The world would be a lot less funnier if it were not for kooks like this, who seem to abound everywhere.. :)

A Florida theater has changed the name of The Vagina Monologues on their marquee in response to a driver's complaint. The new name? The Hoohaa Monologues.

Serious....not making this up though it sounds like something out of The Onion...it is so funny and so stupid on so many different levels. Damn... now I know what that perv Al Pacino kept saying in the appropriately titled movie, Scent of a Woman.

Now someone explain to me what haahaa-heee means and I will know what she meant by Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee :)

Larry Stewart, known to the world as Kansas City's Secret Santa for his practice (from 1979 to 2006), died at age 58 on January 12, 2007.

He had made a habit of anonymously handing out small amounts of cash, typically in the form of hundred dollar bills, to needy people. The total amount he gave away is estimated to be 1.3 million dollars. Stewart successfully kept his identity hidden until 2006, when he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which would later claim his life. He chose at that time to reveal his identity as part of an effort to encourage others to practice philanthropy.

David Rattray, a well-known historian and tour guide of the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war in South Africa, was brutally murdered on January 26th at his farm in KwaZulu-Natal in circumstances that are under investigation by the South African police.

Molly Ivins died last week (Jan 31st) of breast cancer. What a loss...so now which Texan will pick on the Bush family's exploits!! Expectedly, tributes pour in for this fiesty lady...

Alan MacDiarmid, 79, Professor of Chemistry at UPenn and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry in 2000 along with Alan J. Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa for the discovery of conductive polymers, died yesterday.

He apparently died "after a fall down stairs in his home in the Drexel Hill suburb of Philadelphia while rushing to catch a flight to his native New Zealand, said his wife, Gayl Gentile. Dr. MacDiarmid was ill with myelodysplastic syndrome, a leukemia-like disease, and had expected to live only a few weeks, during which he wanted to go to New Zealand to say goodbye to his siblings, his wife said."

He is one of the few Nobel laureates I have had the luck to hear/see in person... having attended a seminar he gave in University of Akron in 2001-02.

And lastly, today, a sudden end to a bizarre life....

Reality TV star and former Playboy playmate (sorry..no links! :)), Anna Nicole Smith, is dead at age 39. She was pronounced dead after being found unconscious in her Florida hotel room.

Woman on the wrong bus lost for 25 years

A woman who boarded the wrong bus on an attempted shopping trip from Thailand to Malaysia has returned home after 25 years. Jaeyana Beuraheng told her eight children she accidentally boarded a bus bound for Bangkok instead of Malaysia, and once there she boarded a second incorrect bus because she could not read or speak Thai or English, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

Beuraheng, who speaks only the Yawi dialect used by Muslims in southern Thailand, said the noise and traffic of the big city confused and disoriented her, leading her to board the second wrong bus to Chiang Mai, near the border with Burma. The woman said she spent five years begging on the street in the city and was often mistaken for a member of a hill tribe because of her dark skin tone. She was arrested in 1987 on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant and was sent to a social services hostel when authorities were unable to determine her origins. However, last month, three students from her home village arrived at the hostel for training, and they were able to communicate with Beuraheng and help her find her way home.

Or in other words, I cannot make up my mind if I should rejoice at the amazing new find of a rare species or cry at the loss of an amazing creature...

Rarely seen 'living fossil' shark caught off Tokyo

A goblin shark -- a rarely seen species often called a "living fossil" -- was caught alive in Tokyo Bay but died after being put on display, an aquarium said. The grey, long-nosed shark was caught in fishermen's nets around 150 to 200 metres (500 to 650 feet) deep. It was discovered by officials of the Tokyo Sea Life Park when they took a boat with local fishermen on January 25.

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Related links: A piranha seems tame compared to the Candiru (via.) Also, see an ocean sun-fish and a rare shark captured on film, and a not--so--lucky giant squid. Also, be amazed by the bio-diversity in Antartica.

I am temporarily suspending all blogging activities and taking a hiatus to focus on some other things in my life. I do not think I had any readers here (except people who may have accidentally passed by here) but if there are some lurkers, rest asssured, I will return to blogging at some point in time. Until then... take it easy, have fun, and be happy.

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for a delectable year ahead! :)

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A year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. - Hal Borland

More new year quotes here, for those so inclined.

If only I could write like this...

Alone, perhaps, they each could have explored the city with pleasure, followed whims, dispensed with destinations and so enjoyed or ignored being lost. There was much to wonder at here, one needed only to be alert and attend. But they knew each other much as they knew themselves, and their intimacy, rather like too many suitcases, was a matter of perpetual concern; together they moved slowly, clumsily, effecting lugubrious compromises, attending to delicate shifts of mood, repairing breaches. As individuals they did not easily take offense; but together they managed to offend each other in surprising, unexpected ways; then the offender -- it had happened twice since their arrival-- became irritated by the cloying susceptibilities of the other, and they would continue to explore the twisting alleyways and sudden squares in silence, and with each step the city would recede as they locked tighter into each other's presence.

-- Excerpt from Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers.

On March 6-8, 2007

Where I want to be:

The Malian minstry of culture has recently announced that a homage will be paid to Ali Farka Touré in Bamako and Niafunke on March 6, 7 and 8 2007. Activities include conferences, debates and a mega concert in a football stadium attended by the likes of Toumani Diabate, Oumou Sangare, Manu Dibango, Youssou N'dour, Alpha Blondy, Bembeya Jazz, Ry Cooder, Marcus James, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Gabriel, Ramata Diakité, Boubacar Traoré(Kar Kar), Habib Koité, Salif Keita, Baaba Maal, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Carlos Santana, Tracy Chapman [ref].

Where I most likely will be:

At work!

Update: Turns out, I was working on these days but not at work. I was in dismal Lehigh at a conference - though the conference itself was enjoyable and productive, the place was really depressing!

After the passing of Ali Farka Toure, the future is in good hands... heady stuff here from his son, Vieux Farka Toure

Just listen to him casually strum the guitar sitting in his backyard in Bamako, Mali.Genius..I tell you, the kid's got the dad's genes, no doubt!

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Welcome to Pandora.com, a great internet resource to listen to new music. Take a musical journey and develop your own playlists, which evolve over time (with your feedback) to suit your tastes, while simultaneously exposing you to new groups and music.

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Wikipedia enlightens me that Pandora's box opened and released evil and misfortune into the world and in "modern times, Pandora's Box has become a metaphor for the unanticipated consequences of technical and scientific development."....so, the title doesn't really work - unless you did not expect the bountiful new amazing world opened up and made available to everyone by the internet or if you think the devil has the best tunes :). To my ears (and soul), music can be a soothing balm, a refuge, a life-sustaining force...

In any case, even as you listen to music - in my case, first Ry Cooder and then Stevie Ray Vaughn strumming - go enlighten yourself some more about the legend of Prometheus & Pandora's box or her jar, if you will!

James Brown died Xmas day...Tributes pour in as fans and fellow artists celebrate the life of 'Godfather of Soul'..

Enjoy these videos of him in performance, via Boingboing:

Eyesight, Super Bad, I Feel Good, It's A Man's World, Please Please, Sex Machine, at the Olympia, Soul Power, on the Ed Sullivan show, and an unusual TV interview he did when he was in a chemically altered state of consciousness after having been released from jail.

Incidentally, James Brown holds the record for the artist who has charted the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 without ever hitting number one on that chart.^[ref]

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Charlie Gillett bids farewell to other artists who died over the last 12 months on his great show on BBC Radio.

Country: Mali
Title: Gambari Didi
Artist: Ali Farka Toure
CD Title: Savane
Label: World Circuit
Cat. Number: WCD075

Country: Jamaica
Title: Israelites
Artist: Desmond Dekker
CD Title: Desmond Dekker: Definitive
Label: Trojan
Cat. Number: TJDDD239

Country: USA
Title: Tequila
Artist: The Champs
CD Title: Teen Beat
Label: Ace
Cat. Number: CDCHD 406

Country: USA
Title: El Watusi
Artist: Ray Barretto
CD Title: Rock Instrumental Classics Vol 4: Soul
Label: Rhino
Cat. Number: E2 71604

Country: USA
Title: Viejos Amigos
Artist: Freddie Fender
CD Title: Canciones di mi Barrio
Label: Arhoolie
Cat. Number: CD 366

Country: Algeria
Title: Hak Hak
Artist: Cheikha Rimitti
CD Title: Nouar
Label: Sono
Cat. Number: CDS 7396

Country: Romania
Title: Caravan
Artist: Fanfare Ciocarflia [Ioan Ivancea]
CD Title: Gili Garabdi
Label: Asphalt Tango
Cat. Number: CD-ATR 0605

Country: Egypt
Title: Nabra
Artist: Hamza El Din
CD Title: Rough Guide to the Music of Egypt
Label: World Music Network
Cat. Number: RGNET 1114 CD

“People who live the most fulfilling lives are the ones who are always rejoicing at what they have.” - Richard Carlson

True.. that quote rings very true to me as it reflects my philosophy in life. But sometimes I wonder if it is crap like this that keeps me from getting somewhere. Perhaps, I rejoice too prematurely in what I have or rather I am satisfied and content with what I have and in doing so get too complacent, thereby lacking the drive, the attitude, the chutzpah to go get something tougher to attain.

Update: Damn... I tried to find who Richard Carlson is... if I have the right guy, it turns out he died on December 13, 2006 - the day after I posted the above quote here. Richard, age 45, died of a cardiac arrest while enroute from California to a television appearance in New York. Richard Carlson was an author of the "Don't Sweat" series of motivational/self-help book, which included the bestseller, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff--and it's all small stuff, which I remember seeing in a bookstore or at the library some time back and still remember the title of that book as a quotable quote. By the way, the above quote is from his book, Shortcut through Therapy.

Also, I learned that there was an actor called Richard Carlson, that I had never heard of.

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Festering in bad moods is a bad habit of mine...and so comes obvious advice from someone called Brenda Anderson:

“Bad moods become bad days, which become bad weeks, which become bad months and years. Before you know it, you’re living an unhappy life and you probably think this is ‘normal’. It’s a shame, because life can and should be wonderful. You can transcend the circumstances that are pulling you down … you need only to learn how.”

How... indeed...How....that is the million $ question.

Oh.. Ms. Moneypenny!

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden, the world's oldest woman dies at age 116.... Everyone wishes for a long and happy life. Hopefully hers was a happy life. One thing is for sure - she will be missed by many. She had "40 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren, 150 great-great-grandchildren, 220 great-great-great grandchildren and 75 great-great-great-great grandchildren." She was born on August 15, 1890. Incidentally, she became the world's oldest person earlier this year after Maria Ester de Capovilla of Ecuador, the last documented person to be born in the 1880s (born in 1889), died. Imagine that... Nehru or Charlie Chaplin or Hitler could have been still alive!

Also, after Bolden's death, a man, Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico, born August 21, 1891, is the world's oldest person. This ends a streak of 16 women in a row holding the title of the oldest person, with the last male to hold the title being Shigechiyo Izumi in 1986, although his longevity has long been disputed. In fact, nine of the top ten oldest persons are female, with the grand-mommy of all...er...the oldest of all being Jeanne Louise Calment of France, who lived from Feb 21, 1875 to August 4, 1997, with the longest confirmed lifespan in history of 122 years and 164 days. According to wikipedia, 'her lifespan has been thoroughly documented by scientific study; more records have been produced to verify her age than for any other case.' The wiki entry also has this interesting tidbit about her life...

In 1965, aged 90, with no living heirs, Jeanne Calment signed a deal, common in France, to sell her condominium apartment en viager to lawyer François Raffray. Raffray, then aged 47, agreed to pay a monthly sum until she died, an agreement sometimes called a "reverse mortgage". At the time of the deal the value of the apartment was equal to ten years of payments. Unfortunately for Raffray, not only did she survive more than thirty years, but he died first, in December 1995, of cancer, at the age of 77. His widow had to continue the payments.

Talk about an unexpected turn of events! :)

Hot peppers and spider bites cause similar pain

New research suggests that tarantula venom and capsaicin, the stuff that makes hot peppers hot, both fire up the same pain receptor on nerve cells. The particular cell-surface receptor is triggered by chemicals and also temperature. The research, conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, and published in the scientific journal Nature, could someday inform the development of better pain killers. Meanwhile, I expect to see a new brand of Spider Venom Hot Sauce in a matter of moments. From Science News:

(Molecular biologist David) Julius notes that because triggering the receptor produces such strong pain sensations, it's not surprising that organisms as distantly related as pepper plants and tarantulas use the same defensive mechanism.

"Different organisms have figured out how to tap this site as a way of telling predators, 'You won't be comfortable if you mess with me,'" he says.

I accidentally ran into a list of unusual deaths on wikipedia today ..

Disclaimer: Everything in brown is directly cut-n-pasted from the wikipedia entry and has not been verified or even re-worded by me.

1. These entries about some really famous people caught my eye.. I did not know this!!

a) 1983 - Tennessee Williams died choking on a bottle cap.--and am surprised this tradition still continues after this..

b) 1849: Edgar Allan Poe, famous American writer and poet, was found on October 7, 1849, at a Baltimore tavern in a state of delirium and wearing clothes he didn't own. He died in a Washington, D.C. hospital early the next morning, his last words being "Lord, help my poor soul." While the official cause of death was listed as "congestion of the brain", the actual cause for his death has been a matter of debate ever since. The current prevailing theory is that he was a victim of rabies.

c) And this is big news to me....
1893: Tchaikovsky, the famous Russian composer, apparently committed suicide after being exposed in a homosexuality scandal. The means of his death is in dispute as to whether he took arsenic or drank cholera-infected water.

d) 1884: Allan Pinkerton, detective, died of gangrene resulting from having bitten his tongue after stumbling on the sidewalk.

e) 1916 : The English satirist, novelist and wit Saki was killed in France, during World War I by a sniper's bullet, having reportedly cried "Put that damned cigarette out!" to a fellow officer in his trench lest the glowing embers reveal their whereabouts.

(Another similar one, which I find both funny and sad at the same time is this one...

1915: François Faber, Luxembourgean Tour de France winner, died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper. )

f) 1940: Leon Trotsky, the Soviet revolutionary leader in exile, was assassinated with an ice axe in his Mexico home. His killer, Spanish-born Soviet agent Ramon Mercader, acquired the ice axe in Trotsky's own office after being invited in. After receiving a brutal blow to the head, Trotsky fought and literally took a bite out of his murderer.

g) 1911: Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning from a toe injury he received after kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination code. (By the way, did u know the Jack Daniel distillery in TN is in a dry county :))

2. I am going to use those last words when confronted by smart-alecs who think they know it all :)
1864: John Sedgwick, Union general in the American Civil War, was killed by a distant Confederate sniper at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Among his last words to his men were "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!"

3. Talk about going away in glory:

a) 1927: J.G. Parry-Thomas, a British racing driver, was decapitated by his car's drive chain which, under duress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own Land speed record which he had set the previous year. Despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph.
b) 1953: Frank Hayes, jockey, suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.

4. There are a few odd-ball entries like

1834: David Douglas, Scottish botanist, who fell in a pit trap, was crushed by a bull that fell in the same pit.

1845: Josiah P. Wilbarger, a Texan pioneer, was scalped by Comanches in 1833 but survived, leaving his skull exposed. He lived 11 years until fatally striking his head against a low beam in his cotton gin....

5. 1990: George Allen, an American football coach, died a month after some of his players dumped a Gatorade bucket on him following a victory (as it is tradition in American Football), resulting in pneumonia.

6. And last but not least... this one has to be the most gruesome on the list. I had kinda read about this somewhere but had not read the details! Uggh....this will revulse you!

2001: Bernd-Jürgen Brandes was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and then eaten by Armin Meiwes. Before the killing, both men dined on Brandes' severed penis. Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten.