry with me.

I ran downstairs to discover that the basement pool was full of live electrical wires and junebugs, and even worse, I could not stop myself from repeatedly falling in the water.

I love anxiety dreams. They're always so ridiculous.

Parallel Evolution? Stray Dog Has Survived for 16 Years in Toxic Superfund Site

Isn't this the kind of thing they used to make schlocky 1950's horror movies about? Ordinary earthly life forms, transformed into horrific monsters when exposed to nuclear radiation, mutating into a freakish embodiment of our atomic age fears?

The photo of this mutt is absolutely mesmerizing. This dog has, since 1988, roamed the environmentally hazardous 5000 acres of the Berkeley Pit federal Superfund site in Butte, Montana. Workers at the mine have fed and looked after the mutated-looking dog they affectionately named "The Auditor," due to his erratic appearances.

Kind-hearted folks at the empty copper mine site feed him every night at seven p.m., although sometimes he takes off and wanders for weeks at a time before returning to his home. He is shy of human contact and only once, when a patient caretaker got a chance to trim some of the vision-occluding dreadlocks on top of his head, has anyone had a chance to look into his eyes.

The environment he lives in is about the worst possible, for any living thing:

"Not a single blade of grass, nary a tree, shrub or weed can survive on the acidic crust that dominates this animal's yard. Reeking of sulfur and acidity, this is the kind of soil that eats men's boots, let alone the feet of any normal dog."

The water is toxic, too. In 1995 a flock of 342 migrating snow geese landed on the lake inside the compound, and promptly died.

It sounds like the locals have taken to thinking of their mascot as a symbol for toughness, in a parallel with the rugged town of Butte, which itself endured hard knocks but persevered through difficult times. Hopefully no one will go so far as to say "Aw, heck, maybe that glowing nuclear goo ain't so bad for us after all!"

It All Evens Out in the End

Seems like national mentions of hoosiers are often of the "Indiana Man Wins Village Idiot Award" type. Several years ago we were again embarrassed by the widely-reported story of a vodka devotee who decided she could not take the chronic pain in her toe anymore, and so grabbed a shotgun and shot it off. And she basked in the glow of the camera lights that flocked her way. I think she thought she was Elizabeth Taylor for a day.

In an effort to counterbalance the effect of such mentions in the media, I'd just like to point out that Indiana has also shared with the world many people of accomplishment, including:

Iconic actor James Dean, hot in perpetuity.

President Abraham Lincoln. He wrote the Squaremanipation Proclamation.

Eternally cool author Kurt Vonnegut, who, postwar, was the drinking buddy of a friend of my family (until Vonnegut split for greener pastures).

Songwriter Cole Porter. Hey, I need to see Kevin Kline's portrayal of him. Anyone seen it?

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Astronaut Gus Grissom, some of whose children went to school with my oldest siblings.

David Wolf: surgeon, pilot, astronaut, and utter babe.

Legendary WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle.

Madame C. J. Walker, American's first self-made black female millionaire.

President Benjamin Harrison. (I dredged and dredged for interesting info, and here it is: he was the Centennial President. Which is sort of like being the 1000th shopper at Rite-Aid and getting a balloon and a basket of footcare products for the honor.) Oh, and his Pop-Pop was also president. For one month.

Pharmaceutical pioneer Eli Lilly. The Lilly Endowment gives giant piles of money to students like me, so I guess I have emotionally ill people to thank for my love of learning. Thanks, nutbars!

Songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, who wrote one of my favorite songs, Stardust.

Earthquakes in Japanese Art/Lit/Music?

In the event that I actually tell people this blog exists (two months and I haven't passed the link on to anyone) - and readers show up, can someone send me some links about Japanese culture, specific to earthquakes showing up in art, literature, whatever? Yeah, I know I could google, but this is a pretty specific area of interest, and I figure that in addition to internet search engines, and good old text resources, there are probably actual human beings who contain this information, and would enjoy sharing it with me.

This article made me wonder, since Japan experiences about 20% of the world's earthquakes that are 6.0 or higher, that has to take on a subconscious symbolism and show up all over art and culture, right? Phrases, superstitions, the crosshatching of ideas in religion?

It's sort of connected to some ideas I have had about region-specific natural disasters popping up in the literal subconscious, specifically in the dream state. Ask me about Indiana versus Louisiana sometime. Either that, or poke your pinkies against your corneas really hard. It's roughly the same experience.

Overheard in Podunk, Indiana: God Exists! And He Heals Boo-Boos

Never could there be an "overheard" site based in my current town of residence, mostly because there isn't much to overhear. Also, in a town of about 600 people, you can't do much of what can be called anonymous eavesdropping without arousing suspicion.

Not to mention the fact that 95% of the conversations that take place are just rote repetitions of the usual topics. Last Spring, during a powerful thunderstorm, a tree was knocked straight into the middle of a neighbor's empty garage, crushing it into splinters. It was literally the hottest topic of conversation for about two weeks, and you couldn't go anywhere without hearing mention of it. Which might pose a Zenlike riddle: If a tree falls on a garage, and Hoosiers don't talk about it incessantly, did it really happen?

But with the advent of Spring, there are more kids running around, biking, shooting baskets, and generally hanging out just outside my windows. I live in a loft studio in what used to be the town's high school (it was originally built in the 1850's as a YMCA, which is puzzling, because even today my town is in the middle of nowhere). Lately kids have been chilling outside my open windows, oblivious to my awareness of their conversations.

A few Sundays ago I was treated to a very "I Used to Believe" conversation in which little girl was explaining to another little girl the presence of God in her life. The girls had probably just left the Sunday service of the church right next door. It went something like this:

Girl #1: I believe in God because I know he's real.

Girl #2: Oh, I know, I do too. God takes care of me in small ways, and he's really nice.

Girl #1: God is big.

Girl #2: God is also small. Like just now, when I fell off my bike, and I almost ripped my dress, but then I didn't. That was God.

Girl #1: Oh!

Girl #2: And that one time that I fell down the stairs and almost skinned my knee, but then I didn't. That was God.

Spitting Image, Splitting Image, or Split Image? That's Not the Point

In thinking about the recent royal wedding and public opinion about Charles' remarriage, the likelihood of William's direct ascent to the throne, the Cult of Diana, and blah blah, I got sidetracked by a little research into the origins of the phrase "spitting image" (used in the linked article).

Within the first three clicks on relevant links, I found a message board with tons of inquiries into the origins of certain language uses.

"I was born in the Isle of Dogs in 1935 and first came across the expression "Spitting Image" when I was evactuated to Northern Ireland to stay with a relative in 1942 after we were bombed out. There it was used widely in the school and amongst the people who where friend of the family I stayed with in Lisburn so I'm sure that while there was a man with a broken stone there were many others who got the expression from some another source."

For all the stupid and often just plain bad uses people find for the instantaneous worldwide communication that the internet offers, it's so cool that small, personal, specific conversations like this, springing from pure curiousity, flourish as well. Historians will someday be glad that all of this ephemeral digital chatter is being archived, and these small details of everyday life are recorded.

Back to the subject matter, I don't care at this moment what the genesis of this phrase is. And I've moved away from concerns royal and matrimonial. I just want to give the internet a hug.

Otherwise, Dick Jokes are Always Funny

The kids at sheckymag.com are reporting that bon vivant Andy Dick made an unforgettable impression at a Yuk Yuks in Edmonton last week. He was paid $7,500 to, according to a witness, stand at the mic already drunk, drinking even more, making racial jokes, and whipping his Mister out for a little fresh air.


"(A patron) said Dick drank heavily on stage. By the time the brief show ended, he said he was worried someone in the angry crowd would physically attack the comedian."

Suddenly, my long-held dreams of standup comedy seem utterly plausible, although I might be a little unqualified for the weenie-flashing portion of the show.

Which Is Your Favorite Deadly Sin? Mine is Sleepyheadedness

What makes people think that overengineered wake-up technology is going to overcome the raw power of human sloth?

A female MIT student has invented an alarm clock which purports to solve the whole "hit the snooze button eight million times" problem with a special feature: the alarm clock jumps off the bedside stand and rolls away on the floor, so the user has to physically get up from bed and turn it off.

Okay, sure, you get some cute points for giving the invention a name ("Clocky") which brings to mind delightfully weird Pee Wee's Playhouse memories, but still.

Veteran snoozehounds like myself realize what a waste of effort this really is. For awhile in college, when I was in a cycle of staying up too late to finish papers and study, and then desperately trying to wake up early enough each morning to get to my coffee shop job (where they expected me to show up bright eyed and bushy tailed before seven a.m.), I had an even more elaborate system in place to help me wake up on time. It involved lights on timers, strategically located and consumed cans of stimulating beverages, multiple alarm clock around the room that got progressively louder with each snooze resetting, and the ancient, pre-technology standby "hungry cat who begins knocking things down when he's not fed immediately upon the awakening of his owner," and I still managed to sleep too late.

Is this the best application of the energies of our young scientists? How about some wakeup technology that lets me greet the day with fresh breath? Something that gently removes the ick from my eyes before I even open them? An alarm clock that styles my hair? That would be revolutionary. Somebody write a letter to the National Science Foundation. Maybe they can do something in conjunction with the Olsen Twins' CutieMegaGloboChemoCom.

Obligatory Kitty Post

Hilarious and/or Adorable Milestones in the Life of My Kitten

20 Days Old: She was found in a hollow tree near my home, with two hungry mewling siblings. Not knowing better, I brought her to my bed with me that night, which has remained her preferred chilling/vegging/nestling spot.

I was playing some Sims 2 at the time, and somewhere in the family tree of one of the pre-loaded characters is an ancestor named Calpurnia. I was also watching a movie with a lead character of the same name, and I am a big history nerd, so I named the kitten Calpurnia. (Oh, and as I just realized while googling for links, Calpurnia was also the name of the children's caregiver in To Kill a Mockingbird, which, like Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, and likely Sarah Michelle Gellar before me, I have personally read.)

2 Months Old: For no particular reason, I kept my hair up and pinned neatly all the time for the first several weeks I had her. One night I hopped into bed, fresh from the shower, and pulled the towel off my head to comb my hair out. It swung down across my chest and lightly tickled the top of Calpurnia's head as she sat in my lap. She jumped around in a tiny circle, and at the sight of this strange phenomenon seemingly attacking her, she hissed and fell backwards out of utter fright. She was scared of my hair.

Day Before Yesterday (Six Months Old): I interrupted her during a routine headlong incursion into the most fascinating thing in the world, my purse.

Every time I come home, I immediately feed her, and plop on the couch with my purse and start making phone calls and going through whatever papers and purchases I brought home. Unless I immediately remove needed objects from my purse and zip it up tight, she's facefirst into it, rooting around for loose hair elastics, which are her favorite toy. (She nabs them the second I take them off, and must have huge stockpiles of them under various pieces of furniture. I actually had to buy some at the drug store the other day, which, as any woman with a history of long hair will tell you, is almost never necessary. Some of us have tins and jewelry boxes full of hair bands and clips and barrettes from sixth grade. You just don't run out.)

"Ohhhhh...." I babytalked her. "Did you steal my granola bar? Were you going to answer my phone?" Then I looked inside the purse for my phone, and - yes, there was warm, watery, mushy kitten food vomited all over everything. Damn lucky for her everything was easily rinseable, and it was a $10 Target bag instead of a Burberry.

It's moments like this that it seems reasonable that for the dollars I've spent on her and the actual hours of care and patience, I should be rewarded with a tidy, polite, well-mannered five-year old human by now.

(This Morning): Spring is finally here, and the sun is burning through the months of accumulated gloom and grey skies. For the first time since I added Calpurnia to my life, I woke up warm in the middle of the night and slipped off my white cotton socks. When I woke up again in the morning, Calpurnia was perched on a packing box at the foot of my bed, peering cautiously down at my bare toes sticking out from the bottom of my blanket. The puzzled look on her face immediately made me laugh, before I said a single word. I looked to my bedside bookstand, to my copy of Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior," and I realized that, to Calpurnia, my familiar foot covered with a white sock is one thing, and my heretofore never-seen bare pink foot was actually another object altogether. I kept laughing as she continued to regard my foot the way she does any new object - she sat back, cautiously, periodically swiping at my foot with her exploratory paw.

(Grandin tells a story in her book about cattle ranchers being confused by the cattle's fear of a man approaching them on foot. The cattle had spent entire days of their lives in the company of cowboys on horseback, so why did they freak out when men walked toward them on the ground? Because to the cows, a person on horseback was one living thing. A man who dismounted and approached the cattle looked like a different thing - strange and therefore potentially threatening.)

In summation: Calpurnia was scared of my hair the first time she saw it. Calpurnia puked inside my purse the other day. Calpurnia was scared of my bare feet the first time she saw them, this very morning. Calpurnia is cute and amusing.

Suspect in Theft of Munch's "Scream" Arrested in Oslo

The iconic 1893 painting is still missing, but a leading suspect has been arrested.

Presumably, upon arrest, he clapped his hands to either side of his face, opened his mouth into an anguished howl, and deconstructed into a two-dimensional state.

$113 Million "Dickensworld" Theme Park to Open

"We have great expectations," said backer Kevin Christie.

Oh, no kidding? Ha ha. What a delightful, and totally predictable, thing to say.

Is there a more preposterous business proposal than a park themed around the author of novels that revealed the horrible lives of exploited child laborers in a particularly crummy chapter of Western history?

I would seriously love to see the mock-ups of proposed rides and attractions at this place.

Will the "Please, Sir, May I Have Some More" concession stand serve cold gruel next to the "Victorian Children's 80-Hour Work Week Tilt-A-Whirl?" And will kiddies by the thousands enjoy games like the "Maybe The Textile Machines Will Rip Your Scalp Off/Maybe You'll Win a Stuffed Bear" Beanbag Toss?

And instead of Mickey Mouse ears, will patrons scuttle around the park wearing clip-on poverty rags and facepainted soot smudges? Stellar.

Schwarzenegger Praises Pope's Devotion to Exercise

This seems like inevitable praise from the beefy California governator. In related news,





Ethan Hawke praises the Pope's grubby "authentic" artiste approach,















Paris Hilton remembers him as bleached, tanned, and coked-to-perfection, and















Joan Rivers heralds JP III as a bitter, critical Jewish hag.

Hispanic Jewish Pope Walks Into a Bar...

It's probably disrespectful to speculate, but there is chatter.

1943 Psychological Profile Reveals Hitler as Tormented

Which is funny, because I always imagined him to be quite jolly and well-adjusted, a guy who would surprise you with handpicked wildflowers for no reason at all.

Link to Cornell's site with the complete document, which was commissioned by the O.S.S. (precursor to the CIA) in 1943 in an attempt to predict the future behavior of Hitler.

From the NYT:

Dr. Murray diagnoses in Hitler neurosis, hysteria, paranoia, Oedipal tendencies, schizophrenia, "infinite self-abasement" and "syphilophobia," which he describes as a fear of contamination of the blood through contact with a woman.

Tits on a Boar

Top Ten Useless Limbs and Vestigial Organs.

Jean Teasdale Lives

Although there is no $200 bill in circulation, never mind one with George Bush's picture on it, the cashier at the Fashion Bug in Hempfield Township, Pa., accepted the bill for some clothes and handed the woman about $100 in change.

Life imitates the Onion.

What's next, Herb Kornfeld's Thug Life? (Dang. No link. Stupid premium Onion.)

And Beyond that Hill is Atlantis. And Jimmy Hoffa. And the Meaning of Life.

A 98-year old woman in Argentina has led scientists to a 70% complete, 30 foot long previously unknown species of dinosaur, which she had been aware of since she was a child.

As a young girl in 1922, Filomena Avila, now known as Dona Tica, assisted in an expedition of geologist Walter Shiller and paleontologist Santiago Roth. As the years passed, the scientific community had forgotten the exact location of the original dig.

Thanks for pointing the way to bonitasaura salgadoi, Dona Tica! Let us know if there are any huge piles of transitional species fossils lying around your hometown anywhere.

When Technology Rubs It In

As I seek to improve my blog:

You don't have permission to access /knowledge/ on this server.

Dinomania, Part Two: Preordovician Boogaloo

In related news, for the first time ever, a 70 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex has been found in Montana with intact soft tissue, including blood vessels, from which proteins may be extracted and isolated.

From the New York Times article:

"Moreover, an examination with a scanning electron microscope showed the dinosaur's blood vessels to be "virtually indistinguishable" from those recovered from ostrich bones. The ostrich is today's largest bird, and many paleontologists think birds are living descendants of some dinosaurs."

(Also, can we make sure this information is kept from Michael Crichton?)

Octopuses Pretending to be Coconuts

The headline is enough to elicit the shivers: Octopuses Seen Walking From Predators.

And then, this:

"Octopuses, known for using camouflage to avoid predators, have been observed apparently trying to sneak away by walking on two arms while pretending to be a bunch of algae. "

They have the capacity to deceive. And they have eight arms with countless suction cups. Eeew.

In addition to pretending to be algae, they have also been spotted doing a coconut imitation.

Is there a word that means "horrified and delighted at the same time?" Probably in German.

If I could figure out how to upload pictures here, I'd be going photoshop crazy, and making some fab visual jokes about the inevitability of urban octopus adaptation. You know, "octopus as mailbox," "octopus as espresso machine," "octopus as Kia."

Did you know that "urban octopus" is a phrase used around the world to describe encroaching sprawl, sometimes with touchy political implications? Although the image of an octopus in a suit walking into a corporate plaza is mighty amusing.

It's Hanging on a Wall at the Louvre

Therefore it is art.

Except that it was smuggled in by a prankster.

If pranking is an art, this guy is a master.

And really, it's better than stealing art. Isn't it?

On a Related Note, Who Owns the Moon?

(Besides poets, lovers, dreamers, and astronomers, of course.)

Some people think they own the moon, and therefore can sell parcels of it to individuals, although the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty says otherwise. (Some smartypantses argue that the treaty forbids nations, and not individuals, from owning lunar property - something I will dub the "green cheese" loophole.)

Bold entrepreneurs having been selling deeds to bits of the moon for some time now. I wonder what will happen when buyers realize that several companies have squared off and sold the same pieces to many people.

The Lunar Republic Society, based in New York City, will be happy to sell you some certified, legally authenticated moon property. However, so will the MoonShop, Planetary Investments, The Australian Lunar Realty Company, The Lunar Federation, Inc, and many others.

So if you're serious about owning a piece of the moon, don't be a moron, cover your bases (heh) and buy the same piece from each company. (Unless your very first purchase is written on goatskin. Then you're protected no matter what.)

Stonehenge? One of the Biggest Henges in the World? Mine.

A Peruvian family is claiming ownership of Machu Picchu. If they prove this, they hope to sell the land for profit.

Their lawyer says: "I have checked and the site has been private property since 1657," He explained that the family had inarguable proof - parchment documents wrapped in goatskin.

These claims are likely true because, as everyone knows, goatskin is made of goats. And goats don't lie.

Taken Aback By Office Supplies

While packing for my upcoming move, I'm glad to have a chance to sift through my accumulated material goods, and filter out the unneeded stuff.

One thing that surprised me was realizing that, in several places throughout my modest apartment, there were considerable stockpiles of paperclips, rubber bands, staples, and thumbtacks. Four or five boxes of each. My work requires very little office materials, if any, and I can't remember the last time I thumbtacked anything onto anything.

The evidence suggests that many times over the last few years I have found myself at an office supply store, presumably buying legitimately needed things, and was suddenly struck by a panic - do I have enough staples? What about those bendy paperclips? Do I have any giant gold paperclips? Look at all the different kinds of thumbtacks they have here! Big pink ones, small clear ones, some with longer prongs. I don't want to get home and realize I'm almost out of any of these crucial connective items. They hold the world together!

Note to self: It's a new era in communications. Look into this whole "paperless office" thing. The trees will appreciate it, and eight million paperclips will be spared their cruel fate. Might as well stock up on papyrus and tortoise shells, for pity's sake.

Punky Brewster is Knocked Up

Police are seeking Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges for questioning.

Titanium Lining

In the consideration of the scope of disasters like Indonesia's tsunami on December 26 of this year, it's oddly comforting to think about unexpected effects of such upheaval and rearrangement of elements.

The tsunami "brought India a macabre windfall: tons of titanium ore, worth untold millions of dollars, deposited along more than 300 miles of shoreline."

Also, the storm uncovered, briefly, the ruins of an ancient Indian temple. Said a local: ``My grandfathers said there was a port here once and a temple, but suddenly we could see it was real, we could see that something was out there.''

There's something profound to be gleaned from this, something about cycles of birth and rebirth, some parallel to the eternal process of creation and destruction in the universe, and the life cycle of stars. But for now it's just sad.

Erin Go Blargh

I'm a longtime fan of the "In Passing" website, wherein interesting overheard conversations and comments are blogged for digiternity.

Today's selection, from a similar site, (this one based in New York City) helps us celebrate the Reinforcin' O' the Stereotypes we like to call St. Paddy's Day. From "Overheard in New York":

Short guy: You owe me money.
Hefty guy: I don't owe you sh*t, Goldilocks! Don't make me f*cking slap you.
Short guy: I thought it was Erin Go Bragh, not Erin Go F*ck You Up.

--N train