22/7/01 - Life and 'Life' in St. Petersburg, 1945.

22/7/01 - Number eight in The Week in Pictures is very cute. (via Metafilter)

22/7/01 - Pictures of roadside memorials in New Mexico. (via gmtPlus9)

They are known as descansos, or resting places.

17/7/01 - I had a go at Venusberg's little game.  The correct term for it it Sausaging!

You can play Musical Sausages too.

Some of the best:

"Mariah Carey O. Speedwagon
Cheap Tricky
Bauhaus Of Pain
Wu Tang Clannad"

"What if the only way a magazine would run a short story by Eudora Welty was if she agreed to an accompanying photo in which she posed as the protagonist of her story — a "'Sex and the City'–type woman," say, "wearing a bright red spaghetti–strap dress and sandals"?"

17/7/01 - If you were a military commander, which military commander would you be?

I'd be Gen. Omar Bradley.  As played by Karl Malden, of course.

17/7/01 - The Grauniad quiz, what sort of consumer are you?

"When do you prefer to do your shopping?
...
I don't. I grow my own food. And clothes."

""Bricklayer, cabdriver, soldier, out on the dole … or rock star. You really think there's a choice?" For Def Leppard, there wasn't any other way out of the English steel town of Sheffield except to play heavy metal - and they weren't going to let drugs, booze, or the loss of their drummer's arm derail the dream. Their epic saga has become an exciting VH1 original movie, starring Orlando Seale as singer Joe Elliott, Tat Whalley as Rick Allen, The Breakfast Club's Anthony Michael Hall, and of course, the music of the mighty Lep."

15/7/01 - John Humphries interviews a dalek: [warning: Real Audio] (via As Above)

"Do you have a name?
Friends call me Donald.
Donald. What do you think of this idea of Doctor Who returning, Donald?
Well that is a very good question John and I'm glad you asked me that.  I will come to it directly in a moment.
You sound like a politician if I may say so.
You may say so but you will be exterminated."

15/7/01 - Insert joke about Essex girls here:

"IT was Voltaire who gave weight to the belief that not everything the conquistadores brought from the Americas was life-enhancing when he wrote: “The first fruit the Spaniards brought from the New World was syphilis.”

But now the skeleton of an early Essex girl has cast doubt on the traditional origins of syphilis in this country."

"The following may or may not be true, and is based on hearsay, rumor, and gossip--most of it from relatively reliable sources, some from more dubious ones, and some based on my own suppositions. I have tried to make this list as accurate as possible, but in some/many cases I wasn't able to verify rumors. I have not put anything here that I know to be untrue."

"You've never been shy in your support of President Clinton. During the impeachment debacle, did your feelings toward him as a friend and a president ever waver?

Well, I find myself still defending him. For example, on the pardons -- people don't really give him credit for the pardons he didn't give. The Unabomber -- behind bars. Evidently, Charles Manson contacted Roger Clinton based on their mutual interest in music. I think the president showed good judgment in those cases."

15/7/01 - One anecdote that made me smile in an otherwise boring article:

"On Day One, I popped into my nearest [Starbucks] for my morning Latte. ‘Small, large, regular, Go or Stay,’ the young Hispanic assistant barked in one breath. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I replied. A little exasperated, he repeated the mouthful at twice the speed. Completely confused and slightly embarrassed, I quickly opted for ‘regular’.

‘GO or STAY,’ he shot back. Bemused, I said nothing for all of several seconds. ‘Get it together,’ growled the man behind me. Terrified of looking like the bumbling middle-aged Brit I undoubtedly am, I gambled on ‘STAY’. My heart sank as he put to one side the plastic cup and replaced it with a porcelaine one."

"Now, there's a new direction emerging in Koons's work. The vulgar figurines have gone, as has the rank sensationalism. Instead, he is producing slick, photo-realist oil paintings - or, to be precise, his team of 40 assistants produce them, which is maybe where the "easy" bit of the title comes in. They are based on collages he makes from mass media images."

Prince Philip doesn't do too bad either:

"A penis sheath made of straw, the only item of clothing worn by males on the island of Tana in the South Pacific, given to Prince Philip, who is regarded as a god there."