and it's me who is my enemy "We thought this guy was hot until we found out he works at Safeway."

...that's what a co-worker said to me the other day when she appeared in a Calgary Sun photo with other guests of the Mynt. Classic.

I have tried to keep my mind engaged during the workday by reading good magazines on my lunch breaks. I'll often pick up the Economist, but the New Yorker is also a good read. I just finished reading a really interesting article today about the current application of leeches in modern medicine. Did you know that they are only the second living organism to be approved by the FDA as a medical device? Any guesses what the other might be?

Okay, okay, I'll tell you. Maggots. Which is really quite disgusting until you learn that they are incredibly useful because they only feed on necrotic tissue, not the healthy stuff, so they do an excellent job of getting rid of dead cells in target areas. Anyway...

The leeches used for medicinal purposes are parasites, typically between two and four inches long, with disklike suction cups at either end of their bodies. They subsist on the blood of mammals, and have evolved over millions of years to take their meals with efficiency and stealth. At the center of a leech's head sucker are three jaws, arranged in a Y-shaped pattern and each containing about a hundred teeth, which penetrate the skin in a sawing motion. An anesthetic in the leech's saliva is pumped into the bite from minute ducts between its teeth.

That facet of evolution where an animal has developed the capacity to simultaneously sedate and feed on its prey is an intriguing one to ponder.

Like a man, powerless in the face of a beautiful woman. While he's still blown away by her charm and grace, she's knocking him down a few notches because she learns he works at Safeway.  | ¶ 1:01 a.m.