Pine Eyes

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Another fact from Servite Housing's inspirational weekly newsletter - I don't know where they get these facts from, but it's the second gem they've delivered in three weeks. Those beautiful bastards are putting Metro, the BBC website and conversations with actual people to shame. Here's what they got:

Pinocchio means 'pine eyes' in Italian.

Pino is a pine tree, and occhio means eyes, so I guess it could be eyes of the pine tree, or eyes of pine, but pine eyes has that ring of barely contained disdain that I'm looking for. It also means 'pine nut' in the Tuscan dialect, and I guess if his eyes are made from pine, we can assume that this also rings true. According to the stoic Wikipedia contributor who made the article, Pinocchio was created by Carlo Collodi in 1883. It's a pretty extensive, well-organised summary of Pinocchio in popular culture, from the sickly yet loveable Disney film to the soul-sapping tedium of Spielberg's A.I.

And what does the intrepid typist get for his/her trouble? An apologetic note from the head honchos slapped on the top, claiming that 'this article may contain an excessive amount of information with limited interest'. That's got to grind his/her gears pretty bad, but I've got to admit they've got a point. I couldn't finish it, but here's an excerpt, so that you can make up your own minds:

"In Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive, the Red Ranger, Mack Hartford, was eventually revealed to be an android created by his father, Andrew, to be a son since he (Andrew) was unable to find the right woman due to his line of work (archeology). In the final episode, Mack managed to defeat the last of the series' villains so as to protect the Corona Aurora and to protect his father and friends, but he did so at the cost of depleting his energy and sustain irreparable internal damage. For this noble act, the Sentinel Knight, the Corona Aurora's guardian, used the treasure to not only revive Mack, but make him a full human. It is unknown though if the allusion to Pinocchio was intentional."

More excessive information of limited interest, same time tomorrow...