*snrrk* You gotta see this.

Why Star Wars beats LOTR, and then why LOTR beats Star Wars.

Go on. They've all got a sense of humor, they're not in hostile flame mode - you'll like 'em.

Had distressing moment when searching eBay last night.

Typed in 'Ainu' to see if there were any books on the subject. As usual, no books, but some postcards and a lot of wooden carvings of bears. They're very nice carvings, and I might get one someday, but for now - no. I did spot one unusual item I could not tell what it was from the listing ("AINU Everything Lic Plt Frame"). I clicked on it and found that it was a license plate for owners of the Ainu breed of dog. http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/ainudog.htm for pictures - anyway, what made me choke a little was the saying memorialized on the frame.

"AINU: Everything else is just a dog"

Perfectly harmless and entirely reasonable to owners of the breed, right? Right. But to someone who's been working with a rather nasty version of the Ainu people in an RPG setting development endeavor, it has some interesting overtones. And to someone whose main NPC - and main character in the gamefic she's writing - bears the Japanese name of Inu? Honestly, it's like it was made to hang on the rear of a boat in some kind of VicMage.Asia Far Side cartoon.

(The item is at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3212684597&category=14280 and the auction ends in a few hours.)