bet you didn't know this

I just read this in the Economist:

"The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is not quite what it is often made out to be. It is often called the world's biggest hydroelectric dam. But several others are taller or longer. The Itaipu dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border produces more electricy...."

So much for the Three Gorges huh?

Turtles

YW's going away again. So what's new huh? Well this time he left his little turtle with me, since it's gonna be a really long time. I have turtles at home, 3 huge ones actually, but this tiny little one needs more attention I guess, so I can't just leave it lying around with the bigger ones.

I got my first turtles many years ago. There were 2 of them, but for some reason they died. Mum says my brother ill treated them or something. Whatever the reason, the hype over the turtle purchase never lasted more than a few months, and after that they became more of a liability. I think we kept them in a little fish tank in those days, so they must have felt pretty trapped.....

After that, no more turtles for me. At least no more until grandma got some turtles and decided that she had difficulty looking after them and gave them to us. I didn't think they were gonna last very long. I mean turtles are supposed to last a hundred years, but the first bunch that came into my house didn't last very long. There were 3 of them. At first they just occupied a small basin in the bathroom. Then they grew, and grew and grew, and now they each occupy a basin and that fills up the whole bathtub! I never really cared much bout them, since they weren't really mine anyway, but mum gives them lots of attention.

So now we have a new addition to the turtle family, and I think it's probably gonna be here for a long time, maybe forever, since I don't think YW's gonna be in town very much and he'll be leaving for good eventually. I'd have just gave it to my mum to look after with the rest of 'em, except she's not around now. My brother's supposed to do the job in the meantime, but he's been out late a lot, so I've actually been the one making sure these turtles are happily fed and all that. The little one's been very restless, I don't think he likes being in a bathtub. That's just too bad since I ain't gonna build a nice rock garden for the turtle. I think people living in apartments just shouldn't keep turtles. They need a proper natural rockscape environment or something....