My writing on most outdoors-related topics, including cycling and hiking, is now taking place over on my new site, End Pavement. Thanks for visiting!
My writing on most outdoors-related topics, including cycling and hiking, is now taking place over on my new site, End Pavement. Thanks for visiting!
Today is the birthday of A.A. Milne, creator of the much-beloved Winnie-the-Pooh.
Reading up on Pooh at Wikipedia, I came across this wonderful note.
The origin of the “Poohsticks” game is at the footbridge across a tributary of the River Medway near Upper Hartfield, close to the Milne’s home at Posingford Farm. It is traditional to play the game there using sticks gathered in nearby woodland. When the footbridge required replacement in recent times the engineer designed a new structure based closely on the drawings (by E H Shepherd) of the bridge in the original books, as the bridge did not originally appear as the artist drew it. There is an information board at the bridge which describes aspects of how to play the game there. Periodically the water authority has to come with an excavator and remove the large mass of stalled Poohsticks which can build up in the river bed downstream of the bridge over time, to the extent of causing some localised flooding.
Did you know there’s a World Pooh Sticks Championship?
[They] take place annually at Day’s Lock on the River Thames near Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. The event was started in 1983 as a fund-raising event for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The lockkeeper put out a box of sticks and a collection box and it soon became an annual event. It originally took place in January but in the icy weather of 1997 it was moved to March. It is now organized by the Rotary Club of Sinodun, based in nearby Wallingford. The championships feature individual and team events. A member of the team from the Czech Republic which won the team event in 2004 explained the winning technique to Jonathan Hancock in an interview on BBC Radio Oxford: he looked to see which part of the river was fastest, and threw the stick in there.
Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They’re mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that’s a start.
Undoubtedly to fight the deadly menace of Sharks with Frickin’ Laser Beams Attached To Their Heads, the fishing industry is countering with high-tech weapons of its own: Laser-Based Lures.
C. Douglas Nielsen (“Yes, I see Douglas Nielsen…”) writes in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Bruce Young is an inventor who believes the key to catching more fish is all about lighting up.
I could have guessed that there would be some “lighting up” involved with this story, but let’s continue. ;)
For the past 10 years, Young has been working on a way to put laser technology to work in a fishing lure, an idea that came about by accident.
It began when he pointed a laser sight at his fish tank full of African cichlids and peacock bass.
“Every fish in there chased and would bite that dot. I could get ‘em to bite rocks, and I could get ‘em to bite each other,” Young said. “Six months into it, I thought, ‘What if I put a hook on that dot?’ Ten years later I’m introducing the first laser lures in the world.
“Fish chase it. Cats chase it. Dogs chase it. I can’t tell you why, but they simply do. If it eats meat, it’s going to eat the laser light.”
Which gives me an idea for my next trip to the local steak house.
Unfortunately, the folks who need to understand this, won’t.