Locusts

A picture stolen from Kev's Friday bike ride from Richmond down across the border to Birch Bay, some 60 kilometres in all, much of it uphill, some of it downhill too fast and altogether quite awesome and scary. Finally, when he rode up to the security barrier at the Static Place, the guard rushed out, clearly confused to see a cyclist trying to get in, but even more so when Kev just swiped his keycard, the guard laughed and called out,
'I didn't see that one coming!'
I'll bet he didn't.
I went down Friday evening, when all the monstrously over-decorated houses were all lit up.

Gott sei Dank, Laurence eventually got away late Friday afternoon, after the flight was delayed again. The other end, he made it as far as Chichester by train, before Austen had to go out in the car and rescue him.
There is controversy in the Schloss and across the sea, as to the advisability of sending him with a bag of health food labelled 'Hemp nut fines'. I was convinced by Alex and Ben that it was legal and safe and so I sent it. I was correct about the legal it seems, but whether the sniffer dogs would have alerted the latex glove snappers remains open to question.

Presently, in Advent, John the Baptist is preparing the way. He prepared his own way out in the desert eating locusts and honey. Now I feel this is very much to be encouraged. Locusts are a bloody nuisance and destroy crops, so why not get more people to eat them, it's a win-win. I've even seen Salma Hayak on TV eating fried crickets, so it can't be that unusual.
'Eat locusts,' I say and save the crops.

A great post on the F-Word blog shows how entrepreneurs create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They 'notice' that start-up companies by young, white males are more likely to succeed, so they put their money into them. Of course, if entrepreneurs support companies by young, white males, then they are likely to succeed, whereas companies started by women, non-whites and older people, never receive funding and thus....

The amusing Facebook thing where you change your picture to a cartoon character is quite charming, unless you happen to be in the following hypothetical situation.
You have driven a number of miles up the I5 to send your niece's present from the Post Office in the nearby town. You have left her address at home, but you happen to know it is in your Facebook inbox. Your partner has their computer and you cruise along searching for an open network. Finally, one is found and you try to log on to Facebook using an unfamiliar computer. Facebook notices this and makes you identify a number of your friends from their pictures.....