Brain Drain

NPR told me today that an electric eel is not an eel, it's a fish. A horned toad is not a toad, it's a lizard. A mountain goat isn't a goat but a sheep. Additional research tells me that the King Cobra isn't a cobra belongs to a genus of its own. Sperm whales are also not giant sperms. More appropriately, their heads aren't full of sperm; however sailors thought the substance inside their heads was sperm, hence the name.

This close-up of a glass sculpture at the Columbus Art Mueseum
has nothing to do with anything.

Also, I have met quite a few ladybugs and let me tell you, they're no ladies.


On a completely unrelated note, one of my coworkers has embarked on a truly brave endeavor - she's reading all the Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century. Seeing as I'm such a follower, I'm now doing the same. She's far braver than I though, as she started at the beginning with Ulysses. I decided to start at the end with The Magnificent Ambersons. I'd never heard of it before, but it's quite good, and has the added benefit of not sailing over my head as James Joyce tends to do.
What am I missing, by the way? I've tried reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and to the best of my understanding, it's a collection of words that occasionally pertain to a boy at a boarding school. Can anybody tell me what I'm missing?