According to the New York Times, a young whale somehow wandered into the Gowanus Canal here in Brooklyn:

The animal, described as a juvenile minke whale about 15 feet long, was
cruising around Gowanus Bay, the outlet from the mile-long Gowanus
Canal in Brooklyn. It appeared to be in good health and not distressed,
said Kim Durham, rescue program director for the Riverhead Foundation
for Marine Research and Preservation.

 Apparently the whale is OK, despite all of the pollution in the canal. And it’s really, really polluted, so polluted that the Whole Foods supermarket planned for the area (still!) can’t be built until an extensive cleanup occurs. Gowanus Lounge has more on the whale, as well as links to some video footage.

 Aah, beautiful Gowanus.

Via NYT & Gowanus Lounge
 

This here Brooklyn pup, Tillamook Cheddar, is an accomplished painter, as ridiculous as that may sound. According to reliable sources,

Tillamook Cheddar executes abstract expressionist paintings, drawings, etchings, and sculpture using her claws and teeth to scratch and sometimes even tear her materials […] Tillamook Cheddar’s paintings have been compared to those of Cy Twombly, Jackson Pollock, and William Anastasi.

In addition to her artwork, Tillamook Cheddar also enjoys chasing squirrels and playing catch with balls.

It’s funny when press releases refer to her as a "bitch."

Here are some of her paintings:

Tillamook Cheddar homepage 

Here.

This is not me.

I never understood why is it that people hate mice. I always liked mice, even if they were biting through the bottom of my box of Honey Smacks. The whole standing-on-a-chair-screaming thing is odd to me; why not for a roach, who’s so much more inhuman and alien, and disgusting? Comparing a mouse running across the floor with the slow crawly throb of a millipede on a white wall there’s no contest. And mice can’t help squirming around all the time. Bugs stand way too still. When I turn on the lights and what I think is a smear of old tomato sauce on the wall right above the lip of the stove, a second later, starts moving, that’s unnerving. At first the roach thinks it can just wait me out, that I’m not going to notice him hanging out there, and then it’s like Fuck it, and makes a break for it, and I’m like Yow. Mice don’t do that. Being warm blooded prevents the creepy stasis that afflicts lizards and bugs. Also mice have fur, and fur isn’t scary.

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Times Square presents a steep challenge to even the seasoned New Yorker. Confusing traffic patterns, bright, flashing lights, gaudily-dressed out-of-towners: they all add up to one of the most ridiculous and inconvenient areas to traverse in our ridiculous, inconvenient city. And at rush hour? Fucking forget it. Take every working stiff just unchained from a dusty cubicle in some windowless law firm, add like four million schmucks from God knows where, stumbling out of Modell’s or Bubba Gump Whatever, and stir in a goulash of the usual screaming lunatics, teenagers groping around for MTV headquarters, and a bunch of cops on horses, and you have one really unpleasant stretch of pavement.

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This one’s for you, Chris.