Topic: Personal
Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with such a calm guy for a husband. I was re-reading an old entry from October 28, 2003:
"...Another startling moment while travelling - on our way out to AZ yesterday, a truck merged into our lane on the I-10, and kicked up a rock the size of a golfball, which smashed into the windshield of the Mouse, leaving a crazed patch of broken glass in the center of the windshield. Fortunately it did not break the glass and come into the car - that would have been very much worse."

And through the entire incident, R kept his hands on the wheel and was completely composed except for a loud burst of several expletives upon impact. Not for a moment did he swerve or panic. I, on the other hand, would certainly have panicked, screamed, flailed, lost control of the car, gone down the embankment, and end upside down in a ditch to be found 3 days later half-eaten by coyotes.

Good thing he was driving.

Topic: Personal
Just finished a 5K/10K Fun Walk/Run that benefited San Diego's non-profit children's program STAR/PALsponsored by City and County police & parks departments. City employees were encouraged to form teams and participate...so we walked the 5K. On my own I would never do this, but if someone asked me to be on their team...welllll, don't want to be a spoilsport. Someone asked us to join their 10K run team, and we just laughed. Some of us are not meant by nature to be runners unless we want to black both our eyes, as Ms Parton once said. The runners then said we can just walk the 10K, and we firmly refused - I mean, if you're in the middle of a run and you're walking, you might as well stencil a big L on your forehead and be done with.

First we had to get there at the crack of dawn (what is with these events that have to start before the sun is up? why can't we do this at, say, 4pm?), then it started to rain. I was tempted to just let them keep my $18 and go home. It took us 55 minutes to walk 5K...and then at one-hour-five our penultimate boss finished his 10K run, so we ran up to him and informed him that we beat him. Har har. Seriously, we suck. We got passed several times (I think we got lapped, actually) by runners older than me and Stacey combined, and once by a man with a prosthetic leg. A man with a prosthetic leg.

Ever since the Breat Cancer 60 Mile last November, I have developed this totally cavalier attitude towards distance walking (distance = more than 50 yards). I don't bother to look for a nearby parking space anymore, 'cause hey, I walked 60 miles and another 200 yards is nothing. What? You want me to be on a team to do a 5K walk? That's only 3 miles, we'll be home before breakfast. Pah!

As long as I don't have to raise $2,000, that is...

p.s. While walking from the parking lot to the registration table I met this one guy who was doing the 10K run. I told him about the 60 mile walk and he was really impressed; then he started trying to flirt with me; then I started complaining about how hard the camping was and how I couldn't put up my tent, and he said, "Not a nature outdoorsy girl, are you?" and when I scoffed and said, "No!" he turned around and walked off. So there you are...

Topic: Review

CETACEAN EXPLOSION LEADS TO TRANSPORTATION CONSTERNATION ON ISLAND NATION

Whale Explodes, Showers Innards on Town
Fri Jan 30,11:02 AM ET AP

TAINAN, Taiwan - Folks in Taiwan wish the insides of a whale had stayed there. People covered their noses and business came to a halt after a dead, decomposing whale being transported on a truck burst because of a gas buildup.

The 56-foot long sperm whale was being transported through city streets on the truck after it was found beached during the weekend. It was being hauled to a university where scientists were going to try to find out how it died.

Right in the middle of traffic, the carcass exploded -- splattering its innards across the street.

Experts believe the explosion happened probably because of gases building up in the dead mammal's collapsed stomach.

Shopkeepers closed up so they could scrub away the malodorous mess of blood, blubber and entrails.

Topic: Review
What's in a Name? Plenty, if It's Saddam
Tue Jan 27,10:37 AM ET Reuters
By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The strapping Iraqi shepherd hardly looks like someone whom people would dare to insult.

But Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) Nasaar, 24, has been taunted and teased ever since American troops toppled the Iraqi dictator last year. Now he's had enough, and plans to change his name.

"I'm finding it difficult to get a full-time job. I've been offered several but they won't take me until I change my name," said Nasaar, as he watched over two dozen sheep owned by his brothers near the outskirts of Baghdad.

"People think I'm associated with him. They start swearing at me, they tease me. Before no one dared to insult me," he said, wearing a red and white headdress and leaning against a tall cane.

For many Iraqi men and boys, being called Saddam no longer carries respect and privilege, and increasing numbers are officially changing their names.

<<>>

Sabah Nori Al-Azawi, manager of a dilapidated government office in Baghdad where Iraqis can change their names, said growing numbers of men and boys were shedding the Saddam tag now that government services had begun to function again.

Azawi said up to 25 men and boys had changed their name at his office in the past month.

"The majority are children. Other children make fun of them at school so their parents bring them here," said Azawi.

Sahar Khalil, head of records at the Al-Alwaiya maternity hospital in Baghdad, said up to five babies each month were named Saddam before the U.S.-led invasion last March.

"Since the fall of Baghdad, we have not had a single Saddam, and we have 300 births a month," she said.

**********************************************

NB:
I read that there was a distant cousin of Adolf H who lived in the US and actualy fought in WWII (on our side, natch), and had his name legally changed to avoid the stigma, and he was the last know surviving Hitler. After him the known world knew no more Hitlers.

You know the family of the man who invented the guilletine (that would be Dr Guilletine, of France) changed their names after his invention, which incidentally was meant by the good doctor to prevent unnecessary cruelty - more humane than hanging - became the symbol of the Reign of Terror.

A Mooving Violation
Topic: Review
Jury Clears Cow in Car Accident
Mon Jan 26, 8:17 PM ET Associated Press

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A Linn County jury has cleared a cow and the cow's owner in a car wreck, saying it was a case of mistaken identity.

Ann Sauer of Anamosa hit a cow on Oct. 7, 2000. The animal caved in the windshield and roof of her car.

The cow fled the scene, but Sauer said she knew which one did the damage.

"We briefly looked at each other before she went off in the darkness," Sauer said.

Sauer filed a negligence lawsuit against Justin Kaczinski, the alleged owner of the cow. Her lawsuit also named Alvin Benesh, who allowed Kaczinski to keep four cows and a bull in one of his pastures.

During the trial, which lasted six days, Kaczinski acknowledged that his cows had broken out of a pasture on the night of the accident.

The jury forewoman, Sheila Schmidt, said when Kaczinski's cow was found, its injuries did not match the injuries a cow would have suffered if it were hit in the way Sauer described.

"It's possible it could have been Kaczinski's cow, but it just wasn't proved," Schmidt said.

The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a verdict last Wednesday in favor of Kaczinski and Benesh.

Topic: Personal
In fact I have not been having a very good week. I came home from work early on Thursday, itself an unusual thing, feeling quite ill, and that night had a fever of 100.2 deg. It was terrible - just lying in bed being delirious at the ceiling. R thought I had strep throat and took me to the doctor to get a throat swab the next day. No strep, but the trip to the doctor wore me out entirely (even though only 5 minutes away) and I was pretty well unconscious the rest of the day. We had dinner with my parents, and I very nearly pitched forward into the soup. Maybe I have SARS?

Or not. The doctor perscribed some horse pills yesterday, and I feel better already. Then again, maybe I'm just full. If these pills were any bigger, they would have to be cookies. It's different from doctor to doctor - I remember the university clinic doctor back at college who would rain 3 kinds of antibiotics on me for a sore throat, and then there was Dr G in Fallbrook, who wouldn't even give me cortisone for poisn oak but instead told me to just stop scratching.

I managed to work from home today and even went to an off-campus meeting for an inter-departmental web project. I called my boss after the meeting to tell her what was decided, and she said, "that's not what I wanted this project to do!" and I said, "hey, it's not really my place to tell the deputy director of Engineering what to do with his project, yo." I mean, the man actually waved his hand Jean-Luc Picard style and said, "make it so." One day soon I will have that much power! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Topic: Review
Cocaine Found in Tropical Fish Cargo
Mon Jan 26, 9:42 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. customs officials seized $300,000 worth of liquid cocaine disguised as water in a shipment of live tropical fish from Colombia.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service said on Friday that 41.7 pounds of cocaine was packaged in plastic bags used to ship the fresh water decorative fish to Miami.

"This appears to be a new trend in smuggling, using an old method which officers have not seen in many years," said the agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The fish were packed in bags with three linings. The inner lining, containing the fish, was filled with water but the middle lining held a yellowish liquid that triggered the interest of a drug dog called "Rocky."

In all, six bags in a shipment of the fish sent by cargo plane from Bogota tested positive for cocaine.

There is something...fishy...about this shipment! Was it (drumroll please) BLOWfish?

Topic: Opinion
Sometimes, when I think about it, it is good to be American. There are some benefits to being a citizen of the world's most powerful nation. Not the most popular, but most powerful nonetheless, as the current administration subscribes to the Machiavillian principle of ruling by fear and intimidation rather than love.

Although, to be fair, I think human nature percludes us from being ruled by love. We are essentially greedy bastards, two meals away from moving back into caves and flinging faeces at each other. Left to our own devises without a firm government that has the law grasped firmly in a fist, life would indeed be short, nasty, and brutish. Just like my friend K's ex-boyfriends!

Topic: Personal
Had nearly 6" of hair cut off this past weekend!

Was watching James Bond movie with Sophie Marceau in it (The World is Not Enough) one night last week, when R commented on Sophie hairstyle. When asked if he thinks I should get the same, he said "yes yes! get it!" So the next day I downloaded a photo of Sophie Marceau from the Internet, took it to my hairdresser, and had her copy it on my own head.

Alas, I'm not quite a thin, chic French actress... my brother-in-law, upon seeing me for the first time in my new 'do, said, "hey, you're going for that Cousin Itt look?"

Sophie Marceau	Cousin Itt

I'm afraid the truth is somewhere in between.

Topic: Review
Death imitates art: as reported in The Guardian.

In Romania, local media report that the country's "first" institution of higher learning, the University of Arts, in Iasi, was the scene of an official investigation this month after police removed the corpse of a man believed to have hanged himself on the campus. Builders and students at the university had initially mistaken it for a modern work of art.

According to Reuters, the body hung for a whole day in a sculpture-laden garden building that had been re-opened for repairs before onlookers twigged to what it was and called the cops.

Gosh, what happened to the traditional line between Art and Not-Art-But-Dead-Body?