The World Around Us

I Love Ants

Well, actually, no, I don’t love ants. Ants drive me crazy, especially when they’re crawling all over the house. They’re interesting critters in many ways, and for years I’ve been attracted to Douglas Hofstedter’s notion of intelligent anthills as he presented them in his book Godel, Escher, and Bach. But just keep them out of [...]

Evil Gnome Video

I found a copy of that Evil Gnome video on YouTube.  Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

I’m still trying to figure out what the thing is.  I don’t buy into the notion that it’s a viral marketing gimmick; I think if it were it would be of better quality.  I’m [...]

Evil Gnomey Goodness

Back in 2002, for various reasons, my family and I decided to give my stepfather a lawn gnome for Christmas.  The reasons for this are multitudinous and probably beyond the scope of this blog; let’s just say it was well earned.  To prepare my stepfather for the lawn gnome’s arrival, I put together a series [...]

Yikes

This article from the Guardian has got to be one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a long time.  I certainly feel sympathy for these people, though it does put elements of my own life into perspective:  Life without hope: America’s child prisoners. That this article was published on a British news [...]

Three Real Life Supervillains

In comic books and novels and movies, supervillains are the guys who have Grand Schemes for taking over the world.  They use Doomsday devices, they make their headquarters on zeppelins or in underground lairs, and they wear outlandish costumes.  Think about Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four, for example; he’s an evil genius, and he [...]

The End of Batboy?

It’s been all over the blogosphere that the Weekly World News is shutting down in August.  It’s a shame; when I was in high school, my friend Barry and I would stop by the grocery store and pick up a copy on the way to the bus stop, and snicker over the stories which we [...]

Southern Lawn Care

Showing skin gives new company boost in business
So you pay a few extra bucks and instead of having a neighborhood kid come out and mow your lawn, you get a hot babe in a bikini.  I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with that per se, but I find the concept very… weird.  The article doesn’t [...]

Blossom!

By the time we got to the corpse flower at UC Davis’s botanical conservatory yesterday, it had pretty much stenched itself out.  The flower blooms, at full strength, for about 18 hours, from what I hear, and it had started doing its thing the day before.  While we wandered the campus looking for the conservatory, [...]

What is “Santanic”, anyway?

From the Columbia Chronicle:  "Secret Service investigates Santanic [sic] Vampire".  I’m not entirely sure what to make of the headline; all I can figure is that certain Latin rock musicians are recruiting legions of the undead to violently influence the political process.  With "Likens", no less.
But law professor Neil Richards makes the most important [...]

A Sad Day In Chelonia

Charles Darwin’s tortoise dies - Top stories - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au
Harriet was 176 years old.  Imagine that; imagine being a tortoise 176 years old.  This was the tortoise that Charles Darwin studied on that Galapagos.  She was around during the Civil War, and during both World Wars.  Nations have risen and fallen since [...]

Bad Poetry and Strange News

While sitting at Borders this afternoon, I scribbled out this drivel. I think it basically counts as prose poetry. At any rate, here it is:

I get scared of how fast the day speeds by. This morning went by in a fog of unremembrance, and I did nothing to mark the day. I read a few [...]