A Heady Story

So, I was reading all about the two headed turtle in my favorite odd news links... and they've got the AP picture:
Pretty cool, the little guy (guys? gal/gals?) has two heads and sets of front feet and one tail with a set of back feet. So, after reading how rare and exciting all this is I go looking for good video. It turns out back in February there was a different really super rare two headed turtle who got featured on the Tonight Show...

Which lead to my favorite turtle twin name clip "Jim and I" you know, like the star twins also very appropriate music ;)

Biggest two-headed turtle twin going to this set/twins/thing

Ummm coolest finger nails and oddest hatching site "work" where do you work that hatches two headed turtles??

Then, of course, the "found on the banks of a contaminated river" turtle... which would have sounded much more rare and reasonable if I hadn't just seen a half-dozed clips of other two headed turtles.

I guess two heads are better than one, but just not as odd or rare as one might have thought.

Park(ing) Day 2007

Weird news comes through for me again as I read a fun story about leasing small pieces of land. Apparently according to San Francisco oridinance, when you pay a parking meter you are leasing that land for any legal purpose. So, a group has formed to spend one day a year turning parking spaces into parks. That's right, the pay the meters and then put down sod, trees, benches, or whatever else and open some new public green space... for that day 'till the meter runs out.

After reading the story, I headed over to the official website, http://www.parkingday.org/ and got tickled reading all about it. They have a map of the Bay Area to check out all the parks for the official day, and links to Park(ing) Day sites around the world. For even more informaion the Trust for Public Land had a very informative site.

Checking out Flickr lead me to some great pics by Stewf
And Laughing Squid

A quick perusal of YouTube.com lent this quick clip from Paddington which is amusing to watch. There's lots more that are more informative but didn't make me giggle.

Linguistics and Me... and I?... and Christine

Today's weird news took a couple of odd little turns. First there was the story about Oxford's new dictionary getting rid of the hyphen in 16,000-odd words.... using the cited story's example of their not getting rid of the 16,000 odd words themselves. The most interesting part of this story was the choice of words to share with the world that had lost their hyphen to become one word, or split into two. They seemed an interesting selection and I have posted them here with my interpretation of their linkage.

Formerly hyphenated words split in two:

fig leaf, hobby horse, ice cream, pin money, pot belly, test tube, water bed.

(Apparently some story about Adam constructing clothing before eating the forbidden flavor, spending some dough to realize he's fat and weighing his options of conception between non-Eve and location facilitated options?)

Formerly hyphenated words unified in one:

bumblebee, chickpea, crybaby, leapfrog, logjam, lowlife, pigeonhole, touchline, waterborne

(Ummmm an insect who eats an odd salad and is so disappointed that he skips over the lumber traffic because he's a real loser, stuck in his position at the edge of a rugby game supported by consumable liquids?)

The other story was more down those that generally make me smile. Judge recieved an egg, presumably chicken, in the mail from a whiner locked up in jail. Unable to resist the inherent humor of the situation he wrote what I would consider my favorite poetry of today (According to Yahoo News and the AP):

"I do not like eggs in the file, I do not like them in any style. I will not take them fried or boiled. I will not take them poached or broiled. I will not take them soft or scrambled/Despite an argument well-rambled."

And ordered "No fan I am/Of the egg at hand. Destroy that egg! Today! Today! Today I say! Without delay!"

Karma for Clicking

Maybe it's hubbie's class on world religion... maybe it's a forwarded e-mail I didn't just delete... who knows, but I have a new every day site. You know the kind. The e-mail, the news, the favorite laugh site... those five or six you hit every single day just to "check in" on the world at large.

Well, for about a week I've been checking out a neat little set of sites. Sure, the advertising is obscene, but for once, the corporate sponsorship has a point. The hook site for me is:

http://www.thechildhealthsite.com/

You click once a day and all those blaring ad people donate money to the cause. It's targeted advertising and they pay for the visits and clicks. It's basically ad space on a super-trafficked site. Hey, works for me. So, you go, you click, they donate.

Plus, the page has little tabs at the top for the affiliate sites:

Pretty smart deal. Six clicks, thirty seconds... admittedly surfed some of the cool trinkets, which is why the ads are worth it to the sponsors, and BAM! Internet karma scores a few points.

(Plus, since I posted this, it means all you people who go and click are totally boosting my karma as well, I'm so set for like the next day at least!)

It's Just a Flesh Wound

Ok, so my weird news story today isn't really all about the Black Knight from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail... but the headline was enough to make me giggle:

Armless Man Delivers Fatal Head-Butt

That's just the sort of thing that makes me reflect on culture... of course it happened here in Georgia, but in general, our culture still condones and popularizes violence. In feeling a little guilty about my own laughter I had to wonder. Is connecting violence with humor one more way to let it pass? Well, maybe, but it's also a way to help us cope. I know working in child welfare I sometimes had to laugh to avoid crying, but still, I hope to laugh at things less harmful. Ok, so maybe just laugh more to step down the proportion. Ok, so maybe just hope more :)

And You Thought I Was Corny

Ok, so I'm a weird news addict, and have been known to do a corn maze or two...

Wow... old school and hubbie looks like Satan with the red-eye. Note to self, that fruit shirt is getting OLD!

Anyway, what started this blog was that, much to my amusement, Gull Meadow Farms has created the likeness of President Ford. It's actually pretty good when seen from the sky on their website.
It was apparently designed by the oh-so-corny site The Maize who have the CORNIEST! site of them all (And that's an official decree). Even a song about "funtastic fun in the corn maze!" Apparently they design lots of really cool sites, including another great ariel shot of a football field... he he he.
(I also love the visible hot air balloon!)

Unlike Cagle's Dairy Farm which has a bad drawing of the maze over a picture of a cornfield which is just really odd, not to mention painfully commercial with several sponsors.

Of course, if you wanna hear all about a wide variety of corn mazes in the corporately designed kind of way, check out cornmaze.com for all their sites. Mostly diagrams rather than actual pictures.

My other favorite "actual" picture is of Severs Corn Maze, it's got a cool wild west theme, but not nearly so cool as a dead president. They're kind enough to offer a picture in their press packet section even though it looks a little touched up, but hey, still pretty cool:

What I Learned from the Bottle

So, sitting in class, I was staring at my drink, thinking I ought to be learning something... So I took notes - and getting meaning...

• Shake Well - Mix it up a little
• Settling is Natural - It's ok not to be perfect, just see it coming
• Perishable - You're not immortal
• Keep Refrigerated - Chill out
• Low Fat - Try to keep down... not no fat, just low fat
• All Natural - Be Yourself
• Product of USA - Be proud of, or at least honest about, your origins
• For Questions or Comments Please Call - Communication is key
• Best if Used By - Don't delay your enjoyment
• Serving Size: 8 fl oz (240 mL), Servings per container: about 4 - Know when to be specific

So this is from MySpace

I admit, I'm totally just copying this from my MySpace page to feel special.

o, apparently been to long since the last mini-blog. Here's the deal about IKEA... umm it was 2005 and if you google my hubbie you can read all about it. We basically got all the furniture we own there. Including a rather infamous red leather couch.

I'm liking classes at Kennesaw State University. The coolest thing about grad school is that it's all about what I'm totally into: Social work with Children and Families. That and my new classmates are pretty cool and fun to talk to. *Becky that hanging preposition is for you.*

Went to Dragon*Con and got my nerd on. Yes that's me in the costume. I met some star trek people like the guys who played Riker, Data, and Q plus saw some super cool costumes. Oh, and of course the filking which i LOVE and the Klingon Beauty Pageant. It's getting to be so big a deal that we had to wait in line outside to get in.

I also went to the Decatur Book Fair with my bud June as well. You can check out her blog about it here: http://junebugsmusings.blogspot.com/2007/09/labor-day-convention.html We had a blast just poking around and listening to some kicking speakers. My new book is Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." I'll update as I go.

Hmmm in other news I'm getting excited about Germany trip in November with KSU and totally daydreaming with hubbie about packing up and leaving the country for a while after graduations. I totally googled social work jobs in Britain. Would be a great home base for Euro travel. Or just getting sponsorship for a travel vlog. If your rich and interested... or just interested, totally let me know and I'll keep you up to date.