Curious George, Miami Edition: Three friends and I will experience an 8 hour layover at the Miami Int'l Airport on our way to Peru next Sunday, from 3-11pm. Prime time to get out of the place, but where to go or what to do? more inside

Curiously Jittery George: When viewing certain .wmv files (okay, a torrent of last night's Daily Show) the picture is very clear but also very jumpy. I've tried viewing with every media player I have... what gives, monkeys?

Springtime in Arkham An olfactory tribute to the Cthulhu Mythos and the world of H.P. Lovecraft.

Treat your mother right. (.asx file, broadband, Mr. T)

Asheville NC Mofi Hodown Reminder! If you're in or near this audaciously beautiful spot on the map this Friday at 5ish, you ought to remember to swagger on over to the Flying Frog Cafe for real-time commenting and live chat with real humans. more inside

Curious George: What the heck are you supposed to do with a brand new car? [+] more inside

A bit about the culturally accepted presence of elves in Iceland.

Curious George: My curious Geo. Tonight in a parking garage, my precious Geo at some point slipped out of the parking brake and reversed for nearly 200 feet... {MI} more inside

Tunes: Wired/Creative Commons have released 16 mp3s from artists like David Byrne, Danger Mouse and Gilberto Gil... with no strings attached, do what thou wilt. Caveat: server is a bit slow going. "These musicians are saying that true creativity needs to be open, fluid, and alive. When it comes to copyright, they are pro-choice. Here are 16 songs that encourage people to play with their tunes, not just play them."

sound beams, cones and spheres HyperSonic Sound: the new (but long wished for) tool for directing sound in a 'beam' at a very small area or a single individual- creating the inevitable military and marketing buzz (two demos: .wmv trade film, simple flash).

Victor the Talking Budgie [caveat: credulity factor in the interpretation of the audio files] In the fall of 2000, I was the guardian of an remarkable parakeet named Victor. He had a vocabulary of over 1000 words and began to talk in amazing context. He was the first parrot in the world to prove they could speak in sophisticated conversational language.

Seeing things. Pareidolia: a type of illusion involving the misidentification of a vague indefinite stimulus as a person or an object. Examples include seeing the man in the moon, Jesus in a tortilla, or a face on Mars.

Monkey meetup! Blue Ridge gathering, Sat. June 5th, in lovely Asheville, NC. The day kicks off with a kickball game between Team Metafilter and Team Monkeyfilter. Later we'll head to our Irish pub Jack-of-the-Wood, and maybe take in a drag show. Or whatever we feel like doing. Interested?

The Desperado is a monkey; Long live Johnny Cash. [Flash, via MeFi] more inside

Mobiles phones are not usually seen in the West as a way of keeping in touch with God. But the growing popularity of communication technologies is providing a way for people in Asia to express their faith, say researchers.

Campaign in the membrane: Using M.R.I.'s to See Politics on the Brain [NYT Link] He lay inside an M.R.I. machine, watching commercials playing on the inside of his goggles as neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, measured the blood flow in his brain.

Native American Trickster Tales In the Native American oral tradition, the vulgar but sacred Trickster assumes many forms. He can be Old-Man Coyote among the Crow tribes, Raven in northwestern Indian lore, or, more generically, "The Tricky One" (such as Wakdjunkaga among the Winnebago or Manabozho among the Menomini), to mention just a few of his manifestations.

Freaks, Geeks, and Hoochie Shows on the Road
Some histories of Traveling Carnivals, the American circus and the culture of Vaudevillian showmanship. more inside

The Grittiest Job
Images and context of America's coal miners. Especially worth visitng and moving are the images of the 'breaker boys' and other children who worked in the mines.