I’ve wanted a cool animal friend for some time. And I mean a friend, not a pet. Pets you have to take care. Friends come, delight you, then leave. And lest you think I’m a meanie, I’ve got five cats that came with the house we moved into a few years ago. Love ’em, but I don’t need any more pets.

But a friend, now that’s different. Up here in the sticks we’ve got lots of interesting candidates: foxes, coyotes, raccoons, neighbor dogs that get into your garage and abscond with nifty chew toys like your expensive new hiking boots.

I’ve always wanted a bird gang as friends (I think it’s an unfortunate Disney heroine-envy syndrome). We’ve got eagles and magpies up here. But we also have crows and ravens. And ravens, according to some sources, are as smart as wolves.  In fact, I’m so taken with the bird gang idea that I’m using it in the series I’ve titled LORD OF BONES. The hero has two raven friends who will be characters in their own rights.

So you can imagine my delight when I read the article on NPR and saw this.

Crocodiles scare the crap out of me. In fact, I think they’re the scariest things on the planet. Gators make a close second. But they aren’t just monsters to humans. It appears gators have got blood that’s an infection’s worst nightmare.

Gator blood kills

So I predict right here that in the not too distant future we’re going to have a product called “Gator Cream” and it will rival the wonderful Neosporin.

This geeked me out today.

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

Can you imagine that game world? Can you imagine a world that’s an actual world? Where adventurers set out to find fortune and encounter all sorts of nasties being played by hundreds of thousands of other people around the globe?

Dude.

More here.

Zing, Baby!

schnook, schnorrer, megillah, meshuga, schlump…

Who can resist such words? I plan on working at least one of these into my conversation today.

I’ve copied from last week’s Wordsmith.org emails.

A language is the soul of its people. This is nowhere illustrated more profoundly than in the Yiddish language, the language of Jews of eastern and central Europe and their descendants. A tongue full of wit and charm, Yiddish embodies deep appreciation of human behavior in all its colorful manifestations. The word Yiddish comes from German Judisch meaning Jewish. But it is not the same as Hebrew, even though it is written in Hebrew script…

…Many of the everyday English language words such as bagel, klutz, and kibitz are terms from Yiddish. This week we’ll look at a few other Yiddishisms that have enriched the English language.

schnook (shnook) noun

A stupid, easily deceived person.

[From Yiddish shnuk (snout) or from German schnucke (a small sheep).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“A gun-toting schnook became an embarrassing crook when he robbed
  a Spokane dollar store Sunday. Seriously, if you’re going to commit
  a Class A felony, you might as well rob a Class A joint.”
  Frank Sennett; Dollar-Store Thief Bucks Common Sense; Spokesman Review
  (Washington); Mar 9, 2007.

schnorrer (SHNOR-uhr) noun

One who habitually takes advantage of others’ generosity,
  often through an air of entitlement.

[From Yiddish, from German schnurren (to purr, hum, or whir), from the sound of a beggar’s musical instrument.]

megillah (meh-GIL-uh) noun

A long, tedious account.

[From Yiddish megile (scroll), from Hebrew megillah, from galal (to roll).
The term alludes to the length of the text in the Book of Esther which is read in its entirety, twice, during Purim, a Jewish festival.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“But the obvious challenge was to go through the whole megillah — to
  begin with the Andante in C Major, which Mozart wrote when he was five,
  and proceed to the bitter end, the Requiem.”
  Alex Ross; The Storm of Style; The New Yorker; Jul 24, 2006

meshuga or meshugga (muh-SHOOG-uh) adjective

Crazy; stupid.

[From Yiddish meshuge, from Hebrew meshugga.]

Today’s word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=meshuga

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“Plenty of hip-hoppers want to be considered insane, but only Paul Barman
  wants to be known as meshuga.”
  David Segal; The Weirder, the Better; The Washington Post; Jun 25, 2000.

schlump (shlump) noun

A dull or slovenly person.

[From Yiddish shlumperdik (unkempt, sloppy).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“‘You don’t want to dress up too much, but you don’t want to be
  a schlump,’ says Michael Kors.”
  Hal Rubenstein; Terrific Style by Age, by Size, by Shape, by Color;
  In Style (New York); Aug 2006.