I just turned 24

…and just so you would not end up seeing a mutant purple frog every time you visit this blog, here instead is a picture of a baby crocodile:

Don’t worry. I’ll put more content here from now on.

A Christmas Carol

Christmas Day has just come and gone, that time of the year where every place you go is bursting with bright lights and colorful decorations, and every once in a while, the air is filled by the sounds of Christmas cheer being spread around by young little carolers, each of whom is singing a different rendition of the same song, as in the case of Jingle Bells, which according to one caroler who went by our house recently, goes as follows:

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way
Oh whop pine, it is to write in a wonder sofa’s lay, HEY!

“We don’t have money to buy Song Hits!” That’s the traditional Yuletide message that the carolers want to give to the people they sing to.  Ultimately, this message easily comes across, as the carolers do get money to buy a Christmas song book, making them get the lyrics of Jingle Bells finally right, which in turn, allows them to move on to more complex Christmas tunes (“Joy to the world, Dolor is gone; Let Earth receive Berting!“).

War on Hoofed Mammals Update

NATO airstrike “accidentally” destroys a flock of sheep

“KABUL, December 4 (RIA Novosti) – NATO aircraft killed a flock of sheep in the Afghan province of Laghman, in a botched attack on Taliban gunmen, according to sources in the governor’s office.

Provincial police say the incident occurred on Wednesday night near the town of Mehtar Lam. Shots fired from NATO helicopters killed over 200 sheep belonging to local shepherds.”

“We thought they were Taliban in sheep’s clothing,” could have been a good excuse.

In other ungulate-related news:

Camels found wandering in Mexican border city

“Police tried lassoing the animals, which lunged at the officers with snapping teeth…”

Also:

Oh deer! Wild complaint made against pizza shop

“An Allentown pizzeria may be in hot water after a city health inspector caught an employee butchering a deer in the shop’s kitchen Tuesday afternoon.”

“A day after health officials removed the carcass, the pizza shop’s manager said it was a huge misunderstanding.”

“‘We thought they were Taliban in deer’s clothing,’ the manager said” I think!

The irony of it all

Take your pick:

Ohio police dog bites man accused of dogfighting

Accused drunk driver ends up running over himself

Woman arrested after setting fire to demons

Billboard thief gets his own ad campaign

In other news, something does not sound right with the following:

Bird Lady told to reduce size of her flock

Related Update to Item Number 1: Michael Vick just pleaded guilty.

Snakes on a Plane sequel

Worms on a train.

Japanese man arrested for releasing worms on trains to scare women

“A JAPANESE man has been arrested for releasing hundreds of beetle larvae inside a moving express train to try to scare female passengers, police say.

‘I wanted to see women get scared and shake their legs,”’police quoted 35-year-old Manabu Mizuta as saying.”

In other worm-related news:

Docs Find Worm in Woman’s Brain

“It is not known where she picked up the worm.”

On the train, perhaps?

That explains it!

On yesterday’s News of the Day, I wrote about a CNN article reporting a space incident wherein a spacewalking astronaut inadvertently sent a tool bag drifting into space.  The article also mentioned similar incidents in the past, including one wherein an astronaut sent a 14-inch spatula hurtling into the deep unknown.  Naturally, I wondered, what in the world would a spacewalking astronaut use a 14-inch spatula for?! Well, based on today’s news item, I finally know the answer: to swat spacewalking spiders of course!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5192973.ece

Nasa loses spider on international space station

“Astronauts were hunting for a missing party guest as they prepared to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the International Space Station.

One of two spiders sent to the orbiting laboratory aboard the space shuttle Endeavour last week was added to the lost property list after the crew checked its tank and found it empty.

Anxious to quash fears that the absent arachnid may be marauding around the space station, Nasa managers insisted that the second orb-weaver was not exactly lost, it just couldn’t be found.”

Also in the article:

“The runaway spider, which was meant to be the back-up should the chief spider be incapacitated for any reason, was reported AWOL after Endeavour’s crew cracked open the cargo container containing its tank along with equipment including a new kitchen and toilet, additional living quarters for the station’s staff and a $250 million machine that will allow future crews to recycle their urine for drinking water.”

This brings new meaning to the term “water cycle.”

Spatulas in space

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/11/18/endeavour.spacewalk/index.html

Astronaut loses tool bag during spacewalk

“Things didn’t go quite according to plan for astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during her spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday.

First, a grease gun inside her tool bag leaked, coating everything inside with a film of lubricant.

While she was trying to clean it up in the absence of gravity, the whole bag floated away.”

Apparently, this isn’t the first time the first time that an astronaut sent an object drifting into space.  The article cites similar incidents in the past where tools ended up drifitng in space, including this one:

“– During a July 2006 spacewalk, astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum lost a 14-inch spatula while testing a method to repair the space shuttle.”

This begs the following question to be asked: So what exactly were they doing with a spatula in outer space? Baking a cake?!

Welcome to my blog…and Happy World Toilet Day

It is with great pride and joy that I share with you the amazing fact that the birth of my new blog coincides with World Toilet Day, a cherished annual tradition thought up by people who probably have lots of spare time.

No, actually World Toilet Day is a serious occasion, and it seeks to raise awareness of the world’s growing sanitary crisis through different ways.  One such way is the online game Turdlywinks, wherein according to its directions, the aim is to “flick ‘turdlywink’ counters into ‘toilet’ targets to help achieve the vision of 100 percent sanitation coverage!”  The directions also state that there are six toilet targets in all for you to flick your turdlywink into, after which you get to face–get ready for this–the Boss Toilet!

But really, the growing global sanitary crisis is an important issue and we should do something about it.  This was brought to light by World Toilet Organization (yes there is such a thing) founder Jack Sims in a speech at the recent World Toilet Summit (that too).  Sims mentioned that the concept of the flushing toilet was unsustainable, thus providing the Herald Sun article where I got this news from the appropriate title “Experts call for end of flushing toilets on World Toilet Day,” which I of course took literally, as evidenced by the fact that I currently have an open Microsoft Calculator application, and my Internet browsing history now contains the Google search string “average human poop.”

Fantasy

The United States recently held its presidential elections last November 4.  And as a concerned non-American who wants to keep up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world today, I spent the entire post-election morning logged on to the internet, looking at intricate graphs showing the latest performance of the players on my fantasy basketball team.

Some of you might have no idea what fantasy basketball is, so let me explain.  Basically, fantasy basketball is a recreational activity wherein–as the name suggests–you form a team of NBA players, whom you dress up in princess costumes and dance along with to the tune of Disney theme songs.

No wait!  Fantasy basketball is not like that!  It’s actually much weirder.  What happens is you form an imaginary team of NBA players, whom you pit in an imaginary basketball league, to play imaginary games against other imaginary teams owned by–quite possibly–imaginary friends.  You acquire players for your team via a process called the draft, wherein you pore over a list of available players and come across names such as Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Nikoloz Tsikitishvili, DJ Mbenga, Kelenna Azubuike, and Cory Underwood.

Mulan

I recently watched Repertory Philippines’ stage adaptation of the Walt Disney movie Mulan, which tells the coming-of-age story of a young girl trying to find her a way in society, but finds it very hard, specifically because the lower half of her body is that of a fish.

Oh wait, I’m sorry.  That’s The Little Mermaid.  Actually, that’s the problem with the world today: too many Disney Princesses.  When I was three years old, we only had Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty; so it was easy to remember each one of them.  But over the years, more were added–Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Troy Bolton, etc.–such that it becomes difficult not mistaking one for another.

The reason I watched was because of my sister, who ended up buying two show tickets using her credit card after marveling at the user-friendly interface of the Ticketnet website and fiddling with the buttons there in pretty much the same way that Diddy does with her brother’s experiments in Dexter’s Laboratory (“Oooh…What does this button do?!”).  Our tickets were for the two-thirty show and my sister told me to meet her at the venue itself.  Since it was just an hour away from home, she suggested that I leave home before eleven, to give myself the time allowance just in case something unexpected impedes my journey, like a meteor shower.