Equinox

Today is actually my least favorite day of the year. It's the autumnal equinox. The first day of Fall. Summer has come and past, and the innocent can neve... oh never mind. Starting today, the nights are longer than the days, and it only gets worse until the longest night of the year on December 21st.

Farewell, summer.


This week's theme:
Sacha Baron Cohen

And now, the story of Sacha Baron Cohen vs. the government of Kazakhstan. Cohen's character Borat is supposedly a television reporter from Kazakhstan. If you're old enough to remember Mahir Cagri, you're thinking in the right direction. As Cohen's show and act gained popularity, Kazakhstan became less and less amused and stripped him of his homepage, located at borat.kz. When Borat appeared at the MTV European Music Awards and pulled this stunt (the "President" is an actor speaking Romanian), they threatened to sue (on what grounds or in what jurisdiction, I have no idea). Borat responded. Apparently the Kazakh government still can't quite let it go. The movie comes out November 3rd.


On to the news:

A casino where it's illegal to gamble
(Someone call the irony police)

Romanian farmers feed cannabis to their cows
(Quote: "We grew it because the cows seemed to like it, and happy cows give more milk." Though they probably ate a lot more hay.)

Would you?
(More to the point, since I live in Chicago... would I?)


Bright, shiny objects:

Men's restroom etiquette
(Men, this is required viewing. Don't worry, you already know it all. Ladies, this should explain a few things.)

An actual detention
(Yeah, this is what's in charge of the future of America.)


Today's Random "Next Blog":

One of my ears is higher than the other
(A fellow college instructor and Borat fan)


Today's Weird Anniversary:

September 21, 1970 -- In my fair hometown of Cleveland, the first Monday Night Football game takes place with the Browns defeating the Jets 31-21. (The Browns haven't won a game since.) It marks the beginning of the slow expansion of football to envelop the entirety of the American week during the Fall and Winter months. Now, men would watch football between two teams that they didn't really care about, on a night which makes no sense for football. Why? Because they could!


Today's Fun Fact:

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
(A small tip of the cap to the site that's been providing these lately. I hope they don't mind.)


And finally:

The other night I decided to run a little experiment. If you go over to Yahoo's video site, you can queue up a number of videos and watch them. When you're done, they automatically select another one that is related to the one you just watched.

I brought up K-Fed's masterpiece "Lose Control." The video that followed it was Lady Sovereign, "Random". Popozao, indeed! I may have found a new theme song.