Remember library card catalogs? They're still going strong in parts of Maine.

"Strong" might be a slight exaggeration. But the dusty and old wooden cabinet used to search by title or subject or author, a system that seems anachronistic by today's modern world, still exist in parts of America.

According to the Bangor Daily News, an estimated 25 of the 265 libraries in the state of Maine operate off card catalogs. No electronic filing system to be had, yet no worries either. People get by just fine.

Fort Kent--a tiny town against the Canadian border (and terminus point for US Route 1)--still uses the catalog cards at their library, yet patrons don't mind. "Look at how many books there are here," Louis St. Clement, a visitor told the Daily News. "(The librarian) knows each and every one and where to find it."

Alas, even cozy relics have to make way for technology, so even Fort Kent is slowly changing. For two years, the staff of two librarians have been digitally cataloging every book and periodical and research material, one at a time.

"It's been a labor of love," assistant librarian Cheryl Pelletier told the Daily News. "At one point our computer crashed, so for a year we wrote all the information in notebooks to be entered into the computer later."

Yeah--the computer crashed.

Maybe keeping the card catalog around might be a good idea. Just in case.

Polish woman caught trying to sneak into the U.S. from Canada...using a library.

The Haskell Free Library straddles the international border between the United States and Canada, with half of the building in Derby, Vermont, and half in Stanstead, Quebec. It's the only library in the world with such a distinction, which we detailed in 2017.

Visitors are allowed to enter the library from either country's entrance, but immigration officials for both the U.S. and Canada park outside their respective sides to make sure whomever enters the library in one country also exits the building in the same country.

Which brings us to this week, where a Polish woman, Julitta Jaka, was dropped off by a random car in Stanstead, walked through the library, and then tried to hail a taxi in Derby.

As Derby is a bustling town of 4,600 people, where cabs are more mirage than reality, this offered ample time for American authorities to arrest Jaka.

It turns out Jaka tried hustling across the border in Niagra Falls earlier in the week, but was simply turned away. After her library hijinks, authorities plan to deport Jaka back to Poland.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident, the Haskell Free Library is a hotbed for international fun. In 2018, a Montreal man was convicted of smuggling over 100 guns from the United States into Canada, where he used the library as his gateway.

Is Derby, VT, just baby Miami? Somewhere, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas are just cracking down on criminal syndicates in the northern woods.

There's a Canadian town with two exclamation points in its name...and no one knows why that is.

Entering a chuckle hut of a town.

Just over the northern border of the state of Maine in a remote agricultural belt of Quebec, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! quietly sits when it isn't having a good chuckle at itself. And it's the only known geographical spot in the world that has not one, but two exclamation points in its name.

Founded in 1860 as a Roman Catholic mission, it took until 1874 before a name was created. How it was created, by whom, or what it means, well, that's another matter. There is no official record, just a date. The town's own website offers casual references to tired--and apparently easily amused--explorers who came upon nearby Lake Témiscouata and said, "Ah! Ah! Here is the lake!" Excitable people, those early explorers.

Other theories suggest the indigenous language is the root, specifically the Wyandot tribe's native Northern Iroquoian word "ahaha," meaning "path." A path to remote regions of nowhere? Sure.

Even the Canadian postal service laughs.

Alas, the Quebec provincial government's Commission de toponymie du Québec, which creates geographical names, firmly disagrees with a good laugh or a good path, stating:

"[W]e must not believe these fanciful interpretations. In reality, the haha, in French, is an archaism that identifies a dead end...an impasse, an unexpected obstacle."

Well, "haha" might be a French archaism, but the Commission doesn't actually have any proof of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! utilizing a French archaism. Indeed, the Commission's own site encourages and emphasizes rooting geographical names in French. That generally negates the indigenous Wyandot having any influence or anyone enjoying a giggle fit or offering geographical names.

The Commission posits that Lake Témiscouata--which is 5 miles away from Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, by the way--caused 19th century explorers to believe they encountered a "haha" (an unexpected obstacle) that was too difficult to get around with canoes. At 28 miles, Lake Témiscouata is fairly long, but only 3 miles wide. Sure, humans crossed the Great Lakes and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by then, but the Quebec government suggests, ehhh, Lake Témiscouata was simply a no-go and settlers didn't ponder canoeing. Considering Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!'s town motto is "Solidaire dans le labeur" (Solidarity in the work), it seems everyone felt solidarity in not working to get across the lake.

Yet, no one--not the Commission de toponymie du Québec, not historians, nor the town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! itself--has any idea where those very curious exclamation points come from. They just exist. They just do.

As for the "Saint Louis" part? Don't get your hopes up. It's probably named after one of three 19th century locals named Louis, but--you guessed it--no one knows with any certainty which Louis either.



photo:  RICLAF/CA by SA.20

Famous Writers Shirtless: John Irving

Writers are never known as the studliest or sexiest of people, but that doesn't stop them from showing some skin for the camera once in awhile.

So, occasionally we'll post some literary beefcake for your perusal.

Today:  John Irving

Sure, you see a septuagenarian male hiding his grade-A pecs from the camera. But I prefer to think Irving just enjoys playing the role of a masculine coquette.

Don't mock the tattoo. Irving apparently got it in honor of his Canadian wife. Plus, it looks like it was probably 50% off at the shop. You can't deny the savings.

Two hundred movie theaters showed '1984' last week as a protest to the government.

According to the website United State of Cinema, two hundred art house cinemas showed the dystopian movie 1984 last week, which is based on George Orwell's novel of the same name.

Over 184 cities and 44 states had a showing, while locations outside the country--five in Canada, and one each in England, Sweden, Holland, New Zealand, and Croatia--also joined in.

The collected group of theaters decided the week of April 4th was timely, as the protagonist in the book and movie begins his diary on that day.

The theaters' goal?


"The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as 'alternative facts.'"


Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming--all states with their fingers on the pulse of the excitement--were the six states that didn't have a single cinema in their entire state show the film. By comparison, California had 28 locations. Even Alaska and Alabama had a single location feature the film.

Delaware has a history of never involving itself in anything. It's like the agoraphobic of American states, the geographic and political equivalent of a pasty man with no calf muscle definition who enjoys white rice, low sodium saltines, and the smooth, smooth taste of filtered water.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a bad sign when even Alabama outdoes you.

In grade school, Matthew Perry apparently beat up Canada's current prime minister.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live recently, self-proclaimed half-Canadian Matthew Perry (Chandler from Friends) said that while in grade school he and a friend once beat up Canadian Prime Minister--and possible hair care model--Justin Trudeau.

"We both beat him up," said Perry. "I think he was excelling in a sport that we weren't, so it was pure jealousy."





"I think he was the only kid in school that we could beat up," Perry said about Justin--whose own father, Pierre Trudeau, was Prime Minister of Canada at the time. Clearly this is Canada, where you can shake down and sucker punch the nation's leader's kid and not go to jail.

After mulling it over, the current Prime Minister took to Twitter to offer up an idea.

I've been giving it some thought, and you know what, who hasn't wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch @MatthewPerry?

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 1, 2017

Based on the eye test of how each man looks now, if Vegas offers odds, lay your money on the Prime Minister to take round two.

Photos with Drake are an NCAA violation. Also boring.

Colleges and universities self-report violations they commit against the NCAA code of conduct from the previous year. It's a way of hoping that the mea culpa saves them from losing scholarships or lucrative invitations to bowl games and March Madness. It's also just a polite way of saying, "Oh, snap! My bad! Honest mistake!"

Which brings us to the University of Kentucky, which once reported that their former point guard (who has now gone pro), Tyler Ulis, created a violation when he met Drake backstage after a concert in 2015.

6⃣🙏 @champagnepapi

A photo posted by Tyler Ulis (@tulis3) on May 30, 2015 at 2:47pm PDT

The chills! The excitement!

This looks about as comfortable as a sixth-grade school dance.

It seems that one of Drake's management team recognized Ulis in the crowd (Wait--whaaaa?--because he's addicted to Kentucky basketball?) and invited him backstage. This was a problem because Drake is a big supporter of Kentucky basketball, for reasons only he and his own personal god understand.

This recent post from a few weeks ago on Instagram continues the Kentucky love:

Cold blooded. 💰✅ #BIGBLUE

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Dec 17, 2016 at 4:40pm PST

Why a guy from Toronto loves Kentucky basketball is like a modern-day Riddle of the Sphinx. Who knows?

Drake's Instagram game is a bit weak. He has over 35 million followers who revel in pictures of Drake, uhh, leaving a hotel:

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Dec 8, 2016 at 9:37pm PST

Goodness. I haven't seen such a thrilling moment since I stood outside a nearby Motel 6 for ten minutes.

It's becoming readily apparent that the only real violation here is that Drake's social media accounts are criminally boring.

The little known little library that's in two countries at once.

In the northern reaches of Vermont, snug up against the Quebec border, exists a small library that straddles the international border between Canada and the United States. It is the only library in the world to simultaneously operate in two countries.

Somehow this signage chaos makes sense.

The Haskell Free Library has two addresses, two phone numbers, and two doors of entry between Darby, VT, and Stanstead, QC. Built at the turn of the twentieth century with funds provided by Mrs. Martha Haskell and her son Col. Horace Haskell, the building was deliberately built diagonally across the border between the two nations so that the locals on both sides would have access to educational and cultural resources.

To further add to the curiosity of it all, the Haskell Free Library also has a 400-seat Opera House built on the second floor. That's correct--in a reading space that's usually meant to be quiet, there's an opera house squarely on top of it.

The reason? Instead of constantly looking for money, Martha Haskell intended for the library to be supported through the funds generated by performances at the opera house. Alas, as tastes changed and movies became favored from the 1920s onward, it turned out that the library ended up supporting the performances upstairs.

Visiting the library, one will find a line of electrical tape cutting through the floor dilineating the two countries apart. (There's also a tape line under a row of seats in the opera house.)

Of course Canada would have the more comfortable seating.

The tape is a fairly modern addition to the property. A small fire in the 1970s led to insurance claims with both Canadian and American companies. Insurance companies aren't always the most helpful sort, which led to seemingly endless bickering about which company was responsible for repairs. After repairs finally occurred, the library paid for a surveyor to accurately detail the border inside the building, and assure future insurance claims went to the correct country's company.

Visitors from both countries are allowed inside to freely roam wild across the border to check out books or watch a show. Yet, in a post-9/11 world, immigration and security forces from both countries are typically parked outside both doors to make sure the visitor that went in one nation's door also exits the very same door.

According to Matthew Farfan, President of the Board of Trustees at the library, who was interviewed by Atlas Obscura, the people operating the building aren't interested in politics or borders or security forces.

"This is a friendly institution," Farfan told the site. "We’re not in the policing business."


Photos:
Shuttershock/Erika J. Mitchell
Flickr/Chaloos

Canada might not have a midsection for all we know.

To kick off the new year and easily fill up a solid fifty pages of reading material, the New York Times created a list of "52 Places to Go in 2017." In essence, they found a world map, flung 52 darts at it with abandon, and made a list for you. Sounds researched to me!

From Minneapolis* to Madagascar, Gabon to Greece, the Times rumbles through the list of destinations--one for every week of the year--like a poor man's Rick Steves. Their number one pick was Canada. Nowhere specific in the world's second largest country, mind you, but apparently ALL of Canada in honor of the 150th anniversary of its confederation.

As a secondary analysis of Canada, though, the Times asked four Canadian writers--Madeiline Thien, Cory Doctorow, Kim Fu, and Sarah Nicole Prickett--to reflect on what part of their nation sticks with them, a sort of amateur Fodor's or Lonely Planet guide that's heavy on emotional introspection. The Times called this "My Canada," and the sheer lack of references to hockey or Labatt Blue is startling.

Two of the four writers picked islands near the American border. One picked Niagara, which also happens to be right on the American border. And one writer went crazy and actually ventured inland, picking Dawson, deep in the Yukon Territory--although still within forty miles of the Alaskan border.

Dawson just wants to visit Alaska on the weekends.

While all four grow nostalgic about idealistic childhoods and the wonders of the Earth around them, it seems mildly curious how a citizenry where 80% of the population lives in urban areas seems more beholden with its nature than its cities. Likewise, none of the four writers wanted to venture inland away from the United States border more than forty miles. This is a sort of tourist hand holding little seen outside tour buses packed with senior citizens.

This is akin to cobbling together four American writers, asking them to pick their favorite place in the country, and all of them shudder at the thought of visiting Nebraska--yet they're not too keen on Chicago or Los Angeles either.

In the list description of 52 places to visit, the Times notes that Canada is "also a world unto itself, with cosmopolitan cities [...] and everything in between."

"Everything in between."

A vague statement about the middle of Canada. Does it actually exist? Does anyone know? The evidence would suggest no, not at all.




*Wait--Minneapolis? So Bismarck was not a happening enough place apparently.

Pokemon can build bridges in poetry, or so it appears.

Modern poetry has drifted from popularity, and now exists sort of like that annoying friend you have on Facebook that shares their confessional works which sound like a third rate ditty written by a Sarah McLachlan clone at an ASPCA rally.

But poetry can sometimes still be quirky.

The Toronto Star newspaper asked two local poets, Kate Sutherland and Stephen Thomas, to take the most popular trending search terms found on Google and social media and make a poem about the year that was 2016.

That's it. No directions, no focus, no overly detailed analysis--no rules.

Just a poem, trending topics.

The two poems are wildly different despite the same focal point.

Kate Sutherland wrote "Year-End Tally," in which her rapid-fire lines add, subtract, divide, and multiply the year's news stories. As it begins:


Add a small boy Subtract a gorilla
Multiply mosquitos Subtract bumblebees
Multiply flames Subtract homes Subtract jobs
Add golf Add rugby Multiply medals
Add innings Add PokéStops


Generally, it continues that way until a slew of Twitter-like hashtags finish the poem.

By comparison, Stephen Thomas wrote "Celery Water," drenched in humorlessness, and as serious as a deadly diagnosis:


We are sick. You can almost feel your insides
kicked. In a darkened dorm, we reverse
and blast “Purple Rain.” Like life,
the guitar part is long, and we black out stranger things:
November 8, around 10 p.m. Eastern.
Scratch out this year, which “cursed you like a witch.”


Oh--it continues with multiple mentions of death and pounding and creatures and crying. The events of 365 days affects people differently, clearly.

Both poems mention PokeStops, though--so despite all the chaos that was this year, Pikachu and friends is what really mattered in 2016.

Canadian copy editor isn't down with that.

Now they've done it. They've angered John Wayne.

No one knows for certain where the term "ten gallon hat" came from. It might be from the Spanish tan galán, meaning so gallant or so fine, or maybe it comes from an English language corruption of the Spanish galón, which means galloon in English, a type of braided trimming around the crown of a hat. Whatever the reason, "ten gallon hat" doesn't reference the measurement of ten gallons of liquid.

Regardless, a copy editor at Maclean’s, a Canadian weekly news magazine, was very literal in their work this week. In the middle of a story referencing Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Jersey, the following passage was changed:


"Inside the coliseum, which serves as the athletic centre for the inner-city satellite campus of the state university of the Garden State, there was a high-school marching band performing in 38-litre hats and white boots, and cheerleaders in gold lamé hot pants."


The metric system! Canada's obsession with sensible scientific measurements has struck again. This copy editor went the extra mile 1609.34 meters and stuck it right in America's midsection.

There will be hell to pay once John Wayne hears about this.

'In Flanders Fields'

Memorial Day will be lost to grilling and swimming and picnics in abundance. But at one point it memorialized something more than the end of spring.

'In Flanders Fields' was, at one point, the most notable of war poems ever written. Now, a century after it was penned by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae during the throes of World War One, the poem is less fashionable, less taught, less remembered than during its release, but never less important.


In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This Week in Science!!!

A career in writing will lead to premature aging and a healthy dose of personal humiliation. But science and medicine is where you'll make money, fame, and the respect of your parents. As a result, we might as well pay attention to what they're doing in those fields.

So it's time to take another peak at anything going on in the world of science and medicine this week.


Starting off with:  A weasel goes out in a flash...of sorts.

story one:
Weasels hate science!!!

Science hater.

Confirming long-held suspicions of villainous behavior, a weasel is possibly to blame for taking down the $7 billion, 17-mile Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

The collider--which moves protons at nearly the speed of light before smashing them together in hopes of building on data on the Higgs boson, a cornerstone of particle theory--went offline this week after a power cable was disabled.

And how was it disabled? Engineers found the charred, furry remains of what they believe was a weasel or marten at the scene of the crime. Crime doesn't pay, weasels! Karma bites back!

This isn't the first time cute animals have tried to cripple science at the Large Hadron Collider. Back in 2009, a soggy, plain baguette dropped by a passing bird became caught in some electrical equipment and took out the collider then as well. That's right--bread products and birds are undermining scientific advancements, too. The chaos needs to end!

Does this mean small woodland creatures hate particle theory? Are they fundamentalists? Spies? What's their angle? Only time will tell.



story two:
Brainless slime can adapt!!!

Little Bobby is delicious!

Slime actually exists outside of Nickelodeon skit shows and two-bit divorce lawyers, and scientists have discovered that it can think. Sort of, at least, according to Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A single-celled organism called Physarum polycephalum has no nervous system, with largely a solitary desire to find food as its lone act of survival. Picture your average 15-year old boy. Just like that.

Scientists wanted to know if the unicellular organism would adapt if they put a harmless barrier between it and a food source. Using caffeine or quinine as the barrier, P. polycephalum showed reluctance to move at first. On day one of the experiment it took the slime hours to adjust to the barrier, as apparently our mindless friend doesn't appreciate the finer qualities of a cup of joe as we do.

After nearly a week of testing though, and apparently tired of the charade, the slime smartened up. Once placed in the petri dish on day six, it immediately moved across the barrier to its food source. Scientists believe this is an example of 'habituation,' where harmless stimuli are ignored in order for the appeasement of important life functions.

What to take away from this? Slime will adapt and dominate the planet in forty million years. Be prepared.



story three:
Your dog is a touch-me-not!!!

"Help meeeee."

A researcher at the University of British Columbia studied a collection of 250 photos of humans hugging their dogs and claims that not only are many people suspicious of being touched by you, but even your dog would appreciate three feet of personal space.

Stanley Doren, a professor of psychology at UBC, studied the photos and says the canines often exhibit signs of stress, anxiety, discomfort, or plain dislike of the hugging situation. The discomfort originates in dogs' inherent desire to flee from danger, and with all your hugging and canoodling you're trying to negate ages of evolutionary behavior.

Doren believes that 81.6% of dogs in the photos were giving off at least one sign of discomfort--all while you were trying to Instagram and Facebook that awkwardness--except you weren't picking up on the social cues apparently.

So the next time your dog is giving you some serious side-eye action, he's not flirting. He's wondering where the pepper spray is.



story four:
Zinc has never sounded so sexy!!!

Zinc = XXX

When a human egg is activated by a human sperm, a tiny little zinc firework explodes around the egg, researchers at Northwestern University say. The larger the zinc firework, the healthier the egg is for developing a viable embryo. Zinc is now officially the sexiest chemical on the periodic table.

Researchers say this could have huge benefits toward choosing the healthiest eggs for in vitro fertilization. "It’s a way of sorting egg quality in a way we’ve never been able to assess before," said Northwestern's Teresa Woodruff.

To think, all those years creepy guys said they could make fireworks happen in the bedroom--they weren't lying.

University of New Mexico students aren't too thrilled with their school's seal.

Davy and Ponce imitators hanging out.

Sad news for Ponce de León and Davy Crockett fans.

The University of New Mexico's school seal is being questioned by students for the awkward combination of a conquistador and frontiersman as representatives of the college. You know, the whole colonizer/killer/conqueror vibe sort of lost its luster a hundred years or so ago.

The startling angle to this whole issue is that all sides are approaching the conversation like, well, a conversation. No finger-pointing, no yelling, no arguing--just civil debate.

"This is a university," said Jozi de Leon, the university's vice president for equity and inclusion and no relation to Ponce. "This is the place where we should be having this kind of dialogue. We should be open to listening to the concerns of the students."

Okay, so de Leon is being all upstanding about it. But what does the president of the school have to say? He earned two degrees through the college after all, so it must be time to drop the hammer.

"It's a seal I have always known," President Bob Frank said. Cue the sledgehammer.

"I certainly understand that people may have different points of view," Frank continued. "If they want to talk about it, I am open to the conversation."

Wait-wait-wait a minute, this is not how American discourse works. Where is the verbal Molotov cocktail? The irrational vitriol toward one another? The Wolf Blitzer special report about America crumbling?

This sort of civility you expect from a knitting circle, preschool playdates, or Canada. Especially Canada, where they adorn everything with maple foliage, not conquerors.

Is New Mexico really New Canada?

This is what I'm suggesting.

Over 1,200 Columbia University students aren't fans of modernist art, but big supporters of crisp lawns.

Henry Moore was a famed English-born sculptor. Maybe you're not well-versed in famous 20th century sculptors because you have an active social life outside the realm of scultping or don't dabble in multimillion dollar lawn art.

But Moore's sculptures are found around the world. How "around the world" are we talking?

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Piazza San Marco, Prato, Italy
Toronto City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kenwood House Grounds, London, England
Jardine House, Central, Hong Kong
Zürichhorn, Zürich-Seefeld, Switzerland
Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
--and on--
--and on--
--countless international locations--
And the list continues on around the world until you eventually include:
Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA

And what would be the point of stating how worldly accepted Moore's work is?

Over 1,200 students have signed a petition published in the school's newspaper arguing against the placement of Moore's Reclining Figure (1969-70) in front of the school's library simply because they think it's ugly. Thank goodness, too, because in a world of chaos, violence, and injustice, I'd hate to see so many people get behind something trivial.

The petition is passionate in its plea (my thoughts/sarcasm in parentheses):

As both inheritors and wards (ooh, they went big time and dropped a "wards" in there) of our beautiful campus ('beautiful'--funny word to use when you're arguing against art), we object to this desecration of our home. ('Desecrate' means a violation of something nearly sacred, like knocking over tombstones. In other words, Columbia is old and forgotten?) Whatever its artistic merits (said with a dismissive hand wave/finger snap), the sculpture in front of Butler Library will disrupt an otherwise crisp, geometric, and symmetrical landscape. ('Crisp' should only reference salads and January mornings.) Further, Moore’s modernist figure clashes with the neoclassical aesthetic instantly recognizable to generations of Columbians. (My long-deceased great-great-great-great grandfather will never recognize the place now.) It will also rob the the community of some of the few precious square yards of grass open to the public. (Yes, come gather, all of New York City, on yards on grass.)

The snow is hiding all the yards of crispness!!

The petition won't hold. Moore's Reclining Figure already has a base constructed outside of Butler Library and is soon to be set, ready to assault the tender sensibilities of Columbia's huddled, frightened masses.

This is Columbia University, not Canada. Toronto's City Hall might slum it with a Moore sculpture and amuse that hoi polloi, but they elected a mayor high on crack after all. Columbia students would suggest that explains Toronto's choice in art.



photos: Columbia and Wiki Commons

Kentucky Fried Chicken doesn't like your sense of humor and/or Keanu Reeves.

Canadian Bret Litke and his roommate have a sense of humor. They live in Edmonton--so they have to have a sense of humor. You would, too, if you lived in the northernmost part of Canada that has a pulse and where winter resides 11.5 months a year.

According to Imgur user roxXorbot, Litke and his roommate decided to constantly call the Kentucky Fried Chicken hotline for customer concerns, inundate their fax number, and repeatedly mail letters for good measure.

KFC was not pleased.

Colonel Sanders and friends finally replied to Litke with a formal letter asking him to cease with the phone calls, faxes, and casual letters. Four somewhat pleading "please stop"s and one demanding "Don't contact us again" fill the letter, as follows:

I don't think you'd get this sort of disrespect from Popeye's.

Popeye's probably appreciates Keanu Reeves.

It makes my ribs ache because it's funny and they're the Canadiens (and I'm a Bruins fan): Twitter whoopsie for Montreal Canadiens leads to problem jersey names.

Much like when the New England Patriots celebrated their one millionth Twitter follower by creating customized avatar Twitter jerseys for fans, the Montreal Canadiens followed suit for the same reasons.

The problem?

Not everyone's Twitter handle is--how shall we phrase this politely?--good.

Take the @ILOVEISIS jersey. Yes. That ISIS. Not the ancient Egyptian goddess with the wonderful wings.

Hey, welcome to the family!!

Twitter trolls came out in abundance with every unsavory handle they could muster--all because every time they posted to the Montreal Canadiens Twitter feed they were replied with a visual similar to above.

Except if you followed hockey (you don't) or you're a Boston Bruins or Toronto Maple Leafs fan (you're not) you'd know it's difficult to tell which were Twitter trolls and which were actual Canadiens fans.

The Open Syllabus Project lists all the college textbooks students are dutifully ignoring.

Reading! I meant reading. Excuse me. Silly mistake. The Open Syllabus Project is trying to document all the college textbooks students are reading and studying with a fervent passion, no doubt.

Specifically, the Open Syllabus Project (OSP) hopes to comb over the world's college syllabi and document which books students are assigned most, regardless of subject area. The list is ever-changing, as the OSP gathers more syllabi, texts gain and lose favor.

For example, the top ten most-assigned books covering all syllabi (so far) and subject areas in parts of the western hemisphere are:

1.  The Elements of Style,
     by Strunk, William, 1869-1946
2.  Republic,
     by Plato
3.  The Communist Manifesto,
     by Marx, Karl, 1818-1883
4.  Biology,
     by Campbell, Neil A., 1946
5.  Frankenstein,
     by Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851
6.  Ethics,
     by Aristotle
7.  Leviathan,
     by Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679
8.  The Prince,
     by Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527
9.  Oedipus,
     by Sophocles
10.  Hamlet,
     by Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

The Elements of Style is hopelessly assigned by every desperate English professor in hopes that someone, anyone--you maybe--might be able to write a coherent sentence in a paper. It's fruitless, as every student leaves Elements in a desk drawer or closet, where it'll only be rediscovered when they graduate, clear out those closets, and donate a stack of books to the Goodwill.

The rest of the top ten is fairly explanatory. A basic biology book, some philosophical musings you won't remember, a dash of Shakespeare...and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? The same desperate English professor who cries to sleep each night over your writing inability also hopes you'll read a little, and assigned a relatively short book with a famous name, dreaming you'll give it a shot. You won't though. That's why God made Wikipedia.

Curiosities really don't appear until you break down the syllabi by county, state, school, or subject area. Take Canada, for instance. Our neighbors to the north's top ten includes the usual--your Leviathans and Ethics--but has Frankenstein number one. Further raising eyebrows is Michel Foucault's Power at number two, while Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness shows up at number ten. Is the collective subconscious of Canada suggesting they want to control and dominate the world? Damn right. I, for one, welcome our new Canadian overlords, and bid them well.

Another mystery is the state of Alabama--and not just because it's the state of Alabama. A look at that state's top ten textbooks starts with the first seven being related to physics, with an eighth book related to astronomy. Did Alabama just discover the existence of science and the cosmos? No. That's silly. Because Alabama realized science existed all the way back in 2012, and there's been rumors of a moon in the sky being reported in Mobile all the way since the 1960s. It's just that Alabama is buying the books now to burn them.

I'm not sure if that's better than ignoring them though.

This Week in Science!!!

A career in writing will lead to premature aging and a healthy dose of personal humiliation. But science and medicine is where you'll make money, fame, and the respect of your parents. As a result, we might as well pay attention to what they're doing in those fields.

So if you've put down your Jane Austen and William Faulkner for a moment, it's time to take another peak at anything going on in the world of science and medicine this week.

Starting off with: Lassie and Rin Tin Tin were onto something.


story one:
Fido can detect your emotions just like your significant other!!!

He's looking into your soul.

And both Fido and your significant other are, to be honest, a little tired of you.

A study from the University of Helsinki (the Harvard of Helsinki) finds that dogs' social gazing behavior is similar to humans, preferring to look at a person's eyes to figure out their mood. Moreover, dogs are most responsive to tense, threatening faces than they are to any other emotion.

You know when you mistakenly walk into a biker bar with a ton of guys with prison tats who just got out of the slammer for involuntary manslaughter, and they give you "that look"? Happens to the best of us. But, yeah, it's kind of like that for Fido. It's believed to be an evolutionary response, as being able to detect a threat, real or imagined, allowed for survival.

What does this all mean then? Take your dog if you want to avoid a biker bar, I think.



story two:
Cocaine can make your brain eat itself!!!

He took three bumps of coke before this photo.

Sure, the pick-me-up favored by investment bankers and second-rate Miami speedboat enthusiasts has been around for ages--but research now says the drug can cause your brain cells to eat themselves. I believe you see that happen to Tony Montana in a deleted scene from the director's cut of Scarface.

In essence, researchers knew cocaine wasn't good for the brain (gasp!), but wanted to know specifically why. A team at Johns Hopkins University performed a study which resulted in learning that the activation of a pathway involving nitric oxide (a gas that cells use to communicate) and an enzyme called GAPDH, which nitric oxide can modify the activity of, resulted in cell destruction.

Cue the coked-out mice!

As if mice didn't look hyped-up on a good day, a range of cocaine doses was administered to the mice. Researchers then dissected the mouse brains and found a series of markers to cell-death pathways revealed. Called autophagy--literally "eating oneself"--it entails, as IFLScience explains, "packaging bits of the cell, such as debris, into membrane-bound sacs and then fusing these with acid-filled compartments that degrade the contents." Or, you know, eating itself.

Being addicted to heroin never looked so appealing!



story three:
Now we have problem gambler rats!!!

I suddenly feel the need to bet on black, baby!

First a little nose candy, now we have rodents addicted to the sexy, sexy thrill of casino gambling.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia have published an article in the Journal of Neuroscience stating that when they administered flashing lights and music mimicking a casino to rats, the rats became "problem gamblers."

Trained with sweet treats and given an option to "gamble" on receiving that treat, the rats typically avoided risk. But once researchers flipped the lights on and pumped up the club beats, the rats were down for some hot gambling action apparently. I assume it wasn't long until an ecstasy-fueled quickie wedding to a showgirl named Honey occurred for the rats.

The researchers point out that when they gave the rats a drug to block a certain dopamine receptor, the gambling jones wore off, and the rats went back to a boring, meaningless life in the suburbs driving a station wagon.



story four:
North Korean scientists claim to have made a hangover-free alcohol!!!

Everyone in North Korea lines up for some booze.

Always at the forefront of revolutionary scientific and superhuman advancements, one of North Korea's leading media outlets, The Pyongyang Times, is reporting scientists from the country have created a hangover-free alcohol. Party at Kim Jong-un's house, amiright??

Distilled to a range of 30-40% alcohol (because you always want a wide range on your finer spirits), the Times reports, "Koryo Liquor, which is made of six-year-old Kaesong Koryo insam [ed: a type of ginseng], known as being highest in medicinal effect, and the scorched rice, is highly appreciated by experts and lovers as it is suave and causes no hangover.”

If there's anything I know, it's about being suave--and nothing channels my inner globe trotting gentleman of leisure quite like thoughts of those sun-kissed beaches ski chalets penthouse suites prison camps of North Korea. The Times article also reports that the alcohol "exudes national flavour," which I assume is a delicious blending of despair and the tears of weeping mothers.

Weeping in happiness over hangover-free alcohol!

Randomness Corner: Doughnut-stealing Canadian raccoon is a criminal with poor taste in sweets.

Canada has been overdue for a crime wave to sweep the nation. We all know this. The polite and kindly behavior most Canadians display has always been a front for the desire to shiv one another. Why do they play hockey--a sport with razor sharp blades? Exactly. Potential shivving action.

Humans are a little slow to get the crime wave started, but leave it to the animals to run amok. Case in point: A Toronto raccoon was caught red-pawed as it swung in through the roof--Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible style--of a bakery to steal a doughnut.

Even worse? It chose an orange-flavored doughnut stick over a chocolate glazed. Who does that?





This isn't the only Canadian raccoon up to nefarious behavior. The CBC reported earlier this month that a four-legged masked ball of fur hopped the local commuter train. According to Metrolinx, which operates the service, they had "no idea" how the "downtown freeloader" got on the train.

I'll tell you how. He refused to pay the fare and hopped the gate, just like any two-bit criminal.

Here's a photo of the scandalous scamp:

Looks like he's sleeping off a nooner, if you ask me. Easy on the Labatt's Blue, my friend!

It's mainly Toronto that is the den of raccoon duplicity hitting Canada hard, and the crime wave has been building with each passing month. Earlier this summer, another report by the CBC detailed how a raccoon was found to blatantly trespass onto a luxury condo's property, climbing 213 meters (699ft) up a crane, before being spotted by crane operator Rob Mac, who posted details to Twitter, including this bombshell proof:

That's the look of pure, unadulterated guilt.

According to Mac, upon being spotted, the trespasser hissed before hightailing it back down the ladder, apparently frightened by the prospect of doing hard time in a Canadian prison where he'd inevitably get belly rubs and free garbage to roll around in.

Not even a polite head nod or a desire to lend a hand, like you'd expect from a true Canadian! Today they hiss. Tomorrow they go all James Bond on you and throw you to your death. Mark my words.




photos: Rob Mac, Tyler Kay, via CBC