We had a black lab as a kid, and my parents had read/decided that a good way to train her (aka stop the destruction) was to tie whatever she destroyed around her neck (it was the early 70s--don't ask).

I remember this happenening with several shoes, and some clothes, etc.

He must have looked like Marley's ghost!

I finally got my lunch -- dumpling soup. It was delicious, totally hit the spot, and now makes me want to nap.

2.5 more hours to work!!! Or "work," as the case may be -- I just watched an adorable video of my coworker's nieces and nephew wishing us a Happy Chanukah.

9 Most Brazen Ponzi Schemes in History

Including the one by the inventor of the Ponzi scheme, Joe Ponzi.

Ok, his name wasn't Joe, and he didn't invent them....

Slide show of the sassy Sasha Obama.

Spam Musubi, Obama's Hawaiian Lunch: History, Recipes, Video

On Sunday a New York Times pool reporter disclosed that Barack Obama ordered "spam musubi" for lunch during a golf outing in Hawaii.

Mainlanders may be unfamiliar with the local delicacy. According to the pool report, "spam musubi, a local luncheon specialty, consists of spam and a fried egg on a bed of rice, all held together with a dried seaweed wrap. (Visualize a very big sushi role, slightly larger than a Hostess Ho Ho.)"

Here's a little history on the Hawaiian love affair with Spam, sometimes referred to as "The Hawaiian Steak." According to Wikipedia, Hawaii consumes the most Spam per capita in the United States, and it was first introduced to the island during World War II.

Lewis voted for the Molasses Spice Cake with Orange Buttercream frosting. Although the Chocolate Malt Cake was a close second.

Rolling Stone article on real-life superheros - or people who at least think they are superheros: The Legend of Master Legend

NYT slideshow of 17th Century English Embroidery.

For those who are bored - why not read about what happened before the Big Bang?

Seeing Beyond the Big Bang

Looking at the inflation era is itself extraordinary, but there is also the possibility that the perturbation the scientists introduced into the inflation picture is an imprint from whatever came before inflation. This is heady stuff, but it’s clear that Kamionkowski isn’t alone in thinking that we can perhaps glimpse some of these early mechanisms.

For a new paper by Jean-Luc Lehners and Paul Steinhardt (both at Princeton) looks first at cyclic universe models in which the universe undergoes periods of expansion and contraction, with a big crunch followed by a big bang marking the transition between the two, and then goes on to posit a ‘phoenix universe’ in which a tiny part of the universe survives the cataclysmic cycling but manages to become the basis for everything in the next universe. Steinhardt has been a major player in so-called ‘ekpyrotic universe’ models (a term meaning ‘out of the fire’), which offer alternatives to standard inflation.