A new scientific paper is claiming that early hunter-gathers may have been responsible for a cooling episode known as the "Younger Dryas event". The thinking goes that once human hunter-gatherers caused the extinction of North American megafauna like mammoths and woolly rhinos, the resulting drop in atmospheric methane triggered the shift. Sharp readers will note the author appears to have used one very controversial idea (that humans were the sole cause of megafauna extinction) to prop up a new controversial idea about climate change. This makes my, "smells like political spirit" detector go all itchy around the corners. Then again, I haven't showered yet, so it could just be, you know, fleas or something.

Scientists in India are claiming to have found strong evidence that cell phones are the root cause of the crashing honeybee populations in Europe and North America. The study seems to have been done correctly, and also appears repeatable enough, so further research should go a long way toward confirming or denying the hypothesis.

Ron gets a no-prize that's just not right for bringing us Retarded Policeman #9. The thing is, this is what goes on in the minds of most regular guys. Oh yeah right, like chicks don't take advantage of it.

Couldn't happen to nicer people!

REVENGE!

Graphic photos and video!

Nothing quite like a compilation of red-light runners to graphically demonstrate the consequences of not paying the f- attention to what you're doing.

Any time a guy has a pile of brush and a gasoline can, you know something dumb is about to happen. Kya-boom!

So, what do you think would happen if three men utterly convinced they were the Messiah were forced to live together for two years? Nowadays someone would turn it into a reality show. Fifty years ago, the situation inspired a book.

Mike J. gets a very puzzling no-prize for bringing us a rather curiously labeled door. Years ago the Chevy dealership in the town I grew up in had a sign on its main garage door that read something like, "if this door is down honk your horn and Larry will open it." I always wondered what would happen if Larry called in sick that day.

Observation: interracial marriages are on the rise in America. Media conclusion: an obvious sign of increased discrimination and racial tension. Remember, folks, these are the people who've made it their business to keep us informed.

Yesterday Apple computers officially became more valuable than Microsoft. I, too, can remember when Apple's corporate image was one of a funky general store with "going out of business" signs up on the walls so long the corners had started to yellow and curl. Jobs is a well-known maniac, but he's also pretty obviously a genius. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he finally moves on, presumably feet-first in a coffin.

I've always known cats are so evil you can't kill them with a stick. Now I have proof! Exactly how the little monster managed to survive seems to be a genuine mystery. Nice to hear it all turned out well. You know, in the wash...

A Logan's Run remake probably, maybe, has taken a step toward realization. Ellen's reaction to the original was memorable enough to get a write-up six years ago! There aren't very many Jurassic blogs still plugging along. Ours is probably the only one still running Flinstone-era software to manage it. Go us!

I can think of nothing more discouraging than to set off an explosion so righteous it levels the bank, only to see the obstinately intact ATM bounding away down the street. Leave it to the Germans to take an interesting idea and add so many moving parts to it a failure is nearly as interesting as a success.

Taxi tests of a UCAV with performance goals that include days on-station and a 65,000 foot cruise altitude have begun. I'm pretty sure a properly shaped lump of concrete can exceed the speed of sound when dropped from that altitude. Mass times velocity means never having to say you're sorry, donchaknow?

Aaannndd the location of the next Formula 1 race in the US iisss... Austin, Texas. They've held a few of them in Texas over the years, and they've been a disaster because they insisted on dates in July and August. Of course, that was a long time ago, and on temporary street courses at that. But really... Austin? Gah, why not, I guess.

In even weirder news, it seems Ferrari want to be the backers of a new US-based team. They call it "the silly season" for a reason. I just don't remember it ever starting this early.

"There is the potential for widespread outbreaks this summer," Brown said. "We could see grasshopper levels several times of what you would see in a normal year."

I must be very behind in the grasshopper news. The last time I read something about this was in one of the Laura Ingalls books.

Yuck.

Samira working the veil. She rocks.

This photo just reminded me of a squid or octopus the way the bottom of her dress is flared out.

I took Olivia to a belly dance show this weekend and she decided that she needed to be the dancer too.

As someone who's spent years discarding wonderful photos because of the stupid f--- in the back, it's nice to see I'm not the only one who sometimes forgets to check the background when he pulls the trigger. I only wish my goofs were that amusing.

Sometimes random chance just makes you go, "hmmmm..." Like when every person assigned a specific mobile phone number in the UK has died. In the past ten years. Ya know, I'm just fine with them suspending that number.

NASA scientists have officially declared the Mars Phoenix lander dead after recent images revealed extensive ice-related damage to its solar panels. The article goes on to detail the apparent loss of the rover Spirit, and the ongoing journeys of its sister "cart," Opportunity.

A new instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence of a star eating one of its planets. It's thought the planet may disappear completely in the next ten million years or so. Scientists believe the surface of the world may be as high as 2800 degrees, so I'm not thinking anyone's actual home is being destroyed.

It seems that, even after all this time, there are still a few enduring WWII POW/prison guard relationships left to discover. Even in horror, hope can sometimes be found.

I'm not completely sure this super-slo-mo video of a water balloon popping is completely un-retouched. That said, I've seen enough of these super-slo-mo videos to say the waterfall itself looks legit enough. Either way, there's nothing quite like ugly, nerdy white guys doing dumb things for no particularly good reason to end the night. And I say that as a card-carrying member of same, I'll have you know.

Remember that "totally experimental, no, really, we're just making sure it won't blow up, it won't actually do anything useful, these aren't the droids you're looking for" space probe the Air Force launched a few weeks ago? Yeah, it's probably up to, well, something. A close "read-between-the-lines" of the article to me speaks more of a few disgruntled contractors who lost out on their expendable launch idea than it does of any really wasteful spending. But then again, it might not.

A NASA space probe has captured the first 3-D view of a comet on its kamikaze dive into the sun. Who needs special effects when you have the whole universe to look at?

A writer of several popular comic book titles has disappeared, leaving only his van behind. A van with a very gruesome bonus on board, no less.

By using an unlikely combination of radiometric dating techniques, scientists may have finally unlocked the mysteries that start, and stop, Earth's ice ages. Bonus: the Atlantic overturning circulation - the great ocean current that carries heat north, then sinks and flows back along the bottom of the ocean - that most recent of go-to bugaboos climate chicken-littles enjoy waving in everyone's faces, plays a primary role in ending an ice age, not causing it.

After a century under wraps, Mark Twain's autobiography is finally scheduled to be published this year. Like the guy in the article says, if nothing else, Twain knew how to make people want to buy a book.

Spin? SPIN?!? We're the Washington Post! A Paper of Record! We're a bulwark of liberty, bringing you truth. Prove that we ever spin anything, I dare you.

Every headline I've read about this gives me that wonderful, progressive, "ZOMG!!! TEH FUNDIES ARE TAKING OVER!1!!!" feel. Until, you know, I actually read what the guidelines are actually saying. Then I get that common-sense constrained voice in my head saying, "well, actually, yes, that is in fact what happened, and what people should learn, and could you please explain to me exactly why you have a problem with what it actually says??!"

I know, I know, there I go again, having independent thoughts. Such a pity.

Archeologists have announced the discovery of more than 50 intact tombs in Egypt. Unlike most recent Egyptian tomb discoveries, these aren't "just" a bunch of Roman-era wannabes, but are the real deal, one of which dates back to before the pyramids.

When I read "rural New York site to host F-1 race," I had to stop myself. People outside New York think of the place as Manhattan, with Buffalo as some sort of suburb within site of the Empire State building. Natives and regular visitors know there's a whole helluva lot of "rural" in New York. But, low and behold, the site looks to be less than an hour away from the particular patch of "rural" New York the in-laws live in. Now, proposing an F-1 race is absolutely not the same as actually having the red lights turn off and the cars shriek away. But it is a remarkable development. I'll be watching this one closely, you can count on that.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like these 3-D illusion projections on buildings. I wasn't completely sure it was real until I looked closely at the edges of the second building's columns. The projection doesn't extend an inch beyond them. I wonder if it looks that interesting from off-angle views?

Update: It seems that video is a demo, and like most demos it over-promises a bit. Still, the actual item is quite interesting.

Makes the BEST dance costume for a certain girl in the house. The top, well, that is being worked on.

Ps...note the cat licking it's butt on the steps behind Olivia. Classic AMCGLTD content!

Try as hard as I may to convey the excitement and movement of an aircraft with a static medium, sometimes there's just no substitute for motion. Especially when the subject is the F-22. A no-prize that's way too heavy to have any business moving like that goes to Jeff for bringing us these short clips of an F-22 demonstration at the recent JSOH airshow.

And that's the end, Lots of winners this time!

Blockquote>"This mythical story began around the time of Aristotle that the argonaut female actually lived in the shell and raised those webs as sails as she sailed across the ocean," explained Dr Finn. "

With picture goodness!

Chris gets a damned practical no-prize for bringing us a solution to the gulf oil spill so straightforward it's no wonder the MSM isn't talking about it. Doesn't fit the narrative of villainous corporations who can only be controlled by giving the government more power, donchaknow? We can't have the common people solving our problems!!!

The only hitch I can see is this oil spill is obstinately remaining several hundred feet below the surface. Yes, this denies progressives the opportunity to nail themselves to a cross with an oily bird on their head, but it also denies these rednecks the ability to solve the problem with a bunch of their cousin's hay.

And really, if these guys had Oxford accents, or hell if they even had West End accents, you'd take them much more seriously. The fact you'd treat both types of English accents with equal weight is most of the reason why Englishmen have always been irritated by Americans.

The advantage of a gear-obsessed brother is we get video! I can only imagine what it must sound like on a big rig, instead of dinky computer speakers. At any rate, enjoy!

Joshua kept her up there for about fifteen, twenty minutes. Then, eventually, it was my turn. Rather than try to take pictures with a squirming 50 pound weight on my shoulders, I handed her the camera. The result?

Not too shabby!

No rocket takeoff this year. Maybe they're finally out of them?

It seems that, with two channel audio at any rate, good ol' Red Book CDs really are still the high-fidelity standard. Sorry, folks, A-B-X double-blind tests don't lie, and anyone who thinks CDs sound bad is fooling themselves. Engineers figured out how to make a true high-fidelity audio reproduction in the late 60s. The next fifteen years was spent sorting out how to bring that sound into the home. Which they did, and then made the electronics affordable about ten years later. The rest is speakers and digital-analog converters. Anyone who tells you differently is almost certainly trying to sell you something.

Now multichannel, that's different. Which is why I you'll pry my SACD player from my cold, dead hands. But I digress...

In not quite two hours from now, exactly, Mount St. Helens will be erupting. Thirty years ago, that is. Even after someone CGI'd that famous sequence of photos into something very much like a movie, the devastation is still difficult to comprehend.

Olivia promised she would leave the umbrella at home. Then she promised she'd leave it in the car. Then she swore she was sorry for hiding it in her bag but she'd never take it out at the airshow.

Olivia was going to *pOp* when she found out that I was taking her to meet a real unicorn on Saturday. Needless to say when it was her turn to pet Sweetie, I asked how it was to pet *magic*. What I got was "Oh Mommy! She is so beautiful!"

The Unicorn fairy thought that the slogan of "touching magic" was wonderful and proceeded to tell me that Sweetie's grandfather's name was Magic.

Cute huh?

I snapped this one almost literally from the hip, in line for hamburgers. I couldn't get a Blue Angel crossover to save my life. Ah well.

May is airplane month here at AMCGLTD! This is the first show with our new D5000 camera, and hopefully the results will speak for themselves. I certainly got a whole bunch of winners this time. More to come!

Olivia's third airshow. Yet another opportunity to ham it up!

My first time seeing a precision helicopter team. Cobras, natch...

"Today my heart is broken," Wendy Dio wrote on the singer's site, adding he died at 7:45 a.m. "Many, many friends and family were able to say their private goodbyes before he peacefully passed away.

"Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all," Wendy Dio continued. "We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us ... Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever."

And now for some Holy Diver.

Need to read the article?

It seems it has largely been forgotten that cable TV was originally more about reception and picture quality than it was about content. Growing up in rural Arkansas, as I recall at least a hundred miles from any TV transmitter, meant we either had cable or we didn't have anything at all. You could even run a coax cable into the back of the FM tuner, and use the same giant antenna to pick up radio stations. My, how times have changed.

According to one Chinese historian, the Soviets and Chinese communists nearly engaged in a nuclear exchange in 1969. Bonus: it was the Nixon administration who talked them down. One of the unexpected consequences of joining the "nuclear club" is the rest of its members will make it against your best interests to use your fancy new toy to achieve your best interests. You'd think certain Persians would notice this fact but NNNOO.

Via Instapundit.

Nothing quite like 25 pictures of just how destructive kids can be to put your little hurricane-in-keds in perspective. Bonus: two of Olivia's greatest hits are depicted. I know teenagers have a deservedly worse reputation, but, far as I'm concerned, I definitely don't miss the days when cheese puffs were a weapon of mass electronics destruction.

Uh oh, someone broke Jupiter. Now that we've got such good telescopes with which to look at Jupiter, I imagine we'll be noticing this sort of thing more often.

It seems that, as with most... oh who the hell am I kidding, "ALL"... disasters, media sensationalism and political opportunism has vastly overestimated and oversimplified the consequences of the BP gulf oil spill. What's that you say? Well then, you tell me where the MSM accounts are that note more than a third of what's spilling out is simply evaporating outright. Yeah, didn't think so.

It seems that dogs in space are making the headlines once more, only this time it's because they're on the menu. If it's raised as food it should be consumed as such. That said, I think I now have a little more ammunition when I politely decline to visit a Chinese buffet.

Nick on the other side of the world brings us this on the quirky ways Asia's way of remembering the dead

"The Asia Funeral Expo is giving new meaning to the "be prepared" maxim by offering free coffin portraits to expo visitors. Other morbid attractions include a free Alzheimer's tests -- just the thing to compliment the coffins lining up in the exhibition hall. "We're seeing half-hour queues for the coffin portrait booth," Lo told CNNGo."

In case you forget, here is the link to the expo.

Ticket Please!

Ellen! Ellen! Look! This must be what they were like when they were teenagers! No boobies or winkies, but definitely NSFW nonetheless. But damned funny.

One of the most innovative computer games of the past five years is available for free. If you never played the game run, do not walk, to get it. I'm still waiting for the next installment, but in the meantime this should be plenty fun.

The Kingdom of Hermits is now claiming to have created the world's first working fusion reactor. Which would be awesome for a country that holds self-reliance as one of its bedrock beliefs, if it were true. I'm sure you won't have trouble guessing what I think of the report.

Leave it to standard poodle owners to take something as basic as a trim and ram it right out the other side of ridiculous. Ellen does some of these sorts of things to long-hair cats, but she doesn't use dye. Yet.

Hrrmm.... an interesting history lesson!

And new in the, "well that's a comforting thought" category, we have what seems to be a super-massive black hole that has been ejected from the center of a galaxy. Monstrous black holes that just sit at the center of a galaxy are fine... everything'll orbit around one like it always does. Having them move about? No, that's not cool, sorry.

Verizon wireless has confirmed it's working on an Android-based tablet computer. Go for the announcement, stay to watch a reporter try to turn a very short press release into a very long article. I thought the old "cut-and-paste twice" trick to lengthening an essay was restricted to high school students.

BBC News: Based on early work, University of North Carolina experts believe a blast of ultrasound to the testes can safely stop sperm production for six months. Yeah, buddy, sounds good. You go first.

Only the MSM would be able to report the "mysterious disappearance" of pirates "released" by the Russian navy with such credulity. Nobody chatters quite as much as a sailor, so I'm pretty sure the bit about them all getting bundled onto a boat and cut loose is true. I'm also thinking that boat probably got help sinking in the form of a hole (explosively or otherwise created). Meh. They knew the risks. Actually, I'm wagering one of the reasons the pirates are so active is precisely because they're being handled with kid gloves most of the time.

It looks like even the legendary car manufacturer Volvo is not immune to the occasional demo failure. The more you complicate the plumbing, etc.

I need one of these. Not for me. Him.

My story, sticking to it.

Yep, they are out there.

They all have a similar look too...hmmm....

For your next camping idea, we present 20 of "America's Least-Visited National Parks." No surprise they're nearly all in America's version of the Great F- All, aka "The Southwest." Ellen and I think roughing it means no Tivo, but we respect people who have fun in the outdoors. So, well, enjoy!

The next-gen airborne laser program seems to be targeting the B-1 platform as its carrying vehicle. If memory serves, it's when you get beyond 100kw that lasers start getting useful as a weapon.

The latest suspect in the B.P. oil rig blowout is methane hydrates. The thinking goes that the crew may have accidentally tripped a "blowout" of the gas-infused water ice, which is well known for expanding explosively when melted. It'll make the guys who build the rigs breathe a little easier, but it won't much help the 11 poor bastards who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So, what happens when a reporter is startled by a potentially sensational claim buried in a scientific article? Why, he takes that boring note about how the male members of a troupe of chimps sometimes use the sound of crinkling leaves to get a female's attention and slaps a "chimps use sex toys" headline on it. We're in the best of hands...

When it comes to scientific experiments, often the Cynomolgus Macaque monkey is the primate of choice. They weigh anywhere from about 3 to 25 pounds and make lots of barking noises. It's hard to image how anyone could miss one sitting inside a small cage.

I worked in research...you cannot make a "boo-boo" like this unless you mean it.

How dare you try to limit welfare payments to Islamic wackamoles! Stop that right this instant! An increase in fairness always outweighs a risk to security, especially if it results in new opportunities for income redistribution to brown people who of course hate us only because of the injustices we inflict on them. Giving them more cash cannot result in them buying guns instead of butter. That's not what's intended, so that's obviously not what will happen.

It looks like the latest step into the nanny-state universe is to make unpaid interns illegal. On the federal level, natch. Process matters not if the end result is justice. That said result is fewer opportunities for poor and middle class kids to learn a trade will only be noticed as an opportunity to brickbat the people with the guts to point the contradiction out. They're better than we are, and how dare we try to point out flaws in the process?

I'm actually a little surprised I hadn't heard of the weatherman gaffe until now.

Pat gets a no-prize that'll threaten to stop the car if we don't all settle down for bringing us a mother bear "rescuing" her cub. Me, I think it was less a rescue and more an example of the lengths parents will go to get their kids to shut the heck up.

While waiting for Ellen to find some kite string (which apparently isn't sold anywhere anymore), Olivia and I made some videos:

“If there’s one thing I’m known for, it’s my muffin.” So did Betty White introduce her delicacy on “Delicious Dish,”

I am sad I forgot about this!

One of the less often noted features of pop music is its amazing flexibility. Hopefully the guy won't get busted for violating copyright or licensing. Yeah, it's a parody, but when's the last time that stopped the RIAA?

Happy Mother's Day

To Ellen, Pat, Suzanne, Cindy, & all the rest of the moms out there!

Birdie flown the coop? Try setting out red wine and potato chips. No, really! Bonus: I'm pretty sure that's a Pionus. In our case, it'd be potato chips and french fries.

Why does it so often seem the neatest new architectural triumph is located on the other side of the dratted world? Ah, well. Likely I wouldn't be able to afford a stay anyway. But it would be nifty to stroll the grounds.

Ok, entire hillsides are NOT supposed to convincingly impersonate, well, pudding. Especially when someone's house is underneath God's own landscape fail.

Meh. We've been parking our butts on floodplains long before we were even human. Why should we stop now?

Me, I'd hit the little monster with something heavy. Ellen's dealt with awful cats for most of fifteen years, and she doesn't quite know what to make of it. It'd be NICE to think the other cat was trying to stop the madness. Me, I'm thinking he was just trying to steer it all onto something more valuable.

Me: "Ellen, you gotta see this."

Ellen: "The upside down kid is the best... Oh, god, the upside down one... and this one's using the wrong finger... and naked photos..."

In a new study, scientists are claiming that 1-3% of Asian and European genes are Neandertal. Exactly how DNA evidence can be gleaned from fossil examination isn't clear to me, but that could be caused by Ellen rushing us all out the door early today. Further examination will follow later...

It appears that yesterdays market chaos was caused by a trader entering "b" for billions instead of "m" for millions. These sorts of errors are possible often because it never occurs to the developers that someone would be that dumb. Unfortunately, they all too often are.

Ok, so, stop me if you've heard this one: a guy walks into a precinct with two buckets. One of the unexpected advantages of a Caribbean island seems to be easy access to machetes.

Indycar racing is coming to the mid-Atlantic region! Fortunately open-wheel race cars don't have stereos or GPS systems, so they should be relatively safe from the crackheads that infest Baltimore. Hopefully they'll have really good locks on the pit doors, though.

I'll see your "OMFG! We want your money and you won't give it to us BECAUSE YOU'RE STUPID!" politicians and raise you a governor who's been abducted by freaking ALIENS. There's progressive, and then there's progressive.

I WANT TO BELIEVE!

"We didn't realize until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad," he said, noting that when he died there was waste in his colon that was several months old.

"We found stool in his colon which had been there for four or five months because of the poor motility of the bowel," Nichopoulos said.

Find more interesting findings to this story here!

Peer pressure causes teenage girls to believe stupid things. Peer pressure causes teenage boys to do stupid things. One of the unexpected benefits of being a social misfit is I never felt like getting hurt to impress other guys. Impressing girls... well...

The best part about blogging is it makes it so much easier to catch the MSM at their game. Worthless sycophants, or guardians of our first amendment rights? We report, you decide.

Scientists have found more evidence that birds use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate. The bonus this time is it seems the mechanism uses a phenomena known as "quantum entanglement" which ultimately allows the birds to actually see the magnetic lines.

It looks like the latest import from Japan is called "zentai." Yeah, I wear lycra bike shorts, but that has more to do with what happens to cotton, and my rear sitting on it, after four hours on a bike than it does with the way the stuff feels. Meh, stay out of trouble, pay your taxes, keep off my lawn, etc.

Although I do think the guys goofing on the hockey player are amusing.

CONCORD, N.H. (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Police are investigating at the Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord, N.H. where a grave belonging to a mummified baby has been disrupted.

Police were notified yesterday morning by cemetery personnel that a gravesite had been disturbed and dirt was turned.

Aren't you supposed to bury them at least two feet under?

I knew Nashville had it bad with the recent floods. I just didn't realize it was this bad. The first NAMI convention I ever worked was in the Opryland hotel in 1996. I still remember the place, and seeing the same hotel with what looks like three feet of water on an upper level is just beyond amazing. It's going to take a long time to recover from all of that.

Scientists seem to be spotting a new, exotic kind of matter. I think. Quantum mechanics makes my head hurt. Or does it?

Scientists have found evidence of the earliest known plumbing system in the New World. It appears the Maya were building pressurized water systems well over a thousand years before the Spaniards arrived.

Newly declassified documents seem to indicate the National Guard may in fact have been fired on during the Kent State riots. The reliability of witnesses being what it is, I find the news interesting but far from conclusive.

Yeah, well, no excuses: Republican senator busted looking at porn on the Senate floor. The question for the day is, are Democrats avoiding getting busted on these things because they're just that virtuous, or because they're not smart enough to actually point the web browser at the right site?

I'm sure you've already guessed my answer.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the "Love Bug" virus. Since I was a sysadmin at the time, I can attest that, contrary to what the article seems to say, "Love Bug" was far from the first e-mail virus, and, when it was happening, the cause was much more readily identified. Love Bug was so much bigger than previous e-mail viruses not because of some special talent of the virus's author, but instead because Microsoft Exchange and Outlook had made significant inroads into businesses in the previous, say, two or three years. As with all Microsoft products of that era, Exchange and Outlook had security holes big enough to drive a truck through, and Love Bug just happened to be the first social-vector virus written explicitly to exploit them. It would not be the last.

I made sure the network I was responsible for did NOT use Microsoft products precisely because of this reason, and because of that Love Bug simply passed us by. I do recall having to set up a basic rule in our spam filter to bounce them, though.

The venerable giant robot shooter, Mechwarrior 4, is now officially available for free download. If you missed the game when it was new, give it a try now. If you miss playing it, have some fun! I wonder if this would make it easier to port it to a modern console?

Alternative: what happens when Rube Goldberg gets really depressed. Fortunately it seem more artistic expression than any real plea from the photographer. I hope.

A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away -- a distance so great, experts say the terrorists wouldn't have even heard the shot.

Good.. kill as many of those douche bags you can get.

I think even Ellen would draw the line at marrying a cat. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? She'd be worried she couldn't marry enough of them.

Zagato has officially unveiled its TZ3 Alfa, and it's just as pretty as the CGI pictures made it out to be. This one also includes a picture of the previous TZ, which shows the heritage to good effect. Nothing says "rich" quite like having a custom, one-off Italian sports car built on commission.

Sometimes it takes a few jokes to bring home how awful a place can be. Unfortunately people living in communist regimes have been telling jokes like this all the way back to the days of Lenin. Professors still think it's a viable system of government.

It would seem a human truism: the ingredients may change, but everyone likes to eat a deep-fried something. Some of them sound kinda tasty, I must admit. Except poutine. N-A-S-T-Y.

Never ever bring a parrot that is “addicted” to McDonald’s French Fries through their drive through.

WHY?

Look at my ear.

WTF?

No really, look at my ear. What do you see? Well, ok, you don't see anything, you're reading, so I'll tell you: a freaking puncture! Who needs to go to a local piercer for professional work when all they have to do is borrow Swoozie, drive through McDonald’s, and ask for French fries? We'd long known that you cannot mention the "double-f word" without some sort of hostility or excitement from the parrot.

I was taught a higher level of that today in the McDonald’s drive through.

“I’ll have a four piece chicken nugget happy meal with apple dippers and chocolate milk!” I shout into the kiosk.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, I need one plain hamburger and a small French fry.”

The pain is sudden and startling.

“That will be $5.53, drive through.”

At this point I want to snap this green chicken's neck. “Dammit! You f’ing bird! No biting! I said NO!!”

“Oh Mommy! Your ear is all red! Are you bleeding!?”

Runs fingers around ears. “No, no blood! You F*%ng bird! No biting! I said NO!”

There is no such word NO. Not when it comes to the “Golden Arches”. To a certain Pionus Parrot in our house, the “Golden Arches” = heaven. Golden, crunchy, salty heaven. The excitement is too much to hold in! One cannot “wait” for the fries to be within reach, and if the word is spoken, all hell breaks loose.

On my shoulder.

And my ear.

Ouch.

Driving up to pay for our meal with a parrot shouting “BABY BIRD!” over and over again while you hand over your debit card can be embarrassing. Not for me, but for the teller. The shit they have to deal with on a daily basis, then this?

“Err… can I get the girl's toy’?

Apparently our McD’s ladies are not so smart... again. Please note, I have a girl in my car. She wants a Happy Meal with a ‘girl's toy’, not a BOY'S toy. I know you really can’t speak English, but please, I hope you can distinguish a boy from a girl. That’s where all of my taxes are going to, for you people to have kids and be illegal at the same time.

So now not only do I have a parrot screeching about French Fries “FRENCH FRY! FRENCH FRY! FRENCH FRY! BABY BIRD! BABY BIRD! WHERE'S OLIVIA WHERE'S OLIVIA! FRENCH FRY!”, I have a 6 year old crying that the ‘toy’ she got was from the "old" toy collection 3 weeks ago. *Bangs head on dashboard*

Moments after leaving I did a stupid thing. I handed Olivia the bag of food.

Not smart. Possibly the dumbest thing I did all day.

NEVER pass fries over the bird.

Swoozie is a French fry connoisseur. She can distinguish homemade in the deep fryer fries to these bad boys any day. She can tell what fast food place they have been, how old they are etc.. NOTHING compares to McD’s. NOTHING.

Passing the food bag to Olivia demonstrated this.

The next thing Olivia and I remember is a shower of French Fries and a ‘very’ proud bird nomming on a ‘super fry’. The French Fry among French Fries. The biggest one in the bag.

“Mommy! *Olivia laughing*,"Swoozie stole your fries!"

Yes…yes, you damn bird ,you did.

Burger King? bleh. Wendy’s? Sucks. Golden Arches? Let the angels sing!

Or, you know, parrots squawk.

"No, no, sir, I'm not breaking the seal, I'm recharging the battery."

Me: "I'm sorry, Ellen, it's official."

Ellen (per usual): "WTF?!?"

"You're a nerd chick."

Ellen, outraged: "I. Am. NOT!!!"

"It's Saturday night. Your anniversary. And you're sitting here on the couch, jamming to your husband's movie soundtrack album."

"It's the parrot's fault!!!"

Roger Ebert is sick of the 3D trend in Hollywood. Since he's Roger Ebert, he's not shy about telling us why. I agree with every point, and, now that digital projectors are becoming the norm, can't help but wonder if the higher frame-per-second techniques he talks about may have another shot. Film is expensive and film projectors mechanically limited in what they can project. Hard drives are cheap and getting 48 fps out of a digital projector may just be a firmware upgrade away.

Every once in awhile a physicist takes a crack at explaining quantum physics, but since even the scientists still aren't sure how it ticks, they fail. That said, this guy fails in a pretty informative way. The important thing to remember is this stuff isn't just a physicist trying to be glib on TV... according to every experiment anyone's managed to cook up, this really is how it all works. If it wasn't, the experiments would fail. They don't.

They may not be able to legislate their way out of a paper sack, but when it comes to finding ET's among us, the government is on the case. It's so entertaining when consumers wobble off their meds!