One more for the "story bag..."

I've recently revived my old practice of plumbing newspapers and magazines for story ideas. I often have an eye out for interesting items: odd events, fascinating names and the like. But lately I feel as though story ideas are jumping out all over the place. From time to time, I think I will drop them here into a virtual "story bag" (a kind of grab-bag of creative goodies).

Here's a fun one: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032400365.html

It's a recent Washington Post article on the death of a tortoise in an Indian zoo. He was, believe it or not, around 250 years old. A tortoise who was alive before the American Revolution! Now that's a character worth writing about.