Yeff on Stuff

Five links on the interesting things our animal friends are up to:

- Dog Saves Family From Fire Blamed on Cat. I say the cat was framed!

- Male Orangutan In English Zoo Has A Thing For Tattooed Blonde Human Females. The only solution would seem to be either a blonde wig for the lady orangutans, or a subscription to Suicide Girls for the ape.

- Aussies put moths on menu to solve seasonal invasion (from Inquirer.net). I expect to see this on menus at fancy restaurants within a year or two.

- Pregnant Teens Common Among Dinosaurs (from Discovery News). Apparently, neither "Just Say No" nor dinosaur prophylactics existed in the Cretaceous.

- Mighty Mice Now With PEPCK-Cmus! (from technovelgy). Mice running 5K in 6 hours, with gratuitous picture of Khan (from ST:TWOK) to represent eugenics.

On the way to Peets today, I saw a car with a license plate frame that read "Will and Rigel's Grandma Loves Them" and I thought "Rigel?". That's a name I have never heard for a kid (beyond sci-fi tv shows).

I felt bad for Will, who got a fairly plain and common name while his brother got a wild, different name that probably has lots of meaning for the parents. I then wondered if Rigel was even a boy. Perhaps Rigel is a girl and this is another instance of a name that was once considered a very "boy" name crossing over to become a "girl" name. (Of course, names never go the other way. I don't see a lot of boys being named "Judy" or "Linda" or "Edith" or "Hope" or "Grace").

Back in college my friends and I founded a group called MRMAN (Men Reclaiming Male Archetypical Names), to express our mock outrage at how many names that were historically for boys were now for both boys and girls or even had become for girls only. This would cover names such as Ashley (#12 for girls in 2006 according to the SSA), Taylor (#22), Sydney (#34), and Morgan (#35). We each vowed to take a archetypical male name in order to continue to imbue it with some form of masculinity.

As one of the founders I was given the honor of taking the name "Bambi". Yes, Bambi. Remember, he was prince of the Forest (and later Great Prince). Bambi, the most archetypical male name of them all.

It didn't stick.

Instead of typing up what I think isn't working on HEROES, I will instead point to the Salon AV Club review of this latest episode. What they said.

The interview with Sendhil Ramamurthy was interesting. Random Brush with Fame note: Sendhil and I both went to Keystone School in San Antonio, Texas (I was there way before him). My mom taught him in grade school.

Things I actually liked in this episode:
- The dystopian disease-ravaged state-controlled future. Those are always fun to watch.
- Kensei aka Adam Monroe showing up in the present. It was no surprise, but still fun.
- Mama Petrelli finally has a power! Some sort of projecting telepath kind of thing, as evidenced by the "telepath sound effect" heard right before Peter remembered Mama.

Next week, we get a recap of what happened in those four months. Will any of it be an actual surprise? I don't think so.