animal linkage

The UK's favorite David Attenborough moment, in which an Australian lyrebird performs formidable imitations of a camera shutter and a chainsaw (Windows Media) as part of his mating song. I'm not sure whether to be amused because the imitations are so spot-on, or depressed that a wild animal knows what a chainsaw sounds like well enough to mimic it perfectly.

And of course, we've all heard about female mantises eating their mates, but the NY Times has a slideshow of the actual act. NSFW if you work with entymologists. Cool. Morbid, but...cool.

fencing deconstruction

kiya mentioned this evening that she keeps a journal of her fencing practices - what worked, what didn't, where she needs to improve, things to try, etc. She keeps the journal with her fencing gear and makes notes as she goes along.

I think this is a splendid idea, but I know that I'll never do it if I rely on paper and pencil - I will forget to get it out of my bag, and my handwriting is so poor I'd end up transcribing it to digital format anyway. So:

( fencing foo )