Monday, April 24, 2006

Cook Islands Cookin'


Wednesday, inshallah, I will be en route for the Cook Islands.

This is how the islanders used to look before the killjoy missionaries came and asked them to cut their hair, remove the knives from their ears, stop taking multiple wives/husbands, eating people and chewing kava.

Maretu (b. 1802), an islander who became a missionary, tells in his somewhat boring book, Cannibals and Converts, how, as a child, he once stole the head of a cooked human that was by rights his father's, and secreted it away so he wouldn't have to share.

Now they do a brisk business in tourism and have rousing church services.

Monday, April 17, 2006

What Do Princess Leia, a Four-Pound Nut, and a Styrofoam Peanut Have in Common?

They are all for sale on E-Bay.

See, E-Bay has this category, "Everything Else>Weird Stuff>Really Weird." Actually, most of it is disappointingly unweird. Much of it is of the lame, "If this is really wacky enough, maybe I'll make it into the Ananova Quirkies like that lady who had a potato chip with Mary on it" variety. I think there's potential to narrow down the categories further though, as in "Dadaist": the guy (girl?) who is selling the Princess and the Nut to raise money for breast cancer research. "Zen": The solitary styrofoam packing peanut (current bid: $2.00). "Freudian": The world's smallest Slim Jim. "The Ultimate in Marketing": Your own vagina. I'm not kidding. "Now you can own your own vagina," says the tagline. Well, maybe it's aimed at guys.