inkycircus

Just under the wire

With one minute to go until midnight over here in Londontown a loud and hearty Happy Valentine's Day to all you circus-goers. And in the swinging words of Duke Ellington at his Cote D'azur concert with Ella way back when:

"With that we want to thank you ladies and gentlmen for the wonderful way you've inspired us this evening. And remind you that you are very beautiful, very sweet, very gracious, very generous and we do love you madly. Thank you."

Feel the love. And take a peek at Chandra X-ray observatory's image of a heart-shaped gas cloud for extra measure.

Word of the day

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the fear of Friday the 13th (ie. today). For you science buffs, take note, this malady is not grounded in scientific logic. But then again, when you can train pigeons to be superstitious, who's surprised? But for a brainy breakdown of where this myth might have started, read all about it at Howstuffworks.com.
Psst. Bonus word. Triskaidekaphobia: irrational fear of things or events associated with the number 13.

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone an extremely happy and prosperous 2006.

Hope you had a fun new year's eve, and hope you have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! From all of us here at inkycircus x.

Spam.

Some parts of gmail are a bit scary. Like the fact that even when you put stuff in the trash, it's not deleted. Ever. You need to go back and "delete forever." Even then it will stick around Google's system indefinitely.

So, today was garbage day. There I am chucking my spam out when I noticed the google ads banner. And that it was really really funny. "Savory Spam Crescents - Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown" it said. I wanted more. I clicked the < button. "Spam Hashbrown Bake - Serves 8" came up. Again < : "Ginger Spam Salad - Serves 1, refrigerate overnight." This wasn't taking me good places. I decided to turn around. > "There is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be recycled"; > "Recycled plastic bottles can be made into rugs, jackets, fences and more." It went on. > save trees > use newspaper as gift wrap.

>> "You can make a lovely hat out of previously-used aluminum foil."

You learn something new everyday.

Happy Christmas everybody

It's past midnight, so it's Christmas day, so HAPPY CHRISTMAS! Nuff said.

PS London gets given a big christmas tree to put up in Trafalgar Square by Oslo in Norway every year to thank us for supporting them during WW2. (More info from Norway.org.uk here) They've been doing it since 1947 and I think it's quite a cool tradition that makes me like London (and Norway). So that's my justification for this slightly cheesy picture... I hope you all have a great day.

Go get em, soldier

In trawling the web for science news, you occasionally find a real gem in the world of archaeology. Like this one, from ABC in Australia (scary picture notwithstanding). Classicists used to think that Roman military forts were testosterone-fuelled men-only environments with no room for distracting females putting the soldiers off the serious business of war. But no. In finding girlie paraphernalia such as hair-clips and jewellery in the remains of 1st and 2nd century forts in the Roman Empire, Dr Penelope Allison of the Australian National University has shown that there were indeed women there. So rather than the previous theory (that Romans thought their women were getting in the way at work), maybe they realised that behind every great man stands an even better woman, and they couldn't get their warmonger mojo on without their ladies present. Girl power in the ancient world. I love it.

cause it's the weekend

and also cause we made jello shots last night for our house party. Elizabeth Hickok made San Francisco out of Jell-O®. and the result is drool-worthy. eye candy has never been so sweet:

and just imagine how it would hold up in an earthquake.

paper airplanes for the weekend

eons back i was delighted to wake up to a paper plane sitting on my window sill with an invite from our neighbours to meet for drinks. sure they got A+ for creativity. but looking down into the paper plane littered gutter it was clear they scored equally low marks in engineering.

if only they had done their homework. build the best paper airplane in the world features instructions and comments on just that, the DC-3 of paper airplanes. who knew they came this sweet.

have fun folks. consider this a gift for the weekend. oh it kicks such ass. oh it is so sleek. go cause a ruckus.

penguin podcast

this is just to say penguin books has a podcast now. this builds on their previously super cool marriage of old (audio books) and new (remixed) which gave us penguin remixed bits.

first podcast features heavy hitters zadie smith and jamie oliver. check it out.

sweet smell of success blankets nyc

new yorkers lived in a cloud of sweet yummy smells yesterday. truly bizarre. from the NYTimes:

Arturo Padilla walked through it and declared that it was awesome. "It's like maple syrup. With Eggos. Or pancakes," he said. "It's pleasant."

emergency services were overrun with worried callers but tests came up negative for sinister scents. from 9pm onwards reports of the smell wafted up manhattan all the way up to 112th St, where it was noticed at midnight. then it went back downtown stronger than ever. it's anybody's guess as to what the smell is:

There were conflicting accounts as to its nature. A police officer who had thrown out her French vanilla coffee earlier compared it to that. Two diplomats from the Netherlands disagreed, politely. Rieneke Buisman said it smelled like roasted peanuts. Her friend Joris Geeven said it reminded him of a Dutch cake called peperkoek, though he could not describe that smell.

the new yorkers, though they are many things, are not paranoid freakazoids. many nerve agents do have sweet smells, one would imagine as cloying: cyclosarin, phosgene, and hydrogen sulphide apparently smells sweet when rare but stinks like rotten eggs in larger doses.