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Remember the Helsinki complaints choir? I love them. Singapore, however, is apparently not cool with a local version. Complaints may be addressed to . . . well, just stop complaining, I guess.

Speaking of Helsinki, folks at the Northern Karelia Central Hospital are seeking a headless Belgian mouse.

In India, hundreds people may have been duped or forced into giving up their kidneys to an illegal transplant operation. "In 'transplant tourism,' rich patients pay tens of thousands of dollars to receive kidneys in poor countries, where payments are typically about $1,000 in the black market." Two U.S. and three Greek citizens were found in a luxury guesthouse operated by the doctor running the racket.

In Japan, a marketing firm has begun offering "heartache leave" to its employees.
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It's no fun being sick if you can't call up the boss-man and say "Nope not today. Suckah!"

One reason it's easy to love the Twins: they have great commercials. Pirahnas, and Carpool. (Via Twinkie Town.)

The book has a working title now: Five Kingdoms. I'm pretty sure it won't stick forever, because it's kind of un-sexy. Also it's a little misleading because it's not actually literally about five different kingdoms. Look, don't get all in my face about it. It's like, you know, calling your friend Hank because of that noise he made that one time when he fell over trying to uncork a bottle of Cabernet. A nickname. I like it for now because it has a bunch of different meanings relevant to what's actually going on in the book, even though they are the sort of meanings that I would have to explain using words like "metaphorically." Also it's nice to not have to say "The book I'm working on right now which is about succession and revolution and stuff."

Crap, I can't even get this stupid tube of Advil open. When I was in Austin David Moles had to open one of these for me. Dave, mind getting on a plane?

For, well, everyone: an alarm clock with wake-up messages from Stephen Fry. (Via Warren Ellis.)

Mo Rocca has a blog.

Oh, and another Secret City excerpt was posted late last night, so you may have missed it. It's about Winter's End. Enjoy.

I am now going back to bed.
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I got my first LJ comment spam last night! It turns out, this guy? His wife left him for another guy? And there's video now on the Internet of her doing this stuff with the other guy? That she would never do with the first guy? So this guy wanted me to see the video of his wife and this other guy? . . . Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. BUT, I figure this is some sort of rite of passage, and I fully expect to have chanting and nude bonfire leaping later.

I am experiencing the fatigue and heartburn that usually presage a cold. (Does anyone else get heartburn pre-cold? I hardly ever get it, so if it happens two nights in a row I can be pretty sure I'm getting sick. I've never heard of this as a cold symptom, but there it is.) I suspect that by tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning, I'll be miserably stuffed up. So I have that to look forward to, which is nice. (Maybe I should pass on the nude bonfire activities.)

It occurs to me that the whole Astronaut weirdness really just signals a new acceptance of the Astronaut people into our culture. Now they really are just like us! Just because they come from space doesn't mean they don't occasionally decide to murder each other. Man, I can't wait until the first Senator plots someone's murder. What? Why are you laughing?

I wonder if Pynchon already knew that the Vikings used crystals to navigate when he wrote Against the Day? (Which is AWESOME, BTW. It has airships and anarchists and journeys through the center of the earth and that's just in the first hundred pages. I'm still reading, though, so please don't spoil me for anything!) (I must say that the linked article is some pretty bad journalism: "Vikings were a seafaring race from Scandinavia who used their longboats to explore and conquer parts of Europe, Greenland, Iceland and Russia." WTF? The Vikings were a separate race? Did they came from space as well?)

Look! Smart people talking!

The fashion must-have for WisCon 50. (Via Warren Ellis.)

Excuse me a second. (What? Really? . . . huh. I, uh--are you sure?!? Well, I just thought . . . OK, fine.) Sorry, folks. Turns out Astronauts don't actually come from space. Turns out they are HUMAN BEINGS. (Vikings too?) Vikings, too.

Now I've got a wiggins.

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