Limerick Contest! Fed up with the stories of equine shenaningans? Feast on the delight of bawdy rhyme. a.k.a. "Hey everybody! Let's put on a show!" more inside

An Unusual Japanese Monastery "The Jingu is rebuilt every 20 years. This ceremony is called the Shikinensenngu. All the shrines in the Jingu, including the Goshoden, are rebuilt. In other words, the gods can live comfortably in newly built shrines (animation) at a cycle of 20 years." Sounds ordinary until you find out they've been doing this for 2000 years. And that up to 173,000 people participate. more inside

Cumming: The Fragrance

Robotic hand made from a bit of PVC pipe The owner/creator is a friend of mine and has asked for advice on his new product. I figured my monkey army could help out. Throw some advice this way.

Ogias and the Dragon he Slew - From the Manichean version of the Book of the Giants, a largely fragmentary book that has been omitted from all editions of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Via Dr Cathey's Blog more inside

Blame Canada!!! Tired of being called "polite" and "boring," Canada starts international incident with Denmark...

Grow RPG. Another cute little game from the people that did Grow. (via dalryaug)

Dark Alliance The late Gary Webb's classic series of articles written in the mid-90s for the San Jose Mercury News, detailing the links between the CIA, crack cocaine and the 'contra' campaign against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, are now available in full on line again, with added background and documentation.

Tea Culture Lately I've been spending a lot of time buying and drinking tea. I like both Chinese and Japanese varieties. Here is a pictorial archive of 19th Century Chinese tea production. Japanese tea ceremony instructions and information. more inside

GSAVE! God save us all.

"True story about my bitch wife" ("Jitsuroku Oni-yome Nikki") is one of the most popular blogs in Japan. It is written by a 30-something salaryman under the pseudonym "Kazuma" who documents the minutiae of his hen-pecked life. "His blog is a haven for thousands of male readers who write in to say their lives are just like his. More incredibly, he has many female fans who aspire to be just like his wife." Life may sound tough for this poor fellow, but he's making some serious yen off his blog ... and now book. Another Japanese blogger, who blogs in English, has written a little more about poor Kazuma in an entry here.

Curious George: I'm hungry, dammit. What's your favourite sandwich? I feel my sandwich-making skills are lacking.

Desperate George - What the hell happened to my mac? I have a dual 2gig G5 with 1.5 gigs of RAM and two 250gig internal hard drives running 10.4. I was asked to bring it into work since my partner whom I work with doing video graphics for a television show had his laptop crash. He was using the dual G5 while I was using my iBook. Then suddenly the maching that he was working on started to speak announcing every click of the mouse, every keyboard stroke. more inside