When I was living in London some 15 years ago, the British Film Institute restored the silent movie, The Thief of Baghdad, and Carl Davis wrote a new score for it based on Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade. I went to see a performance of it at the Dominion Theatre with the London Symphony Orchestra, and it was simply amazing to watch a silent movie with a full orchestra playing the soundtrack live. Just breathtaking.

And now, here's the same thing for the next generation - an orchestra playing in-game soundtracks live while the games themselves appear on huge video screens. I'm not sure that Mario will have the same artistic range as Douglas Fairbanks Sr., but I'm sure it'll still be must-see event. (via DoubleViking)

The almiqui, or "Atopogale cubana" is as it's scientific name implies, native to Cuba. These insectivores were thought extinct until one individual was recognized and captured by a Cuban farmer in 2003. (it was nicknamed "Alejandrito" and released two days later, presumably with a vicious hangover, spotty memory, and a sore rump)

Two interesting features of the almiqui:
-They secrete venemous saliva from grooves on the lower incisors (primarily to subdue their prey of worms and insects)
-The mammary glands of the females are located on the buttocks.

And if you're in the market for merchandise commemorating this snouty Solenodon, there's still time to bid on this

Streaking - a curiously British phenomenon (that guy who streaked behind David Niven at the Oscars notwithstanding). While I was growing up, it seemed that almost every national sporting event in England was interrupted by a naked runner - usually a short ugly hairy man who proved to the crowd just how cold the weather actually was (see Seinfeld, shrinkage).

But while no-one - male or female - probably gives a damn about seeing male dangly bits jogging across a tennis court, I thought there might be a little more interest in a Hall of Fame for the great female streakers to grace our sporting arenas.

And so, YBNBY provides a pictorial guide to the Ten best female streakers of all time. (NSFW)

Two photo odyssey's that fortuitously turned up in my newsreader about the same time. Each is fascinating, but viewing one after the other adds a strange hallucinatory feel to the experience.

Images of the deserted Maze Prison in Northern Ireland and Images of the deserted Heritage USA religious theme park in SC

And when you've finished those, here's a whole site dedicated to derelict theme parks.

20 years from now, when our children are being born in captivity and we are being forced to learn tricks to entertain our dolphin masters, we'll look back on 2005 as the year it all went to hell. The year hurricane Katrina set loose intelligent weaponized dolphins on the world. Damn, dirty dolphins!