I've had a spastic sudden coughing fit the last 3 times I've been waiting in line at a Victoria's Secret. I hold my breath when I walk past the Yankee Candle in the mall for the same reason.

Can't go in either of those stores without discomfort, have a very hard time in Sephora, tend to sprint through the perfume part of department stores, cannot go in LUSH for more than a minute. I think I can get away with craft stores because I can go hide in the paper and fabric areas.

I love craft stores for the same reason I love hardware stores - so much possibility. So many ideas. So many fun things to do. That I'll never get to, admittedly, but still. It's the concept.

Enormous 'Devil Toad' Remains Discovered in Madagascar

Scientists in Madagascar recently discovered the remains of a giant prehistoric frog, a relative of today's horned toads, which blew away the previous record for the largest known frog, Bennicus Bleimanicus. Dubbed Beelzebufo, meaning "frog from hell," the Devil Frog had important differences from today's frogs. To begin with, it was freakin huge. Susan Evans, a researcher from the University College of London, explained that if it was anything like its closest living forebears, "it would have been quite mean." Considering the fact that it was "the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth," it was probably a formidable predator for its time. Explained David Krause, a researcher from Stony Brook University in NY, "It's not outside the realm of possibility that Beelzebufo took down lizards and mammals and smaller frogs, and even -- considering its size -- possibly hatchling dinosaurs."

If someone were to breed this with Hypno-Toad, their offspring would rule the universe....

Where do you teach, darlini? I'm at USC, I teach upper division writing.

I teach at the University of Oregon here in Eugene Oregon. I am a graduate teaching fellow working on my doctorate in English Lit. I teach lower division composition usually but this term I am teaching the "History of Motion Picture". Well, more precisely I am teaching two discussion sections that compliment the lecture.

Awesome, darlini, and good luck with your degree! I did a lot of years of comp back in the day, and while I don't remotely miss the PhD I never finished, I still sometimes miss teaching.

My students uniformly either hate their foreign language classes or have given up on them. I think it's pretty easy for them to rationalise that it's not important because they don't want to take them.

(I have my own questions about why they hate them so much, but they certainly do.)

Dubbed Beelzebufo, meaning "frog from hell," the Devil Frog had important differences from today's frogs. To begin with, it was freakin huge. . ."It's not outside the realm of possibility that Beelzebufo took down lizards and mammals and smaller frogs, and even -- considering its size -- possibly hatchling dinosaurs."

I must figure out how to make this my signature because I am one of those people who collect everything frog-related. Frogs are a bit like a totem animal for me--crazy as it sounds. In fact, Beelzebufo is now going into the file of future pet names.

Those playgrounds are largely AWESOME.

I like this one best: [link] Slide down a giant bird's beak!

Slides! Sesaws! None of this icky "series of ramps with a three foot slide" crap.

That's cool, darlini, another academic in our buffista family.

I teach at the University of Oregon here in Eugene Oregon. I am a graduate teaching fellow working on my doctorate in English Lit. I teach lower division composition usually but this term I am teaching the "History of Motion Picture". Well, more precisely I am teaching two discussion sections that compliment the lecture.

My friend and her husband got their doctorates from there! And now they're in, like Oklahoma. Which is sad, because it is far.

I know I am only a child of the 80s-90s but "back in my day" we took geography. . .right?

I totally took geography. And it was hard, what with countries shuffling around their borders and changing their names every five minutes to thumb their noses at the USSR, which is no longer the USSR.

They don't even know how good they have it.