It wasn’t the sake: a number of members of the Wadomo tribe that lives in the Zambeze Valley in Zimbabwe (which was what Rhodesia became but my father’s military service was over by then… and there’s another tribe in Botswana with the same condition, as well as a few random people elsewhere) have some weird mutation that gives them two (okay, not 4, but rather 2) toes. Which actually look like they are designed for tree climbing if you squint and are a confused British soldier, I suppose. Pictures online if you google Wadomo enough, I suppose. I found some, anyway.

Apparently mentioning hell or death makes you R-rated. Which reminds me that the MPAA’s rating systems are a load of bullshit anyway. Some random yahoos who don’t even fit the criteria, and who have made careers out of rating films inconsistently and in stupid terms, do not constitute a representation of the culture in general. Far better if filmmakers were simply expected to “tag” films with content that potential viewers might be attracted to or  might find objectionable. I mean, if a film is tagged <lesbian love scene>, you’re gonna pick up way more viewers than you’re going to lose. …

Feeling Factoidy today, while catching up on friends’ blogs, like Kat’s: 1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts. 2. Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves. 3. Tagees should write a blogpost of eight random facts about themselves. 4. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged (named and shamed). 5. Go to their blog, leave a comment telling them they’re tagged (cut and run). Okay. Um. Except I’m not going to go tag them. They notice, or they don’t, I’ll tag them here. I like chocolate. Too much. Like …

Right, so I’m doing the obligatory “what search keywords brought people here” list. Some of them are really pretty damned funny. The first list are understandable, even if they’re weird: korean dabang girls praying mantis eats hummingbird the punishment of plagiarism in government publication bulgogi seamus heaney viking dublin happy birthday song in korean words hwang sin hae band jjambbong gnome or ubuntu workout tracker tardigrade video altissimo register fingering chart for alto saxophone noh mu-hyun anti chrisian in korea canadian teachers in korea www.gordsellar.com With the exception of the last search — I can understand why searching my URL …

Yes, really. A former Canadian defence minister says be believes advanced technology from extraterrestrial civilizations offers the best hope to “save our planet” from the perils of climate change. Which is a tremendous insult to all the people working in alternative energy, technology, science, research, for the environment, studying climate change, studying ecology, and to the mothers and fathers and spouses who tell one another and the kids to turn off the lights when they got to bed. What an embarrassment. (And yeah, I read this as a link from a story about Haut’s letter on Roswell, which actually hit …