{Well, I suppose if they can save Hitler's Brain... among other things... heck... my Boyfriend gets irritated when I save plastic bags...}
Russia's first Museum of Erotica claims to have Rasputin's pickled... um... how shall we say... ah ~ "private member". And I quote:
"Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte's penis is now kept. Napoleon's penis is but a small pod - it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimetres."
So says the museum's founder, Igor Knyazkin, who is also the chief of the prostate research centre of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. I'm inclined to think he meant that {if you'll forgive the expression} tongue~in~cheek...
...still, I just can't help thinking, isn't that just like a man! Surely, it's supposed to be what you do with it that counts?
I mean really, if you had to choose... would you want the penis that conquered and ruled over much of western and central Europe, or the penis that played a small but extremely pivotal role in the downfall of the Romanov dynasty that finally led to Bolshevik victory and the establishment of the Soviet Union?
Many a sleepless night in store for me as I mull that over...
On my wages, I can't really afford to splurge on little goodies like these; but I have to admit ~~ if they had the SARS coronavirus, I'd be sorely tempted to get one. What clever little toys; how ideal for clever little children.
And that reminds me ~~ I found out last week that my brother & his wife are having a baby. When I heard that my brother is going to be the stay~at~home parent, I was delighted; I told my Mum that I thought they'd made the right choice, and that my brother would be a most excellent house~husband. And my mother corrected me. She said, No, no, no, their decision had nothing to do with who would be the better parent; it's pure and simple economics. She makes three times as much money as he does.
Now, here's why that floors me:
My brother is a consultant in the oil industry.
If I could have spoken to my sister~in~law at that moment I probably would have said something brilliant, like, Not that I want to know how much money you make, but... for heaven's sake, woman! {*Ed grabs her by the shoulders and rattles her*} How ~ much ~ money ~ do ~ you ~ make?
I mean, wars are fought over oil. Empires have been built on oil. Oil is a precious and dwindling resource, and it is getting more rare & expensive with every passing minute.
To put it simply, there are two kinds of oil fields. Oil can lie in pockets, which makes drilling for it very simple because you can sink a pump anywhere in the field and strike oil; or it can lie in fissures, which makes drilling for it incredibly complicated because you have to figure out where in the field to sink a pump ~ and getting it wrong is a Very Costly Mistake. My brother once told me that the oil industry has mapped the underside of the entire province of Alberta down to a depth of seven miles in their search for oil, and that all the fields where oil lies in pockets have already been tapped; his job is help them figure out how best to tap those remaining fields where oil lies in fissures.
He used to commute between his home in Vancouver {where his wife works} to his office in Calgary, so he would routinely cross back and forth over the Rockies several times a month. Imagine that... imagine living in Austria, having an office in Switzerland, and having to pull a Maria von Trapp by crossing the Alps every Monday and Friday just to get to and from work... Now, I don't know whether he was making this trip by plane, train or automobile; but it would have been either very time-consuming, or very expensive. If you can imagine the kind of salary you'd have to be earning to make a commute like that worthwhile, then you'd understand why I'm flabbergasted by the idea that anybody could be making three times that much.
So I bet by this time you're wondering, what exactly does my sister~in~law do for a living? She's a Forensic Pathologist. Yes, like CSI, like Crossing Jordan, like "Quincy with breasts" {when The Sixth Sense came out, she had to put up with a lot of "I see dead people" jokes}.
I finally succumbed to curiosity, and did an internet search to see if I could get a grasp on what kind of salary a forensic pathologist can command...
According to this reference, if you were working in Canada, you could conceiveably hope to achieve a salary of up to $200 000 Canadian per annum. This job listing site doesn't often mention salaries; but here's one it does mention for employment in California: "Annual salary is commensurate with qualification and experience as follows: Forensic Pathologist III (board eligible): $131,980 - $135,531 annually. Forensic Pathologist IV (board certified in forensic pathology): $139,172 - $142,945 annually." $130 000 American converts to {rounded down, even} approximately $174 000 Canadian... and *I* was impressed when I heard that some people in my company for were pulling down $65 000.
And get this: to qualify as a forensic pathologist, you need to do a one~year fellowship. There is only one university in all of Canada {McMaster} that offers such a fellowship. And they only offer one position a year.
So much for the misconception that you end up working with dead bodies because you graduated from med school at the bottom of your class...
"... the human body is a constant, unraveling mystery long after the heart ceases to beat."
{This little exercise has been useful if for no other reason than I now know from whence the word Hidalgo was derived...}
From Hugin & Munin, via Ni Vu Ni Connu:
1. Pick up a book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Pick out the fifth sentence.
4. Post it to your blog with these instructions.
I didn't have any books at hand... then realized I have access to any book that's posted on the internet. Did a search for the Gutenberg Project; the first book that popped up was Don Quixote, by Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra. Unfortunately, there were no page numbers in the online text; so I scrolled down to where the story began, clicked "page down" twenty~three times, and this was the fifth sentence:
Down went Rocinante, and over went his master, rolling along the ground for some distance; and when he tried to rise he was unable, so encumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, helmet, and the weight of his old armour; and all the while he was struggling to get up he kept saying, "Fly not, cowards and caitiffs! stay, for not by my fault, but my horse's, am I stretched here." ~~ Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
Wish we'd studied that in high school instead of Man of la Mancha...
The CBC has featured a fascinating three-part series on Don Quixote in their evening program, Ideas; coincidentally, they aired that series again just last month. It sounds like a fascinating book, & I regret that the CBC has no online content for those episodes; the best I can do is point you towards somebody else's notes.
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I have what might be described as an infestation of books.
Boyfriend is after me to conduct a cull... true, we lack the space to keep them, but I've always been of the opinion that it would be solved simply by getting more bookshelves. And I like to think that books are good insulation, both literally & poetically.
So there are books I own which I haven't yet read, and books that were read long enough ago that I barely remember having read them. I feel somewhat guilty about that... still, I haven't knuckled down on them {possibly because I have a very high guilt threshold}.
You see, as of late, I'd been having cravings for a book that would hold my fascination; but nothing I owned seemed very appetizing. I'd been devouring the news every day to get some sort of fix {the CBC, the Globe&Mail, the Gazette, Canoe, the BBC, Annanova, Newshub, etc.} but it was all just so unsatisfying...
Thanks to this little exercise, though, I think perhaps Don Quixote might be the way to go.
...of course, I don't own a copy, so that would necessitate buying another book, which means I'd have to waste hours in various out~of~the~way used bookshops looking for just the right edition...
Darn.
'Til then, the online version it is. I'll tell you how it goes...
It's that time of year again; spring is approaching, and a Mousehat's thoughts turn to all things vernal.
On the list of things I should do this week: {1} gather up all of my financial paperwork for my overdue taxes, and {2} make an appointment for a brazilian bikini wax.
And as I'm pondering which one should I should do first, I realise it's official: I would rather have the hair of my nether regions yanked out in clumps than do my taxes.
If only I could find someone in the Ministry of Revenue who would accept that sort of thing as payment in kind; but alas, the government prefers cash.
What the...?!?
I am *not* a Leadership Duck.
... ?!?
Maybe if there was a "9~to~5 Duck" with a stack of bills in one hand and a cheque~book in the other... or a "Couch~Potato Duck" with a TV remote and a box of takeaway...
How about "Lame Duck"? Do they have "Lame Duck"? They must have "Lame Duck". Why am'n't I "Lame Duck"?
It would be so cute... it would float in your tub with the aid of wee little water wings. :)
Hmm... wonder if CQ would have one...
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{Link plucked from H&M via DG who snagged it from DQ who shamelessly swiped it from P who snagged it from T who shiested it from TT who got it from a blog whose name suggests I'd be ill-advised to surf it at work...}
* * *
Post~script: There was something very familiar about this duck... it tickled the very edges of my memory, but I couldn't place it. And now I realize what it is:
This duck is actually part of a larger group of ducks; other ducks in this group include the Construction-Worker duck, the Cowboy duck, the Native American Duck, and the GI Duck. Oh, yes, and, of course, the Leatherman Duck {which makes me ponder the possibilities of a Swiss-Army Rubber Duckie...}.
You guessed it; this duck is one of The Village People.
Order the lot, & we'll throw in Pride Duck for absolutely free!