Call Ace Ventura

A Brookfield Zoo giraffe has died on Saturday after getting tangled in a rope. Zoo keepers are stunned and call it a freak accident. I say call Ace Ventura to figure it out, especially since this appears to be a second fatality at the zoo in a week. The first was a bottlenose dolphin that died from respiratory infection.

Putin visits Bulgaria

My office is right downtown Sofia, right across from the National Assembly, which made things complicated when I tried to get to work today. See, Tsar Putin is visiting Sofia and the whole downtown is basically shut down. I have never seen so many police all over the place. There is one of these guys literally every 5 feet. I don't think that Bush's visit to Bulgaria last summer created such a security craziness, certainly there were not that many cops on the street. Plus, I am sure Putin has brought not only Russian "businessmen" to Sofia, but plenty of his buddies from the former KGB.

How Much Water Goes into a Burger?

I would have never guessed it - it takes a whopping 1300 gallons of water to produce one hamburger. At least this is what one of the studies cited by the Wall Street Journal claims (short blog version here). Holy cow! This is the size of a small pool! Well, other, more recent, estimates put the number much lower, about half as much, but still its plenty of water. I mean in this much water I can probably raise bunch of salmon or other fish. Then, the question is whether these studies even take into consideration such burger-related entertainment as drinking plenty of cheep beer and other similar activities which require water...

Damn, I am switching to fish. But not the toxic Chinese variety.

Travelin' blurb

I have been reading that migrant workers from Poland are taking en masse certain jobs in England. Don't know how true that is, but this is at least what British media claims. Well, after staying overnight at Heathrow Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Sofia (travelling from Chicago) I can say that Polish workers are certainly getting plenty of jobs with airport construction/repair crews. Many of the repair guys who were passing by were speaking Polish. I was trying to steal couple of hours of sleep at Terminal 1, but in vain. These guys were jackhammering stuff all night, so I couldn't even think of sleep. This picture is basically me seeing things after being awake for 24+ hours. And yes, the guy is from Poland.