Nearly right on schedule, uncle Sam refunded our tax overpayment directly into our bank account. And on a related note, I’ve just ordered in honeybees.

One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the mammoths will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new wooly overlords. I’d like to remind them as a trusted internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their icy buttercup farms.

Folks who recieved early morning wake-up calls from the KTEK studio might want to catch up with the voice behind those calls.

Luis Perea is a refugee inside of Columbia, chased from his home by civil war. Now he tries to make a living by raising cattle and bananas while living with his family inside the ruined confines of drug lord Pablo Escobar’s abandoned ranch. Says Perea, “I guess I am like the hippos. They also came from a far place but now they are happy here.” You’ll have to read the article to see where the hippos fit in.

In his speech to the UN Secutity Council today, Colin Powell briefly mentioned the Ma’dan, the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. These people are the direct decendants of the Sumerians, the first civilization. Do you know about them?

I just found this copy written on a pouch inside a box of food I bought:

We’ve put everything we’ve got into this pouch. We’ve searched the world over for the purest spices. We’ve accepted nothing but the freshest herbs. We’ve stirred and simmered and tasted. Until we found it. The perfect organic blend. The supreme flavor. So what’s the secret to these extraordinary recipes? Simply this: Just before we seal the pouch we add just a pinch of heart and soul. Yum.

You might think that’s cheesy, but actually, it’s stroganoff.

Today’s my little sister’s birthday. She was ten or eleven when I left home (regular readers already know I actually have no idea how old my family members are, and it’s a minor miracle that I even remembered the correct date), but now she’s all grown up with a real job, a husband, and three young’uns. I guess that means I’m a little older, too. She’s an English teacher, so it seems appropriate that I link to screenshots from an alledged bootleg DVD of The Two Towers that is making the rounds in Europe. Someone added subtitles that are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike English. Happy Birthday, Lauryl!

Monkey Fight!

Monday is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, and the folks that first made it are leading the celebrations by giving away free samples.

You’ve probably seen those photo mosaics where a large image is made up of many smaller images acting as pixels. Kelly Houle has taken the idea a mile further by creating a photo collage that is also anamorphic -- a collage of illustrations and related material from Alice in Wonderland that, when a curved mirror is placed in the correct position, forms a portrait of Lewis Carroll. It’s absolutely amazing stuff. More of her fantastic anamorphic art can be found here, and she sells prints and wooden jigsaw puzzles at reasonable prices. Leonardo DaVinci will soon be on my wall. She’s only a couple years older than me, and studied physics, astronomy, and math at the University of Arizona in Tuscon. I wonder if she’s any relation to my New Mexico physics classmate Paul Houle. (Thanks for the link, Steve!)