Heidi's Fascinations

So. My poor kitty, Carrie, is allergic to flea bites. My new cottage had fleas, evidently, and although I have flea-bombed two times and monthly put Frontline on her, she is still very itchy. So I figure that the fleas are gone (hopefully/mostly) but she's just itched her way to further itchiness. So I thought if I could give her some oily food maybe her skin would be less itchy (although the air is not dry right now). So tonight I opened a can of tuna (she won't eat salmon) and put some liquid over her food and some tuna chunks in with it. I put it down and she sniffed and immediately recoiled like it was going to bite her. I could just hear her go "Ewwww!"

But sometimes she'll even do this to milk, and if I leave it there, she'll eventually figure out that she likes it, so I left this there, too. While I was eating dinner I saw her go over to her food dish and heard licking sounds. So I went to the kitchen where I could keep an eye on her without being obvious (she doesn't like to be stared at!). She was standing about 8" away from the bowl and sticking her paw very gingerly into the bowl and licking her paw. When she put her paw in the bowl you could see she was recoiling at the same time, like she was touching dirty diapers. She would almost touch the food with the paw but quickly pull it up, try to touch it again, but pull it up, then she'd just barely touch it and then lick her paw. It was so hard not to bust up laughing, but she gets really pissed and will stalk off if she thinks you are laughing at her. You laugh, but it's true. She knows!

She finally had enough tiny licks and walked off. I threw it out and gave her the regular-ole crunchies. Yum!


Princess Carrie


Queen Carrie


Sick of the Paparazzi

Too funny!

TheCarConnection had a "Wild, Weird, and Wacky Street Names" contest and the final winners out of >2500 entries are:

#2 (Heather Highlands, Pennsylvania):


#3, the road to Constipation Ridge (Story, Arkansas):


#1, and my favorite (Traverse City, Michigan):


Other entries to The Car Connection:
-Intersection of Ho and Hum
-Intersection of Stroke and Acoma, in a retirement section of Lake Havasu, Wisconsin
-Intersection of Lonesome Road and Hardup Road, in Albany, Georgia

Make your own music out of recordings from New York City's Lower East Side...

Folk Songs for the Five Points

I watched it for the first time tonight and laughed so hard that I had to put my drink down so that I wouldn't spill it. I highly recommend it, but only if you generally can appreciate somewhat low-brow humor (this is on SpikeTV after all). You can check for your TV listings (in general) at Zap2it.

Here are highlights of a summary:

'MXC,' wacky reality on Spike
Japan import pits goofy teams in goofier contests
By A.J. Livsey

Combine the voice-over commentary of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” with the dubbing technology of classic kung-fu movies, add the action of “American Gladiators” and 75 enthusiast Japanese contestants, and you get the idea behind Spike TV’s “Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC).”
...
Unlike Food Network’s dubbed Japanese import “Iron Chef,” “MXC” doesn’t offer valuable cultural lessons or demonstrate any marketable skills. Instead, this wacky game show from the Far East provides a half-hour of entertainment and laughs, thanks to the ridiculous competitions and eyebrow-raising commentary dubbed over the original Japanese.
...
“MXC” seems to loosely follow the format of elimination to find a winner, but no final victors are ever announced. Unlike American reality shows, “MXC” doesn’t require contestants to live together, date one another, or undergo plastic surgery. Instead, viewers can delight in the perils of hopeful contestants who eagerly slide down muddy hillsides and crash into walls with no particular incentive.

Each episode pits two teams against one another. In any given half-hour, viewers can watch fabricated match-ups between civil servants and computer geeks, inventors and former child stars, or meat handlers and cartoon character actors.

These contestants have such elaborate job titles as bubble wrap inflator, plasma donor for flat-screen TVs, instruction complicator for the IRS, inventor of the trucker’s friend “wine in a sponge,” star of “My Teacher’s a Good Kisser,” and the public service employee who patented the overused government phrase, “Not my department, can’t help you.”
...
Despite the show’s humorous voiceover and colorful cast of characters, the real focal point of “MXC” is the outrageous competitions.
...
“Wall buggers” requires teams to dress in Velcro suits and butterfly wings, swing across a pond, and stick to a spider web wall.
...
Many of the games involve either the threat of falling into murky water or mud or getting knocked over.
...
Each episode also contains the “MXC Impact replay” of a particularly good collision as well as the top 10 “Most Painful Eliminations of the Day.” While the humor skews toward the sophomoric, the combination of the comical voiceover and the ridiculousness of the games makes “MXC” the funniest reality program on television.

I have to agree with that last statement. I especially enjoyed the random topics of the contestants' voice-overs and that they match the mouth movements better than MST3000.

.


And hey.... maybe Isuzu should get credit for some of the Mini ideas in the new Italian Job.

Finally I know how I fit into the world!

65% scored higher (more nerdy), and
35% scored lower (less nerdy).

Your nerdiness is:
Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

': ]

I would buy sculpture(s) from Dashi Namdakov. His work just keeps getting more popular and expensive, but he also keeps producing more amazing pieces.




More pics of his creations
Info from Hay Hill Gallery

A very special Mongolian, that's for sure.

I haven't ordered from them, but they seem to be a fine organization. It is a particularly good deal for bareroot trees, and it's a good time of year (or will be soon) to plant trees. So check them out!

.............

"Every year millions of healthy high-quality plants go unsold and are destroyed.
They go to the dump,
They get plowed under,
They get burned or buried.
It's a huge waste.

They come from the very same growers that supply many of the most famous garden catalogs. I know because I'm an avid gardener and horticultural photographer. I've taken a lot of the photos you see in many of those same catalogs.

I also strongly support the sheltered workshop movement. Hundreds-of-thousands of disabled persons find meaningful jobs in workshops all across the country. The ongoing problem is to find work to be done. We started this web site to help solve both problems. We find unsold nursery stock and have it packaged by sheltered workshops. We give away the plants to anyone who will send shipping and processing.

Free Trees and Plants.com is not a nonprofit charity. We do not ask for, or accept, contributions or offer paid memberships. Except for shipping and processing, Free Trees and Plants.com is a self-supporting project.

All plants are shipped dormant and bare-root, just like most catalog stock. We will send your free plants by standard mail. Shipping and processing covers the cost of:
digging
washing
inspection
transportation
size sorting
unit grouping
hydro dipping
packaging labor
packaging materials
labeling
addressing
postal sorting
and postage to your door.

Every step is done manually. Shipping and processing is only $6.95 per unit. Some catalogs appear to charge less for shipping and handling. They include part of the cost in the price of the plants, we can't.

Your plants are FREE. Every plant is as good as, or better than, those you see in expensive catalogs at high prices. The only difference is that, unless you want these plants, they may go to waste. You get free plants. You help stop a huge waste. Disabled people get meaningful work and a paycheck. Everyone wins.

Happy planting,
Cheryl Richter

P.S. If you aren't satisfied with your free plants in the first 60 days, we will replace them without further shipping and processing."

A fitting medium for earthquake country, a new art exhibit by Liz Hickok features small scale models of parts of San Francisco in jello.





Go see it at the Exploratorium in San Francisco April 1, 2006 10am-5pm. It will be part of a series of events commemorating the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

It's true that the situation isn't funny. Except it is. Because it is being handled so poorly. Listen to this, from a Cheney advisor:

"The vice president was concerned," said Mary Matalin, a Cheney adviser who spoke with him yesterday morning. "He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

Um, did she really say that? Isn't shooting your orange-vest-wearing hunting partner something you generally aren't supposed to do? In fact, rule number 4 of the fab (and common) firearm training that I know is: "Be sure of your target and what lies beyond". Meaning, don't shoot someone! Sheesh. If that's coming from your advisor, you have some serious issues.

So on to the funnies...

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central)

A partial transcript:

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do - coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people - to get him some sort of mask."

Okay, sorry to refer to 'going postal'. In fact, being a rural postal delivery person is high on my list of potential jobs if I decide to throw in the towel in my current line of work. But, with the recent postal events, the phrase had to come back.

Anyway, do you dread calling your credit card company or an airline because you know you will have to press 1, then 3, then 2, and still not get done what you intended? Luckily there is now a handy dandy reference site to consult before you call so that you can go straight(ish) to the person at the other end of the line. Good luck.

First off, I'm getting rid of the "Random Item of Interest" numbering system. If it isn't clear to you now that these are all very random bits of info, then it's not worth mentioning...

Dear Cecil:
Why do women shave their legs and underarms? When did this custom begin? If it's for hygienic reasons, why don't men to it too? Is it all a big conspiracy by the razor companies? I've heard some European women don't shave. Please clarify this mystery. --A., Chicago

Dear A.:
I knew if I procrastinated long enough on this often-asked question somebody would eventually do the legwork for me. Sure enough, Pete Cook of Chicago has sent me a 1982 article from the Journal of American Culture by Christine Hope bearing the grand title "Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture."

The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.)

The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn't know it had, namely unsightly underarm hair.

To be sure, women had been concerned about the appearance of their hair since time immemorial, but (sensibly) only the stuff you could see. Prior to World War I this meant scalp and, for an unlucky few, facial hair.

Around 1915, however, sleeveless dresses became popular, opening up a whole new field of female vulnerability for marketers to exploit.

According to Hope, the underarm campaign began in May, 1915, in Harper's Bazaar, a magazine aimed at the upper crust. The first ad "featured a waist-up photograph of a young woman who appears to be dressed in a slip with a toga-like outfit covering one shoulder. Her arms are arched over her head revealing perfectly clear armpits. The first part of the ad read `Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.'"

Within three months, Cook tells us, the once-shocking term "underarm" was being used. A few ads mentioned hygiene as a motive for getting rid of hair but most appealed strictly to the ancient yearning to be hip. "The Woman of Fashion says the underarm must be as smooth as the face," read a typical pitch.

The budding obsession with underarm hair drifted down to the proles fairly slowly, roughly matching the widening popularity of sheer and sleeveless dresses. Antiarm hair ads began appearing in middlebrow McCall's in 1917. Women's razors and depilatories didn't show up in the Sears Roebuck catalog until 1922, the same year the company began offering dresses with sheer sleeves.

By then the underarm battle was largely won. Advertisers no longer felt compelled to explain the need for their products but could concentrate simply on distinguishing themselves from their competitors.

The anti-leg hair campaign was more fitful. The volume of leg ads never reached the proportions of the underarm campaign. Women were apparently more ambivalent about calling attention to the lower half of their anatomy, perhaps out of fear that doing so would give the male of the species ideas in a way that naked underarms did not.

Besides, there wasn't much practical need for shaved legs. After rising in the 1920s hemlines dropped in the 30s and many women were content to leave their leg hair alone.

Still, some advertisers as well as an increasing number of fashion and beauty writers harped on the idea that female leg hair was a curse.

Though Hope doesn't say so, what may have put the issue over the top was the famous WWII pinup of Betty Grable displaying her awesome gams. Showing off one's legs became a patriotic act. That plus shorter skirts and sheer stockings, which looked dorky with leg hair beneath, made the anti-hair pitch an easy sell.

Some argue that there's more to this than short skirts and sleeveless dresses. Cecil's colleague Marg Meikle (Dear Answer Lady, 1992) notes that Greek statues of women in antiquity had no pubic hair, suggesting that hairlessness was some sort of ideal of feminine beauty embedded in Western culture.

If so, a lot of Western culture never got the message. Greek women today (and Mediterranean women generally) do not shave their hair. The practice has been confined largely to English-speaking women of North America and Great Britain, although one hears that it's slowly spreading elsewhere.

So what's the deal with Anglo-Saxons? Some lingering vestige of Victorian prudery? Good question, but what with world unrest, the economic crisis, and the little researchers having missed their naps, not high on Cecil's priority list. Here's hoping some all-but-thesis Ph.D. candidate will pick up the trail.

--CECIL ADAMS

I should disclose that I did go 2 years without shaving my legs (what friends refer to as my hippie years even though I'm gen X). And I really enjoyed the breeze on my leg hair (if you're grossed out by that you need some counseling!). But I ended up conforming... well, at least sometimes. It's a real pain in the butt to shave your legs every day! And the stubble is worse than having the hair.

Today I discovered a very cool place near the San Francisco Bay where there are tons of birds and very few people. It's out at the end of a really long berm, in a national wildlife refuge. It's way past the end of the Stevens Creek trail. Anyway, I biked out there and watched a ton of cool birds, including some funky black and white duck-like birds that make funky noises.

Out in this area there are a ton of little wooden 'cottages' (okay, some might call them duck blinds) out in the water. During duck hunting season, evidently this area is fair game (I don't know if that includes the wildlife refuge!?). Looking out over the water there were so many 'cottages' really close together that I wondered how often people get shot in this 'urban hunting ground'? And what would it feel like to be shot with a ton of little buckshot bits? Normally this would not make it into the blog, but check out the following news story:

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.
...
Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, aged 78, was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest during the incident which occurred late afternoon on Saturday.
...
Armstrong, the property's owner, said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."
...
"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."

'Car-chase capital' deploys new weapon - GPS gum balls

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The car chase capital of the world is going high-tech to end dangerous pursuits across Southern California.

Police Chief William J. Bratton unveiled a strange new weapon in the police department's strategy to halt high-speed pursuits -- adhesive darts with a global positioning system that are fired at fleeing cars by police.

Once fired from a patrol car, the GPS dart is designed to stick to a fleeing car, allowing squad cars to back off the chase.

"Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour," Bratton said, "this device allows us not to have to pursue after the car. It allows us to start vectoring where the car is."

U.S. Department of Justice officials suggested testing the StarChase system in Los Angeles. A small number of patrol cars will be equipped with the compressed air launchers, which fire the miniature GPS receivers in a sticky compound resembling a golf ball.

There were more than 600 pursuits in Los Angeles and more than 100,000 nationwide last year. Critics have long questioned the wisdom of police pursuits because they can endanger bystanders and officers.

Bratton, who often calls the city the car chase capital of the world, was asked why there are so many pursuits in Los Angeles: "There are a lot of nuts here," he said.

A group of scientists from Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences made a bunch of fascinating new discoveries in an extremely remote and pristine forest in Papua New Guinea.

...even two local indigenous groups, the Kwerba and Papasena people, customary landowners of the forest who accompanied the scientists, were astonished at the area's isolation. BBC

A summary of the team's main discoveries (mostly from BBC article):

1. Two long-beaked echidnas, primitive egg-laying mammals, even allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to their camp to be studied.
I'm not sure I would know how to pick this guy up!

2. A new species of honeyeater, the first new bird species discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939
Nice color!

3. The formerly unknown breeding grounds of a "lost" bird of paradise - the six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi)and the male bird performed a courtship dance for a female, shaking the long feathers on his head, flicking his wings and white flank plumes, and whistling his sweet two-note song for the female-plumaged bird
Sexy beast

4. First photographs of the golden-fronted bowerbird displaying at its bower.
That's some nest you've got there

5. A new large mammal for Indonesia, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus) thought to have been hunted to near extinction
The look on this man's face is utter joy. Makes me smile just looking at this photo.

Close-up

6. More than 20 new species of frogs, including a tiny frog just over 1/2 inch long
I'm not sure this is the teeny tiny frog, but it's cute nonetheless.

7. A series of previously undescribed plant species, including five new species of palms
New palm

Pretty new rhodie

8. A remarkable white-flowered rhododendron with flower about 15cm across
Giant new rhodie

9. Four new butterfly species.
sorry no pics

Articles:
Vancouver Sun
BBC
Conservation International

A Plug for the Unplugged $100 Laptop Computer for Developing Nations
By HAL R. VARIAN

ONE of the more interesting technology sessions at Davos, Switzerland, this year was Nicholas Negroponte's presentation of a $100 laptop computer intended for developing countries.

Mr. Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, announced that Quanta Computer would be manufacturing the device, based on a chip from Advanced Micro Devices and the Linux operating system. Quanta, a Taiwan company, makes about 30 percent of the world's laptops, so its involvement lends considerable credibility to the project.

The mock-up that Mr. Negroponte demonstrated had a spill-resistant keyboard and a carrying handle. The final version will have a screen that can be read in direct sunlight, wireless networking capabilities and a hand crank to generate power.

Dspite the technological ingenuity of the device, it engendered considerable skepticism. One audience member asked what good a $100 laptop was when network connections cost at least $25 a month. Mr. Negroponte responded that the laptops would send and receive Internet data only when higher-paying commercial data was not being transmitted, leading to lower networking costs. Read more

Wow. What fun! It was a perfect day to watch a surf competition. Sunny, almost no wind, and record warm temperatures in a lot of the Bay Area today. I was prepared for typical Half Moon Bay beach weather - jeans, long sleeve shirt, heavy coat, thermos of coffee but instead it was practically hot and I got sunburned! Luckily I found my binocs, because the surfing was amazing!

Turns out the judges were looking for the biggest drops down wave faces. It sounded like if the surfer could fall thru open air down a massive wave face and pull it out, that was what they wanted.

Check out some videos here:

Six (five) nice videos

Article with highlights video - KTVU

Really nice photo collection - SF Gate


Tyler Smith


Yikes! (Greg Long)


More great photos


How many people tall is this wave?? (Randy Cone)


The view from the back of the wave. As a surfer waiting for the next wave you would see these develop. And people choose to enter them!


Article on why the waves are so big at Mavericks

Woo Hoo! I finally heard about it before it happened - the once-a-year Big Wave surfing competition in Half Moon Bay, CA. It is pretty darn amazing, the size of those waves and the guys that choose to enter them. The official website is maverickssurf.com. And check out these images from mavsurfer.com.

2006 MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST TO TAKE PLACE TUESDAY

Two-dozen of the world's best big-wave surfers are en route to Half Moon Bay to take part in the 2006 Mavericks Surf Contest on Tuesday.

Given only 24 hours notice to get ready before jumping into the icy waters off the coast of Half Moon Bay, the 24 surfers and an estimated 30,000 spectators are expected to flock to Mavericks, a surf spot known for some of the largest and most dangerous waves in the world, Mavericks Surf Ventures reported. [...]

In March 2005, some 30,000 spectators and 2 million television viewers in 70 countries watched the 2005 competition as the surfers ripped across nearly 50-foot high waves.

Wish me luck I can't find my binocs and I'm going to battle the crowds to get a place to check it out. You can also buy a year subscription for $10 to watch a live webcast of the event. I'm sure I'll see more with that than in person, but still...

Ever heard of The Van Cats of Turkey? They're a breed of cats that often enjoy water...


"Bilezikli"


"Tasuki" going for a swim


"Matabiru Lady MacBeth"

What they're like:

Quite distinct in appearance, the Van cat has a medium-long chalk-white coat which feels more like mink than anything else. The only colour markings are the auburn marks on its head (sometimes it has a darker fur-line from the outer corners of it's eyes to its cheeks), and its bushy, auburn-ringed tail. The Van cat's eyes are always large and amber in colour; its skin is shell-pink, and its ears have long, delicately curved inner tuftings, sometimes with 'feathers' on the tips.

These unusual cats are popularly called 'Swimming Cats'. I first discovered this liking for water on the drive back from Turkey with my original pair. The two kittens seemed to suffer from the heat as much as I did, and often lay panting limply in the back of the car. At one point I came to a big river, with a shallow tributary running over clean gravel and shaded by large trees. Hot, dusty, and bad-tempered as I was, I did not hesitate before wading into the shallows and sitting down in the cool water, letting it flow over my tired feet and dry, burning arms. Then suddenly, to my astonishment, the Van kittens strolled into the water too, and swam out of their depth - apparently thoroughly enjoying themselves.

"Foxy"


"Destiny with her babies"
Van cats traditionally have amber eyes but a subset of the breed called Turkish Vankedisi, have the one-blue-eye variation. (At least that's my understanding.)


"Destiny"

And they seem to have evolved naturally in eastern Turkey, a long time ago. The cats very well could have been living in the Van area of Turkey before the Egyptians came to domesticate cats.

...archaeological finds in Van province (formally part of Armenia) of relics possibly from an ancient battle during the occupation of Armenia by the Romans (AD 75-387), include battle standards and armour bearing images of a large pale self coloured cat showing distinctive rings on the cat's tail. Even more recently, during the excavation by the British Archaeological Institute in Ankara of a late Neolithic (7000 years ago) site near Hacilar, 22 small terracotta statues said to be women playing with cats were found on one level. Because of this discovery some scientists now question the long held belief that cats were first domesticated in Egypt.

.

Oh boy.
You know, listening to/reading Bush's State of the Union address I found myself optimistic about his domestic plans. But then, reality had to go mucking up those nice words.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic advisor said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

He pledged to ``move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.'' but...

''This was purely an example,'' Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth.

Asked why the president used the words ''the Middle East'' when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that ''every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands.'' The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

I just hope his statement on funding hybrids (and research, kids in science & math, etc.) was meant literally.

Text of the State of the Union address

Miami Herald

Arab Times (a different perspective)

Federal News Service (official release that displays that before saying Bush's words weren't meant literally, first they happily quoted the same goals...)

Google Pack
A slap in the face to Microsoft? Cool.

My not very scientifically based answer is Duh?! Of course!

Here is a bit of trivia. Make your own conclusions:

Question:
Koko, the famous gorilla, had a kitten named All Ball. How did All Ball die?

Answer:

Back in 1984, Koko, an accomplished gorilla who understands and uses American Sign Language, asked her trainer, Dr. Francine Patterson, for a cat. So when some abanded kittens were brought to the Woodside, California, compound where Koko lives, she was awarded the pick of the litter. After examining the kittens carefully, Koko chose a tailless gray male that she named All Ball.



Koko proved a wonderful pet owner and mother. She was very gentle with the kitten and treated him much like a baby gorilla, carrying him on her back and trying to nurse him. When she was in a playful mood, she would dress All Ball up in napkins or sign to him suggesting that they tickle each other, her favorite game.

Unfortunately, their relationship ended abrubtly in December of 1984, when All Ball escaped from the gorilla cage and was killed by a car. Koko was extrememly distraught over the death of All Ball and spoke of it soon after:

When asked, "Do you want to talk about your kitty?"
Koko signed, "Cry."
"What happened to your kitty?"
Koko answered, "Sleep cat."
When she saw a picture of a cat who looked very much like All Ball, Koko pointed to the picture and signed, "Cry, sad, frown."

Koko's mourning attracted a great deal of attention from the scientific community. Debates raged over whether or not animals have "emotions" in the human sense.

All Ball was followed by two other kittens, Lipstick and Smoky, and a number of other pets.

Koko

Other random fascinations:

What are favorite names for cats/dogs? (or, How original is your pet's name?)

Koala bears have fingerprints

Maybe Big Foot really does exit

Too funny. What a collection!

The 7 natural wonders of the world

The 7 ancient wonders of the world (there's only one still around!)
.

Ever been frustrated that you can't download music FROM your iPod onto a computer? Say all your music is on your home computer and you don't want to have to make CDs just to get the music onto your work machine. There's finally a solution!

iPodCopy

It also lets you manage/write contacts and notes without having to go to a different program.

Has anyone used it? It seems very cool. There's a free demo...
.

This was sent to my email box by an alert reader (or whatever):

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 22nd anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Toni. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser. The effects of the taser were suppose to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety.... WAY TOO COOL!

Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two triple-a batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arch of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. Awesome!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Toni what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-a batteries,. right?!!!

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, taser in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5" long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-a batteries) thinking to myself, "no possible way!"

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.....

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, "don't do it master," reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad.. I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY MOTHER, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION@!@$$!%!@*!!!

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs. The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to herself, "do it again, do it again!"

Note: If you ever feel compelled to "mug" yourself with a taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative.

SON-OF-A-.. that hurt like hell!!! A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. How did they up get there??? My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I'm still looking for my testicles? I'm offering a significant reward for their safe return.

Still in shock,
Tommy

I find this extra fascinating because I, too, own a stun gun. And shortly after it came into my hands there was a moment where I was poised with the stun gun on a man's arm. Just to see what happens. The guy, named Rob, (as Tracey well remembers) wanted me to stun him. He thought the same as the story-guy: How bad could it be? I was torn but he was egging me on... I put the little barbs on his skin. I couldn't do it. And I've been glad ever since!!! (He couldn't bring himself to do it his arm, either, which I guess was extra good!)
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It's a disturbing thought, isn't it? The world minus a caring, thoughtful, and insightful leader? Check this out:

Question:
Who is in line to be the next Dalai Lama?

Answer: (abbreviated)

If you ask this question because you hold holy aspirations, you may want to reassess your life goals. The next Dalai Lama won't be identified until the current Lama passes away.

Like the rest of the Dalai Lamas, Tenzin Gyatso was put through a series of tests as a small child before he was officially declared the reincarnation, or tulku, of his immediate predecessor. His Holiness was enthroned as the Dalai Lama in 1950, but has been leading his followers in exile since 1959, when the Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation collapsed.

In recent years, the Dalai Lama has discussed the possibility of the Tibetan people ending the tulku tradition, and the belief that his own reincarnation will not happen in Tibet while it remains under Chinese control. That leaves some uncertainty as to where and how the next Dalai Lama will arise, and who it will be.

I'm stunned. Let's band together and all shout FREE TIBET!!
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Okay, I'm stuck here in my cottage while the gardeners screw up my yard and are parked behind my car (why bother asking them to move when I could blog instead?)

So, do you know about iTunes' New Music Tuesday? Every week they have a free song download and this week it's pretty good. "Love Me Like You" by the Magic Numbers. To find it you just go to Music Store in iTunes and the link to the Free Download of the Week is on the store's home page.
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Be calm. Be calm. Deep breath.

Sigh. The 'gardeners' are at my house. They come every Wednesday. And it seems they're intent on wreaking havoc more than usual.

Hold on. I can't take it. I have to go look...

Good lord, they're not gardeners they're mutilators!!! Can't you hear the scream of the plants?

So. At my place I have a sort of patio the size of a small driveway and the owner (not me, unfortunately) planted 4 red trumpet vines to grow on an arbor above the patio. Good idea. Unfortunately, trumpet vines in our area get agressively out of control. Fast. The vines cover the arbor, drape down to the ground, partly cover the ground, cover the roof of the adjacent garage, and had made the leap over to the house and begun covering the roof there. I had the owner out to see it because I'm worried the shingles will be ripped off with their tenacious tentacles. He said he'd think about it.

This Sunday I attacked it. And it looks so much better. It now only covers the patio arbor and the garage roof. There is light coming from between the vine trunks, in other words it isn't a cave now. I trimmed a pick-up truck sized load off. I also trimmed back a poor, poor shrub that had been shaped into a cube for so long...I could hear the screams every time I went out. So I freed it by trimming at different lengths, cutting off all the puny growth at the very edges from gowing/cutting/growing/cutting, and it looks like hell but in a few months will be gorgeous. And a bit more natural. The really sad thing is that the plant grows these gorgeous spikes of pinkish flowers but they could never grow because any new growth was constantly buzz-sawed off.

I know, I know, too much information. Sorry.

So today, I planned on leaving out notes to ask them not to buzz-saw the poor thing. And sure enough they had begun chopping it all back. Ahhhhh! I asked them to just leave it, I liked it natural, and to not buzz it back. He looked at me like "Are you nuts?" Followed by a look that just accepted that fact. I hope he understood the last part about not wacking it flat. I made a hand motion. Maybe that will help. As I walked back, I heard him tell another guy, in the kind of voice that was quite bewildered.

And picture this, you know joshua trees? Well i have something that looks sort of similar. I have a couple gorgeous 25' tall ones. And one of them seeded a baby at its base and I had been nurturing it because they had weed-wacked it. It was looking so happy, at 1.5' tall. They cut it in half! This thing doesn't grow branches from the middles of the spear-shaped leaves! What are they thinking????

And now they're mowing. The grass doesn't need mowed, but I understand that that is their job. Okay. But the wheels and feet just make a mud bog since the grass isn't really growing right now. Sigh.

Thanks for listening.
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Well thank god for the New York Times. That's all I have to say. Where else do you get such smart articles that go beyond the AP/Reuters blurb? Okay, there might be a few other places, but the New York Times (online) rocks! They delve deeper in news and they publish funny articles for no other purpose than to entertain.

Case in point: The following snipet is from an article perfect to comfort the poor business traveler.

...But who needs industry statistics about airplane orders and hotel occupancy rates when the beleaguered business people who are sitting in the planes and sleeping in the hotels are testing another kind of boundary: the limits of humiliation, weirdness, fear and revulsion? Wouldn't you rather hear their stories? Here are some of them.

TIGHTEST SPOT Bobbie Wyatt's husband packed the bags and checked out of their Manhattan hotel before she did, leaving her with only her top. "I had nothing to wear from the waist down," said Ms. Wyatt, a public relations professional from Greenville, S.C. There were no housekeepers in the hallway to lend her a uniform, and she was too embarrassed to call the concierge and say she had no pants.

"As I sank down on the bed, my arm brushed against the fabric of an airline blanket," she said. A light bulb went off. With the sewing kit from the bathroom, she rigged up a wrap skirt and headed outside for the nearest clothing store. "I glanced up to see a half-naked cowboy playing a guitar," she recalled. "I just relaxed, realizing I fit right in." To reward herself for her ingenuity, Ms. Wyatt emerged from the shop with three outfits.

WACKIEST MOMENT The flight out of Chicago had been delayed, there were no agents in sight and the passengers at the departure gate were restless. The phone at the desk rang, and a self-styled comedian answered it, identifying himself as Joe Customer.

"Then the other phone on the wall rings, so he answers that one, saying, 'Hello, Joe Customer here,' " recalled John G. Miller, a motivational speaker from Denver, who witnessed the incident. "He quickly goes back to the first phone. Then, 'Hold on, please. I think I have your party on the other line.'

"To everyone's amazement in the gate area, he reverses the handsets and puts them together, so the two phones are touching, one right side up and one upside down."

The tension-breaker put the crowd in stitches until "some tall woman dressed in her executive-boardroom airlines uniform that has never been wrinkled comes stomping down into the gate area," he said, and demanded to know who answered the phones.

Joe meekly raised his hand. After being scolded, he apologized to his fellow passengers. He was rewarded with loud applause.

MOST WELCOME CURSE On a trans-Atlantic flight, Eric Yaverbaum, the president of Jericho Communications in Manhattan, opened the overhead bin and released somebody's bottle of Jack Daniels, which crashed onto a passenger. Seeing the man knocked out and lying in the aisle, streaked in blood, Mr. Yaverbaum shuddered. If this guy is an American, he thought, he will probably sue. A doctor was summoned. The man came to. Mr. Yaverbaum apologized. The victim received six stitches. Then he began to yell — in French. "I had no idea what he was saying until he started cursing in English," he said."

There are other stories in the article, but these were the best.

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