On BBC News, there are so many hateful anchors with insufferable voices. I'm growing to despise that ominously nasal BBC News intonation.

Plants are so smart. Some of them wield chemical intelligence dizzying to contemplate. When I see two male wasps trying to have sex because of an orchid pheromone, I wonder what we need brains for in the first place ( Read more... )

By the time I got into a Norwegian band called Bel Canto, they'd long released their final album. Upon discovery, the fact gave me a horrible kind of yearning and impotence, much like I now feel about Firefly and Serenity. I've gulped down the series + film in the last week and...what now ( Read more... )

I've unexpectedly reached a personal betterment goal--a 21 upload ratio on BBC's Planet Earth documentary set.

It's awesome, of course, though not without many irritating docu tropes (e.g. thematic music for the animals, so that dolphins move to a jaunty tune whereas orca have a DUN DUN DUNNN orchestra swell in the background, though both are ( Read more... )

by gum, youth is annoying.  culturally, I mean.

Oh, Jeju wind!  It's beautiful to see the trees in wild motion and hear that dramatic moaning, but it is quite another thing to have a steady hooting noise haunt you through the night.  Some nights it's hard to sleep for the sound of beating wind.

At about the time I got up to go to work this morning, the stray cats of the neighborhood had stopped ( Read more... )

I've been guzzling down Stuff White People Like, courtesy of crazehpooWhile the text itself is usually quite funny and clever and often gutsy (esp. the post on yellow fever), there will always be several replies stating "I'm white and I don't like this...what's with your stupid website?", or "I'm not white and I like this...what's with your stupid website ( Read more... )

OUR WICKED LANDLORDS ARE DEFEATED!

During arbitration, the landlord claimed he wasn't the landlord, since his sweet old mom is the owner of the house.  So, there was no conclusion but, "ok, we'll file after grandma, then.  Just you wait til that affidavit gets here!"

I can see it now
He came home and his wife and mother asked, "so, what happened?"
" ( Read more... )

It appears that the flushers at the Center are too weak to be successfully pulled by school kids.

At the airport, it was a sad time indeed.  Alex and I were going on separate flights, because of last-minute scheduling problems.  So, both the families and Ana were there to see him off and me two hours later--that is to say, there was a full house and we were there for a long time.  I had worn a light dress in anticipation of the scorching Korean ( Read more... )