Tomorrow it will be June, and then all hell will break loose. So let's start out this week very slowly and carefully, with a Memorial Day pika.

Dionne Quintuplets, Wendy O. Williams, Chubb Rock, Sondra Locke, Billy Vera, Paul Drew, Brandon Cruz, Kylie Minogue ...

BREAKING UPDATE: MORE NUDE MINOGUE!!!

A passenger d'adolescent on an underground of queens suffered from light burns to her good leg yesterday when it trousers were placed on fire by staples of hair red burning wedged in the heater under its seat. L'incident, which them veterans of passage known as could be without precedent, revealed approximately 12:30 P.M. on board of l'Jamaïque-leap the train of E, when the not identified girl, the 13, noted trousers on fire.

The victim went without slackness apparent and hidden its face d'une camera of television. It carried an inflated white parka and a pair of jean which apparently had been intentionally torn in several spots, leaving notched, of the brought back parts of fringe. It did not clear if such were the same trousers which hung with fire.

A clerk symbolic system of cabin at the station d'avenue of Roosevelt said it had seen the victim walking out of the station little time after it was burned and said that the trousers had a line of the fringes. "She carried the strangest trousers," the clerk said, describing the jeans as similar in l'aspect to the gerçures qu'un the cowboy could carry. "What she carried, it had to cling to fire."

Charles Seaton, a spokesman of passage of NYC, indicated, "She wasn't burned because of heat itself. It was burned by l'objet foreign wedged in the heater." Seaton could not indicate how long l'agrafe had been in the radiator or to identify. The employees of passage said "Nothing really bursts in flames.”

Silikonaprendimosrespetarnoslasdiferenciasnosotrospodríadarloque-Virginiaotro.
Danke zum Leser Jay O. für die tip. Aufmerksamkeit alle weiteren Leser: Tun Sie Ihr Teil, um zu helfen, Ruhm und Ehre zum Eichhörnchen-Land zu holen.

Thursday again, and this week I'm going to combine the weekly squirrel with the language tutorial. In Afrikaans, you would say eekhorinkie.

"She must've been wacky," one tow jockey said. "Why'd she hang on like that?"

There are some scattered reports of reader confusion regarding our posts in foreign languages. For those of you in the bewildered camp, I'll walk you through one. First you read the foreign jibber-jabber, then you select and copy the text, then you go to the Babel Fish translation page (found at the top of our Links list on the right), paste it into the "translate a block of text" box, select the appropriate translation (in this and most cases: Spanish to English), hit translate, and wallow in the hilarity of it all. Before or after this last step you should also go to the link embedded in the text to see what I'm referring to, of course. Here we go:

Senorita del almacén grande, este swimsuit que usted me ha demostrado no está para ésos tales como me y de mi gordura. Maldigo mi madre y sus galletas del día de fiesta. ¡Ack, digo a ella!

"I don't know if my mind can comprehend life without the possibility of Phish."
I wasn't sure either, but it turns out my mind has been awaiting this day for years and had fully prepared itself to leap into comprehension when given the opportunity.

MAXWELL: Oh bien, quizás, si aprendimos respetarnos las diferencias nosotros podría darlo que va otro.

FRAN: ¿Usted está pidiendo que se volviera?

MAXWELL: Así que él se parece.

FRAN: Y si usted podría, usted conseguiría abajo en sus manos y rodillas y se disculparía.

MAXWELL: ¡MS. FINE!

FRAN: La apología aceptó... ¡El mA, embala mis cosas, él me desea detrás!!

For a change of pace, today we are going to learn about a place that only wildlife with a serious love of toxicity would choose to call home, my neighbor the Newtown Creek. It's not mentioned for some reason, but the Squirrel's Nest is located in between the J.J. Byrne Memorial Bridge and the Penny Bridge, a few blocks south of the crick. There are a few factoids they don't mention in the tour, the most useful being that at the end of the parking lot of the Greenpoint Manufacturing & Design Center you'll find the only place I've found that you can actually get down by the water. Also unmentioned is the huge lake of oil that lies underneath this northern tip of Greenpoint. Someone a few years back discovered it when they noticed some oil draining out of a pipe into the Newtown Creek; upon investigation it turned out that the 17 million gallon leak covers 55 acres of subterranean Ponte Verde and has probably been leaking out of the oil plants above since the 1950's. Finally, they also leave out the formerly most recognizable landmark, the other twin towers that were blown up in 2001. They do have a photo of the mysterious Miller Building, though, a structure I have a particular fondness for (it's been misplaced in the caption, however, it's right next to the J.J. Byrne rather than the Kosciusko).

Many people have been saying that Uncle Sam is looking a little worse for wear these days, but just like with the Abu Ghraib story, it's taken awhile for the photographic proof to finally come to light.

I've been blogging more than I expected to about small furry animals recently, and you are probably wondering what my favorite animal of all is. Or maybe my boldly stated friendship of squirrels has you fooled and you think you've got it all figured out, but NO YOU DO NOT, sucker. Squirrels are great, and they are my favorite animal that I see on a daily basis, but the true champion is neither the squirrel, nor the rabbit, nor the otter, nor the raccoon, nor the beaver. What is it ???

Boy, am I tired today. I finally have a MUST CREDIT I AM A FRIEND OF THE SQUIRRELS EXCLUSIVE, though. It's a quote from Robert Redford's long, rambling, and quite obviously not written down in advance commencement speech at Bard College on Saturday. "Don't get sucked in by the trees," Mr. Redford told the graduates. (Seriously, I'm fully down with the ideas he was trying to express, but you'd think that if you really felt the issues were important, you might go to the trouble of actually composing a coherent speech instead of just winging it when you saw that the crowd was much larger than you expected it to be. Oh, and when I say 'seriously' I don't mean to suggest that I am making up the quote, that is straight from the Electric Horseman's mouth.)

"After about an hour, she had worked herself into a beet-faced, sweaty daze. At one point she tumbled over and began to roll around on the ground, chanting 'Crest! Crest!' over and over."

It's the 2nd item from the top, the one with Crest in the title.

I think it's obvious why quotation marks are needed in the caption to this photo.

Hey, Wonkette writes articles, too. I just came across this one about another of the NY Times sad attempts to trap the elusive zeitgeist and pin it to a board.

It's a great time of year for reading the commencement addresses given by celebrities, as I'm reminded by a link on Wonkette to one Jon Stewart just gave. In case that whets your appetite, here's where you'll find more by Bob Newhart, Conan O'Brien, and Fred Rogers. I thought that I had found a link to one by Karen Ann Quinlan, but on closer inspection it turned out to be Anna Quindlen. To make up for that, here's one more, by Andy Rooney, and a picture of Steven Tyler.

It's Thursday again, and also I think it's the two-month blogoversary, so we'll lead off with more than just one squirrel.

CORRECTION: Earlier today I stated that the taxidermist responsible for the boxing squirrels was "more than likely quite drunk". This inference was based on the fact that I believed him to be Irish. In fact, research has shown that the man in question hailed from Dorset, in the south of England. My sincere apologies to the fine people of Dorset.

"Keep in mind I work at a Savings & Loan and my work experience has been working behind a desk. My animal experience has been only with the family dogs, fish and parakeets. We continued to talk and he further explains his plans and that I would be given information needed to learn about otters."

I hadn't seen it in quite awhile, but thankfully Funky Winkerbean is as hilarious as ever (specifically the Wednesday, May 5 strip; change the date in the drop-down menu if you're clicking this link after today).

Now back to our mission of providing the public at large with fun facts about functioning forest fauna. In 24 hours an otter will spend 70% of its time sleeping, 20% grooming, 5% eating, and the other 5% unknown.

I've been wrestling with the decision of whether or not to use this tip from reader Andrew H. On the one hand, it's a whole lot of dead squirrels, but on the other hand they've been arranged very nicely. What makes this even more impressive is the fact that the artist was more than likely quite drunk. Toward the bottom of the page you will also find a dead chimp, reportedly "the Napoleon of his species" (able was I ere someone stuffed me).

Baffled by beavers? I know I am, but there's not nearly as much information out there in cyberspace as there is on squirrels, rabbits, or guinea pigs (and a lot of what does come up in a search doesn't seem to have anything to do with furry woodland mammals chewing down trees and damming up streams). Currently, this is what I've come up with in the way of relevant photos and facts, but this is far from over.

To mark the passing of Tony Randall, I'd like to provide our readers with the recipe for Tony Randall's Grilled Veal Chop with Bourbon-Cracked Black Pepper Sauce. If it's a little too soon for you to be preparing one of Tony's favorite dishes yet, I have four other options to choose from: Ed Asner's Balsamic-Roasted New Potatoes, Bob Hope's Favorite Chicken Hash, Tony Dow's Hor Me Dor Shrimp, or Angela Lansbury's Power Loaf. Just so you don't get needlessly alarmed, as far as I know Mr. Randall and Mr. Hope are the only two chefs who are no longer cooking among us.

One more to make up for lost time: How do you say squirrel in Arapahoe? Eenahnunnee is how.

Again, I've been on vacation, so I have no idea to what extent this has already been blogged about in the blogosphere, but I'm going to throw caution to the winds and link to John Kerry's daughter's breasts anyhow.

I've been on a mini-vacation in Greenpoint since Friday, but you just can't stop the blogging for long, and reader Michelle E. helps ease my way back into the thick of things with this informative tip.

If any readers are in the market for new headphones, I highly recommend the products of Brooklyn-based Grado Labs. I just got a pair of SR-60s today and they are the best thing ever, except maybe for the SR-80s that reader Jay O. has. Well, to be perfectly frank, Grado's higher-priced models are probably even better, but squirrels are not prone to spending over $100 on headphones, and I think we all can learn something from this. You can get them online here, or in person here.

With a little can-do spirit, however, you can come up with a fairly comprehensive overview of the typical rainy-day activities of your average raccoon.

You know what one of the best squirrels out there is? The chipmunk. So for this Thursday I have a photo of the Least Chipmunk, as well as one of the Most Chipmunk. In other wildlife news, it turns out that nothing comes up when you do a Google image search for "rainy day raccoon".

"Pay phones are lifelines for the down and out; their booths are rainy-day cocoons"

Squirrel + rabbit =

Ok, those of you who are as captivated by the sausage saga as I am can check out one more story straight from Milwaukee which adds a little information and some different photos to the basic AP version. For instance, we learn that "so far this year, the Polish sausage has won the most races, with five. The Italian sausage and bratwurst are tied with four wins each, and the hot dog trails behind with one victory." It appears that the video of the wursts going to the hospital for checkups and MRIs prior to the beginning of this season is no longer available online, unfortunately, but if anything else turns up I'll let you know.

Yesterday, reader Teresa S. expressed interest in a regular feature on how to say squirrel in different languages, much as we did with bunny last week. So beginning with Esperanto: sciuro, Chinook: skudzo or ap-poe-poe, Basque: urtxintxa (meaning "walnut otter"), German: eichhörnchen (meaning "oak kitten"), Klingon: qon'Het'wa, and Oriya: goondoochi moosa.

I'd say that this is the beginning of a reader coloring contest, but response to the Greatest Link contest was so overwhelming that it consumed all my blogging time, so just consider it a non-competitive Kraft Korner.

Reader Andrea B. updates us on one of my favorite sports stories of last year, which is also of interest to fans of headline writing. Andrea sent in a link to the Yahoo-AP story, Woman Hit by Bat in Sausage Race Retiring, but I am linking to the Fox Sports story, Woman Involved in Sausage-gate Retiring, which is exactly the same but includes two photos rather than one. But there are more headline options than just those two to pick from, though the stories are all from the AP text:

Her Sausage Racing Days Over (Chicago Tribune), Once Peppered, Sausage Spices up Life With College (USA Today), Analyze This: Woman Quits While She Was a Wiener (Kansas City Star), A Banged-up Sausage Quits (International Herald Tribune), Here on Out, Sausage Link to Be Missing (Rocky Mountain News), She’s Now a Missing Link (Philadelphia Daily News), Wisconsin’s Famous Italian Sausage Heading to School (Rockdale Citizen), Brewers' Fan Favorite Costumed Sausage Bids Farewell (Daytona Beach News-Journal), ‘Sausage-gate’ Victim To Retire (CNN International), Woman in Sausage Costume Packs It In (Newsday), Say It Ain’t So: Block Retires As Brewer’s Sausage (The Capital Times), Attacked Sausage Calls It Quits (The Herald News), ‘Sausage’ Woman Retiring From Racing (Wilkes Barre Times-Leader)

For background, I provide four stories from last year for reference, the original report, the sausage's side of the story, a follow-up featuring racing pierogis, and an item about the sausage swimming with dolphins which I had previously been unaware of. And while this all seems like a bunch of light-hearted silliness, please keep in mind that "Veronica Chandler, the hot dog who tripped over Block's fallen sausage, never ran again."

"Bat is a bit of a psycho and has been known to launch himself at people."

What sorts of things might Steer 970 do once he gets to the Popcorn Park Zoo? The first item on his to-do list will be to stick his head in a plastic bag, a pastime enjoyed by animals the world over, be they goat, cat, ferret, dog, rabbit, or Freedom Steer.

Mad Cow Update: This cow was mad as hell and he was not going to take it anymore.

May is birthday season, so in case you're going to be planning a party this month, I have collected together everything you're going to need all in one blog: food, drinks, entertainment, dessert, and restroom facilities. If your guests raise any questions about the sawdust, tell them that for the last five years this has been one of the most successful toilets in Australia.

Just when you had finally steeled yourself for the inevitable arrival of Brood X, there comes word of a new insect menace, one which is not nearly as sane as the cicadas.

There's not really much I can find to blog about so far today. I've got this and I've got this, but you're going to wish that I'd kept them to myself, I'm afraid.

Well, it's the day after Friendsday, which in addition to Dateline Friendsday also featured the last episode before the last episode before the final episode AND the last episode before the final episode. I was too emotional to watch any of that myself, but I will certainly be tuning in to the hour-long clip show and hour-long final episode tonight, it's the whole reason I took the day off from work!

I'm at home today, blogging from the squirrel's nest where the internet, she is not so fast—so this sign of the times may be all I'm able to get to until Friday rolls around.

Man, I almost forgot: Happy Friendsday!!!

"We need to reach out to a younger demographic to bring them to the ballpark," Parkes said. "They are looking for nontraditional breakthrough ways to convey 'Spider-Man' messaging. ... It's the future of how we generate excitement inside the stadium and about the game itself."

Well we're living here in Allentown
But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to write a headline that isn't contradicted by the story's final sentence

"It will forever mark you as a person of discerning taste and unusual intellect"

Suspect: The sister? She's murdered? You kiddin' me.
Lennie: If I was kiddin' you, I'd be wearin' a Fez, and no pants.

This site originally came to my attention during my search for frightening rabbit impersonators, but there is so much more going on in the magical world of Abbie Lawrence that it really cried out for a standalone post.

Today I'd like to continue my effort to educate our readership about rabbits and rabbit-related topics. As readers may remember, we have previously learned that if you see a rabbit in a particular spot in your yard on one morning, he is likely to be there again the next morning. Building on that knowledge, let's move on to learning how to say bunny in several different languages. In Esperanto: kuniklo, Cantonese: toi bao bao, Arabic: arnob, and Chinook: quetshadee. I know that's a lot to try to take in all at once, but to quote Aristotle, "Education is the best provision for old age", and you're not getting any younger.

Earlier today, reader Mike A. sent along a link to the Girls Guitar Club movie, saying, "If this is old news please ignore" and, while it is in fact old news to the hyper-hep likes of me, it did make me think that today would be a good time to highlight the charming talents of Mary Lynn Rajskub. The lack of anything else to blog right now also aided me in this decision. So here is a link to the Girls Guitar Club movie and another short film by the same artist entitled "The Hitman", and here is a link to a Girls Guitar Club performance in D.C.

Elliott knew what a powerful racehorse felt like when it was purring between his legs.
"I was sitting with a loaded gun underneath me. We got clear sailing down the backside."
"I was sitting very comfortable," Smith said. "I wanted to jump on him."

More thinly veiled homoerotecism and mixed metaphors can be found and enjoyed in this entertaining Times article on the Smarty Jones triumph.