1) The sports world is filled with fierce competition between finely tuned athletes.  Now I bring you the Bunny, excuse me, Rabbit Hopping Championship from Denmark, and for you pervs out there I don’t mean the kind you find in Playboy. :)

 

I don’t see a carrot in sight so I maybe these furry competitors are just trying not to be in the dinner stew.  :)

Have you ever entered an animal you raised,or took care of, in a competition?  Has anyone in your family done so?

2) I know this is of no consolation to anyone who has to fight the traffic everyday, but the Chinese have over taken the US in traffic gridlock, an honor they are welcome to.

What is the worse traffic jam you have been in?

I have had 6 hour commutes from New Jersey to Connecticut, but there were multiple traffic jams.  I have also been stuck on the highway for as much as 6 hours in a snow storm.   The longest non-weather related gridlock I have experienced was driving, or trying to drive, to a conference in Ventura, California, from the Los Angeles airport, I got stuck for about 3 hours on the 405 Freeway and moved about one mile an hour.  Just exactly why are they called “Freeways” when the never are?

From Tuesday’s Guardian – “Gridlock is a way of life for the Chinese”.  For 10 days, drivers on the Beijing to Mongolia expressway have been stuck in a 60-mile tailback.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/24/china-60-mile-motorway-tailback

“The trucks were parked up, bumper-to-bumper and mile upon mile of them. No one is going anywhere fast in what has been dubbed the world longest-lasting traffic jam, in China’s Hebei province.

The motorway, part of the Beijing to Tibet expressway, resembles a giant car park – and has done so for the past 10 days. Normally one of the busiest – and noisiest – trunk roads in China, now the only sound that can be heard is the chirrup of the crickets in the nearby wheatfields.

The Chinese authorities are struggling to clear the congestion, now entering its eleventh day and which, at its peak, stretched for more than 60 miles (100km). But the drivers still joining it are not optimistic about reaching their destinations swiftly.

“I have not moved for five hours,” said Zhang Xingping, 27, standing outside his cab near a road traffic sign mockingly warning him to obey the 100km per hour speed limit.”

“Local villagers come on motorbikes to take advantage. They are selling simple boxed meals of rice, vegetables and pork for 10 yuan (£1) each. “It’s not cheap. It’s not filling. But we have no choice,” said Zhang, of the food on offer.

The stranded drivers, who spend their time sleeping, walking around, or playing cards and chess, are a captive market, and the local entrepreneurs are keen to take advantage. A bottle of water, normally 1 yuan, sells for 10 yuan, while the price of a 3 yuan cup of instant noodles had tripled. “It’s more expensive than eating in a restaurant,” complained one driver who gave his surname as Lu.”

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