oddities

If you look on the license plates in Florida, you may notice what seems to be some kind of amorphous blob in between the numbers and letters. It's called a Manatee, or a sea-cow.

Around here, fish are really big. It seems like they grow a lot bigger in the ocean than in freshwater lakes up north. There's 3-feet long fish with huge teeth swimming around in little inlets and canals. Fish with teeth. And people wonder why I don't scuba dive. What did I just tell you? Fish with teeth. It's kind of scary. And the fish aren't even what I worry about.

Okay, okay, there does seem to be a lot of them around here. I got guys coming in every month to spray the apartment for the little hairy insectivoids. And they are pretty big. I almost get the feeling that the bugs are of the opinion that since they were here first, I'm on their turf.

Foie Gras. It's a kind of food. As I understand it, the term means "goose liver" in, I'm guessing, French. Who else would eat something like that? (Well, me, for one. Read on...)

That's right. Liver.

Early today, an explosion rocked downtown San Francisco. The blast struck the heart of the San Francisco financial district; namely, the Polo Ralph Lauren store. Carcinogenic smoke billowed from the burned awning of the upscale clothier, as the SFPD and SFFD converged on the scene like a SWAT team. Evacuations began immediately at Charles Schwabb, Banana Republic and the Crocker Galleria. Pandamonium reigned as people scurried around the area looking for intact outfits or uncharred ensembles that might have been blown from the store's stockroom. The swanky storefront's display window—which comprised a WASPy man (presumably named "Chad") with a pink cardigan wrapped jauntily around his shoulders playing Croquet with his frigid, passive-aggressive wife in a bland ivory sweater and capri pants—was utterly destroyed. No official cause of the explosion has been given; police are investigating. [Update: It was caused by a fault in an underground transformer, and not an anti-globalization terrorist cell as widely assumed.]