I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee

I was reading a review of the upcoming Bee Movie, which commercials seem to be promoting very strongly as though it were in fact a movie. (Based on the trailers I believe it to be more ``a kind of fish'', or possibly ``a fashion for rubbing peanut butter over the furniture''. But then I had low expectations from Chicken Little as well.) From the plot description it appears to be a gripping expose of the untold damage done by economic sanctions to all parties involved, which should make it extremely popular among the kids.

Disturbing me was on the right-hand panel, the ``Ads by Google'': Cooper Pest Solutions: Prevent carpenter bees and damage. Schedule free estimate now! and then Exterminate Bees: Receive a customized bee control estimate for your home -- Free! from Terminix. And this panel was repeated with the same advertisers underneath the ``most popular articles'' panel. At the bottom of the page another set of ``Ads By Google'' brought up the Cooper Pest control ad again, although Terminix wasn't to be seen. The other three were ``Ten diet rules that work'', ``Honey Nut Cheerios Games'', and ``Coffee Exposed'', which I suppose is the plot for the guy who played George Costanza's upcoming computer-animed Capybara Movie. The ads for The Martian Child, by comparison, were for credit card offers, The Martian Child, and, well, ``Ten rules for fat burning''. No mention of deliberately slaughtering the movie stars.

News from Singapore: the long-under-construction Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway, which when completed is supposed to be the longest underground expressway in Southeast Asia, had its first phase open to traffic just a few days ago. According to Channel NewsAsia, ``traffic was smooth ... even though motorists could only drive through three kilometres of the 12-kilometre long tunnel, which is being opened in phases.'' I'm sure the Land Transit Authority has given it considerable thought, but put that way it sounds like the setup for a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Trivia: Noah Webster's dictionary sold only 2500 copies in its first edition, and he had to mortgage his home to bring out the second edition. Source: The Story of English, Robert McCrum, William Cran, Robert MacNeil.

Currently Reading: 1941: The Greatest Year In Sports, Mike Vaccaro.