Friday Late Afternoon Miscellany

As of last night I'm without DSL at home although I'm sure by now the telephone company has received and cashed my check - the bloody bandits - and I am shopping for new service and plotting my revenge against AT&T. I have to sit down and do some benefit/cost analysis among the competing options, which I cannot do here at the office. Actually, I should be working right now, ahem… This will be short and sweet. I found this story about the babau festival, a fascinating legend about a monster (who sounds an awful lot like descriptions of the Loch Ness monster) that invaded the town one deep dark February night in 1290 CE from the river the town fronts and evidently made away with six children (presumably eaten, eek!) As the legend developed over the years the monster changed shape and size and in at least one account I read online is actually not a monster at all but bandits led by a very bad man who were causing problems for the town. Eventually the leader of this bad bunch was caught and done away in the town square in front of numerous witnesses. Anyway, check it out. I much prefer the “nessy” version of the story myself. Infoplease.com gives this definition of a babau: “The bogie with which nurses in Languedoc terrify unruly children." Perhaps the legend of the babau spread outside of the town and was used elsewhere to scare the you-know-what out of kids. For that matter, when we were kids our teenaged baby-sitters used to scare the stuffing out of us with tales of the boogey man. Must be a pretty universal thing – scaring kids half to death with horror stories! I’m fascinated by all forms of ancient writing and the development of alphabets. Nova has an excellent article on runes. Runes are interesting not only because they were used for communication but were also used for divination (and divination is connected to some ancient board games – perhaps connected to all original ancient board games – sounds like that song “the thigh bone is connected to the knee bone, the knee bone is connected to the – what bone was that??? – well, you get the idea). Nova online has a very good article/overview on the history of runes for your reading pleasure. Have you heard the one about the singing stones? No – this is not a joke about Mick Jagger and the Rolling Pot-Heads, darlings! I have heard about the colossi at Memnon in Egypt – I think I need to learn more about this fascinating phenomenon. Friday night wouldn’t be complete without at least some mention of chess. I’m glad to see my man Moro at 5.5 – it would be nice to see him make 50% but in any event he (and indeed all of the players) will be taking home a very nice paycheck for his Mexico City efforts. I have to say I thought most of the players dressed themselves very well and made an effort to look presentable – well, Anand, Leko and Kramnik always are well groomed but some of the other guys it’s been touch and go at times. I’m looking forward to an Anand-Kramnik match and an Anand victory! And will Garry Kasparov really accept a nomination to run for office in Russia? The man REALLY must have a death wish. Everyone who has half a brain knows that Putin is a cold-blooded murderer and wouldn't hesitate to order Kasparov's removal through a convenient 'accident' - I don't think even Putin would be so stupid as to use radioactive poison again, though. Although, come to think of it, heads of state aren't so bright these days, are they...