Amazing videos of a dog performing on Britain's Got Talent.   Never seen anything like it.

Apparantly these are all 100% genuine.

Lots of news recently about people mistreating our canine friends.  Plus there was Laurie's blog about vet bills.

So how about this story of of a dog so stupid it inflicted self abuse via a two foot long stick and cost its owners a 2000 pounds ($4,000) vet bill in the process.

Check out the link below for the story on the BBC News website, along with a video interview with the dog's owners.

After nine years of living in the States, I just today discovered there is actually such a thing as an "Official State Beverage".

For some reason I just find that particularly fascinating, or maybe weird, I'm not quite sure.  Who decides on what the "official" beverage is?  What special drinking privileges come with that designation? 

According to the list I'm looking at, neither Kansas or Missouri have an "official" beverage.  Plenty of other States do.  I wonder what assumptions one should draw from their drinks of choice?

I’m going to take a risk here writing a blog that could be construed as political, but really isn’t meant to be.  It just happens to involve someone in the political limelight right now, namely Cindy McCain.   Rather, the question I’m asking in this blog is how the media influences our perceptions of people we don’t personally know, and whether our perceptions are affected more by the publicity created by an individual or by the lack of publicity if that individual happens to be a relatively private person.  Are we so used to knowing every last detail about anyone in the public eye that if we don’t have that same open access we just make negative assumptions?

It's never nice to suffer from gas problems.  Even more unpleasant when the type of gas problems you're suffering from are the kind that cost you more than $4.00 per gallon.

I suffered a severe case of gas shock today.  I drive a lot and typically fill-up my car at least twice a week. Today I was about to hit empty so stopped for a fill-up.  For the first time that fill-up hit the $60 mark.  $62.30 to be precise.  I've never really been too bothered about gas prices before - I moved here from England and gas is a lot more expensive there than here.  But there was something about passing that $60 mark that really hit home.

I dont drive a truck or SUV, just a regular sized car.  I think my gas tank holds 15 or 16 gallons.  I have to use premium grade though, so I was paying around $4.17 per gallon and was filling up from pretty much empty.  I typically get around 17 miles per gallon, around 260 miles or so out of a full tank if I'm lucky, depending on how fast I drive.  So that $62 tank of gas will only last me for say  three return trips between Lawrence and Kansas City.  Thats really not much.  I'm easily going to be paying $120 per week just for local travel.  Fortunately anything not local tends to be flying somewhere so straight on the company credit card.