I thought the vanilla bean, coffee, and lemon ice cream was one new flavor and I was confused but intrigued. Also, as I somewhat wrongly posted in Bitches, if you're worried about the election, consider being part of GOTV efforts.

Oh, I heard from a DC friend that there was a fire on the Red Line, but the closure of two stations necessitated the closure of a bunch of other lines because of the cross-connections.

I'm currently waiting on an Employer Forum for another customer service rep job. Considering that I'm waiting to hear back from two other interviews, which I think I do have a realistic shot at getting, I'm sort of hedging my bets, but at least I'm Doing Something, right?

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered.

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Cascade strategy seems like the way to go with a job hunt, Theo.

In Ontario last week, I was thrilled to discover dandelion ice cream, which tastes just like coffee ice cream. Where I'll find dandelion ice cream here, I don't know.

Lego loses trademark battle

The Lego brick, one of the most instantly recognised toys in the world, cannot be trademarked, European judges have ruled.

The Danish toymaker's basic red plastic brick was the building block for a global toy-industry success. The brick's shape was registered as an EU trademark in 1999.

But the rival Canadian maker Mega Brands successfully appealed to the EU's trademark office to cancel Lego's trademark. The experts decreed that a brick was a technical shape which could not be trademarked.

Lego, claimed the company's lawyers, contains characteristics that set it apart. But the judges ruled that keeping the Lego trademark on the brick design created a monopoly on what amounted to a functional shape.

So I guess this means any company can make little plastic bricks that work with Lego bricks... in Europe, at least.

Ah, no jeans this Friday. Sad now.

Mystifying studio portrait photos.

So, my kitty survived the second attempt to remove her broken canine tooth, which was successful. (The previous attempt (eta: about a month ago) resulted in respiratory arrest from the anesthesia.)

She'll need pain meds for several days, but she's doing fine.

Speaking of dental surgery (but for humans), this Hyperbole and a Half had me LOLing:

The Party

Neatorama sez:

You know this is going to be funny. Allie Brosch tells about the time she had oral surgery the same day as a friend’s birthday party. Part of the account reminds me of the viral video David After Dentist, except of course things get much worse.

I'm sorry, but is it really called a canine tooth on a cat???