Cheer me up :)

[rhubarbodendron]

^^doubly taxed, so that I get only about 36% netto but still it's nice to have a few bucks extra.

happy World Pasta Day, everyone! Do we have any Pastafaris here? I wonder whether they celebrate today as their version of Christmas

 

[USS Triumphant]

^^doubly taxed, so that I get only about 36% netto but still it's nice to have a few bucks extra.

happy World Pasta Day, everyone! Do we have any Pastafaris here? I wonder whether they celebrate today as their version of Christmas

Pastafarians. Here are their holidays, and yes, World Pasta Day is mentioned, but it isn't the biggie that Christmas is for Christians.

I'm not one, but I'm a Discordian, and we have a spiritual brotherhood with the Pastafarians.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I see. Thanks for the info =)

Here's another chance to cheer people up, and very young people in partcular:
The Boston Childrens Hospital has a sponsor who pays 2$ for every Halloween mail sent to the hospital. Plus the kids there will get cheered up a bit by receiving these mails. Halloween in hospital doesn't exactly sound like fun and imho they can really do with a bit of distraction, especially if their families can not be with them on that day.

So please join in, cheer the kids up and send a short message from:
http://fundraise.childrenshospital.org/site/PageNavigator/Send_a_Halloween_message.html

(and feel free to donate a little if you like. It's not mandatory, though.)

 

[rhubarbodendron]

and another highlight of modern science:

Neurobiologists at Berlin University are interested in ticklishness among mammals. They examined how rats react to being tickled and found out that the level of ticklishness depends on the stress level: a stressed rat isn't ticklish. A relaxed rat, however, is extremely ticklish, reacts with hopping around and giving a special sound. Unfortunately, a rat giggle is too high-pitched for human ears.
In tickled rats the same brain areas are active as in happy rats and in happy humans (and very likely in every other happy animal).

Getting payed for ticking cute ratties - what a great job! Where can I apply??

 

[rhubarbodendron]

A very unusual accident occured at Dortmund Zoo yesterday:
a sloth dropped off a tree in a walk-in enclosure and fell directly onto the head of a 6 year old boy. Neither was injured, fortunately.
It could have been much worse for the boy: the sloth currently suffers from a bladder-infection (which presumably weakened it so that it fell). I'd recommend visiting that particular enclosure only with an umbrella for the next 2 weeks or so.