Beef is from the French "boeuf" which means cow, and por from the French "porc", pig. Likewise mutton is from the French "mouton" sheep. Back in Norman times, these were the main farm animals - turkey, chicken, etc. cam later. The poor farmhands who tended the live animals called them by their Anglos-Saxon names of cow, pig, sheep. The rich Norman lords called the meat they ate by their French names boeuf, porc and mouton. As the two languages merged to form the English we now speak, the meats kept different names from the animals. Later arrivals did not have this split.

Now you know. More at Ask MetaFilter.

We took the ATVs out for the day again on Thursday - myself (aka. Nelson), Divven (aka. Bill), Kirsten (aka. Wayne [Gretzky]) and "the two Aussies" (aka. Heath & Ledger) - with no restrictions and armed with a vague map of the island. Quadbikes aren't known as all-terrain vehicles for no reason: we carelessly pushed them beyond their limit to wherever it looked good - up and down steep hills, along beaches and over dunes, through the winding streets of small towns, along highways, through and (when necessary) over olive farms - and it was awesome!! Especially when it started to rain buckets. Spinning unintentional donuts on downhill cliff corners, drenched from the rain, is more fun than is sounds dangerous. I'll definately do that again someday.

The wind and rain picked up on Friday so plans to take kayaks out were replaced with DVDs and a brief midnight stroll to the pool area on the beach to watch the distant thunderstorm. For the same reason, I've decided to skip the other highly recommended islands (Santorini and Ios) and only spend 4-5 nights in Athens which is where I currently am. I'll try return here next year in-season, to better experience Greece and all it has to offer in terms of natural beauty and outdoor activities.

My night bus/ferry arrived in Athens at 04:30, two hours earlier than I was expecting. A quick call to the hostel ensured I had a general idea of how to find it from the station. A free bus ride (score one for the tourist!), metro ride and two hours of walking the dark streets with a tiny map, and I was in bed to only wake up at 3pm.

There's an interesting story behind the large number of stray yet street-savvy canines in Athens. Quoting my Let's Go:

In the 1990s, an influx of refugees from unstable Balkan states prompted many Greeks to buy guard dogs. When local anxieties receded, unwanted pets were released into the streets. By 2001, Athen's stray canine population was estimated to be over 3000, and increasing all the time. [Ed: 'Greeks to poison up to 15,000 stray dogs before the Olympics' - Telegraph News]. The animals have become so accustomed to city life that the furry quadruplets can be seen standing patiently at crosswalks, waiting for the lights to turn green.

We affectionately named one of them "Made in China" last night, but then I scared him away with my Casio flash. There are just as many cats too, it's quite mad. But I do like the city very much. If I get a chance tomorrow I'll pay a visit to the Olympic Velodrome Stadium and surrounds, but I doubt it. Since I've decided to return here, I'm not that motivated to see all too much and am just chilling. I did a walking tour yesterday organized by the hostel, which was ok considering the guide was Brazilian and it was only his second tour. We visited the Temple of Olumpius Zeus, the Acropolis (one big restoration project, sadly - but mighty impressive views of the surrounding city), the Roman Agora and the Ancient Agora. As well as the extended (Sunday's only) changing of the guards in front of the Parliament building.

I uploaded over 100 new photos this morning in a 24hr i-cafe, complete with ACDSee 3.0 (woooo...a piece of 1999 software history) and a dodgy installation of WinXP that froze every half hour. Bonus. Captions and descriptions will be added in time, as usual.

I'm booking a flight to Berlin for tomorrow or Wednesday, and my itinerary for a week and a bit in Germany is as follows: Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Bonn and possibly Cologne. Then into the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Belgium (Brussels & Bruge), back into France (Paris, Lyon & Chamonix, which I skipped earlier) and finally ending in Switzerland for which I don't require a visa.

Lastly, if you stumble onto this entry through me having given you my e-mail address or whatever, please let me know. I've been slacking lately with the "address exchange" thing, sadly, and have lots of photos and memories that are worth sharing.

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Switchfoot rock!

There's only one way I can start this entry: oh man! What a crazy past few days. So much so that I've decided to post more frequently for my own sake, before I start forgetting the things I experience and the people I share them with.

Monaco was good to see - I visited with Brazilian, Roberto, and we spent the late afternoon there. It was a pretty quiet Sunday, with the exception of the Marina which was a buzz with a large carnival setup in whatever free space there is, which in Monaco there's little of. The wealth was understated in places, but you definately do get a unique feeling being there. The casino had a construction crane hanging over it and was half covered in scaffolding, but I'm almost expecting that now. I bet if I arrived in China tomorrow, the Great Wall would be closed for renovations. The year of the green wooden monkey construction worker?

I've travelled through four countries in the past two days, and it hit me the most on Monday afternoon after arriving in Italy, from Nice, via Monaco. I changed trains at Ventimiglia station where I ordered a brief lunch. I was greeted in French, tried speaking Italian, probably said something in Spanish, and God knows what the response was. At this stage I've decided to be a lazy ass and just use English wherever possible and ditch my single-phrase attempts. A friendly smile and a nod sometimes say just as much, anyway.

I spent Monday night and yesterday in Milan, the fashion capital of Europe. What an insane place. I first met an Asian guy in his mid-40s studying CS, who said he was from Cambodia. I thought that was cool, I'd never met a Cambodian before. But from then on, whenever someone new entered the room, he was from somewhere else: Japan, South Korea, Tibet... and man could he snore! He also took the liberty of waking up the entire room at 8am with "life is too short for sleeping" as his motivation, after keeping everyone awake the entire night. The irony, gah! I spent the day just taking in some sights. I'd quote my 'Let's Go' guide by saying that I saw the third-largest cathedral in the world, but it says the exact same thing about the one in Sevilla, so I'll just add that it was pretty darn gigantic. And I shared my first Italian lunch with Marko from Germany, which was the best meal in ages - perfecto...

il dolce di far niente
(the sweetness of doing nothing)

I'm spending two nights in Lugano, a small town in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino in Switzerland, where I'm chilling out from the city-vibe and "renewing" my schengen visa 45-day thing. Although they didn't stamp my passport upon entering Switzerland so I don't know how this whole thing is supposed to be controlled, actually it's confusing the hell outta me but whatever. I'm on track so it's their problem if there are any issues.

It's been overcast since I arrived and rained constantly today, so I'm glad to be heading out back into Italy (Venice) tomorrow.

Lastly, what do you do when you arrive in a new country at night, forget about exchanging currency and try buy SFr6 worth of food with a debit card that's only usable with a Sfr10 min. limit? Buy some Amstels of course! ;) Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir!

Here's a cool widget, simply click and drag the following link to your Bookmarks or Bookmarks Toolbar: UrbanDictionary.com

Oh and download Drempels:

Drempels makes colorful, swirling, hallucinogenic patterns that resemble a hurricane or tornado. It normally runs in your Windows background or "desktop", replacing your old still-image wallpaper with gently-animating visuals

Like, trippy man...

• Crime - Assaults (per capita)
• Crime - Death penalty - abolition for ordinary crimes
• Crime - Manslaughters (per capita)
• Crime - Murders with firearms
• Crime - Murders with firearms (per capita)
• Crime - Rapes (per capita)
• Health - HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS
• .... etc ...

And who would have guessed that we're in the Top 4 for Education Spending (could just mean we're stupid), or in the Top 5 for English speakers (could just mean we're English).

Nice site.

I've just had a thought - I'm going to design my own Mr. (sic) Men character - Mr. Babalas. And at the same time I'll rename my Evangelism page to Projects, update and complete my portfolio, add a contact form, redesign my sites, launch something meaningful at poo.coza, upload some more digicam albums and finish a Mozilla/Firebird theme. Not forgetting about all the freelance work keeping me occupied. Resolution or not, these things will all happen. Eventually.

Hello, 2004 - the year of the green wooden monkey! I'm feeling very confident about the year ahead right now, and hope you do too. And also that you celebrated in style; from what I remember I had a good time - all the photos are up in a brand new sparkling 2004 album, and also feature in my new header as a montage. If you look closely... just kidding, you won't see anything. Click on the digicam icon for the high-res version instead.

I left our flat around 6pm and met up with matt in Piccadilly Circus, from where we met up with some of his mates at The Intrepid Fox in Soho - folks, this place is worse than Corner House! But we had a good time anyway, and a few pints, sms's and a phone call home later, wandered off into the closed-off streets to brave the crowds. It's now that I should mention that I have no recollection of anything that happened from this point onwards until I woke up this morning to our neighbour blasting his music, thanks Ian. Except for a few key events....

Two Swede girls. I kept thinking they were Danish. Don't remember our conversation at all, we spoke for ages it seemed.
Jumping through other people's group photographs. I really should stop doing that.
I stole a bar of chewing gum from a cafe, which was overcrowded with drunk revellers buying more beer. I have no idea why, I don't even like the flavour. I should stop doing that too.
Lots of people. Thousands. All standing around, expecting something to happen other than a countdown. Maybe it did and I missed it? From my photos you can make out they're all concentrating on something. We were in the Trafalgar Square area, if you were there please let me know.
Falling on my arse going down stairs at some station. I banged my camera on the steps as well, but it survived without a scratch - unlike my left thigh which is bruised from here to Timbuktu. M@ fell too, so I don't feel alone.
And lastly, walking home (most likely) in the rain. I had my umbrella, even though there wasn't any indication of rain when I left the flat. I guess I'm learning, then.

No Plett beach party, but fun nonetheless. Hopefully next year, the meskanky crew will be out in full force instead of working - Ian, I feel for you man. 28 hours later and you're still at work! Or for your sake, I hope not.

A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, "Could you please tell me where the library is at?" The stranger responded, "Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition." The overly polite Southerner then apologetically repeated himself: "Could you please tell me where the library is at, you jerk?"

And that is that.

"Ooo wee ooo, I look just like Buddy Holly,
Oh oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore"

"Ooo wee ooo, I look just like Buddy Holly,
Oh oh, and your mari tidal boy."

I'm notoriously bad when it comes to song lyrics. Because I prefer to focus on the melody rather than the words or their intended meaning, I tend to make them up if I don't hear them properly the first time. In fact, I've got to admit that most of the time I don't even know what the song is about.. which is probably why I've never really minded the triviality of Des'ree's 'Life'. You'd be mistaken for thinking the lyrics were written by a three-year old illiterate retard:

I'm afraid of the dark
Especially when I'm in a park
When there's no one else around
Oh I get the shivers

The tune itself I find very appealing, if the lyrics weren't so simple I bet it would've been more popular.

Words are funny things indeed.