“Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year’s Eve.

“The birds — most of which were dead — were red-winged blackbirds and starlings, and they were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. Birds fell over about a one-mile area, the commission said in a statement.”

Whoa.

Just under 80% of antibiotics go to food and animal use.  CRAZY.

“If the cancellation order had come down a week sooner, a gang of frenzied sharks circling Annie’s waterlogged remains would’ve been the very last image of her, but instead, the story does go on for another week, where we learn that Annie wasn’t killed, she was rescued from the gangsters by a renegade war criminal named The Butcher of the Balkans.

“Thus, in the final strip, Annie has been kidnapped by a literal genocidal maniac, while Daddy Warbucks zones out, convinced that she has been murdered but unaware that she is still alive and in need of rescue.”

Who knew?  Cuckoo bananas.

“I have this fantasy of an 8-year-old getting a set” of the dolls, [Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University] added, “and saying: ‘Mom, can Chelsea come over? We want to play “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.” I’m going to be the organization man, and she’s going to be the soulless drone.’

This hurts my brain.

I’m glad Matt Weiner is excited, but what a strange combination.  I might have to get a Roger Sterling doll, though — love that silver fox.

I got a haircut over the weekend.  I have been growing it out for about eight months, and I finally got fed up and chopped back to my usual cute pixie. Of the students that commented on the change, half said “I like it!” and the other half ran out of the room whooping/screeching in surprise/horror/shock/some other mysterious emotion?  Bizarre.

Totally nuts and horrible.

When I leave College Station, Texas tomorrow, it will be about 60 degrees.  When I touch down in Minneapolis, it is projected to be -20 degrees.  That’s an 80 degrees Fahrenheit difference.  No words, my friends.  No words.