Yesterday, I read in the news that Incilius holdridgei, better known as the Rana Negra Sordomuda ('Black, deaf-mute Frog') or Sapo de Holdridge ('Holdridge's Toad') was moved by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in its Red List from Critically Endangered to Extinct.

Yesterday, I was reading one of the threads at Bullshido.net...

According to Wikipedia: "Bullshido.net is a martial arts-oriented website devoted to rooting out fraudulent practices in the field. (...) Those artists and schools found to be fraudulent or lacking in substance by the site receive the appellation Bullshido."

According to Yours Truly, it is a forum seething with Gracie nutriders, but once in a while you can find something good. But I digress.

...when I found this:

So, yesterday I had several alternatives: I could watch the U.S. candidates to V.P. spitting crap out, or watch the local rendition of Goddamerican Idol, or I could do memes.

What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Friedrich Nietzsche Well you're an egotistical maniac, and you are so very iconoclastic that you probably are currently lost in a post-modern Jupiter, I mean jungle of self-definition. Don't let it get you down though, someday, through a willful onslaught of reinterpretation of dated forms and ideas, you will strike on something that passes as remotely new, and people WILL be into it on the basis of how hip it is alone. Also, the average espresso drinker looks up to you. Friedrich Nietzsche 67% Dante Alighieri 42% Steven Morrissey 42% Adolf Hitler 42% Miyamoto Musashi 33% Jesus Christ 33% C.G. Jung 33% Elvis Presley 33% Sigmund Freud 25% O.J. Simpson 17% Hugh Hefner 17% Stephen Hawking 17% Mother Teresa 17% Charles Manson 8%

October. Low pressure systems all over the Civilized South: rain and then fog and then rain.

Under those conditions I went to the supermarket near my house: in the morning my dogs menaced me with anthropophagia unless I buy them dog food.

And when I was leaving, one of the supermarket's security guards stopped me: "Hey! You! Come with me to the manager's office."

"Omy!", I thought, "I was caught not stealing."

Yes, I went through the whole childhood drills: "do this, don't do that." In all honesty, I do not steal because I am particularly virtuous, but because it just doesn't worth the trouble. Or, as my dad says: "if you are going to steal, steal enough to make yourself rich." But I digress.

In the office, I was told that one of the guards saw me introducing an undetermined article in my backpack, which I failed to pay.

"Oh yes?", I said "Let's see what I am carrying here, shall we?"

And the fun began: dental floss (never leave home without it), a half-consumed pack of gum (no sugar), my copy of The Pillars of the Earth (great novel!), my food container, my umbrella, assorted plastic bags, four DVDs, a buttom of Kenny, my keys, my cellphone, a bunch of pieces of paper with meaningless or undecipherable marks on them (my agenda!), my flash memory card, a pen, a pencil, an orphan keychain, and a group of small metallic pieces, with a still undetermined purpose.

"Anything else?" I asked.

Visibly embarrassed, they (the guard and the manager) offered me their apologies. Yours Truly, feeling magnanimous, graciously accepted them.

Oh well. They were doing their job. But they should have done it with more courteously, don't you think? :)

First, an article comparing the US$700.000.000.000 bailout plan (it deserves to be shown with all the zeroes) with other budgets:

How Much is $700 Billion?: