Nov 18 2023 - Puking Bird Winner

 

The Bird of the Century Contest (formerly known as Bird of the Year) in New Zealand has completed. Comedian John Oliver launched a "global effort" in support of the pūteketeke. The annual election is called Bird of the Year and held by the New Zealand conservation group Forest and Bird. Forest and Bird started the annual Bird of the Year competition to raise awareness for endangered native birds.  I wonder if that succeeded. Something has succeeded for someone, though. The British-American comedian pulled off a world-wide publicity stunt that got the bird voting system crashed.  More than 350,000 ballots were cast compared to 56,000 in 2021.  The bird is a crested grebe. They eat their own feathers to trigger their gag reflex so they can vomit up parasites.  That's the puking part.   What made Oliver take on this project?  It was elaborate - billboards in Paris, Tokyo, London, Mumbai and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I think likely expensive as there were planes flying overhead with banners, Oliver in a bird costume, and similar stunts.   Washington Post's headline says he interfered with the bird competition.  I guess that's the motivation.  Lots of press.  The headlines are from everyone everywhere. And so the Puking Bird and not the Kiwi turns out to be the bird of the year/century. I wonder how many Black Friday's there are?  It is supposed to be November 24, 2023, but I've received notices of Black Friday sales on every Friday since the beginning of November. There are lots of Black Friday questions on google that may seem unrelated.  Here's one:  What is Black Friday in Catholic? And another:  Is Black Friday related to Jesus? Is there a Black Friday food?  Like these amazingly black cherry tomatoes?

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July 13 2021 - Billionaire Branson Blasts into Space

 

I was scrolling past the Branson headlines yesterday to find out about banana slicers.  what did Branson do? He 'soared more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert.'  He was joined by SPCE.N employees - who unstrapped themselves and floated in and out of cabins with bezerkly goofy grins.     "We’re here to make space more accessible to all," an exuberant Branson, 70, said shortly after embracing his grandchildren following the flight. "Welcome to the dawn of a new space age." The race was on between Branson and Jeff Bezos, according to the Globe and Mail on the weekend. There are lots of headlines on 'the feud' getting petty. This is a highly publicized rivalry with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Amazon (AMZN.O) online retail mogul who had hoped to fly into space first aboard his own space company's rocket.  There are tweeted comparisons of Bezos' "better" rocket vs Branson's. There was a congratulations on Instagram. Bezos said on Instagram. "Can’t wait to join the club!" The flight was moved up to occur before the Bezos flight scheduled for July 20th. A big party was held afterwards with space industry executives, future customers and other well-wishers  Joining the reception was another billionaire space industry pioneer, Elon Musk, who is also founder of electric carmaker Tesla Inc Branson says 600 wealthy would-be citizen astronauts have also booked reservations, priced at about $250,000 per ticket for the exhilaration of supersonic flight, weightlessness and the spectacle of spaceflight. Branson has said he aims ultimately to lower the price to about $40,000 per seat as the company ramps up service, achieving greater economies of scale. Colglazier said he envisions eventually building a large enough fleet to accommodate roughly 400 flights annually at the spaceport. I wonder what the reviews will look like. I am still thinking about the banana slicer.   At the bottom of one of the articles is a "Litter-Robot" ad for automated cat litter collection.  I don't know if this is a comedic video or an ad. The cost is $660. It is at litter-robot.com and has 8,247 reviews.  Here we are at reviews again.  I scrolled through a few - my estimate is that out of this enormous number of reviews under 10% have correct grammar, spelling or even make sense.  If I pick out the silliest, this could be a rival to the banana slicer. Our picture today - ripe tomatoes. This is a tomato year at Lilycrest Gardens.  There are around 40 - 60 plants in the field.   Each is staked and pruned perfectly.  This picture comes from Cole's Garden Centre where tomato plants this year showed up with a full crop.

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