Category: Ramblings

Kickball on NPR?

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There’s a story on NPR right now about how kickball is making an “adult” comeback (there’s a kickball league in Pittsburgh). It sounds eerily similar to our summer kickball in Seattle — complete with cases of beer. What’s next? Dodgeball?

The World Stinks

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fragrance.jpg

Reading through the local edition of the International Herald Tribune, I came across a full page “info-tisement” (the headline is shown above). What with all the world economic problems and an impending war, I had no idea there was such an urgent need for solutions in THE FRAGRANCE INDUSTRY! Tonight I will sleep better knowing so much energy and effort (from an “unprecedented cross section of experts,” no less) is being put into finding solutions for something so important to all of us.

And That’s Why They’re Called Fruit Flies

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I came across this article in today’s Japan Times (pulled from the UPI wire). Scientists have apparently found that heat can change the sexual preference of genetically modified fruit flies. The story was only mildly interesting until I got to this part:

The male fruit flies also lined up in circles and chains resembling a conga dance and, on occasion, even reciprocated other male’s sexual advances with attempted copulation. Males apparently rejected unwanted suitors with a flick of their wings or a kick to the courting male’s head.
The flies reverted to their original heterosexual behavior when temperatures cooled down.

Comparing the original UPI headline (“Heat change makes mutant flies gay”) with the one the Japan Times came up with (“Flipping the switch of sexual preference”) shows the value of a good headline writer.