Sophia, wow. Hope you're doing okay with your discovery.

And on a completly different level of intensity, they need to step offa purple. I did find out on Radiolab the other day that a mantis shrimp has, I think, 16 different color receptors. Compared to our three. Trippy, the life of a mantis shrimp. Butterflies have five or six depending. Dogs only have two, poor suckers.

I had to give up and skip 5,000 posts. Sucks.

Maxim is commemorating the tenth anniversary of The Wire's debut with some snippets from most of the people on the show.

Nice read, thanks! Now I want to rewatch it all.

Emmett's struggling to pry some coconut out of the shell and Matilda just helpfully suggested, "Why don't you flex your sixpack at the coconut, Emmett?"

The snark is strong with this one. t /Yoda

Matilda is awesome. That's hilrious.

Steph, take pity on us (or me, anyway) and describe something beautiful about your day today, please. I'm sitting in a horrible mess of an apartment feeling overwhelmed.

So because I'm a good daughter, I'm making mushy food for my dad (he had dental surgery last week & is still recovering): savory bread pudding (with mushrooms, spinach, sausage, & jack chees), Mark Bittman's vegetable cassoulet, and banana cream pie (with a graham-cracker crust so he won't have to chew).

And I'm bleaching, sanding, and painting the rear doorsill.

What I would much rather do is laze around, since I spent all day yesterday out in the sun at that play on Angel Island.

Which was, in fact, very fun, although more so for the production than for the script (which was weak). But they took us all over the island, and set a bunch of scenes in the ruins & abandoned buildings, and that made for really great visuals & environments. "Olympus" was a quarry, with the gods standing at the top of the cliff; the land of the dead was an empty shell of a building, with a single musician in each room, playing eerie music. That sort of thing. And then Hermes showed up along the water in a motorboat, with a golden life-vest. Fun stuff!

It's 80 degrees with 39% humidity, sunny and bright with a slight breeze. Some of the family is still playing in the surf, and I am just out of the shower, sitting in the deep shade of the decadent second-story veranda off our bedroom, watching everyone in the surf. I went swimming earlier, and it was salty and lovely. Tim and his dad and nephews played bocce ball on the beach, with made-up rules for every round (like use your non-dominant hand, throw backwards over your shoulder, etc.). We decided Hawkeye would rule at bocce and none of the other Avengers would play with him. t edit Except Thor might, because throwing things is FUN!

Fabulous, thank you.

Thanks, Tep. Just back from the emergency vet, because our pup has broken his toe in three places. $700 later, he will have a cast and a collar of shame. Poor little guy.

On the upside, we FINALLY picked out my new car. A Mica Blue Mazda 3 hatchback. Big enough for our two dogs, and great gas mileage. I think I get to pick it up tomorrow. Very exciting--my first new car!

Steph, that sounds lovely!

And Scrappy, I really like the Mazda 3. I like my old workhorse of a Subaru, but I'm sorely tempted by the zippy little Mazda hatchbacks.

Does it come with AWD?

How is there even room in a puppy toe to break it in three places?