More on orcs
Check out this wonderful article on orcs. Tolkien must have been having the time of his life coming up with those names–Shadrat, Ugluk, and Radbug…
Zing!
Similar Posts
Excellent Tor Wallpaper
I just downloaded a 1024×768 version of this today. What a fabulous wallpaper from tor.com that I can cycle through my screen saver image program!
Buffett’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders on 2008
I got my masters degree in accounting and information systems. While going to school I started an investment club and learned about a man named Warren Buffett.Warren Buffett is humble, full of folksy humor, and trades places with Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, depending on the year you’re counting. His annual letters to his shareholders are a delight to read. This year’s is full of wisdom about the current financial crisis. Moreover, within a few minutes of reading you will be able to get some key insights that can help as you evaluate the plans being hatched in Washington and how to prevent this particular type of crisis from happening again.
If you’re not that into finance, I recommend reading:
- The introduction starting on page 2 and ending on page 3
- The “Finance and Financial Products” section starting on page 10 and running through page 12
Once you’ve read those, if you want to laugh and see Buffet’s humor, skip to page 21 where Buffett talks about the annual meeting of shareholders. Tell me you wouldn’t want to attend.
The Berkshire Hathaway homepage
This year’s letter to shareholders (you will click on 2008 because he’s discussing the results of that year)
Are Squirrels Smarter Than We Think?
I miss the squirrels we had at the old homestead. No, that’s not hyperbole. Until two years ago the six of us lived in a 900 sf home my wife’s grandmother homesteaded for. But that’s beside the point. We had squirrels there. They chittered, ran about, tossed apples down at my girls when they tried to inhabit the hammock.
For those of you not from Utah, you might be wondering why this is such a big deal. If you’re from the East you might be thinking I’m nuts. But out West trees are few and far between, which means so are the squirrels. So we loved our squirrels, but then they got into our neighbor’s fifth wheel and he promptly killed them all.
Alas.
But here, for your pleasure, are squirrels using their god-given intelligence to do what they were bred to do–steal and eat.
Of course, they are squirrels. Not quite geniuses yet.
One of my stories either needs a squirrel who steals candy bars or a character who is constantly setting up obstacle courses for the varmits.
Bees Sniff Out Land Mines
The bee. We slather its delicious vomit on bread and muffins. We send colonies out to pollinate our crops. Now Colin Henderson and his University of Montana colleagues have partnered up with bees to “locate buried land mines” and do it more quickly and thorougly than any dog.“We can survey in one day what takes more than a week with dogs,” he says, “and humans stand 300 yards away.”
Bees can find not only land mines, but also drugs and decomposing bodies. Oh, and they are smart enough to recognize a sugar daddy when they see one.
Here’s the full article. Read it. Enjoy. Things like this are part of the wonderfulness of life.
Cats and monsters
My second-to-youngest daughter came in the house telling me that there was a huge line of ants out in the garage.
“Because there’s poop,” her younger sister says.
I groan inside. Cats. There’s the whole wide world and a litter box to boot. They have to do it on the garage floor?
I go out to clean it up before I go on my walk, and there is indeed a thick line of tiny ants. But they aren’t carrying away bits of poop for their fugus farm. It’s some hairball the cat has yakked up. Disgusting. So I get out the square-nosed shovel and scoop it up. But as I do its contents tumble and reveal themselves. There’s a spinal column of something significant with the last bit of ribs clinging to it. There’s hair, and I don’t think it’s the cat’s.
I fling the stuff into the brush and sweep the garage clean.
And then I start thinking.
What if a kid came out and found this long trail of ants. She follows it. To this lump up in the brush. There are two magpies about. One perched on a piece of scrub. The other pecking at the lump. And in the lump is not some animal bones. No, it’s a long segment of human spine. And there’s half-digested Levis or some nylon windbreaker. And the whole mess is dark, compacted, and damp.
There’s something out there that regurgitated this. Not a bear. Not a tiger. Those are too small. This thing has to be large. A dragon. No. Some ogre or troll. Something else. Something from the depths of the darkening woods. Something the villagers had forgotten. Maybe something that’s come through from some other place. But it’s here now. It’s close. And somebody died.
