OEDILF

The Oxford English Dictionary in Limerick Form. Yeah, OK.

The lymphocyte granules retaining

Blue aniline dyes, we're explaining,

Have a name that's arcane,

Like the cells with that grain:

Both are azurophilic in staining.

(AZH-ur-roe-FILL-lick)

When dolphins attack

Oh man, the most disturbing image ever to appear on the Simpsons, primary colored and primitive, is that of an attack dolphin, flying through the school window, impaling Groundskeeper Willy in the chest with his pointed porpoise head. In related news, paranoids around the world rejoice! From the Guardian, "It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico."

animal reviews

Thanks to my main man Dinty Moore for this- Animal Reviews. It's a good time. Have I said this already? Steve Kemper of the Smithsonian says to survive a shark attack one should bop ‘em on the nose and turn them over. Inducing "tonic immobility" in this way renders the shark briefly paralyzed.

San Francisco

Keeping score here- SF receives points for having two-unit house boats, cheap public transportation, unparalleled pork buns, and advice seeking sixteen year-olds. The following items are janus-faced, i.e. plus one minus one. The flowers are bright and plentiful, unlike the sun. The unsettling dopplegangers suggest parallel universes. The hills are steep, but it never snows; no sledding.

In unrelated news, but more in-line with this site's tag-line... like the raven emblazoned across my uncle's back.

New Orleans

I do not have anything to add to the coverage of the situation in New Orleans. But I have to say a few things to whomever might arrive here. I visited the city four years ago and partied and did all the things college boys do and loved the grizzled sidewalk sitters, the grand yet embracing architecture, the loud-mouthed bonkers trolley operators (I hope Mr. "Move that Wagon!" is OK), and gum-mouthed southern conspiracists. I am loving this eighteen-year-old who stole an abandoned school bus and packed it with strangers and drove seven hours to safety. I guess no one really knows how much of that New Orleans will return. That makes me sad. I miss my home and my friends in New York, but I know when I go back they'll be there, and so will my favorite burrito place, and Union Pool, and all that good stuff. Eventually all the political stuff will be sorted out and presumably those who stood on one side will probably remain there, pointing their finger at the other. I do think it is appropriate for small-government types to take a moment, once the water's subsided and the odors dried, to reconsider. Didn't Grover Norquist brag about drowning government in a bathtub?

Over here on the West Coast, cable-provider super-corp Comcast is censoring CNN. During a promotional TV appearance Kanye West charges, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." CNN is airing the unscripted clip, but Comcast is replacing the last 8 minutes of CNN's looped half hour broadcast with public access programming.