London houses are the “most costly in the world”. Well, DUH. I won’t even bother to stun you with the amount of rent we pay for our place, which (although not as much as the folks mentioned here) is a hefty chunk of change indeed. I was also disappointed to note that the two other cities I might consider living in (Chicago and Sydney) both make the top ten as well. I need to develop cheaper tastes.

WOOHOO! Since some of you ingrates (well, just one, actually) have been bitching about the purple-ness of the site, I decided to grant your wish and make web-goddess customizable. Welcome to the world of themes! Just click on preferences and then select the flavor that floats your boat. Are ya happy now? 🙂

“Domestic abuse agencies criticize ‘wife beater’ Web site.” So, okay, I was all ready to defend this guy’s right to sell wife-beater shirts. I mean, pretty much everybody calls them that nowadays (aside from the Australians, who call them “singlets”). It’s not very politically-correct, but I don’t think the name itself is going to encourage domestic violence. It turns out, though, that he’s not selling undershirts… He’s selling long-sleeved shirts that have “Wife Beater” embroidered on them. And he’s offering a discount if you’ve got a conviction for spousal abuse on your record. He says he got the idea after watching “Cops” and seeing all the arrested batterers wearing sleeveless shirts. Isn’t that the sickest thing you’ve ever heard? What an asshole.

Max wondered how that UK man managed to contract foot-and-mouth disease. I’m happy to say that I actually came across this nugget of information yesterday on Plastic. As an anonymous (yet helpful) visitor related, the slaughterman in question was swinging a calf carcass over his head, when the creature’s distended stomach burst and the contents poured out – some of them going right into the unfortunate slaughterman’s open mouth. EWWWW. (Apparently Newsnight was the only program that gave the full and disgusting explanation.)

In other words, folks, don’t reach for the gas masks just yet. “Unless we all start gargling with cow stomach juices we are probably okay…”

I’ve just added yet another PHP doodad to web-goddess: a list of the last five comments. You should see it over on the left. For now it just has some test comments from me, but if you’ll leave one of your own, it should appear when you refresh the page!

I just realized that Jann, a guy I used to work with here at ND, left me a comment! I didn’t even know he knew I had this site. Hi, Jann!
 
Incidentally, he’s got his own website with this addictive response-time test. I really suck at it… My best so far has been 0.241 seconds.

Evidently that plan to perfume London Underground stations isn’t going so well…

HA! Jake Tapper starts out by mentioning that the Notre Dame women’s national champion basketball team visited the White House yesterday. He finishes with an inspired mock-article that turns ND’s last second victory into a satirical account of the Presidential election. Very funny. My favorite part:
 
‘One minute into the second half, TV networks broadcasting the game, using faulty projections, awarded the game to the Purdue Boilermakers — a call that later had to be recanted. “The game wasn’t over when the [expletive deleted] media declared that it was, just because they favor Purdue,” one Notre Dame assistant coach groused.’

(Pointless) R.E.M. News: Yeah, there’s a lot of it floating around these days. I guess the Athens publicity machine is revving up for the new album. Anyhoo, the Nevada Assembly passed a resolution last week praising R.E.M. for the anti-suicide message of “Everybody Hurts”. Yes, they thanked the band for a song that came out in 1992. I guess things take a long time to filter down to Nevada.

So like I mentioned, Snookums and Alex and I went on an IKEA excursion Saturday. Alex wanted a poster frame, and Snookums and I were looking for bookcases. (My book collection spilled out of my closet some time ago.) I’d never been to an IKEA before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Holy cow… It was a madhouse. I think everyone in North London was there. It had its own parking garage, two restaurants, and a child-care area. It was insane. We were caught up in consumer frenzy. We ended up getting two excellent cheap bookcases (ours is the 3rd pictured), Alex’s frame, eight wineglasses, martini glasses, a garlic press, a chest of drawers, ice cube trays, four candle holders, and numerous kitchen utensils. The real fun, however, was getting our haul home. How we managed to cram all of it and me into the back of Alex’s little Peugeot I’ll never know.
 
I’d forgotten how much fun it was to go shopping in a big place with lots of choice. Most shops in the UK are rather small and you’re in and out within ten minutes. I miss the Meijer and Sam’s Club experience, where you walk around acres of consumer paradise and emerge with all kinds of stuff you never knew you needed. Is that weird? I guess you don’t realize what you’ll miss til it’s gone.