At Least My Rented Mom Loves Me

Recently eaten: meatless lasagna Recent annoyance: everything seems to be going haywire in advance of the Inauguration crowds (water main breaks, traffic, suspicious vehicles etc.)

This turns my deep-seated fear that my parents have been secretly paying my friends for years on its head. What if I was paying my own friends to hang out with me and laugh at my stupid jokes? Isn't this the premise of many a teen movie where the handsome jock gets paid or accepts a bet to date the dorky girl?

And then there's this guy at Rent-a-pal.

Rent-a-friend in Japan (via BBC News)
In Japan, now back in recession, the economic situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse in recent months. But the Japanese still like to use their money to have fun, as Duncan Bartlett has been finding out.

Lola - or Rora - to give her a slightly more Japanese pronunciation - is a beauty and she knows it.

Customers pay by the hour for her company. Usually they just want to stroke her, but as a special treat for favoured clients, she will lie back in a chair, close her eyes and pose for photographs.

Lola is a Persian cat who works at the Ja La La Cafe in Tokyo's bustling Akihabara district. It is one of a growing number of Cat Cafes in the city which provide visitors with short but intimate encounters with professional pets.

Death Wish

Recently eaten: pasta bolognese
Recent annoyance: that weird alien sound coming from Dupont Circle. is it construction, or are they blasting supersonic noise from the metro?

This guy needs a new events coordinator. He shoots at a gas pump and when it doesn't explode, he drives into two cars. Somehow reading a book on the weekend seems so tame in comparison.

Man accused of repeatedly firing at gasoline pump (Yahoo)
A man who police said fired gun shots into a gasoline pump on Saturday morning was expected to be charged with three felonies when he's released from a local hospital.

Police said the man went to the Sunoco gas station on New Haven Road and fired a shotgun at a gas pump several times while customers stood nearby.

Luckily, nobody was injured and the pump did not explode.

Book'em, Danno

Recently eaten: homemade mushroom pizza
Recent annoyance: is the Columbia Heights Giant supermarket ever NOT crowded?

Wouldn't these titles also qualify the books for oddest book subject matter? Or is there a similarly-themed, but sanely titled book about Greek postal routes? These are the questions that define our lives.

Greek postmen beat zombies to win oddest book title (via YahooNews)
"Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers" benefited from a late surge in public support to win the title on Friday of oddest book title of the past 30 years, The Bookseller magazine said.

The book -- a comprehensive record of Greek postal routes by Derek Willan -- grabbed 13 percent of the 1,000 international public votes cast to chose the oddest title from the winners of the annual competition that began in 1978.

It beat "People Who Don't Know They're Dead" and "How To Avoid Huge Ships" into second and third places with 11 and 10 percent respectively.

"The posties pulled off a real shock here. The pre-tournament favourite was the prize's first ever recipient - "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice," said Horace Bent, custodian of the annual Diagram Prize.

"Right from the off, it was Gary Leon Hill's "People Who Don't Know They're Dead" that set the pace. It topped the polls for over three weeks," he added.

Another early favourite "How To Bombproof Your Horse" also failed to feature in the final count.

The prize was dreamed up initially at the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair as a way of avoiding boredom. It has since become an annual star. This year's winner was "If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs."

The Truth Hurts Sometimes

Recently eaten: salad with walnuts and blue cheese
Recent annoyance: if the gorillas were hiding, what else could be squirreled away?

Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow, especially when you spent all your money in a slot machine. Come on buddy, at least try out the $5 blackjack table. I predict the next 911 phone call to be about the empty shrimp plate at the buffet.

Man tell 911 slot machine stole his money (Yahoo News)
second Florida man has been arrested on charges of making false 911 calls in as many days. An arrest report says 47-year-old Carlos Gutierrez was at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino early Monday and called 911 to say the slot machine stole his money. The report says Gutierrez left the casino to place a second 911 call to say the same thing.

I Am Rubber, You Are Glue...No, Wait

Recently eaten: pork belly
Recent annoyance: if everyone books the early morning appointments, how am I supposed to get one?

Why isn't it ever some bow-tie-wearing, O'Reilly-watching crazy that tries stuff like this? You're giving us a bad name, buddy.

Climate protester tries to glue himself to Brown (Yahoo News)
A climate change protester unsuccessfully tried to superglue himself to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at an event in the leader's residence, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

Dan Glass, a 24-year-old member of Plane Stupid, which campaigns against airport expansion, tried to attach himself to Brown's suit as he was about to shake hands with the premier at his Downing Street residence.

Oh, The Shame

Recently eaten: satay skewers
Recent annoyance:

This is embarrassing for all of us. Chinese cuisine is one of the great world cuisines and they have boiled it down to kung pao chicken? Will they also have their mascot General Tso running around?

China makes kung pao chicken official for Olympics (Yahoo News)
It's official. Hungry foreign hordes craving a fix of diced chicken fried with chili and peanuts during the Beijing Olympics will be able to shout "kung pao chicken!" and have some hope of getting just that.

As it readies for an influx of visitors for the August Games, the Chinese capital has offered restaurants an official English translation of local dishes whose exotic names and alarming translations can leave foreign visitors frustrated and famished.

General Tso says "my face burns with shame."

Skintern Season

Recently eaten: chicken yogurt (not what you think)
Recent annoyance: the lightning bug that got into my apartment and made me think I was seeing things

Summer intern season is now in full swing. Front Page and Hawk and Dove are enjoying new found business. But, really, people, let's get the facts straight.

How not to be that intern (DCist)

"Ye olde intern"

To Add Insult to Injury

Recently eaten: bulgogi
Recent annoyance: wrenched back

Man, imagine if you got demoted at work and had to be renamed "Good-for-Nothing." Or maybe you'd just have to wear a dunce cap.

Pluto gets a new name: plutoid (Yahoo)
Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, got a consolation prize on Wednesday -- it and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids.

The International Astronomical Union said in a statement that its executive committee meeting in Oslo, Norway, decided on the term.

Plutoids will be defined as celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun farther away than Neptune. They must have near-spherical shape, and must not have swept up other, smaller objects in their orbits, said the organization, which names newly discovered planets and other celestial bodies.

The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, but astronomers expect to find more.

Another dwarf planet, Ceres, does not merit the plutoid designation because it is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Isn't That Convenient?

Recently eaten: cinnamon streudel bread
Recent annoyance: forgetfulness

Well, doesn't that work out neatly for you, Dr. Olaf?

Falling asleep on job can improve memory, study shows
Hamburg, Germany - Falling asleep on the job for a few minutes can improve your memory and mental performance, according to a team of German researchers. Dr. Olaf Lahl at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany, has shown that simply falling asleep does more than refresh the brain - it can improve recall and mental efficiency.

In fact, a six-minute nap can have the same effect as nighttime sleep on memory.

Dr. Lahl's team asked students to memorize a list of vocabulary and tested their ability to recall the list after an hour of playing solitaire.

Volunteers were asked to remember a list of 30 words. They were then given an hour's break before the memory test. During the break, some volunteers were allowed to nap for six minutes, while others had to stay awake.

The researchers found that those who had been allowed to nap displayed "superior recall" in the memory test compared to those who stayed awake.

The researchers said this was the first time that a very brief sleep has been shown to improve memory.

"To our knowledge, this demonstrates for the first time that an ultra-brief sleep episode provides an effective memory enhancement," Lahl he writes in the Journal of Sleep Research.

His researchers found that it was possible that falling asleep triggered a process in the brain that continued regardless of how long the person stayed asleep.

"It seems much more is happening during the initialization of sleep than we once thought," Dr. Lahl says.

"Maybe much of sleep's functional aspects are accomplished at its very beginning," writes in the article.

Taste Test

Recently eaten: rice and beans
Recent annoyance: dropping food on newly cleaned pants

As a lover of all things cheesy and pithy, I don't see what's wrong with these restaurant names.

What's in a name?
Restaurants are often given a bad name. Quite literally in the case of Marylebone's vegetarian Eat and Two Veg. With a name to make even a provincial barber groan, ETV (I refuse to type it again) rather undermines the meat-free diner's attempts at contemporary style. It would seem good food does not equal good taste.

Of course, it's not just vegetarians eateries but all specialist or niche restaurants which seem especially prone to the pun. Could you stomach the Mussel Inn, Thai'd Up or Mad Mex? And could a love affair with falafel survive a meal at Syriandipity?

Puns aren't the only sins when naming a restaurant. Writing in The Observer, Jay Rayner began a review, "Why didn't somebody stop them? Why didn't one of their investors, hearing the name for the first time, say, for God's sake no!" The offending outlet was named Ooze, an onomatopoeic evocation of seeping wounds, ordure and, apparently, risotto.

Personally, I take issue with Café Mao, a popular name for Chinese restaurants; something about dictators and good times doesn't seem to fit. Worse still was the restaurant which opened in Mumbai last year called Hitler's Cross, adorned with swastikas and images of the Führer. A cynical attempt at creating publicity with the weak defence from the proprietor that "Hitler is a catchy name".

For more innocent names to put you off your food, barbecue restaurants are hard to beat, providing horrors even vegans couldn't think of. Take your pick from Bubbalou's Bodacious Bar-B-Que, Hog's Breath Rest or Gassey Jack's Smokehouse Garage, names which make the nose wrinkle and the arteries clog just by reading them. It may go without saying that these, along with the Roadkill Café, are all to be found in America.

Our friends across the Atlantic do seem to admire the wordplay. One of America's biggest restaurant chains is Lettuce Entertain You, though sadly their memorably-monikered eateries Lawrence of Oregano and Jonathan Livingston Seafood are no more. Even staid old Washington DC isn't immune. Wonks can treat themselves at Grill from Ipanema, ThaiTanic, Papa Razzi or Rosemary's Thyme.

Such is the impact of pun-tastic restaurants in America that academia has weighed in. Lynn C. Hattendorf Westney, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois has collected "examples of international onomastic appellation which demonstrate that the names of contemporary dining and drinking establishments serve as semantic and/or humorous reflections of societal mores."

While her thoughts on Pulp Kitchen and Dine One One are intriguing, Westney neglects to cast her academic eye over this little beauty, tastingmenu.com's choice of "worst restaurant name ever".

We all have our own personal favourite best worst eatery names. Can anyone do better than these?

In Coal Blood

Recently eaten: sour cream blueberry muffin
Recent annoyance: I think my eyelashes are falling out

I'm going to skip around my China trip since I can only remember certain things now. they must have given me that "memory-killing" serum before I left the country.

On the day before we left we visited the China Coal Museum in Taiyuan. I was skeptical. From what i had seen, the government and our tour guide was more interested in glossing over the rather bothersome consequences of coal mining in the country including environmental destruction, mining accidents, and pollution. As we walked into the rather office-looking building, I noticed that the parking lot proudly proclaimed that it was solar-powered and there were a couple of sad-looking solar panels (probably hooked up to a desk lamp in the guard's booth) next to the exit.

Inside, we walked to the third floor, since the rest of the building looked like an abandoned student center. The beginning of the exhibit showed on an interactive map where the largest concentrations of coal mines are in the world and zooming in on china's coal veins. Scattered around the hall were giant statues and carved figures made of coal (or carbon, as some called it). Apparently, this type pf coal is very rare now because it is so hard. Below is some crazy cat made of coal. (The pics are blurry because I was trying t get around the "no pictures" rule)
The next room looked like a storage room from Jurassic Park. There are giant replicas of prehistoric vegetation and animatronic dinosaurs. Yes, animatronic dinosaurs.
I guess this was supposed to explain how coal is formed (from millions of years of pressure on decomposing plant matter). However, if the robot dinosaurs weren't convincing enough, we were led into a small theater and given 3-D glasses. This was no ordinary 3-D movie, this is what they call 4-D where spurts of water came out of tubes in front of our faces, the seats rocked back and forth and gusts of wind blew over our heads as the movie illustrated what the climate must have been like in China millions of years ago. I am surprised they didn't blow coal dust directly into our lungs.

The rest of the museum was pretty boring after that: the invention of the steam engine, plastics, coal mining is safe...the same old shpiel. BUT WAIT! There's more. They took us downstairs into their modal coal mine shafts. We rode in a rickety and tiny coal tram into the tunnel and were given miners hats.
We navigated through about 1/2 a mile of fake tunnels beneath the museum and were subjected to creepy looking mannequins "mining coal." I'll admit, i almost called Amnesty International to save those dummies and oput them in a nice-paying storefront window job. They were supposed to be showing us the wonders of modern mining, but it all came off like bad propaganda. At least we could buy some cool stuff made of coal at the end. It made up for the black lung.

Death and Taxis

Recently eaten: peruvian rotisserie chicken
Recent annoyance: people on the bus who refuse to sit down in a vacated seat on a crowded bus when sitting down would free up more room

So, the DC cabbies have decided to strike because the Mayor is forcing them to put meters in their cabs. The Mayor is keeping cabbies from bilking riders out of exorbitant cab fares in this weird zone-fare system and the cabbies are gonna strike? Well, screw you cabbies. I know your job sucks and you provide a valuable service, but providing reasonable fares keeps you from getting stiffed and prevents those drunken disputes about where the zone line was. Suck it up.

Cabbie strike looms in D.C.
District businesses are bracing for a 24-hour taxi strike threatened on Halloween, a high-volume day for cabs, in what drivers say might be the first in a series of strikes to protest Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's recent decision to switch from zones to meters.

Tourism officials said out-of-town visitors will be inconvenienced, although many hotels plan to provide limos and shuttles, and bar owners are concerned about the effect on business if customers are not sure of a taxi ride home.

It is unclear how many drivers will participate.

Organizers said more than half the city's estimated 7,500 drivers will be on strike from 6 a.m. tomorrow to 6 a.m. Thursday. Their claims were difficult to gauge, however, because there have been no mass meetings on a strike, and drivers, most of them independent contractors, are represented by several organizations.

Spreading the message through leaflets and word of mouth, organizers contend that there are enough angry drivers to bring taxi service in much of the city to a standstill.

"We just want to say to the mayor that we are in complete disagreement with him and that we are opposed to time-and-distance meters," said William J. Wright, president of the Taxicab Industry Group, who is leading the strike. "We're going to do everything we can to overturn this decision."

The last time District cabdrivers went on strike, it was for 12 hours Nov. 17, 2004. They were upset by legislation proposed by then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to revamp taxi regulation.

That Tired Excuse Again?

Recently eaten: katsudon
Recent annoyance: salt bloat

Funny, this werewolf sounds a lot like a small-time criminal. And how many times can you really use the werewolf excuse without being in a John Landis movie? I'll answer that for you - 0

Werewolf burglar gets 6 months in jail
A man who claimed he was a werewolf when he broke into a woman's apartment has been sentenced to six months in jail. Robert Marsh, 40, faced charge of criminal trespassing, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct and possession of marijuana.

He pleaded no contest to criminal trespass as part of a plea deal and the other charges were dropped.

He was accused of breaking through the deadbolt of a woman's apartment around 3 a.m. March 1 and grabbed the woman's arm, according to the criminal complaint.

He frightened the woman when he told her he was a werewolf, had powers and was involved in a witch religion, the complaint said. When police arrested Marsh, he told them he was a werewolf who could change forms, the complaint said.

The woman said she had been letting Marsh stay with her since his release from prison several days earlier because he was homeless, the complaint said. While he was there he drank, did not sleep and was often incoherent, according to the criminal complaint.

Fond du Lac County Circuit Court Judge Robert Wirtz sentenced Marsh this week.

Cause For Akonfusion

Recently eaten: ravioli, rotisserie chicken
Recent annoyance: people who refuse to move to the back of the bus (for space, not racial reasons)

I have many guilty pleasures that I will readily admit. I love to watch music videos endlessly. I am an avid fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I read cuteoverload.com.

Now I am ready to admit to my latest guilty pleasure: the music of Akon. Something about that nasal voice and all that hooting and hollering gets my feet tapping.

How Akon Became a Star
"Gangsta fatalism is such a rap cliché that it's difficult to take seriously—especially when it's delivered in Akon's plaintive little warble. Hard-boiled has never sounded so soft."

"The other day, I was walking in a Lower Manhattan park, when I heard a familiar melody blipping out of a nearby phone. It was the singsong refrain from Akon's "Smack That," and I had to admit, in this robotic version, it was sinisterly catchy: I felt it burning, burrowing into my brain, earworm style. Just then, a group of college-age guys walked by and burst into the song's chorus, singing the tender words that every girl longs to hear:

I feel you creepin', I can see you from my shadow
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo
Maybe go to my place and just kick it, like tae-bo
And possibly bend you over, look back and watch me
Smack that, all on the floor
Smack that, give me some more
Smack that, 'till you get sore
Smack that, oh oh"

Blood Is Thicker Than Water, But Not As Potent As Coca Cola

Recently eaten: turkey and gouda sandwich
Recent annoyance: ripping off bandaids

I donated blood today. Don't worry, it was my own. I have given blood before and I've never had complications. Well, today was my day. First, the nurse tells me that my blood pressure is borderline. This, after she has run through about 8,000 questions about selling my body for drugs, snorting cocaine, injecting drugs that aren't my own, and traveling in Europe. Secondly, I start filling the bag so fast, my brain puts the short hold on any new thoughts except for feeling like I am going to puke. All the other normal donors are sitting in their chairs looking at me with my legs in the air, washcloths all over my head and neck, sipping on a can of Coke. Why can't I ever just do something like a normal person?

Ctrl + Z

Recently eaten: beef souvlaki
Recent annoyance: I look like a chubby Chinese man with my hair tied back

Thank goodness for the "undo" function on computers. No matter how many times I screw something up I can always hit ctrl+Z and make everything better. No such luck for the Swiss army. Look, I thought the Swiss soldiers only protected the Pope and all that ungodly money they have hiding in banks up there.

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein
What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Bang On The Drum All Day?

Recently eaten: slow cooked pork, fingerling potatoes
Recent annoyance: uncomfortable bar stools

Now I realize that not everyone is on a 9-to-5 work schedule, but having bummed around the city for the last couple of days, there is an untapped labor pool just waiting for the right employment opportunity.

There seems to be a long line outside the decrepit liquor store on 14th and U Sts.

Many elderly, retired persons have been found at a matinee at the movie theater.

Don't they have truant officers anymore? I must insist on this because there are teenagers and small children all over the place during the school hours. What better education is there for a young person than some hard manual labor?

As for me, I'll be the carefree yuppie sipping hot chocolate at Starbucks.

A Wintry Mix

Recently eaten: pasta with chicken and mozzarella
Recent annoyance: still doing my taxes

My brain is too fried for a real post, so here are some random thoughts:

1. I look like I fell off the back of a truck...albeit a fabulously wealthy truck
2. My ants seem unhappy, they yearn for something more.
3. I find hemmed jeans distasteful
4. Yesterday, the grocery store cashier complimented the way I artfully stacked my groceries on the conveyor belt
5. I had a dream that a boat was trying to run me over

Come On Knock On Our Door, We've Been Waiting For You!

Recently eaten: chicken lo mein
Recent annoyance: dry contact lenses

Sometimes I wonder what our apartment would be like if JYo and I were gamers...and then I read something like this and praise Allah that we are nice, normal girls. I wonder if you would have to bring your own gaming chair, or if they would put you through your paces on World of Warcraft as poart of your roommate interview. Maybe they'll just bring in a robot to fill the spot.

World of Housecraft
"Take two wacky Asian boys, one crazy white girl, the world's biggest MMO and a SOMA apartment for rent and what have you got? Why, World of Housecraft of course!

This ad looking for a roommate surfaced on Craig's List a few days ago and has been subsequently taken down, but thanks to Digg and mirror sites, the image was saved for posterity. Not only is it possibly the nerdiest apartment ad ever, but also the most creative. Someone obviously spent a lot of time creating this image to entice a fellow Warcrafter into their home for fun and geeky times gathered around the glowing warmness of the computer screen's warming glow.

Why the ad was pulled is unknown. Perhaps it was a copyright issue or maybe they just found the perfect person to fill their little house with the geek love it so sorely needs and deserves."

(click on the pic for the full-size version)

*Yawn*

Recently eaten: tomato basil chicken, oyster mushrooms
Recent annoyance: that feeling that you are too tired to fall asleep

There just doesn't seem to be that much weird news out there this morning. In fact, I can barely keep my eyes open. Well, maybe you all can find something of interest at Life's Little Mysteries.

Zzzzzzzz