Things have been busy, but I’ll be back to blogging soon. In the meantime, here’s a masterful college prank in a lecture hall.

Transparency international has come out with its annual survey results of perceptions of corruption around the world. The country where I served in the Peace Corps, Benin, is ranked 118th, among the lowest of the non-war-torn countries and similar to its position on the World Bank’s per capita income index. It’s interesting that citizens of the places with the least wealth to go around often have the highest perception that the wealth is not getting where it needs to be. In Benin, I recall, there is a general expectation that if someone gets access to wealth or power, it is that person’s obligation to pass some of it on to the family and village, regardless of where that money or time is allotted to be spent. If you are working with the Germans to build a highway, you’d better make darn sure that some of those bags of cement make it back home. Otherwise, don’t set foot in your village again. If the project runs out of cement before the highway is finished, well, that’s just too bad. In a contest between personal relationships and “the greater good,” the personal will nearly always win.

This image is from www.transparency.com, where you can see the full table and download the map.

Today I was thinking about how much I love the internets. For one thing, they have allowed me to regularly make high-stakes bets on trivia that can be instantly verified. “NO, mushrooms do not contain vitamins! Wanna make a bet? I’ll let your dog lick my entire face if they have vitamins.” We rush to the computer and do a search. It makes conversation just that much more entertaining.

I no longer have to troll all the big stores in town to get enough boxes to move. No more begging surly liquor store clerks and damp produce managers. We just set up an rss feed to alert us via email whenever anybody posts free boxes to craigslist or freecycle.

I get surprise books in the mail since we joined paperback swap. Dr. G orders them for me but the effect is the same.

Yesterday an old coworker and I sent a flurry of IMs back and forth containing youtube clips related to rodents, which I consider an extremely valuable use of time.

Here’s a bit of the last post translated to squid courtesy of squidsquid.com:

My first week of squidiversity, I was swimming back to my dorm one night when a seaweed spoke to me. True story. It asked me where I was going, and if I wanted to party. Oooh, I just inked. Not a very stunning conversationalist, that seaweed. Then I noticed its proximity to a fraternity deep-ocean dwelling, and the walkie-talkie taped in a crook of its branches.

quiz results on my squid heritage, also from the same site:

Results: You may be small part squid, or other aquatic animal. If you also enjoy balancing things on your nose then its likely you have seal heritage.

And finally, here is an invisible octopus from youtube. An octopus is not a squid.

Well, not necessarily. I’d be hard pressed to identify a Christian way to surf. But here is some Jesus-related and Christian-themed stuff on the web. In honor of the first day of Lent.

What Would Jesus Blog? A blog in the voice of Jesus, if he were a tongue-in-cheek 20-something white guy who keeps up on the college radio scene.

Jesus of The Week The follies of iconography. This week it’s post-it Jesus. (link via what would jesus blog)

Church Sign Generator. You know how I love to hate church marquees. Here I can review prime examples or make my own. (link via what would jesus blog)

Lark News. Fake Christian news, once a month. Hi-larryous.

Bored Again Christian. Podcasts of below-the-radar-but-still-pretty-good music.

I just googled “how to web surf like a Christian” for the heck of it and hit this Christianity on the Web metasite.

Sacred Spaces, the interactive Jesuit prayer site. I go there a lot.

Salt is a monthly e-zine where I publish sometimes.

And my Jesus Camp review just came out on Next Wave, another monthly e-zine.

Of course there’s the old stalwart, Christianity Today.

I dig Image for poetry and fiction and discussion of the arts.

And Sojourners keeps me up to speed on the latest in peace and justice.

I think maybe I spend too much time surfing.  Yet I’ll ask the question anyway: what am I missing?

Here’s some anti-boredom serum.

• Stick Figures in Peril pool on Flickr. Discovered by Dr. G. This example is especially awesome.
• “A really fast dictionary… fast like a Ninja.” ninjawords.com
• Not sure I totally get the purpose of this one, but if you like lists of words, try wordie. Discovered by Nate.
• Elaborate quiz on BBC’s site about whether your thinking style is more masculine or feminine. You need a ruler that measures in millimeters for this one. I took it a few weeks ago and ended up leaning toward the feminine end. Link via Pharyngula.
• If only the writers of power ballads had editors! An imaginary editor lays it on the line for Axl Rose’s “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Link via Chris Uggen.
• so which Christians, exactly, are getting divorces? Blogger, sociologist, and Christian Brad Wright examines the data.
• Have you ever wondered when the most people blog about hiccups? Blog Trends can tell you. Or bananas, or solar eclipses, or whatever.
• And finally:

How rich are you? >> I’m loaded. It’s official. I’m the 55,146,441 richest person on earth!

This past weekend I was in Portland, Oregon for the wedding of a college friend. It was a simple, lovely affair, and Sarah looked beautiful in her beaded gown and tasteful green shoes and Jonathan looked handsome and happy. I would post a picture if I had not forgotten the camera back at the house where I was staying. One of the things I noticed about the wedding was that the lighting was just right: neither too bright nor too dark, just warm and intimate. Sadly, we missed the grand exit when Sarah donned a “muppets” coat for the run to the car. Gotta love the whimsy! My favorite part of the ceremony was when they said their vows, which they had written themselves. They were heartfelt and real. It seems like only yesterday I spent a weekend with them in New York, politely examining the window displays and billboards so they could smooch! ; )

The other really fun part of the too-brief trip was hanging out with other college friends, the same gang we hung out with in Alaska back in April. Aaron and Irene hosted Dr. G and me and Nate and Betsy and their gang. I was coloring with one of the kids, and we took a break to count to forty in silly voices and rhyme back and forth, and I thought to myself, “Gee, this is entertaining, and not far different from how I spend my time when I’m alone.” (Too much information?)

Nate reminded me of the funny “science” papers of Jeremy Lavine, about lightning and El Nino. I wish I had been subversive enough to write stuff like that when I was in high school. The poor teacher’s comments are classic– you can tell that s/he has no idea what to do with this kid. Sample line from an essay: “They think lightning is a lie perpetrated by people with a vested interest. At their own peril!!!”

And awhile back, another friend reminded me of these Weight Watcher’s Recipe Cards. Watch out for the Mackerelly! (Warning, occasional cuss words).

One of the realities of being an itinerant person is that one becomes intimately familiar with the world of internet airline ticket purchases. Any type of purchase tends to stress me out, because of the overwrought sense of moral obligation I feel to make a good fiscal, social, and environmental decision. Plane tickets have the added stress of offering the illusory promise of getting a better deal somewhere else, if I just spend a few more hours looking. This is why I’m grateful for the meta-search sites that keep growing and becoming more interesting. A brief review.

• http://www.orbitz.com is my old standby, and I appreciate the helpful grid layout of the results and the options to expand the dates and locations of a search. I also like how it gives the actual total price, rather than the base ticket price. It is definitely the most elegantly designed site. But Orbitz hasn’t been coming up with the best deals lately.
• http://supersearch.travelzoo.com was one of the first sites to combine individual airline searches with metasearches on orbitz, priceline, etc. It does the best job of keeping up with new offerings, and I love it for that, though it can be annoying to open a new window or tab for each search, rather than comparing them side by side.
• http://www.kayak.com is a newer metasearch site that does allow you to compare prices side by side, though it has so many options for filtering, sorting, and altering your search that the results page feels a little confusing at first. My favorite thing about this site is the price trends graph that shows you how prices in your itenerary have changed over the past 90 days. I have never used this site to actually buy a ticket.
• http://www.cheapoair.com is another site I had never heard of until travelzoo pointed it out to me. It quoted me the lowest prices (including taxes and fees) of any of the search sites, for hard-to-find Christmastime tickets. It, like Kayak, searches individual airlines and several metasites to give you a price comparison in a table format. Its extended search form prefills things for you– so if you select PHX as your departing airport for round-trip, it automatically appears as your destination for the return. However, it does not have a flexible dates option, and it won’t allow you to compare two similar searches side-by-side in different windows. I haven’t bought a ticket from this site, but I will probably try it this time.
• It’s been awhile since I purchased overseas tickets, but http://www.1800flyeurope.com/ served me well last fall. I like its lists of packages and specials in addition to the regular search feature. And for getting around Europe itself, http://www.ryanair.com/ sometimes offers fares below one euro (before taxes and fees), if you regularly check in to their obnoxiously blinking, primary-colors site. Right now they’re offering hundreds of flights for free, but it must be a gimmick. I don’t have any experience searching for flights to Latin America or Asia, and as for Africa, well, it’s just dang expensive to get there, any way you try it. Maybe cargo boat is cheap.

At the liberal arts school where I got my BA, they had two versions of their required science courses: the regular kind, for future majors, and the dumbed-down kind, which could be recognized by their titles: “Chemistry for Poets,” “Biology for Poets,” and so on. Perhaps a more apt, and less insulting name, would have been “Chemistry for Dabblers.” I number myself among the dabblers: hungry for good stories but often impatient with the methodical detail that good science requires. Once again, hooray for the World Wide Web!

Science Blogs — a daily round up of science commentary that can be searched by author or topic. The big news today is that they’ve discovered evidence of dark matter.

A few things I found: my favorite science writer, Carl Zimmer, talks about parasitic cancers that perpetuate themselves through centuries. And here he talks about suicidal slime molds.

A neuroscience student explains the techniques for inducing depression in mice, and then trying to treat it.

And this comes from nerdygirl: the strongest jaws in the world belong to an ant. It can use them to strike prey faster than any living thing, or fling itself high in the air to escape danger. With video to prove it!

• crack, adj — as in, “the crack team of reporters”

• 
• from: the-marx-brothers.com

• carbuncle, n — both a skin boil and a jewel.
• 
  from: orissagems.com
• calisthenics, n — elevates simple sit-ups and jumping jacks to an almost philosophical level.
• 
• from: assumption.edu
• clobber, v — not to be confused with clabber, n, the thick cream English people like to eat.
• 
• from: food.oregonstate.edu
• crikey, interjection — I anxiously await the day someone says it spontaneously and non-ironically.
• 
• from: affiliate.viator.com
• calliope, n — Kuh- LIE-oh- pee. There’s one in the Baltimore Thanksgiving day parade.
• 
• from: wdm.ca