Just One More

Recently eaten: spinach and ricotta pizza
Recent annoyance: ran out of tupperware

Okay, just one crazy video. I promise it's good.

Why Not

Putin It On For the Cameras

Recently eaten: lamb chop
Recent annoyance: a random alarm in my neighbor's apartment was going off for hours

In other news, President Bush saved 2 secret service agents from a squirrel on the White House lawn. And from the international desk, Putin says, "The tiger was a formidable foe, and delicious."

Putin Saves TV Crew from Siberian Tiger (via YahooNews)
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was feted by Russian media on Sunday for saving a television crew from an attack by a Siberian tiger in the wilds of the Far East.

Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

"Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

Oh, The Humidity!

Smartest Bat Ever

Recently eaten: scrod - junk fish of the sea
Recent annoyance: outfit looks good standing up, but not sitting down

I can't decide if the bat is way smarter than a dolphin, or this chick is hard-of-feeling. And, isn't there some risk of getting rabies from hatching a baby bat in your undergarments? It seems unsanitary and probably means that this girl is a member of a vampire army. It's science.

Teenager finds baby bat in her bra
Abbie Hawkins, a hotel receptionist, thought her mobile phone was ringing when she felt vibrations coming from her clothes.

But she later discovered the tiny creature tucked away in the padded pocket of her underwear.

As staff and colleagues crowded around, Miss Hawkins, 19, produced the frightened bat, which was the size of her hand.

I Think He's Learned his Lesson

Recently eaten: italian eggplant pizza
Recent annoyance: back to oatmeal for breakfast

Mexican jail really gets a PR boost from Blacky's experience. I'll go to Mexican jail if I get to gobble food from a bucket. Although, I am sure the donkey was put into solitary for his own safety. There are a lot of weirdos in Mexican prison.

Mexican donkey freed from jail after assault
A Mexican donkey has been freed from jail after doing time for assault and battery. The Televisa network on Wednesday showed "Blacky" gobbling food from a bucket after spending three days in a jail that normally holds people for public drunkenness and other disturbances.

"Community service sucks!"

Well That's A Relief

Recently eaten: korean bbq
Recent annoyance: DNS

Good lord, I don't know which is more terrifying: some lizard swamp creature attacking the van, who may or may not be mythical, or a real, live dog.

DNA tests exonerate 'Lizard Man' in van attack
DNA testing has shown an attack on a family van some blamed on the legendary Lizard Man appears to have been actually done by a domestic dog. Something chewed up the front fender of Bob and Dixie Rawson's van in February. Bite marks were left on the wheel wells and blood was found on the vehicle.

The Item of Sumter reported that a veterinary lab in California tested the blood and found it came from a dog.

But Bob Rawson isn't sure, saying it would have to be one big dog.

Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin isn't convinced either. He thinks it was a coyote or wolf.

Lizard Man became a phenomenon in the area 20 years ago when people began reporting a tall, big-eyed swamp creature. Authorities never figured out exactly what prompted the sightings.

"Nothing to see here...except a lizard man."
Thanks to Loren Coleman for the photo from his new book Mysterious America (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2007)

Hump Day

It's only Wednesday...

Sucker for Cats

Recently eaten: boiled egg
Recent annoyance: cling wrap that is too clingy

Harumph

Rats!

Recently eaten: rainbow trout
Recent annoyance: runny nose

I came across this article about the nasty phenomenon of the rat king. According to the wikipedia entry, "Rat kings are cryptozoological phenomena said to arise when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, and excrement. The animals consequently grow together while joined at the tails, which are often broken. The phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany, where the majority of instances have been reported."

Okay, what?! That is one of the nastiest things I have ever heard of. The question is whether this monstrosity could have survived very long in that state. I think I saw a rat king once, and it was in the dining room at Polly's on U Street.

Blech.

Bye Bye Black Sheep

Recently eaten: sea bass
Recent annoyance: a scab in my nose

It's official, I am an endangered species. Long considered the black sheep of my family, it appears that fewer and fewer are being born every year. They say the dark sheep are bigger but less fit. Well, that is true.

Study finds declining dark sheep due to genes
he declining number of dark sheep among a wild herd in Scotland comes down to genes, researchers said on Thursday.

The population of the wild Soay sheep on the isolated island of St. Kilda has been virtually unchanged over the past 4,000 years, giving modern-day researchers a unique view into natural selection and evolution.

About three-quarters of the sheep in the herd are dark but their dwindling numbers have puzzled scientists. This is because dark animals tend to be bigger, which should give them an evolutionary advantage to survive harsh winters.

"If being big is good and dark sheep are bigger we would expect the frequency of dark sheep to increase," said Jon Slate, a researcher at the University of Sheffield, who worked on the study published in the journal Science.

"This presents an evolutionary problem."

To solve the riddle the scientists analysed versions of genes that determined colour. Like all animals, sheep inherit one version of each gene from each parent and these sheep can inherit either a gene for a dark coat or a gene for a white coat from each parent.

The researchers determined that the gene for a dark coat is dominant -- dark sheep carry either two dark genes or a dark gene and a light gene.

But they also found that having a light gene boosts fitness so the best combination in evolutionary terms for the sheep is a mix of genes that produce a dark coat.

This explains the decline of dark sheep because those with a pair of dark genes are the least fit, even though they are big, Slate said. The researchers do not know why the light gene confers fitness, he added.

"We have an example of a counterintuitive trend and show that it is actually still consistent with evolutionary theory," he said in a telephone interview. "It helps explain why predicted evolutionary trends are sometimes not observed."

Piglight

Recently eaten: oatmeal...bleh
Recent annoyance: the constant state of gravy in which my cholesterol can be found

If China thought the Olympics might be a PR nightmare, isn't this flourescent pig a close second? As if the Chinese aren't already zodiac crazy, now we're touting the glow-in-the-dark pig family? They're just going to be made into some tasty glowing dish anyway.

China rings out year of flourescent green pig
A fluorescent green Chinese pig has given birth to two piglets which share their mother's transgenic characteristic after she mated with an ordinary pig, state media said.

The mother sow is one of the three fluorescent green pigs successfully bred by a research team in December 2006 after they injected fluorescent green protein into pig embryos.

"The mouths, trotters and tongues of the two piglets glow green under ultraviolet light, which indicates the technology to breed transgenic pigs via cell nuclear transfer is mature," Liu Zhonghua, a professor at Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, was quoted as saying.

She produced 11 piglets on Monday but so far only two of them had inherited the fluorescent feature.

"This technology promises to breed excellent transgenic pigs and even raise special pigs to provide organs for human transplant operations in the future," Liu was quoted as saying.

Chinese scientists bred the pigs using somatic cell nuclear transfer technology following similar successes in the United States, South Korea and Japan.

China celebrates the start of the Year of the Rat in February, drawing a close to the Year of the Pig.

Mall in the Family

Recently eaten: eel
Recent annoyance: my inability to speak in full and meaningful sentences in Cantonese

To take a break from turned out to be my not so scintillating trip to mainland China, here's what I've been doing in HK since I got back.

Tai O Fishing Village: Located on Lantau Island, Tai O is an authentic fishing village known for it's houses on stilts and dried fish products. I will remember it as a quiet fishing village full of cats and the cleanest public toilets I have seen anywhere in Hong Kong. The road to Tai O is a small two-lane highway (which is really only about 1.5 lanes) that goes over the small mountains on Lantau Island to the easternmost part of Hong Kong. One of my uncles is originally from Tai O. My mom said that when she was in high school, there was no road to Tai O. When they went on a school trip there they had to walk for hours over the mountains to get there. I can't even imagine the kind of waiver they would need nowadays to undertake such a trip.
It was refreshing to finally go somewhere that wasn't crowded with people, or full of the honking buses and taxis. The fisherpeople in Tai O now make their living selling fish to tourists. In fact, there isn't enough fish to pull in anymore, much of the fish they sell comes from mainland China.

We ambled about the narrow streets. I saw cats of all kinds all over the houses and yards. And I made friends with a small stray dog. All in a day's work.

Masa-lotta Going on

Recently eaten: chipotle burrito
Recent annoyance: whoever keeps dumping out tons of oatmeal on the sidewalk for the pigeons to eat

I used to want to visit India. I thought it would be a great backpacking type of trip...all that romantic travel stuff. But a couple of recent articles have convinced me that it is probably most dangerous place on earth and I wouldn't have a chance of making it out alive.

Cow-eating trees
Carnivorous trees grabbing humans and cattle and gobbling them up is not just village folklore.

Residents of Padrame near Kokkoda in Uppinangady forest range sighted one such carnivorous tree trying to dine on a cow last Thursday. According to reports, the cow owned by Anand Gowda had been left to graze in the forests.

The cow was suddenly grabbed by the branches and pulled from the ground. The terrified cowherd ran to the village, and got Gowda and a band of villagers to the carnivorous tree.

Before the tree could have its meal, Anand Gowda and the villagers struck mortal blows to the branches that turned limp and the cow was rescued. Uppinangady range forest officer (RFO) Subramanya Rao said the tree was described as ‘pili mara’ (tiger tree) in native lingo.

He had received many complaints about cattle returning home in the evenings without tails. On Friday, the field staff confirmed coming across a similar tree in Padrane, partially felled down.

However no detailed inquiry was made as the authorities were not asked for any report, Rao said.

Monkeys kill Delhi Deputy Mayor
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.

The High Court ordered the city to find an answer to the problem last year.

Solution elusive

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.

But the problem has persisted.

Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.

Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.

Mr Bajwa, a member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is survived by his wife and a son, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Catmobile?

Recently eaten: fettucine and seafood
Recent annoyance: starers

I am sure that Pope Benedict and his best friend, Chico the Cat, share many hobbies and pastimes together: visiting with children, keeping all evidence that Jesus lived beyond his crucifixion a secret, and chasing rats. But does Chico ride in the Popemobile?

Cat tells life story of his bets friend the Pope
Chico the cat describes the life of his "best friend", Pope Benedict, in an authorised biography for children released this week.

"Dear Children, here you will find a biography that is different to others because it is told by a cat and it is not every day a cat can consider the Holy Father his friend and sit down to write his life story," the Pope's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, says in the foreword.

"Chico and Joseph -- A Cat Recounts the Life of Pope Benedict XVI" is narrated by Chico who took up with the Pope in his native Germany when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The illustrated 44-page book is written by Italian author Jeanne Perego and set mostly in Germany in the years before Benedict was elected in April 2005.

Chico is a real cat who belongs to a German couple in the German city of Pentling, where the Pope lived until he moved to Rome in 1981. The couple are caretakers of the house where Ratzinger had hoped to retire had he not been elected Pope.

Chico tells the story of the life of "my best friend" from his birth in Germany in 1927, through his days as a young man, priest, bishop and cardinal. It ends with his election as Pope on April 19, 2005.

It recounts the Nazi era in Germany when the Pope was a teenager, calling the war years "one of the most dramatic and shameful times in the history of man".

"At that time, Joseph was forced to do something which was absolutely against his will: john the army and leave for the war. We cats do not make war," Chico narrates.

Chico recounts how each time then Cardinal Ratzinger returned to Germany for a vacation, the cat would run into his house and sit on his lap as he played the piano.

One Christmas, when the future pope tried to put the cat out of the house "I misbehaved" and scratched him. "He forgave me right away but told me: 'Don't do it again".

In his foreword Ganswein tells the children: "Keep in mind that the cat is writing from his point of view. At the end of the day he is a cat, even if he is a cat who is a friend."

During the years when he was a cardinal in Rome, the future Pope befriended another cat he found on the street and kept him in his apartment until he was elected pope.

There have been conflicting reports about whether that cat moved into the Vatican with the Pope.

Cats And Children Are Winning the War on Terror

Recently eaten: spinach fettuccine, baked chicken
Recent annoyance: It's 70 degrees people, I think you can hold off on wearing the fleece

I read this article on Wired.com today and it read like a page straight out my nightmare book, except that this nightmare has already come true. What do you think children have been scamming us with for years? Cuteness and helplessness. There are plenty of children that get by in the wild with just some grubs and a dead carcass to sleep in, yet, here we are, pawns in their sick game.

Cats Harbor Secret Plan to Turn Us Into Litter-Scooping Robots
One of my cats -- the one that has not yet appeared on I Can Has Cheezburger -- has developed an elaborate routine for getting me up to feed him in the morning. It involves a lot of meowing, jumping on things, knocking things over, and the occasional loud coughing up of hairballs. I can't prove that last bit is intentional, but I'm pretty sure it is.

If I had a real job I wouldn't have to set an alarm clock, but as it is I feel that this is a problem that I must solve, as I solve all my problems, with technology.

The technology in this case is an automatic cat feeder. Most of the automatic feeders on Amazon come with reviews detailing how the cats have managed to work around the DRM (dinner rights management) built into them.

No matter what lies between them and kibble, the cats manage to prod, pull and shove their way to an extra serving. I'm buying one anyway, because I have a Dremel tool, and somehow that convinces me that I can re-engineer the thing to outsmart the one primal urge a cat has left after being sterilized.

I already have an automatic water dispenser for the cats, and I'm thoughtfully eyeing one of those elaborate automatic self-cleaning litter boxes that scoops, flushes and sprays its interior with the delicate scent of live mice, the better to make it not just a litter box, but a space to exist. It occurs to me that with the proper application of money and floor space, you can get machines to take on most of the duties incumbent upon the cat owner.

For instance, any number of electronic cat toys will whip a fuzzy thing around so you can watch Best Week Ever without having to move any part of your body. Better yet, they make actual electronic mice. When I get that time machine working, I'm going to go back to colonial times and explain to a farmer that in the future, we go to the store and buy artificial vermin. I'm sure he'll enjoy thinking about that when he's not busy watching locusts eat his crops or burying his children.

This covers most of the services I provide to my cat, but not all of them. Let's start with the scratching and/or skritching. As far as I can see, this is between my cat and my hand, with very little participation from me. I just kind of stick out my hand and make a repetitive scratching movement, and my cat moves his head and neck around to his liking. I can even do it while playing Warcraft, provided the other people in my group don't mind dying for a cat's pleasure once in a while.

Really, though, there's no reason I couldn't substitute one of those robotic hands scientists build to prove that some day robots will be able to make shadow puppets. Just stick it on a "repetitive scratching motion loop" and the cat can go nuts, assuming he isn't terrified by the whirring and buzzing. On the other hand, fiction teaches us that a) most robots turn evil and b) most severed hands turn evil, so maybe this isn't such a good idea.

After that I only need to build a robotic lap -- I think that's called a "heating pad" -- and some sort of sweeper arm to knock the cat off my desk when he's being pesky, and then I'm set. Modern science has very nearly rendered human beings unnecessary when it comes to the life of a cat.

And you know, I can't back this up biologically, but I somehow suspect this is how the cats planned it all along. Time may prove that, evolutionarily speaking, we are simply a large and complex external cat organ, one given the duty of making itself obsolete.

I think, on some level, we know this. That's why so many stories and movies and TV shows are about robots replacing mankind. I think if you look carefully, somewhere in the corner of their austere mechanical fortresses, you'll see a cat box being scooped.

Well, Do You Have a Better Idea?

Recently eaten: noodle soup, fruit tart
Recent annoyance: complete and utter disorder on the 42 bus line for the past 2 days

After 2 harrowing days of late buses, crowded buses and generally crazy drivers on my usual bus route, I might resort to the what the Nepalese airline company has done to right things. A little goat sacrifice. I guarantee it will work better than complaining to WMATA.

Goats sacrificed to fix Nepal jet
Nepal's state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft.

Nepal Airlines said the animals were slaughtered in front of the plane - a Boeing 757 - at Kathmandu airport.

The offering was made to Akash Bhairab, the Hindu god of sky protection, whose symbol is seen on the company's planes.

The airline said that after Sunday's ceremony the plane successfully completed a flight to Hong Kong.

"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," senior airline official Raju KC was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Nepal Airlines has two Boeing aircraft in its fleet.

The persistent faults with one of the planes had led to the postponement of a number of flights in recent weeks.

The company has not said what the problem was, but reports in local media have blamed an electrical fault.

Rock the Goat

Recently eaten: burrito
Recent annoyance: my completely uninterested ants

Pickings are slim during the summer for silly news items. I mean, at least for the news items that aren't silly in a sadly ironic way like disgraced Congressman, or things and people getting blowed up. So, in the meantime, here is a six horned goat from China which I am sure is a sign of their impending nuclear catastrophe.

Goateeism

Recently eaten: shrimp linguine
Recent annoyance: that funny thing that my hip flexor is doing

The current political state of facial hair in the world