In the category of Strange Things I Didn’t Know 10 Minutes Ago: Apparently, there’s something special about the note of B flat. Play it to a male alligator and he’ll bellow back at you. No one knows why, he just does it. Only for B flat. And, just to increase the strange factor, there’s a black hole out there that is more or less humming to a nearby gas cloud, humming in the frequency of B flat. Sort of makes one want to go around with a B flat and see what else out there sings back…

It’d be great if this gets off the ground: a plan to connect Seattle’s parks to each other with pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly paths and boulevards. More green! And, even better, making it possible to get to the green without getting in the car.

Bumper sticker of the day: I live in my own world. They know me there. Caitlyn and I went down to Southcenter today, mostly for something to do. I never thought I’d be so appreciative of free balloons. The mall is doing this major upgrade, and the food court is completely shut down. There are snacks available, and lots of chocolate, but no sandwiches or pizza that I could find. So we had our peanut butter and jelly sandwich squares in the car. And that gave me lots of time to think about parking lots. It’s probably not in the …

Today’s quote of the day: “They stopped waiting for the government to fix things.” I heard it in a story about getting heath care in Uganda, but I think it’s worth pondering by people who are not Ugandans. Take a moment to imagine what could be done, what could be fixed or improved, if we all stopped sitting around, complaining and waiting for Someone Else to “fix things.”

Apparently, there’s this viaduct thing downtown. It’s big, it’s ugly, it’s noisy, and it’s structurally unsafe. Should there be a moderately significant earthquake, we are told, the whole thing is likely to come down. But, apparently, no one can really agree on what we should do about it. Certain parties (Seattle’s mayor included) want to tear it down and replace it with a 6 lane tunnel, a project that has a price tag to the tune of several billion dollars. Other parties balk at that sum and insist the viaduct can be repaired or replaced for significantly less money. Now, …

It’s becoming a bit of a tradition for me to mark the changing of the calendar year by reviewing the BBC’s annual list of 100 things we didn’t know last year. The highlights of 2006: In the “Language is weird” category: Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is “superior temporal sulcus“. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning “little hill”. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. In the “Faith in My …