So today I happened to read that the Chinese River Dolphin (aka the "Baiji") went extinct in 2006.
The last thing E2 knew about this amazing creature was user Johnny's excellent writeup from back in 2004, wherein he cited estimates that the Baiji might go extinct within "possibly the next 25 years." But in the actual event, it was all gone just two years later.
I guess we all missed this important development while we were busy studying for our master's degrees, jacking off in our bedrooms, working 9 to 5, and then losing our jobs in 2008. So it goes.
I guess I'll have to go update my least favorite node, the Dictionary of Recently Extinct Animals.
As I sat here at my kitchen table, thinking about all the crazy animals that have walked, swam, or flown this Earth - your giant sloths, marsupial lions, pterodactyls, steller's sea cows, freakin' elephants for chrissakes - I couldn't help but say, "Wow, it's a cool, cool world."
And my wife said, "What? Oh, for a second I thought you said, 'It's a cruel, cruel world.'"
That too.