Dammit! If I'd only had another month...

How cute is this?

A Tortoise's Great Escape

Morning Edition, August 9, 2007 · A rare tortoise disappeared from a Virginia zoo. It's not clear whether a visitor freed it or it slipped out on its own, but it was gone. The Burmese Mountain Tortoise raced away with the speed a tortoise is famous for. Zoo staff found it seven hours later in a patch of bamboo just 20 yards from its pen.

You can hear all about it here.

Shiny boots and no good reason to feel cocky

Little bit of excitement on the train this morning. I stepped into the car to find not one but three BART police standing in the doorway with their big black boots and official somethingerothers strapped round their waists. I don't know if they pack heat, but they're got suspicious bulges on those belts. Little cans of mace, perhaps? They might have simply been commuting to work--surely one of the (only) perks of being in the BART police force would be free travel--or they might have been on their way to kick some sad homeless loiterer's butt. In either case, their presence made me feel decidedly less safe.