How cool is this? You can find out what dinosaurs lived in your neighborhood once upon a time. My former neighbor is the Nodosaurus, though really, I think some of them are still living in the house across the fence. The Nodosaurus was a vegetarian, and in the Ankylosaur family. You can IM Nodosaurus if you have more questions... apparently, his interests are Pastels and Dinosaurs. (Link from metafilter)

Here's some new Doctor Suess for you. Except, it was written by someone else and funded by the Hardwood Forest Foundation and the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association. It's called Truax and is modeled after The Lorax, a classic Suess tale, and is the story of Mr. Guardbark, the crazy rabid conservationist, and Truax, the logger who's just doing the right thing for the "best future of his little boy". (Link from robotwisdom)

And I quote: "A company in Cheshire is designing a futuristic toilet which can monitor human waste and spot health problems." This British manufacturer wants to send a message to your doctor via the Internet as soon as it finds any problems with your stool or urine. In addition, their spokesman says they'd like to link their loo to the local supermarket: ""If, for example, a person is short on roughage one day, an order of beans or pulses will be sent from the VIP [toilet] to the supermarket and delivered that same day." Does Britain celebrate April Fool's on a different day than we do? By the way, VIP stands for "Versatile Interactive Pan". Err...I think just about the last thing I want in my house to be "interactive" is my toilet. Perhaps they'll put in a conversational agent: "Good morning, Cathy! Don't forget to eat your celery! Say, have you been eating blue ice cream??" (Link from freaklog)

Are those X10 spy camera popup ads driving you crazy too? The company who is responsible will let you disable the ads for 30 days. Oh boy. I really hope this form of advertising doesn't catch on; it's incredibly annoying. The company just thinks it's creative: "Being an innovative company, X10 is utilizing a new form of advertising technology called "pop-under" ads. What this means is that when you visit a site that X10.com is advertising on, a new window is launched with our ad and it sends itself underneath what you are looking at. This allows you to navigate the site you're looking at without being interrupted. When you're done with the site, and close the browser, you will then notice our advertisement."

Nasubi. I find this incredibly hard to believe, but supposedly Japan had a reality television show in which they locked a man in an apartment until he won $10,000 in prizes by mailing in postcards to contests. They gave him no food and no clothes, no furniture, and no entertainment. Anything he wanted to eat or wear he had to win through contests. They didn't tell him he was on camera being watched by Japanese television viewers. (Link from freaklogl)

According to this study, "Republicans have scarier and more frequent nightmares than Democrats". I rarely have nightmares, though I did have two bad dreams recently: the night before my yearly review at work I dreamed I got fired; and two nights ago I dreamed our old family cat, Moose, had rabies, and it was my fault because I'd left her out in the rain.

I did vote Democrat this last election, but I'm not registered with either party. Okay, I admit it, I registered as a Republican when I turned 18. But I voted Libertarian, so don't blame me. So, all you Republicans out there: are you having nightmares?

This Gallup poll on American approval/disapproval of President Bush actually includes all 1014 responses.

Here is a sampling for those who said they approve:

Why do you approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president?

"Anything had to be better than what we had before because I work in tobacco and they aren't suing tobacco companies anymore"
"Because he's from Texas & so am I"
"Good way he is doing things, address problems are good, like his wife"
"He has lowered the gas prices"
"We haven't been to war yet"

On the other side:

Why do you disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president?

"Brainless twit "
"Doesn’t seem to have ears"
"Don't like his looks...looks like he sneering"
"Drive school bus"
"He is for the people that put him in office, like his dad -- he is a closet Democrat He's too socialist, too far to the left, caved in to the liberals, should kick them out of the way and get back to the constitution whole government. Needs to be put back in the box and returned to constitutional limitations."

Bush? A socialist? Errrr.