Oct 15, 2006
(oldie but goodie) synopsis of human nature:
Tell a man there are 500 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. Of course, it is a lot easier to check wet paint than to count stars.

Oct 14, 2006
too tempting to add thought balloons ... must ... resist ...

Oct 13, 2006
Friday the 13th. Yikes!! Good thing I'm brave. Sort of. Forward all calls to tom-under-the-bedcovers. Paraskevidekatriaphobia, what?
paraskevidekatriaphobia?!
Well ...
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm

Oct 12, 2006
There's so much talk lately about the world devolving into a number of powerful competing theocracies. God forbid.
Did you know the legend "In God We Trust," did not appear on United States coins until 1908, and on paper currency not until 1957?

Oct 11, 2006
It's so tempting with a blog to rant on (I'll pass) about the shape of the world, and the potentially terrifying times we live in. Most of us feel small and ineffectual in the face of the massive power structures which appear to be running things, some of them just south of our border(this blog originates in the Dominion of Canada), some elsewhere on the planet. Our lives and livelihoods are so vulnerable to what is realistically beyond our control. It's hard to know which news reports to believe and which ones are shaped by the entities which own them.

So it is good that at least for now some attempts to view reality with equanimity and perhaps a touch of levity are still allowed to exist, even if only because they seem to pose no real threat to our existing power structures.

here's an interesting bit from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, with excerpts from the unbelievably yet visibly manufactured Fox and CNN "news". Just click on the Quicktime video.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/08/end_of_the_worl.html

Oct 9, 2006
Say, is it just me or would anyone else like to back a steam roller over those two freakin' beavers in the recent Bell adds? Bad enough our national mascot is a rodent. Do we have to Disneyize them as well? I keep waiting for Fred McMurray to show up on the set. Who is the person at Bell who was actually convinced that two overweight talking beavers would make me feel like a proud Canadian and want to run out and buy their product? They are almost as irritating as that bearded dweeb in the Canadian Tire ads which ran for far too long.
Allegedly a radio survey has determined that 89% of Canadians love these "cute furry rodents". Am I wrong here? DO they truly represent how an average Canadian wishes to be viewed by the rest of the world? Say it ain't so! No, really, I can take being wrong. I think.

Oct 5, 2006
Now why can't we build a car like this? ....
The E. Coli bacterium propels itself with a 'motor' only one-millionth of an inch in diameter,
a thousand times smaller than the tiniest motors built to date by man. The rotation of the bacterial motor comes from a current of protons. The efficiency of the motor approaches 100 per cent.

Oct 2, 2006
Exploding Head Syndrome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
Exploding head syndrome is a rare condition first reported by a British physician in 1988
that causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as if
from within his or her own head, usually described as an explosion or a roar ...

Oct 1, 2006
unbifurcated apparel for men:

http://www.kiltmen.com/
Why men should be free to wear kilts and other kilt-like clothing ...

Sept 26, 2006
reindeer antifreeze:

How do reindeers survive in the extreme cold? Most animals don't eat moss. It's hard to digest, and it has little nutritional value. But reindeer fill up with lots of moss. Why? The moss contains a special chemical that helps reindeer keep their body fluids warm. When the reindeer make their yearly journey across the icy Arctic region, the chemical keeps them from freezing - much as antifreeze keeps a car from freezing up in winter