It's no "king pong", but...

The sport of chess boxing is on the rise. Check out this description of the 2003 world championship.

Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead

There is dancing in the streets this morning as Harriet Miers withdraws her nomination and restores (some) of my faith in the functioning of the government. The interesting bit in all this politically is that the lesson Bush probably takes from this experience is that he needs to come up with a candidate that is more outspokenly conservative, though some modicum of judicial credentials would probably help. This would seem to bode well for some of the female conservative firebrands on the various Courts of Appeal.

Bill Watterson

A coworker recently pointed me to this article on Bill Watterson, the famed creator of Calvin and Hobbes. Apparently, no one has seen much of him since he stopped writing the strip. While I'm not sure I'd like to see new additions to Calvin and Hobbes, I think it'd be great to see some new stuff from this comic strip genius.

A watery grave

Advice to potential cheese makers: leave your product on dry land.

Ignoble Prizes and Swiming in Water vs Syrup

To follow up on our previous discussion about swimming in H_2O versus swimming in D_2O, I bring to your attention this year's Ig Noble Prize in Chemistry to Edward Cussler and Briand Gettelfinger at U. Minnesota and U Wisconsin. The award winning paper...
"Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?" American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.