Every once in a while an email makes it through my spam filter and to award the ingenuity I take a look. OK that's a lie; really I just saw the subject line "horse riding" and thought, hmmm, is this what I think it is? I clicked through, and the text said: "Horses, snakes, cows, monkeys, sheep, goats, donkeys, dogs come see it all," along with an innocuous-looking URL. So of course, you know, purely for research purposes, I clicked through again, and it was exactly what I suspected. I assume my sophisticated readers don't need it spelled out for them, but here's a hint. The reason I was moved to post about this was the excellent warning prominently featured on the site:

Banned in 51 States!

In other news, we had our first 'Nam guy of the summer yesterday at the reference desk. The patron came to the desk not exactly speaking in an indoor voice. We soon asked him if he could lower his voice, and he obliged--but not before telling us that he spoke loudly because he was hard of hearing, and that it's amazing what a howitzer going off right next to your ear over and over again could do. As it did to him in 'Nam.

You know, OK, fair enough, I'll give him that one. I'll even sympathize with his complaint that he's tired of being treated like a third-class citizen. But we didn't find out whether it was before, during, or after 'Nam that he decided that the massive, complex tattoo in the middle of his forehead was a really good idea. Here's the thing: it isn't. I hate to over-generalize, but I'm willing to say that getting a tattoo anywhere on the face has never worked out well for anyone in the long-term. I'm also pretty skeptical about the medium-term and the short-term.