Over lunch I heard on NPR an interview with Robert Wright about his new book Non Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny. I haven’t looked over the website yet, but the interview was very interesting. Like his previous book, The Moral Animal , this one looks at the evolution of human society and takes a stab at looking where we are going.

What’s black and white and dead all over? The 500 Snacks temporary exhibit over at Lilek’s Institute of Official Cheer’s Gallery of Regrettable Food. Hurry… the exhibit may close at any time.

Always water the monkeys. Always! Let this be a lesson to you.

Last week a few bloggers wrote about deep-fried candy bars. I don’t remember which ones, and the search engines aren’t telling, but here’s a BBC article about the uproar caused when a Scottish chef put deep fried Mars bars on the menu in his restaurant in France. Apparently, the French food critics don’t care for that sort of thing. The article give a brief account of the food’s history, noting “The deep-fried Mars Bar is thought to have originated in Stonehaven, in the north-east of Scotland. Its existence may help account for the fact that parts of Scotland have the highest incidence of heart disease, cancer and strokes, the worst teeth and the lowest life expectancy in the developed world. " Leave it to the BBC to take a swipe at the Scots.

A wacky CNN story about a man and his sourdough. Must’ve been a slow newsday at the Food desk, I guess. My friend Kim takes great pleasure in telling people that I’ve named my sourdough starter, offering it up as one more piece of evidence showing just how weird I really am. If only she knew the whole of it (she will now… hi Kim!). She thinks its name is Harold, but really it’s Harald , named for Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway who invaded England in 1066, was defeated by King Harold Godwinson, who was in turn immediately defeated by William, Duke of Normandy in the Battle of Hastings. So I’m not just weird, I’m a weird dork, no? I know it’s not all that strange to name your sourdough, though. I’m sure my parents had a named starter (Herman, I think) when I was small that they got from someone else. Actually, after a quick Google search, it appears that many, many people must have had Herman.

For whatever reason, the Shonen Knife Home Page has been showing up in my referrer logs. There’s no link from there to here, but what the hey… Welcome to Kestrel’s Nest, Shonen Knife fans! If you ever come to Athens, GA, be sure to catch a show by the Japancakes or one of the other six bazillion Athens bands. Update: Anita (of Anita’s LOL) has informed me that this was a fake referrer left by an indexer or robot. For some reason, this put Ralph Wiggum’s voice in my head, saying “The spider robot told me to see Shonen Knife.” Another Update: Anita has been very industrious. She tells me that some research led her to The Poxomitron, a “universal web filter” written by Scott R. Lemmon, a big Shonen fan. He’s released the software as ShonenWare: “you can support the program’s future development by purchasing any album by the female, Japanese power-trio Shonen Knife! They are an amazing band who’s music I dearly love. By supporting them you not only make me happier, but can perhaps help make the entire world a happier place! "

Jack Saturn’s feeling badly about what he wrote about a party here in Athens last weekend (see 2/24 entry). This is one of the dangers of writing a public journal, I guess. I don’t think I’ve upset anyone by what I’ve written here, but if I do, be sure to [let me know](mailto:ewagoner@athens.net?subject=You Bastard). Thanks.

Randy, TEN (now pogo) did have a pretty nice java WizWar game going for a while. I played a few times and it was a good first effort. It had a very limited spell set, but was fun just the same. After looking at Tom Jolly’s page, I saw that GameWorld will soon offer online WizWar -- if soon means “in the months to come.” No word on if it’s the same as what TEN was offering.

A UK woman came to the US to drill a hole in her head to help cure her chronic fatigue. She trepanned herself while standing in front of a mirror while a film crew looked on. Suprisingly, the procedure went wrong, and she required urgent medical assistance.

My new digital camera came today. It’s a Polaroid PDC300 I bought at ubid.com for about 70% of what it’s selling for at WalMart. It looks like it’ll be nice for snapping quick photos for the web, which is really all I want to do with it.