The trapping of garden gnomes is ignoble.

Gnomic genomes?  The picture explains everything!

Here's a fire hydrant gnome.

Do gnomes grow on trees?  Lauri Gröhn offers proof!

What's under a gnome's pointed red hat?

The Gnome Pebble, discovered by Nicolas P. Rougier, preserves a gnome's footprint.

Plaster gnome Danny will never be the same after taking a tumble down a stairway.  He was left tragically shattered down one side of his body, and his face and ear took a direct hit.

A lovely limestone gnome by Dan Brandemuehl.  And one in red cedar by Ray Brooks.

Gnomes placed in out-of-service urinals?

What's the dirtiest water sport on earth?  Bog snorkeling!  Every year, a host of mud-caked competitors get at loggerheads in a sixty-yard peat bog for the coveted "World Champion Bog Snorkeler" title.  The international sporting event takes place every August in the dense Waen Rhydd Peat bog on the southern outskirts of the smallest town in Wales, Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys Mid Wales.

The invisible revealed:

The invisible butterfly's wings are like stained glass windows.  (Much prettier than the transparent yellow-green soybean aphid, unless you happen to be a fan of the transparent yellow-green soybean aphid.)

Light from an invisible lamp.

Would "caller i.d." help with this invisible telephone user?

A costume headpiece that makes one's face invisible.  And another one (with glowing eyes).

Do invisible birds and unseen enemies cast shadows?

This invisible mother and child are part of the Salvation Army's "Invisible People" campaign.

Enigmatic smiles:

Figure 1 (obviously)
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8

Do you know the secret teaching of the Buddha's enigmatic smile? Hint: Hold the image up to a mirror. (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)

The phrase "replicable randomness" returns no Google results.  (At least not until the Google spiders find this blog entry.)

It's been said that everyone secretly wishes for something:

• The gardener himself secretly wishes for a frost, though it isn't quite cricket to come right out and say so.
• Abby secretly wishes for "a hundred rainbows."
• Lisa secretly wishes for real problems, so that she can have something to complain about.
• At one time or another, everyone secretly wishes for more time or an extra pair of hands.
• Every man secretly wishes for a troublesome wife upon which to blame his failings.
• Every mom secretly wishes for a little more time on her side, a stolen moment to relax.
• Every pet owner who has had the misfortune to put down a pet secretly wishes for some sign from above that he or she has done the right thing.
• The fearful ones secretly wish for the entire world to be as helpless as they perceive themselves to be.
• Each of us, at times, secretly wishes for more personal fulfillment.
• Each side secretly wishes for a doomsday scenario in the misguided belief that their side will be proved "right."
• And although everyone secretly wishes for change in one or more bodily features, peace is discovered in a genuine love for one's self.

The secret of the Great Penny Pyramid (see original photo here) is that a roll of quarters is hidden inside the King's Chamber.

"A Sick Dali Egg" by Ken Clinger could be referring to:

This egg near near the London Eye
The Dali Egg pumpkin
These eggs atop a museum in Spain
The Birth of the New Man by Salvador Dali
Fried Egg on a Plate Without the Plate by Salvador Dali

or perhaps something much sunnier

but probably not this giant egg that oversees the folk dancing.

Living Chess

A blog about Emigrating to New Zealand by a British couple, Jonathan and Rebecca

Volcano Camera - White Island crater

Stamps of Antarctic research centers for glaciology, meteorology, geology, and biology, on Kiwi philately

Ancient Maori Kites

Outdoor chess in Christchurch

A proposed new New Zealand Flag

Bed & Breakfast & Four-Wheel Drive combos: Kiwi Housetrucks

"Southern lights" aurora on APOD. New Zealand from space (Click to biggify. Another angle)

Maori liquor made from Ti-Toki berries

Walking upside down on the Southern Hemisphere

World's largest tape ball

Penguin Crossing

This is a post that I am “co-blogging” with Hanan Levin of Grow-a-Brain. Thank you, Hanan!

The Laws of Average

"An Average Coffee Mug Trapped in Abstraction."

A snowman named "Average Joe."

Average Joes Dodgeball team is so average that they have no individual faces.

"Born as an Average" (a Bossa Nova Ballad).

An average awakening for Joan Collins?

Just another day in the life of an average suburban housewife?

Not your average house cat.  Neither is this.

Not your average Italian Bow Tie Soup.

Not your average bake sale.

South Korea's Youn Sun Nah is not your average jazz chanteuse:


Not your average dictionary, if I do say so myself.

A family friend once boldly announced during a conversation that "Spinoza was an idiot."  As of this blog posting, no one indexed by Google has ever written that exact phrase.

People have said that Spinoza was:

"beside himself with grief and rage"
"dependent on his own work for a livelihood"
"little understood in his time"
"accused of abominable heresies and monstrous deeds"
"uncanny, both personally and philosophically"
"an easy man to revile but not necessarily an easy man to dislike"
"as close as philosophy could come to sainthood — a life of austerity, rationality, independence, principle, rarefied thought"
"loveable"
"offered 1000 florins to keep quiet about his views, but refused"
"unique to the point of solitariness"
"not at all put out by this"

While looking up Spinoza humor online, I discovered that there are no jokes indexed on Google that begin, "Spinoza walks into a bar."  The phrase "Did you hear the one about Spinoza" also returns zero results.

I guess Spinoza had the last laugh.

From Jonathan:

Q: How did the Italian Renaissance begin?

A: The Italian Renaissance began when Dante discovered the letter "U" in the wild. Within a few short decades, the outgoing and charismatic "U" had almost completely replaced the Roman "V" in secular vowel applications. Without Dante, modern developments like "U Pull It" junkyards and U-Haul truck rental franchises would have been impossible.

(Literary humorist Jonathan Caws-Elwitt's plays, stories, essays, letters, parodies, wordplay, witticisms and miscellaneous tomfoolery can be found at Monkeys 1, Typewriters 0.  Here you'll encounter frivolous, urbane writings about symbolic yams, pigs in bikinis, donut costumes, vacationing pikas, nonexistent movies, cross-continental peppermills, and other compelling subjects.)

I enjoyed this description of my "Fortune's Navigator Compass" by Woof Blister:

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

You're (Literally) the Top
(inspired by Cole Porter, of course)

You're the top;
you're the peak of Dante;
You're the top—
blue-chip picante.
You're the jewel in the crown of a dinner gown by Klein.
You're Dorsey's trombone,
you're Kheops' capstone,
you're altar wine.
You're the top—
as in "hat," on Fred's head.
You're the quip
dear old Oscar Wilde said.
I'm an inarticulate voiceless glottal stop.
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

You're the top;
you're the head of Acme
(placed there
by imperial decree).
You're the high point of a fairy tale by Grimm.
You're lemon zest,
you're Arthur's crest,
you're the Battle Hymn.
You're the top—
you're the Everest summit.
You ascend
where others plummet.
Compared to me John Falstaff is a fop.
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

The day I learned Eskimos don't have hundreds of words for "snow," the world seemed so much more ordinary.  Just don't tell me Pocahontas couldn't "paint with all the colors of the wind."

Q: What, precisely, is a first cousin?

A: The relative who sits closest to the conductor.

(Literary humorist Jonathan Caws-Elwitt's plays, stories, essays, letters, parodies, wordplay, witticisms and miscellaneous tomfoolery can be found at Monkeys 1, Typewriters 0.  Here you'll encounter frivolous, urbane writings about symbolic yams, pigs in bikinis, donut costumes, vacationing pikas, nonexistent movies, cross-continental peppermills, and other compelling subjects.)