The world's first autonomously-controlled robotic fish were unveiled yesterday at the London Aquarium.

Can they have lasers?

Please?

eta: There's more than one!

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Thank you, Frank!

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The Boston Globe has been running a sitcom theme song tourney. It's in the final round now, and the Cheers theme is up against the the one from The Jeffersons. I think The Jeffersons theme is a better sitcom theme, although I am partial to the Cheers song, as well. But what's great about it, is that they have sound clips from all the songs they've had in the contest. They only provide 8 seconds of the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies. Pffeh. The rest of the themes are either complete or the short version of complete, though. They have themes from these shows:

Cheers
The Beverly Hillbillies (8 sec)
Family Ties (which makes me sad for Michael J. Fox)
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Gilligan's Island (the original version that says, "The movie star, and the rest")
All in the Family (I would have liked to see the final come down to this and The Jeffersons)
Growing Pains
Diff'rent Strokes (if ever there was an unnecessary contraction...)
The Jeffersons
Full House
Three's Company (which makes me sad for John Ritter)
Welcome Back Kotter (love this one)
Good Times
The Facts of Life
The Brady Bunch.

Very fun.

If you vote/after you vote, you have to hit your browser's back button to see the results of the vote. The page will then contain all the links to the sound files. It's funny how sitcom theme songs can bring back lots of memories that have nothing to do with the sitcoms. It's also funny (sad?) how well most of these were burned into my brain.

[link]

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It took me like a week to train Lucy, and she maybe had some accidents for a few months after that, but five years? How do you live like that? And it's not good for dogs, anyway - they like to do what they're supposed to. If five years have gone by and you haven't managed to communicate that, it makes me feel really bad for the dogs.

I have no clue. We mostly don't have a pet, because we (in theory, the last few summers have challenged the theory) go away a lot on the weekends in the summer. I don't think my mother would be excited (in a good way, that is) if we brought a pet with us. There are too many weekends involved (in theory) to impose upon a neighbor or friend to mind the pet.

That said, I could probably work something out, but I still consider myself on sabbatical from cleaning up poop. The diaper years took their toll on me. I can see me taking up krav sooner than I can see me following behind a dog, bearing a pooper-scooper and plastic bag. That leaves me with getting a cat. I probably prefer cats to dogs, but I know so many people who've gotten cats from pet stores, and the cats ended up with one of those awful feline illnesses. I don't feel like paying actual money for my kids' childhood tragedies. I think the best way to get a cat is to get one from someone you know. You can tell a lot about a kitten from its mother. If the mother is clean, she generally teaches her kittens to be clean, etc., but all my friends who have cats, have had their cats spayed.

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The real problem with baseball on network TV is that the Fox commentators are terrible. They're as maudlin and melodramatic as the Hallmark channel, shallow in their coverage, and awful at factual recall. Fox baseball coverage is to real baseball coverage as bad fanfic is to literature.

Even Chris "no volume control" Berman on ESPN is better, because he actually asks his player co-host (this year, Mike Piazza) for his opinions on things, rather than relying on the player to butt in. Al Leiter (last year's ALCS guest) is a buttinsky par excellence (and a pretty good commentator to boot), but other players, NSM.

And then there is written coverage. I am reading Roger Angell's essays collected in Game Time, and happened on his description of Roger Clemens just recently. Angell correctly notices that, for all Clemens has a gigantic, Bondsian head, all his facial features are squashed together into a very small part of it. And then he squints, and hardly has a face at all.

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goes into back yard

opens big cardboard box

puts can of cat food inside box

waits 2.7 seconds

seals box, punches airholes in box, writes "sample merchandise" on box

mails 8 or 9 cats to Cindy

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Hey. No. I don't want no stray, foreign, feral cats.

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Has Wired been reviewing sex toys long?

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Has Wired been reviewing sex toys long?

Yes.

I think they've had more than one article on "dildonics."

eta:

"It's not as powerful as (non-disposable vibrating cock rings), but it's certainly less intrusive,"

Good to know.

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In a few generations they'll be tame, domestic, Murricun cats...

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Or in a few months, they'll be joined together in a nice lap robe.

I am not an animal lover. There are certain pets (some of my own, and some of family and friends) whom I have loved. In general, I tolerate animals, and they tolerate me.

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I think I've been living in LA too long, because the tail end of the most expensive restaurants in the US are more than I normally want to pay, but not jaw dropping. Even the article makes it sound like the high end is higher.

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