Friday List!

Sarah's List:

Simplified Public Figures. No faces necessary.

Image by Ali Alsumayin

A few days ago, this started circulating, and it's been called one of the best restaurant reviews in modern times. Or the "review heard round the world." You have to feel a little bad for the guy. Or not. He is a little ridiculous.

Photograph: Food Network

This just goes to show that you can't send me an interesting article without it showing up on Mama Congo. (Thanks Josh.) So is it possible to learn Lingala in 22 hours? Possibly. Especially if you mix in a bunch of French words to compensate. Or vice versa. Which is how most people speak in Kin.

Photograph: Christopher Lane for the Guardian

Did you see this? Venice under water?

Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images

Yep, here's what happens when you try to be too cool. A man follows all the New York Times trend stories and just ends up kind of weird.  Man buns? Really, is this what's happening these days?

Mark Veltman for The New York Times

Woke up to this crawling out of our drain yesterday morning. These are by far my least favorite Congo creatures. I have no idea what it is. Mamicho says they're poisonous, but she also thinks birds are poisonous. Adam says he would rather have one of these in the bathtub any day over a snake. I say no way. These things are like snakes and spiders combined into one awful creature. While we were busy debating snakes vs. spider-snakes, it almost escaped. Last time I found one, our gardener chopped it in half and then we just had two spider-snakes crawling around. Can anyone identify it?

This one was nearly twice the length of my hand. But I was unwilling to put my hand any where near it for perspective.

Jill's List:

$2 Million = cost to raise 1 child?  So says Nadia Taha from the New York Times.  She's considering no children as a way to preserve her bottom line.  Okay - I get her point, but she also adds this assumption into the equation, making me think she's a little crazy:

And since we would probably not cut off our child financially once he or she reached the age of majority, I added the cost of the basics (housing, clothing, food, transportation and health care) between age 18 and 25. 

Also - this is quite different than the $300,000 the Wall Street Journal estimates - but they don't include college and assume that after 18, most kids won't be total freeloaders.

Thinking about Thanksgiving recipes.  (Yes, we do it up right here in Kinshasa.) These crazy hipsters make me want to blast the A.C., put on holiday music, and mull some wine.  Despite the fact that I just got home from a pool party...

From kinfolkmag.com

Really want to shop here.

From stephmodo.com

Just war?  Our familes are full of pacifist-leaning theologians and philosophers, so this is a particularly interesting mainstream read...especially this week as we watch the escalating events in the Middle East.  Is there such a thing as moral violence?  

Image from here.

Thinking about a friend of Mama Congo who had her stomach removed this week.  Say what?!  Really.  And her mother, brother, and sister are all stomach-less now as well.  They say that stomachs are overrated anyway.  Read more about the hereditary cancer that has impacted this amazing family here.

My beloved Canon 50mm 1:8 lens BROKE.  I am quite disturbed.  Now, the debate: to replace it with the same or upgrade to the 1:4...

Sweet soap.

Thanks to bleubirdvintage for the beautiful photo.

And.  I'll share another Kinshasa bug photo.  One of my favorites.  At night, the sky sometimes is full of these...until the chauve-souris come out and eat them all up.

While my Canon is out of commission, the iPhone is not to shabby a fill-in..