Calamari Anyone?

What's going on, anyway? Have our planet's sea creatures forgotten where they belong? Yahoo! News - Top Stories

This site --> Welcome to Engrish.com! is worth spending a few (or many) minutes browsing. As it says on the home page:
It's hard to believe the Engrish masquerading as real English over in Japan. It can be seen on signs, people's jackets, t-shirts and shopping bags, in menus and on TV. But nowhere is it more prevalent than on the various consumer products found in convenience stores and supermarkets.

Happy very it makes me. Think I.

We were waiting for this?

Seems the fascination with all things Ozzy just won't quit. An Estonian record company has released an album of Black Sabbath songs played by a quintet specializing in music from the Middle Ages and singing in Latin. ``If you take away the massive wall of sound from many Sabbath songs, what you have is pure 14th century music,'' producer Mihkel Raud claimed.

The 12-track album - called ``Sabbatum,'' Latin for ``sabbath'' - includes ``Wheels of Confusion'' (``Rotae Confusionis'') and ``War Pigs'' (``Verres Militares'') in slow, minimalist versions that sound like they could be used at mass in the Sistine Chapel. ``We went at it with the fantasy that these songs in Latin were actually the original versions, and that Black Sabbath found and used them,'' Raud said. ``Usually ... albums try to add modernity to known music. We did it the other way round.''

Something like 1,200 CDs have been sold, mainly to U.S. buyers via the Internet since the album was released in March. Raud worked with the music group Rondellus, who have three previous albums of mainstream sacred music, to arrange and record the Black Sabbath tunes. He decided not to ask them to record Black Sabbath songs referring directly to the devil. ``I felt that asking them to sing, 'My name is Lucifer, please take my hand' would have been too much,'' he said.

After listening to a couple of tunes on the album's site (brutally slow, w/ lots of time outs for rebuffering).......if you didn't know they were sabbath tunes, you'd be hard pressed to guess what they were.

Soccer - yawn

As someone who doesn't particularly like most games played with balls (they're not sports), soccer never really interested me. Someone I know on a certain listserv also doesn't care for it and came up with this perfect description:
Kind of like perpetual motion pocket billiards with only two pockets.

Today's Strange Flash Animation

Here's today's moment (actually about 4 of them) of zen (safe for work):
Rocking Chair Planet

Strange Drinking Laws

No, not just in Utah - a lot of other states, too. Some quick examples:

CT: no off premise alcohol sales after 8pm or on Sundays. This means that if you go to a restaurant, order a bottle of wine, and want to take the unfinished portion home, you can do so provided that you ordered the bottle before 8pm. If afterward, you either leave the unfinished portion or make sure you consume it all (before getting in your car to drive home).

KY: mailing/shipping any quantity of any alcoholic beverage to anyone in the state of Kentucky is a felony with a jail term of 5 years for the *shipper*, not the receiver.

NE: it is illegal for a bar to serve beer unless they are simultaneously brewing a kettle of soup.

TX: It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.

MO: Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol.

DE, specifically Rehoboth Beach: Alcohol may not be served in nightclubs if dancing is occurring on the premises at the same time.

Unclear on the concept

According to the lead article in the latest Time Magazine, a poll revealed that 4% of the US population call themselves "vegetarian". Of that 4%, 37% said they had eaten beef within the past 24 hours. If you include chicken and fish, the figure rises to 64%. Is it really that difficult to figure out? Are these the same people who believe in being "a little pregnant"?

Yikes! What's that about living in a desert?

Here's our weather forcast for the next 10 days:

Today
Jul 12 Sunny 105°/70° 0 %

Sat
Jul 13 Sunny 106°/71° 0 %

Sun
Jul 14 Mostly Sunny 103°/70° 10 %

Mon
Jul 15 Isolated T-Storms 100°/69° 40 %

Tue
Jul 16 Isolated T-Storms 98°/65° 40 %

Wed
Jul 17 Isolated T-Storms 95°/65° 40 %

Thu
Jul 18 Partly Cloudy 96°/64° 20 %

Fri
Jul 19 Partly Cloudy 98°/65° 20 %

Sat
Jul 20 Partly Cloudy 98°/64° 10 %

Sun
Jul 21 Partly Cloudy 94°/64° 20 %
Last Updated Friday, July 12, 2002, at 5:58 AM Mountain Daylight Time

Yet Another One

NEW YORK, July 8 — Drug giant Merck & Co. recorded $12.4 billion in revenue from the company’s pharmacy-benefits unit over the past three years that the subsidiary never actually collected, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Merck reported billions not collected

So How Hot Is It?

I have some friends, particularly one, who insist it's hotter in Salt Lake City than in the Northeast. I think this because we do tend to have more 100F days than NYC. We're also at 4400', so the U.V radiation is about 45% stronger than at sea level at the same latitude. But yesterday (7/2) really pointed out the difference......
Here the high was 97F with 8% relative humidity. I don't know what the actual high and humidty was in NYC - the prediction was for 98F - but with the humidity it would feel like 105F - 110F.
That's why it is more comfortable here and why I can't imagine living east of the Mississippi anymore.

Was Hayduke Right?

A hilarious passage from Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" has the character George Hayduke walking into a bar in southern Utah. Since one of the things Hayduke really enjoys is a good bar fight, he loudly announces, "HEY! I hear that Utah is the asshole capitol of the world!"
Sunday (6/30) evening a wildfire started near Springville, just south of Provo. On Monday morning some 125 homes in Springville were evacuated and the fire has since grown to over 3000 acres. What started it? Some asshole was shooting at the insulators on power transmission towers. One of the lines came down when an insulator was hit, arced and sparked, and set off tinder dry grass. Un-freakin'-believable.

And we still don't have the balls to ban the sale of all fireworks.

Uh Oh

Looks like Mt. Hood may be waking up. In the last few days, it's starting to show some signs similar to the pre-cursor actions of Mt. St. Helens. Earth Change News

Recent earthquake activity on Mt. Hood.