Take your dog to work day is less than a month away. Oh no it isn't. more inside

The Weee man is a kind of robot sculpture built from discarded bits. The idea of making sculptures out of garbage isn't new, of course. The result can be repellent or hermetically sealed and profitable. Sometimes it's plain uninspired. Sometimes a beautifully-finished fake. No wonder people sometimes make mistakes

Flying 'n' dying. Everything you could ever want to know about fatal air crashes. If you prefer a slightly less depressing emphasis, how about air crashes with one survivor? Or celebrity crashes? I'm feeling better already.

"Geograph British Isles aims to collect a geographically representative photograph for every square kilometre of the British Isles..."

100 pieces of art left on the beach in Nova Scotia. Anyone live out that way? Might be worth grabbing one if they haven't all gone.

Konane is an ancient Hawaiian board game. (Remove one central piece, take opponent's pieces by jumping orthogonally, last person to move wins.) Game-theoretic analysis.(PDF, PostScript, PowerPoint.) A downloadable version.

Tour of a 3D model Kiva (Better with QuickTime). Kivas are large underground structures built by the 'ancient ones', aka the Anasazi, of the Chaco Canyon.

The Phillips Collection of beekeeping books. A selection of ten full, searchable texts has now been made available online.

Globish is a simplified version of English with a small vocabulary. Explained in French. (Some fine pieces such as "Fuck - not a word to use, but to know and recognise" - yes, indeed.) It's been done before, surely? Another attempt, for pilots. And another for sky-pilots.

The London Line is an exciting new free London newspaper (sorry, rest of the world). Full of amazing stuff. Spot the monkey.

A cycling tour of the Americas in search of strange food. Starting in May, Tom Kevill Davies will cycle around North and South America. His website asks people along the route to invite him on detours to sample whatever weird local food they can come up with. I do wonder what he's got planned for the Darien Gap? Some parts of the site require Flash. Link pinched from today's London Metro newspaper.

Rather depressing news, I'm afraid. Some wonderful creatures with names to match - Silky Sifaka, Buffy-headed Tufted Capuchin, Miller's Grizzled Surili...

Vestments A recent remark about the dress sense of papal candidates caused me to wonder about the flouncy white thing - I think perhaps it is an alb. More about vestments. People get pretty serious about vestments. This Anglican lady is, well, zealous about preservation. There are scores of retailers and designers of clerical garb: at the big Koinè show this year the focus is on chasubles. Some noteworthy entries

The world's oldest 3D porn has been discovered in Germany.

Partenia is a small, deserted region of Algeria. Ten years ago, Jacques Gaillot, the Bishop of Evreux, was summoned to the Vatican and told that as a result of his progressive political activities, he was to be transferred to the diocese of Partenia: a kind of euphemism for being sacked. Undaunted, the Bishop extended his diocese into cyberspace in the form of a multi-lingual web-site, where it recently celebrated its first ten years. Includes the history of Partenia.

Tony Blair has announced that a general election will be held on May 5. The BBC's new-fangled blog thing is already up and running. It's going to be an interesting, courteous and fairly fought contest...

100 Favourite literary characters. Not bad, but not enough villains. Long John Silver, anyone? Steerpike?

Washi villages. Washi is traditional Japanese paper: the authentic variety is now made in only a few places. Though ultimately deriving from China, washi paper has a long history in Japan. In typically mendacious and rapacious style, the Brits have a rip-off version called Oxford Indian paper.

The Palm Jumeirah (flash) is part of a truly breathtaking holiday and residential development. The 'eighth wonder of the world', this involves the largest man-made islands in the world, in the shape of stylised palm trees. The great assets of the site include natural coral teeming with wildlife which is being enhanced with ambitious artifical reefs. But divers now say the site is an ecological catastrophe.

The Ig Nobel UK tour is already under way (London fully booked, but Warrington and Nottingham still have tickets and there's a Live Web Chat on Thursday). From the Annals of Improbable Research