Nascar vs. Gladiators

At brunch today (yeah, we indulged), I saw a commercial for nascar on ESPN. My reaction was “shake and bake!”. Amy’s reaction, after “hah!”, was to wonder about the waste of fuel it was to have cars drive in circle. I couldn’t argue. Amy said “you’re going to say it’s awesome”. Yeah. I said it was a race and that the tracks were not always circles; some are oval (boring) others have curves. Pretty lame argument.

I said it had never occured to me before what a waste of fuel races were.

Later in the day I was indulging in a nap (it was a day of indulgence) and as I was drifting toward slumber, I had a mental image of a crowd of car racing spectators. The image changed to that of an arena filled with a crowd of roman gladiatorial games spectators.

In my half asleep state, I was likening nascar and gladiator fights. Further thoughts brought the following: it’s still better to waste fuel than execute wild animals, slaves or criminals.

At which point, I thought I really needed to sleep.

[All about NASCAR and Gladiators on Wikipedia.]

A pandemonium of parrots!

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

I learnt a couple days ago, after a visit at the New England Aquarium, that a group of jelly fish is called a smack. Amy and I got curious about other funny animal groups names. Since she is too busy at work and I’m actively vacationing, I got tagged to blog about the ones I like.

A congress of baboons
A sleuth/sloth of bears
A flock of cocks
A rainbow of butterflies
A coalition of cheetahs
A peep of chickens
A cartload of chimpanzees
A quiver of cobras
An intrusion of cockroaches
A murder of crows
A gang of (scurvy) dogs (hi gang!)
A duet of doves
A team of ducks
A swarm of eels (eek!)
A parade of elephants
An army of frogs (yay!)
A thunder of hippopotamus (uh-huh)
A tribe of humans
A mob of kangaroos (hop, hop!)
A pride of lions (that’s right!)
A mischief of mice
A buffoonery of orangutans
A pandemonium of parrots (brrrrrrak!)
A huddle of penguins
A plague of rats
A scurry of squirrels
A regatta of swans
An army of wombats