april fools

Nerdly humor explained.

world record alcohol concentration?

Some Belgian headlines are exciting today. More Flemings are cycling to work and school and whatnot, and more people in Antwerp cycle to work or school than use public transport. While the latter is not so important or exciting in itself, it reflects an attitude towards cycling as the preferred method of transportation that you won't find even in the bike-friendliest American city.

Others are just plain bizarre and/or misleading. "No animals in pet shops," for example. Or "Increase in stalking." Best of all must be "Nieuwpoort man sets record" for the highest blood-alcohol concentration measured, 4.66 % (it is not explained whether this is a national or world record). I enjoy the judge's wit: "Congratulations! You're still alive. You hold the record. Blood-alcohol levels of 4 percent and higher have been measured, but that is usually during a post-mortem." A helpful comparison is also supplied: "A blood alcohol level of 4,66% is equal to drinking a barrel of beer and two bottles of wine in close succession." Could even the Poles or Russians top that?

math that's durned big as Manhattan

Lie group E8: "An international team of mathematicians says it has cracked a 120-year-old puzzle that researchers say is so complicated that its handwritten solution would cover the island of Manhattan."

I didn't know Wikipedia was so groovy about amplitude modulation.

The Germans can't possibly be serious. Limit speed on the autobahn?

It's not only North Carolina that still has funny laws about personal life (and maybe public life as well?) still on the books. Ireland's High Court is doing some spring cleaning after 1,000 years.

Are we better off without our emotions?

Sad and disturbing as it is, innocent fluffy white sheep being spray-painted (ooh a verbed noun!) with swastikas by miscreant German youths is also terribly funny. As is the feigned bemusement of the German authorities, who told the media, "Exactly why the group behaved toward these good-natured beasts in this way is unclear." I am tangentially reminded of Donald Barkin, who addressed his "Writing Portraits" seminar (into which I failed to gain admission) in 2003: "People see being a poet as like being a shepherd. They respond, 'Oh, are there still poets around? Why?'"


The swastika hasn't always been T3h Evil. To give one of many examples, in Buddhism it's a vegetarian symbol. Happy post-St. Patrick's Day!

Finally, something to remedy my aging brain's seive-like memory: exercise!

Somebody is in a hell of a lot of trouble for leaving $20 million worth of MJ by the side of the road. I feel sorry for that truck driver.

After thousands of years, Mayans are still mystical and awesome.

oh the irony: "Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut chartered a military helicopter to make it on time to a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," according to La Libre Belgique.... The two-hour flight from Brussels to Hasselt produced 12 to 20 times more CO2 greenhouse gas than a car journey of the same distance."

DNA analysis has pinpointed the origin of avian flu to the province of my ancestors, Guangdong. Figures.

Santa Monica will be the next city after Berkeley to administer birth control shots to its squirrel population.