The White Swan of Black Lake

This majestic bird visited - or perhaps invaded - us a few times during our week at the lake.  

Always looking for a handout.  

Yeah - we fed him/her.

But wait - there's more.

Here, at no extra charge -- DUCK BUTTS!

Dancing From Aisle to Isle

My Filipino friend Patricio posted this on Facebook. 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Who says plane travel can't be fun?

Flight attendants for a low-cost Philippine airline who gained fame by dancing through safety demonstrations are back swaying through the aisles.

They've swapped the Lady Gaga tunes that made them popular last year for Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

Manila-based Cebu Pacific airline says the choreographed dance helps passengers pay more attention to the safety demonstration.

For sure.  Here is their routine from last year.

Map of Westeros

This one is quite good.

Most of the action of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE takes place here.

What the Hell?!? Friday - "Where the Hell Have You Been ?!?" Edition

Via Krugman, we learn that owners of iPhones and iPads ae leaving a data spoor trail, and it doesn't take a cyber blood hound to track them down.

British researchers who uncovered the hidden file say it logs the phone’s whereabouts for the previous 10 months, and includes a date and time stamp with each location. They also created a program allowing users to upload their data and build a map that researchers termed “remarkably detailed” and iPhone owners called “depressingly accurate.”

Users are non-plussed.

“I find it absolutely outrageous that my phone has been secretly documenting the fact that for nearly the past year, I have been going, basically, nowhere,” said Daphne Coleridge, a receptionist and mother of two in Houston. “This is a map of tedium. Home, school, work, store, home, school, work, store, home… wait… dentist. I stand corrected.”

Some are, quite frankly, minused.

“I value routine, so for me and my wife, it confirms our life is stable,” said Mark Tedeschi, a computer programmer in London. “It shows I usually go to the same places: work, the shops, our flat, and my best mate Dan’s house. I mapped my wife’s iPhone and it’s the same with her: work, the shops, our flat, and my best mate Dan’s house. Day after day, we’re both doing exactly … hang on.”

While it's easy to make light of this, there's a "BIG-BROTHER-IS-WATCHING" aspect to it that I've been worried about since I first read 1984, which was some time around 1964, IIRC.  Others are troubled, as well.

Sharp-eyed readers might notice that I am posting this on Saturday, not Friday. Well, give me break -- I was busy on Friday.

If you want to know where I went, just check my cell phone.

Update (4/25):  In comments, Steve directs us to this link.  Money and power.  Always a lovely combination.
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Rockford Files

Not bad, but I think they missed a detail.



H/T to my favorite James Garner fan.

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Haiku Wednesday - Transition

Transition

Moving Right Along,

Destination uncertain;

When do we arrive?

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Mellow Yellow Monday - SHARK BAIT!

Could this be shark bait,

A minnow strainer, or a

Mouthful of cousins?

August 9, 2010

Ripley's Aquarium of The Smokies

Gatlinburg, TN

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Shadow Shot Sunday - 1/02

On a treck through the

Hills, on a steep rock-strewn path,

You might find these boys 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

August 8, 2010


Photo by Amanda

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Shadow Shot Sunday

At Disney's Vero Beach Resort

Flip-flops, Pirate Golf:

A Spring-time vacation in

Florida shadows

Haiku Wednesday - Pathways

In comments over at The Corner, Hatool posted this quote from Langston Hughes.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Quite appropriate for today's Haiku theme.

PATHWAYS

I

How can you get to

Your destination if you

Don't know where it is?

 II

 Where are you going?

Is that where you want to be?

Please show me the way.

III

Aimless I wander.

Unknown,  my destination.

But I am not lost.

IV (For Bill G.) 

Could it be that the

Hardest path is what takes you

Where you need to be?

Shadow Shot Sunday - 10/09

Taken this summer at the Knoxville Zoo.

Great grey simian,

Do you not like people? Why

Turn your back on me?

Shadow Shot Sunday - 9/12

Knotty weathered wood

Holds a skink with blue tail,

Not a blue-tailed skink!

Per Wikipedia, blue-tailed skinks are native to Australia's Christmas Island, and are not closely related to the Plestiodon skinks found in North America - like this one who would skamper around on the deck of our Vacation Cottage near the Smokey Mountains.  They do look very similar, though.

Here is the view looking from the deck, rather than at it.

Mellow Yellow Monday

Family vacation,

Breakfast in the mountains.  I'll

Have a banana.

Mellow Yellow Monday

In the Butterfly house at the Knoxville Zoo.

This little coquette:

To flirt, does she flutter wings

Or make eyes at me?






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Shadow Shot Sunday - 8/22

West Branch of the Little Pigeon River, Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

Rushing water trips

Over ancient rocks, dancing

To gravity's pull.

What The Hell?!? Friday - Unfortunate Signage Edition

This is on the sidewalk adjacent to the Parkway in Gatlinberg, Tenn. near an alcove that also contains the Moonshine tasting room, and the stairway to the all day $5 parking lot (free if you get your ticket stamped at the wax museum.).  Car entrance to the lot is behind the shops, on River Road.

Six Word Saturday 8/14

I am SUCH a flat lander!

Having just spent a rather uncomfortable week in the MOUNTAINS.

Cf Cate's SWS: "this is supposed to be fun!"

I did have a good time, aside from being edgy.

Haiku Wednesday - Comfort

COMFORT

Moonshine can be the 

Southern "comfort."*   I don't like

That Southern Comfort**.

 * By which I mean the numbing of pain, and/or surcease of sorrow.
** By which I mean the so-named commercial product.

Sunday Music Blogging - 8/8/2010

I've never been to New Orleans - but that doesn't mean I can't miss it.





Kid Ory's performance is non-embeddable.   It can be found on You-Tube here.

Haiku Wednesday - Homecoming

Homecoming

Wonderland is a

Wonder - Oz, too.  But you still

Yearn to click your heels.