I guess that explains it

One of Julius Caesar's lover was:

How to sell anything

Next week, I'll post ads of sexy models in bikinis stretching out on coffins

Penguin cam!

Live stream by Ustream

Olive Garden review

A local food columnist reviews the newly opened, "long-awaited" Olive Garden. This article is so sweet, I can't make fun of it.

My first visit to Olive Garden was during midafternoon, so I could be sure to get in. After a late breakfast, I figured a late lunch would be fashionable.

The place is impressive. It’s fashioned in Tuscan farmhouse style with a welcoming entryway. There is seating for those who are waiting

And a strong finish:

All in all, it is the largest and most beautiful restaurant now operating in Grand Forks. It attracts visitors from out of town as well as people who live here.

Douglas Adams

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.


I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.


I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.
Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.


It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.


Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.


You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?


In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.


Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work.


We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.


Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.


The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.


From "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time" by Douglas Adams)

It may be fake, it may not

But it made me laugh.

Quotes from a tour leader who takes urban kids on nature hikes and captures their observations.

www.ghettohikes.com

I knew it!

Whiskey soothes a sore throat. I've been saying that for years!

The alcohol really does the work, and the water and honey are there for dilution and flavor. If you're serious, we suppose you could gargle the whiskey and then go ahead and swallow it, assuming your sore throat isn't that bad.

Praise Winona, Holy Mother of Sweet Vindication.

Love Apples

Perfectly democratic, perfectly fair

From Slate article on the Russian elections:

To get on the ballot today, a presidential candidate must collect 2 million signatures in January (even though half of the month is lost to the New Year’s holiday). Signatories must be geographically diverse: No more than 50,000 names can come from any one of the country's 83 regions. The signatories themselves must be precise: a single mistake such as a contraction in the name of a city—for example, “St. Petersburg” instead of “Saint Petersburg”—can render an entire sheet of signatures invalid. The names are then submitted to the Central Election Commission, which can pick a sample at random—and if it rejects more than 5 percent of the sample, the candidate is disqualified. At the same time, candidates are prohibited from submitting more than 5 percent extra of the required number of signatures—in other words, no more than 2.1 million signatures may be turned in to the Central Election Commission. Care is hardly sufficient, in any case. The commission has a list of 14 reasons it can cite to reject a signature. One of these is “expert opinion.” In other words, any candidate whom the Kremlin does not want on the ballot will not be on the ballot. So, if you are wondering which of the candidates opposing Putin on Sunday is a Kremlin stooge, rest assured: They all are.

Oscar Gamble

"They don't think it be like it is, but it do."