Saint Valentine.
Patron saint of engaged couples, bee keepers, plague and travellers.
Martyred by the Romans around 270, and buried north of Rome.
Nothing else is known. He was possibly even two different people martyred seventy years apart.
According to 13th century legend, he refused to deny Christ before the Roman Emperor and had his head cut off.
So, the romantic bit of this is?
(Thanks Wikipedia).
(I like the idea - but really, why Valentine?)
One of my christmas presents this year was this a papercraft penguin. This weekend just past I found the couple of hours to make the thing, and here it is, looming from the bookshelf in my home office.
Some more pictures after the cut. This thing is huge: 53cm tall.
Via Washington Monthly is this unbelievably strange story in the Guardian:
Britain and France talked about a “union” in the 1950s, even discussing the possibility of the Queen becoming the French head of state, it was reported today.
[...]
When Mr Mollet’s request for a union failed, he quickly responded with another plan - that France be allowed to join the British commonwealth - which was said to have been met more warmly by Sir Anthony.
What the hell? Strangest thing I’ve seen in months.
One of the world’s biggest manufacturers of condoms is targeting New Zealand to test its new range of products because the people there are apparently among the most sexually active in the world. [...] Past surveys suggest Kiwis are among the most sexually active in the world, among the highest in the world for sexual partners and one-night stands, as well as being relatively more adventurous when it to comes to experimenting in the bedroom.
As people who’ve heard me complain know, I often refer to the enormous four wheel drive vehicles cluttering our roads as ‘Land Yachts’, to reflect the pointless ostentation they represent. But a bit more common is referring to them as a tank. So do they actually compare?
| Audi Q7 | Panzer I | Panther | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length: | 5.085m | 4.02m | 6.87m |
| Width: | 1.983m | 2.06m | 3.42m |
| Height: | 1.737m | 1.72m | 2.99m |
| ‘Box’(a): | 17.5m3 | 14.2m3 | 42.33 |
| Weight: | 2 tonnes | 6 tonnes | 44.8 tonnes |
(a): Length x Width x Height
So: yes, some 4WD’s are as big as a tank. Not quite the same in weight, though. And a fairly small tank…
There are some very strange things in the world, but these Cold War Unicorns take the cake.
That said, I’m strangely tempted by this:
The Kazakhstan central bank has misspelled the word “bank” on its new notes, officials said Wednesday.
Hee hee hee! Although, has anyone checked our bank notes carefully?
In fairness to the central bank, it does sound like a pretty small typo:
The Kazakh word for bank is the Cyrillic form of “bank.” On the new note, the word was written with an alternate Kazakh form of the letter K, which has a slightly different pronunciation.
A quick primer for beginners:
John Cobb describes [comments made by Clive Hamilton] as “agrarian genocide”.
Any questions?
I’ve made up a fun new game to play on Wikipedia, called Wiki-nteering. First, you decide on an article that’s the target (let’s say the orienteering page). Then you hit the ‘Random Page’ button, and try to find your way to the target page using the fewest clicks possible. You can only use the main article text - you can’t use the main menu, and you can’t use the category or link box links.
For instance:
(OK, that was a pretty easy one. I didn’t cheat, honest! And to clarify, ‘See Also’ links are OK, just not the ones like you get at the bottom of James Bond, among many others).
Another run:
Hours of fun!
I think I’ll go get my order in…
From The Register:
“I had the company solicitors give your contract the once-over. As impressed as they were about the numerous strange clauses in your contract - their favourite being the extortionate penalty payment for remaining at work after a UFO sighting in the vicinity of the building - they believe that there’s nothing to stop us using you to provide services to other companies.” [...] “Who was it?” the head of IT sighs sadly. “Him,” the PFY says, pointing at the Boss. “What?” the Boss asks. “When?” the head of IT asks, ignoring the Boss. “Moments after we got the word that we had to write up a spec,” the PFY adds happily. “WHAT?” the Boss asks. “You would have been standing by a window,” the head of IT says bitterly, a painful memory of his first week in the company rising to the surface. “And one of these two would have said something like ‘look at that, is it an Airbus 320 or an Airbus 340′?” “The actual question was ‘is that a 747-200F or a 747-200C’?” the PFY says. “Yes?” the Boss says. “And you said something like ‘I dunno’ didn’t you?” the head asks. “Well, I don’t know anything about planes,” he replies defensively. “And what do we call a flying object that you can’t identify?” the PFY asks
Perhaps I should remember this when renegotiating my AWA…
Like most people, I have always wanted to buy a castle.
Actually, the prices are a bit cheaper than I expected. Around $A17m for a large chateau in Burgandy seems quite reasonable. I’d hate to know what the upkeep on these properties is like, though.
Hah, I say, HAH!!! (ABC Australia News).