Soldier Ant 

It's a great curse, but it probably ain't Chinese:

It might be related to the Chinese proverb, "It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period."

This is certainly not the weirdest search query that has brought someone to my site, but.. for some reason... I'll remember it as one of the most poignant: what does it mean when an ant comes out of your ear? Ah, friend. If I could answer that simple question, I would be rich indeed.

A Cruise Missile captured mid-flight on Google Maps. (Zoom out to find that it's somewhere in Nevada Utah, which was not my initial guess.)

Shaved Cat, originally uploaded by AlexEagle.

Yes, it's real, as far as I can tell. This looks like a conflation of several of my worst nightmares: appearing naked in public; having a huge head; and being sat on by cats in my sleep. Lookit that cats saggy moobs! (First spotted on the Yahoo Answers Blog.)

Against my better judgement, the wife and I tried a meal at "Champs" sports bar and grille over at Easton Town Center today. You'd think I would've learned my lesson after my last brush with mass-market, middle-of-the-road 'family fare' type sitdowns. But no. No, I didn't.

So, continuing in my proud tradition of brand-relaunches, I will hereafter refer to 'Champs' as 'Cramps', based on the violent reaction my body has had to their 'BBQ Salmon' entree.

If you only knew Jerry Reed as the Snowman to Burt's Bandit, then his phenomenal guitar-playing abilities may have escaped your notice altogether. My old pal Gary sent me this today, and I just had to share it. Chet Atkins is, of course, Chet Atkins (a legend.) But dayyang if ol' Jerry don't hang with'im just fine. (Gary digs the hat, too. So do I.)

Eric Rice has some interesting things to say about Twitter, but what struck me most was this observation from commenter Prokofy Neva:

Or like I'€™m sitting in a really deadbeat ENT clinic in Loisida, spending 2 entire days there, and watching the parade of the gunshot wounds, the disabled, the elderly, the immigrant, the mom with five kids one of whom has coke-bottle glasses at age 2 and whatnot and I'm€™ thinking, nobody blogs anything like this on Twitter because they are all high-tech, wealthy, and connected and would never sit five minutes in a place like this.

Okay, so the pet-food recall that's been in the news this week is horrible. I feel so bad for those families that have lost their cats and dogs to this.

But also of note is this article from yesterday's USA Today—Popular sweetener is toxic for dogs:

A sugar substitute found in a variety of sugar-free and dietetic cookies, mints and chewing gum is proving highly toxic, even fatal, to snack-snatching dogs.

Xylitol, popular in Europe for decades but a relative newcomer to the U.S. alternative-sweeteners market, can be "very, very serious" to dogs when ingested, says Dana Farbman, spokeswoman for the Animal Poison Control Center of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Our little Polly is a real sneak-thief (we call her "The Magpie") so we try to be extra cautious about what we let into the house. I guess it's time to take Altoids off of our list.

Boing Boing reports on the Human Chameleon, which of course is unremarkable to anyone who follows Brad Pitt's private life.