Is this real life?

This morning I heard this story on NPR while I was driving in to work, about Evangelicals in Iowa and how they are divided on which candidate to back. Is it bad that I actually wanted to throw up listening to some of these men on the street?

I just find it very, very hard to imagine people taking any of these republican candidates seriously. I guess, more to the point, I find it hard to believe that infringing on other peoples personal lives (ie: anti-homosexuality and anti-reproductive choice) could be the sole motivator for political involvement, when there is so much more we could be accomplishing. Also that none of them see the irony of beating their bosoms over wanting small govt., while simultaneously picking candidates solely on the basis of "who will boss around people I don't care for the most."It also galls me the exorbitant amount of time and money utilized by churches trying to establish their moral compass as law.

I guess too that the escalating rhetoric leading into this primary season is really starting to get my goat, as a civic minded citizen and an American with no religious affiliation. All this pandering to the evangelical zealots has given candidates ground to demonize every group that doesn't take the bible as law.

“I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

“Many on the left” and “in the scientific community, so to speak” are “afraid of discussion” about "God" "or a creator" in public school science classrooms. Santorum says that "science will only allow things in the classroom that are consistent with a non-creator idea of how we got here, as if somehow or another that's scientific.” 

I'm fed up with the fact that these bigots are being cheered for clearly valuing only the opinions of some- while villianizing (and convoluting *coughnewt*)  others with language clearly designed to divide America on religious and racial principals.  And I guess what really pisses me off is the fact that an entire powerful subset of America is down with that.

Anywho. I'm sick of feeling maligned by politicians because I am an atheist and value secular science. It's got nothing to do with the civic duty of the president, and it's none of their business anyways. Can't wait for this circus of tactless puppets to be done with, and hope to c'thulu that none of them end up in the white house.

Attention Naughty Listees!

Tonight is the spooky celebration of Krampusnacht!

 That is, the night that Santa's evil demon companion terrorizes small children and punishes them for their various misdeeds. It's a tradition grown from alpine folk lore, where the castigation of bad kids takes equal air time with the reward of St. Nick's gift giving during the holidays.

This involves having a creepy cloven hoofed monster loitering nearby as children sit on Santa's knee, waiting to do the dirty work of scooping the naughty ones into his barrel backpack. Then comes the beating with birch swatches and rusty chains, and the dragging you away to hell business. Watch the F out! Krampus doesn't dick around.

More and more, Krampusnacht is also becoming a night for drunken revelry, as adults adopt the guise of the demonic holiday helper and boozily parade through the town at night; no doubt frightening all the children in their wake into good behavior and inspiring hope that Santa's the one coming down your chimney.

 Muahahaha...Enjoy all! I think I'll pick up some beer with a spooky label tonight to celebrate.

Flying into the eye of a hurricane, 1988.

NOAA- part nerdy scientist, all action hero.



The fact that hurricanes have lady names makes this reminiscent of sea captains talking about legendary monsters.

Seriously though, this is pretty neat!

Around - 1971

Grover was always the Muppet on Sesame St. who seemed to take the most abuse. Here's a classic example of him being put through his paces.



Grover is pretty cool, because he can not use contractions!

Also, thanks to this, calling each other Grover and requesting that you count one thing has become a recent commonplace in our household.

Strong is Truth

In my ever expanding catalog of things that I think about getting tattoos of, but probably won't, I've added a new category. Arms from my favorite European Places! The City of Oxford has a pretty cool crest, and a pretty awesome motto.

However, I hesitate to permanently put that scary ass beaver on my skins. I am glad that real life beavers do not resemble body builders so strongly! Yikes.

Apparently that buff rodent represented Henry Norreys of Rycote, who spent a week at Christ Church College in 1566. He was the son of the Henry Norreys who was beheaded for doing Anne Boleyn. Way to rise above that and become a green manifestation of a most industrious beast!

So this happened today...

TORNADO!



This footage was taken about 5 miles away from our house!

Love-Crafts

I made this kinda sorta cute and cuddly stuffed C'thulu for Paul. It was supposed to be a Valentines gift but it took me longer than I thought it would!

As I've mentioned before, there weren't too many good knit C'thulu patterns on the internet. So I decided to sort of make it up as I went, loosely basing parts on bits from other patterns and experimenting. Even though I'm not 100% thrilled with the shape of it, I'm still pleased with it as the first pattern I devised largely by myself.

He's a pocket sized Arkham Horror!

Terror Birds: Aptly Named.

I was thinking earlier about the flightless birds of the world. It seems like they generally fall into two categories. First being "cute, harmless and prone to extinction." See the Kiwi,  Dodo bird (although they're not that cute),and the adorably anthropomorphous Kakapo of New Zealand.

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(image via)

Honestly, these guys are so cute and awesome. I want one of the 120 surviving birds to be my pet.

The second category of flightless birds is "huge, awful and terrifying." See the Ostrich and the Cassowary. They're the kind of birds that can look you in the eye before injuring you in some unspeakable way. As scary as these living monsters are though, their prehistoric ancestors were even worse!

Behold the Phorusrhacidae, giant predator birds from 20 million years in the past, more accurately and colloquially known as "terror birds".

A selection of terror birds, with an outline of a doomed man for scale. A - Brontornis burmeisteri; B - Paraphysornis brasiliensis; C - Phorusrhacos longissimus; D - Andalgalornis steuletti; E - Psilopterus bachmanni; F - Psilopterus lemoinei; G - Procariama simplex; H - Mesembriornis milneedwardsi and the silhouette of a man (1.75 m high) for scale (Herculano M.F. Alvarenga)

The largest species pictured here, Brontornis burmeisteri was 9 feet tall and weighed 800 pounds. Their size wasn't the scariest part of these monsters though. Their massive hooked beak (like a bald eagle's) gave them some pretty amazing eating abilities:

"An ostrich, the largest living bird, can swallow an apple. But a phorusrhacid could swallow a medium-sized dog in one gulp"- Herculano Alvarenga, a terror-bird expert

Scientists also estimate that these guys could run as fast as 30 miles per hour. That's enough to outrun a human (we go about 28)! 

I'm very glad that these feathered fiends are relegated to the distant past. It's sad though that awesome and adorable flightless parrots seemed destined to meet the same fate. But at least they have a legitimate excuse, what with being slow, chubby, and tiny vegetarians and all.

 Outline man waves to show his approval for a much more favorable modeling partner 

Also, PS, I think I wanna buy this shirt now.

Mahna Mahna

That is all!

Owls in Disguise

Animals that can dramatically change their appearance are amazing and kind of scary. This guy, the Southern White-Faced Owl, hails from South Africa. His name is Popo-chan and he's only a handful of transfigurations away from being the mimic octopus of the sky.



This video is also a reminder that Japanese TV is stranger, but perhaps weirdly better than ours.

Corporate Irony

If you needed any more proof that giant brand conglomerates are soulless monsters who will say anything to get your money, keep in mind that the company who made this;



Are the same people who brought you this.

Fish are Friends, not Food.

On our first day in Baltimore, we went to the national aquarium. It really is a world-class museum. The exhibits went beyond being just informative, they were visually stunning and some were just plain innovative. They had a few that were like walking into a giant terrarium, incorporating native plants, animals and birds into the habitat. They even adjusted the climate of these exhibits, to make you feel totally immersed in the environment.

It was a fun way to spend the day. My favorites were the lion fish, the dolphin tank, and the seahorses. I had least favorites too....

3 Scariest Creatures at the National Aquarium

1. Southern Stingrays, 6 feet long. Totally thought the people swimming in the tank were going to get Irwined.



2. Blind Tetras. Little fish that are born with eyes but lose them weeks into life.


3. Mud-skippers, evolution's most indecisive freak.

If you are ever in Baltimore, I would say that this is the best thing to see. We spent the whole day there and enjoyed it greatly.

That night, we drove out to the Broadway Diner for dinner - featured on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives"



We got an unbelievable amount of delicious food for cheap. The portions are huge, and it made me sad we didn't have a fridge in our hotel room. It's a neat place, an intersection of fine dining and greasy diner in a surprisingly complimentary way.

My Aunt is a Zombie, from Hell.

Lately I've been really into watching old Aardman Studio animations. It started when I found you could watch the old "Wallace and Gromit" shorts streaming on Netflix. From there I looked up a lot of the old ones I remembered having on VHS as a kid. This one, "Not Without my Handbag" (1993), is a spooky one to get you in the mood for Halloween.

I think what I liked so much about it as a kid was the laissez-faire attitude this short had towards really spooky things. Demons, death, hell, and walking corpses were all sort of treated like no big deal. I also really liked (and still like) the surreal animation style.







This short has a real Monty Python sensibility to it, like jokes the news reader slips in there and the archetypal pepper-pot figure in poor auntie. It gets even more similar at the climax, when the devil totally goes the way of Mr. Creosote.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Saturday Night, there was a crazy lightning storm near our house. It was hovering over the hills of the Mount Holyoke Range. It was bizarrely silent, no thunder at all. I suppose because the lightning was just bouncing around in the clouds, and never striking the ground.



There is a military base over there, maybe this is a new secret weapon! Other Possibility: Smoke Monster.

But what are the brain slugs who control you going to do for the working man?

Yeah! Futurama is back on with shiny new episode goodness! Paul and I watched the premiere last week, and I'm happy to report that the episodes are totally on par with the show that went off the air in 2003. I am most pleased by the resurgence of this cartoon magic, even if it means that we no longer own every episode of the show.

To celebrate the return of the Planet Express crew, check out this Brain Slug Headband. It's the laziest/ best halloween costume I've ever seen. Also, not just a ploy to increase the unreasonably huge subsidies to the brain slug planet. Don't be silly!

As my childhood self gently weeps

I think as kids we all had things that made us burst into tears for no reason at all. Our worldview as preschoolers (and beyond) is so narrow, that the things we fixate on to be major personal tragedies are pretty awesomely ridiculous. My high school friend Dan told me once that his toddler self became inconsolable during an episode of Reading Rainbow because Levar Burton dropped his ice cream cone.

Well, this is my version of that:



In spite of the fact that Cookie Monster implores us multiple times to "just imagine" he was eating the moon, I immediately forgot that and assumed it was reality. I was absolutely heartbroken that Cookie monster, a character I thought I could trust, betrayed me by eating the natural wonder that it the moon. I still get a little annoyed when I see it. C'mon Cookie, that's not your moon to eat!

In lieu of something insightful...

EXPLOSIONS!

It's terrible, Doug!

Just when I stopped having nightmares about "BigDog", the anthropomorphic robot from hell, I find out that some brainy jerks in California have managed to make an even more horrible ambulatory monster. "LittleDog" is much smaller than it's creepy predecessor (20 cm high vs. 2.5 feet high), which makes it, somehow, a hundred times more scary. Plus, it's been specifically trained to efficiently plow through rough terrain and obstacles; "The specifications for the project required that the robot should achieve a speed of at least 7.2 cm/s and climb over obstacles up to 10.7cm (for humans, this would correspond to obstacles of 50% body height which are traversed at slow walking speed)." Ugh!



The worst parts are at 0:20 and 0:39, they could basically be scenes from a sci-fi/horror movie about evil robots. I have a really hard time watching this without covering my eyes and yelling about how much I hate it. They should have named the thing Creepzilla instead.

Tentacle City

Octopuses are terrifying geniuses of the deep. It would be horrible if they had an uprising and enslaved the human race. But I wouldn't be totally surprised.

Your Friendly Mittelos Bioscience Representative

This season of Lost has been pretty darn amazing. This weeks episode "Ab Aeterno" was particularly cool. It was so exciting to finally learn the origin story of the mysterious Richard Alpert. I wonder if Nestor Carbonell ever thought that he would get his own episode. He really showed his capabilities as an actor too, in a really wonderful way. I was really impressed with his ability to do an accent in transition, as he transformed from19th century Ricardo the Modern day Richard Alpert.



I like to think that this episode is one designed to be a red herring, just like the Season 2 episode "Dave". That episode plants the theory that the Island and all the people on it are delusions of the psychiatric ward alumni, Hurley. "Ab Aeterno" focuses on the theory that everybody on the island is dead and the island is hell. I like to think that it's a little more complicated than all that.

I also love the part at 33:30 when Jacob "baptizes" Richard, because it's basically an homage to this.



Mark Pellegrino is a dunking expert. That's why they hired him to play Jacob.

To celebrate this awesome episode, check out these awesome blank resin statues of the four-toed statue, aka, the devil who guards the island (16:20). Each one can be customized by you to your liking!





Awesome!