Q: What is this, a weather blog?

A: Hey, sorry for the recent lack of Surprising Answers^®. I've been focusing my attentions on the aforementioned plans to move somewhere not miserably cold. More on that soon.

In the meantime, here's some stuff to read:

• Remember the two-faced cats who were surely harbingers of the apocalypse? Boing Boing just posted an update on a two-faced cow from Virginia: She's dead, Jim.
• The U.S. military has unveiled a charming new invention to NPR: A heat ray that makes you feel like your flesh is burning. It does no permanent damage, they say, and will be used to disperse crowds, presumably at war protests or for when Congress gets unruly.
• McDonald's owns a lot of words.
• John Kerry is getting uglier.
• And via Gawker, the New York Times makes some absurd claims about this year's Super Bowl commercials.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, congratulations to Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. No one believed they could pull it off. Well, almost no one. God, I'm a genius.

Q: Is it Wednesday already?

A: Wow, it totally is. Huh. I should probably think of something to post.

If you hadn't already noticed, Google Checkout is offering a $10 coupon to anyone who signs up before February 15th. You can use it at Starbucks or Buy.com or Toys R Us or a bunch of other places.

Or, hey, you can use it to buy that URL you've always wanted. It would usually cost you $10/year, but with the bonus, it'll be free. Start a stupid blog of your own! In fact, thisismystupidblog.com is still ripe for the plucking.

It's ten 'til imaginary doomsday. Do you know where your imaginary children are?

IN OTHER NEWS: Remember that apocalypse I warned you about? Well, it turns out we really are getting close to doomsday -- as proved by a bunch of geeky University of Chicago scientists and their stupid-ass imaginary clock. I guess they got bored with doing actual science.

Q: Has anyone NOT heard Ratatat's "Wildcat"?

A: Given that some of my readers aren't hipster scumbags, there's at least a chance you may have passed through 2006 without having heard Ratatat's excellent electro single "Wildcat."

Plus, you West Coasters are the only people left online right now, and lord only knows what you goddamned hippies listen to.

So just in case you missed it, here's the greatest dance instrumental of '06.

Ratatat - Wildcat

Classics, 2006

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RELATED Q/SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Did anyone notice last summer that there were two kittens born around the same time, each with two faces, four eyes, and two mouths that meowed in unison -- one in Ohio and one in Oregon?

The Oregon two-faced kitty died, as you might have expected. So what happened to the Ohio kitty? If you're like me, you were praying to hear news of her death -- lest she mature into a full-grown cat, and then into the Anti-Christ, and then destroy humanity.

Well, I have some bad news for you. As revealed in the last paragraph of this story about yet another two-faced cat...

Meanwhile, the Ohio two-faced kitten has disappeared. It had a scheduled appointment with a veterinarian on July 15, but the family could not find the kitten that morning. A house door was found open, leading to speculation that it had been stolen or died in the night and was removed by its mother.

Right. Or else she's circling the globe as we speak; killing giant populations of birds with a mere wave of her Satanic paw; and waiting, waiting for to be called upon by her Dark Lord.

Anyway, happy weekend, everybody!

EARLIER: Is the end nigh?

Q: But seriously, what the hell is going on with these gas-related disasters and dead birds?

A: I was both amused and slightly frightened by this pair of Wonkette posts Monday, noting that there was a ton of fucked-up shit going on pretty much everywhere in the world, much of it involving natural gas mishaps (slash mercaptan mishaps).

One standout disaster was that of Austin, Texas, where the downtown area had to be shut down as the streets were suddenly littered with the corpses of 60 birds, all dead for no known reason. Which is, you know, a little creepy.

So it was even creepier when the news broke that the same thing was happening around the same time on the other side of the globe, in Esperance, Australia -- except in Esperance, it wasn't just 60 birds. It was, like, all of them. Said local Michelle Crisp, "We literally didn't have any birds left to die."
For some reason, very few media outlets or bloggers seem to be noting the strange connection here.¹ But is anyone else starting to feel like this is the opening 15 minutes to an apocalyptic disaster movie? I'm particularly concerned for my precocious daughter Dakota Fanning, to whom I've never been a very good father.

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While I'm on the subject of weird coincidences: A couple of days ago, these two unrelated, yet totally dueling, stories popped up in my RSS feeder, literally one item apart:

• Black Diamonds Are From Outer Space [Discovery.ca]
• Black Diamonds Are From Inner Cleveland [IRockCleveland]

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¹ Or possibly all of them are talking about it. I'm way behind in my reading.