Okay, don't have time to write a long article. Just wanted to pass along this tidbit I found about a recent study that determined that eating pistachios can significantly lower your cholesterol. So next time you want a snack, have some pistachios… not only do they taste good, apparently they're good for you as well.
What made these weird marks on the rear parking lot of this building which is currently unoccupied? It can't be a car pulling hole shots, the paths are only a couple inches wide.
A dirt bike motorcycle or something like that?
I like the textures, tones, and shapes in this picture. It may seem odd to consider it a contemplative photo, but I love looking at it, so here it is.
I've never seen a convertible Mini Cooper before. What a cute little car!
I found my Lara Croft cutout had been promoted to receptionist when I got to work yesterday. Later I switched her with my Spock cutout, since it was a little sexist to assume that the receptionist had to be female.
I wonder if these are some kind of lichen growing on the stone underneath the moss.
I found this moss growing on a large rock which I rested on while walking in the Lyberty Way office park in Westford, MA. What are all these things growing here? Is this all just the moss or is this many different plants growing together?
Spotted these two painter turtles sunning themselves during my walk yesterday.
Here some of the trumpets seemed to have turned brown but instead there are different sorts of growth in the moss topped with brilliant red highlights. This is some strange looking stuff. Anybody know what all this is? I *think* those tall dark red stems with the pale green ovals at the top are part of the moss, but it too may be an independent plant.
I really need to add a “WTF” category to this blog. I had heard about this peripherally and figured it was just an urban legend, but it's not. In the last few days Sony released its new adult-oriented video game God of War II for the PlayStation console. Recently they had a big “European launch party” in Greece for members of the press who write about video game news. They tried to theme the party to match the nature of the game, so the party featured an actor dressed up as the hero from the game (okay, you might expect this), games involving throwing knives and pulling live snakes from pits (?), topless women who hand fed grapes to the guests (WTF?), and as a centerpiece, the decapitated carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat (WTF!!?).
Now it's not the first time Sony has done something amazingly stupid to promote their wares, but, as you can imagine not everyone was cool with a slaughtered animal being used as a ”prop” at a party. Guests were invited to reach into the goat's lacerated body, pull out entrails, and eat them. The entrails had in fact been replaced with some sort of Greek dish that resembled intestines. Yum.
If a goat had been killed and served as a dish which guests could eat, that probably would have been fine… I mean anyone who eats meat is eating a killed animal. But to morbidly lay out a dead animal at your dinner party with its head hanging off as a lurid decoration? That's just disgusting, cruel, morbid, and a waste of an animal. According to Sony the goat carcass was purchased from a loal butcher and then returned to the butcher after the party.
Apparently it has finally occurred to Sony that this whole party really wasn't such a great idea. Mostly because of the backlash from animal rights groups, Sony has issued an apology.
From Sony Apologizes For Decapitated Goat In 'God Of War' Launch (InformationWeek via Yahoo! News):
…”On this occasion we recognize that we fell short of our normal high standards of conduct and apologize for any offense caused,” Sony said in a statement. “We are conducting an internal inquiry into the circumstances of the event in order to learn from the occurrence and put in place measures to ensure that this does not happen again.”…
The article goes on and quotes animal rights activists decrying the use of the goat's carcass, and a professor of marketing who calls the party centerpiece “stupid”.
Which is all expected of course, but what I find intriguing is that nobody quoted seems to have any complaints about topless women feeding grapes to the partygoers. Okay, of course they are performers, and they were paid to perform this service, but it hardly seems appropriate for a video game launch party. The use of “pretty girls” at product launches or other types of retail expositions is not a new thing, and includes some sort of compensation, typically money, but not always. But this goes beyond anything I've heard of before. I would expect something like this at say a strip joint* or something like that, but a video game launch party for the press? WTF were they thinking?
Here's an article from 1Up.com recapping the event and including a picture which is probably NSFW.
That's effed up, yo.
*: Which is not to say I've ever been to a strip joint. For the curious, no I haven't. I have no interest in watching ecdysiasts perform live. That would be way too embarrassing for me.