Today is POLAR BEAR DAY, which is fitting, since Dean just read me this interesting news piece about a couple of zoo polar bears who turned green due to algae. Believe it... (indrawn breath) or not.

o bras, where art thou?
One of the little, unregarded phenomena of everyday life is how underwear drawers everywhere eventually transform into extradimensional portals, thereby whisking all your wispy unmentionables off to a galaxy far, far away... This has obviously happened to mine, since every one of my bras-- except for the scary leopard-print ones given by my mother-in-law-- has mysteriously disappeared. Either my portal theory is true, or the leopard bras have gone feral, and attacked and devoured all the other bras in a fit of predatory territorialism. Hey, stranger things happen.


in the news today
Former British Cabinet minister Clare Short claims that British intelligence has been actively spying on the United Nations since the run-up to the Iraq war. The espionage, Short says, includes electronic bugging of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office at the U.N. Headquarters in New York. British big kahuna Tony Blair would not confirm whether or not the allegation was true; while U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard labeled the practice as illegal and said, "We would be disappointed if this were true." Gee, really?

TRIVIA QUIZ
What color are polar bears?


answer to yesterday's question
The wild mushroom classified as Amanita Bisporigera is also called 'the destroying angel', due to the supposed contradiction of its innocent appearance and lethal toxicity. In a matter of hours, even a tiny bite of this gorgeous white mushroom can result in crippling stomach cramps, blood cell breakdown, and eventually death. But really, as any comic book fan can tell you, beautiful things are so often deadly...


Kudos to Marc and Alex for knowing the fun fungoid facts!


Starting March...
I'm going to be keeping a running total of how many correct answers people have figured out, how many Smartypants awards they've won, and-- okay, fine-- how long that 'shame, shame' running joke is going to last. Monthly winners of the Trivia and Smartypants awards may report to Comic Quest at the start of the next month for their prize candy bars or whatever. Whoever does the 'shame, shame' thing the most times in the entire month gets... a poke in the nose!