Haha! I thought this one was "The Amazing Intelligence of Cows!"

It's "The Amazing Intelligence of Crows"

(I'll say this much...I do like the TED series, but if they can't get a frikken video imbed to work in a stupid blog, they ain't doin' somethin' right. Please see below and follow the link.)

here's the link.

However, here's the "amazing intelligence of cows." I give you Exhibit "H"

There's a Buncha "TED" Videos Around

I caught this one yesterday, and I thought it was funny - and probably worth hearing. It appears their embed code is botched-up, so if the player don't play, follow this link. Kay?

***Update*** it don't play, so I removed it (and the proceeding). But it's a nice lecture that's about twice as entertaining as the "crows" bit, about urban space.

Exhibit "G"

Continuing the continuing of the continuing. Henceforth will be only referred to as "the continuing."

Ahhh yes...time for a little story about Mars!

Here's a shot of the Phoenix lander heading thru the martian atmosphere, about to do some sciencey crap. The shot was taken by the Mars Reconnissance Orbiter - which makes this photo super-duper cool, cause it's the first time a spaceprobe has been photographed landing ON ANOTHER PLANET! Thas purtty dope meng.


Anyhoo - over here is the mission homepage (with the link direct to the recent images - it's only been there for a day) but it's pretty much worth lookin' at. So anywise, not too long ago I went to JPL for an open house, which had some uber-cool stuff - and ended up talking to a guy who was...what the hell was he? Something like, "I'm the manager of onboard systems operations." (That's a really rough guess...) The guy was such an awesome geek - like a true rocket-scientist, he was more than happy to talk about stuff - and I was more than happy to ask questions and listen to the answers (which was also true of the guys who worked with the (two) Mars rovers that are already there, and the guy who was showing off the next-gen rover that was a bad-assed robot. (And when I say bad-assed robot, I dooo know what I'm talking about) Well, to get back to my story, I asked the Phoenix dude what his favorite tool or sensor was on his space probe. He responded with a giant grin, and saying he had two. One was the claw arm which would dig thru the martian soil, and the other was a sensor which would analize the samples (which he/they hoped would have ice) that would be dug up by the claw, and hopefully detect life, which, he continued, would be really exciting.

To this I responded, "Unless it's a virus that turns humans into zombies, and we can never go there!" He paused for a second, processing what I just said, and then we all cracked up. I wished him luck, and I'm sure he's having the time of his life right now. Anyhoo - here's a couple of pic's of the moment.















(Both snaps by Victoria!)

Well, that's my anecdote about the Phoenix. I have another space-probe story right here which is pretty amusing. If you want the short version...here's the most important bits in a short video.

There are two things that are super great about this...

One...the actual headline. Japan to probe whale meat 'theft'

Two...this buried deep in the story

"...Instead, it contained prized "unesu" meat used to make whale bacon."

Fjuckin' WHALE BACON! ! !

There are no words. None. Okay, mebby there's two.

WHALE BACON!

A Couple More Fjrom The Archjives!

A Friday post With Albert Finney!

Sam's Scepter Warehouse (2005)

Skewerburger, Skullcracker, Fishmonger and Brick. Fjordian Lawyers in action (2005)

Well, there goes the neighborhood...a short, short story (2005 - and in my opinion, one o' the best things I ever dropped on Fjord)

Somthing really nice...edited so there's no chaff. (2005)

P.S. - I'd really like to thank whoever visited at 6:42 from Dallas, TX for bringing me back to November '05. There is some savory postage buried in the archives...

Back to the Continuing...

Submitted for your approval. Exhibit's "E" and "F"





And since it appears our pal Rhino's been watching this one kinda' close...here's a video extra of one of those mothafjucka's in action!
-BTW- a group of Rhino's is called a crash. Use that in your next conversation.

Just Another Great Thing...

From the Archives~!

It's an old Ze Frank episode, that's quite worth the three minutes it'll take you to watch it.
Click Here!








Seriously, even the Pope can't believe how much great stuff is over there! I can't, and I wrote most of it! Go Look!

Howabout We Gets The Hell Outta Dodge?

There's more paradise for yer eyes (or vacation plans) over here.

Conveyances

So there's this super-great article in the New Yorker about elevators. Such a take-for-granted slice of modern-day life, that you barely notice. Yet, without them the skyscraper as we know it would not exist. It's really worth reading.

Anyhoo this topic was pretty useful in shifting the conversation to a more exposed (and I want to say "elegant" but I understand this might be a subjective statement) conveyance - the escalator.
You might remember (tho probly not) I had done a little research into a hit-man character, who killed people by staging elevator and escalator accidents. Anyways, a couple more things have come down the pipe in the last coupla' days, which are sort-of relevant. Like there's this bit from the NYT about their new subway escalators. (I'm not sure how long their links last, so I'll just paste this juicy bit...

"On the morning of August 28, Lisa Chiou, 33, got off a subway train at the Bowling Green station in Lower Manhattan and got on an escalator that would carry her up and out of the station to Broadway. She placed her right foot (she was wearing flip-flops) on the lowest step, and as the escalator rose, she put her left foot on the step below it.

Except all of a sudden, there was no next step. There was a crash, and Ms. Chiou looked down to see that the escalator step that had been under her left foot had fallen out of the machine. It sheared off three more steps below it, and Ms. Chiou found herself slipping backward into the void.

“It was literally a split second,” Ms. Chiou recalled. “My left foot was still on that step when it fell in. My foot sank in with it, and I just kind of pulled my leg back out. So I got scraped by the metal and stuff.”

Ms. Chiou managed to stumble up the still-moving escalator and make her way to the top. She had a small cut on her leg that required two stitches. “If one foot wasn’t on a sure step,” she said, “I would have fallen in, and I would have been eaten up by the escalator.” "

Yep - That's pretty much what I envisioned my hitman doing. Who would suspect an escalator step of just vanishing into a void and eating up a person? "A horrible accident..." the authorities would say, while the assassin twirls his moustache in the shadows, laughing.

Well, shortly after (or before...internet time gets confjusing) there was a nice article over at Pruned on the worlds longest escalator system. So, that about wraps it from this end.

***EXCEPT***

This does remind me I dooo have to make a note of the dangers of wearing "flip-flops" I disprove of those things...for a variety of reasons.

Eclipses! Sure, why not?

There's enough sciencey goodness packed into this article it'll make (casting around madly for a similie) err, a chocolate truffle taste like angel-food cake! (Yay! Tastes like, success!)

"Stuart Eves thinks that demonstrating a role for infrasound might explain some other puzzling phenomena associated with eclipses.

For example, long period Foucault pendulums - designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth - have been known to swing wildly during eclipses."

...And Exhibit "D."

Meng, I haven't even started trying yet!

Continuing the Continuing...

Here's another wonderful example:



Exhibit "C"

Continuing Our Exploration Into the Similarities of

Cows and Kangaroos...I present...exhibit "B"



I'm beginning to grasp we are going to need most of the alphabet's worth of exhibits in order to get to the bottom of this.

Here's A story I came across...

That I liked a lot.

Something familiar about the tone, methinks.

(gonna read summore of the guys stuff - will letcha know what I think.)


***Update***
Yeah, the Ed Stories series is pretty fun.

Today, I'm powerful sad.

This here link was right up my alley.

If you ain't powerful sad, the link might make you so. So mebby you shouldn't, yaknow?

After that sexy story...I'll bet you want more sexy!

Well hells bells...I gots the Sexy right here! Don't need no boy-band castout to bring it back fer me!

May is National Masturbation Month!

I'm just a little peeved I didn't find out about it until now. However, there is still 15 days left in the month, and that's plenty of time to get in on...err, how do you say, ah yes...the sexy!

Here's Something From the Archives

I figger I'll just put this little piece back up, for those of you not with us in '06. And if you were, I think you'll be happy to see it again.

















***

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Some Thursday Night Lite Fiction For Youse

She didn't seem like the kind of girl who would rip the legs off of a
cricket. But then again, how well do you know anyone? The incident
happened shortly after I was fired from my sex-line phone-chat job.
I'm not going to say I was good at it, or even that I liked it. But,
loosing that job put me into a state of unease over my liquidity.

Since I didn't have any prospects, and there are only four things I
hate more than daytime teevee, (tuna, cockroaches, acid burns, and phone
companies, ohh, and clowns. Okay - five things...maybe more - never
really thought about it until now.)

Anyways, for fun I would go down to the more seedy districts of the
metropolis - and meander around the bums and muggers, and con-men.
This gave me a marginal thrill, since I knew even if I got rolled or taken,
I really had so little to loose that it would be far cheaper than going
to a movie.

So around there one afternoon, I bumped into her coming out of one of
those falling down hotels that might have been nice back in the day.
She had the look in her face like she wasn't in a hurry to get
to her destination, and I wasn't going anywhere - so we started
talking.

After a walking who knows where, talking about crazy shit like black
holes, urban renewal, micro-climates, and good war movies, we ended up
back at her hotel room with a cheap bottle of wine, or whisky or
something that tasted awful, peeled skin off the inside of your
stomach, and did a number on your brain-pan. That was the beginning of what
became a bi-weekly ritual. It wasn't like it was an amorous thing, it
was just that she was nice to me, and I like it when people are nice to
me. Plus, there was that whole daytime teevee thing.

About two weeks down the line another fellow started showing up at her
place, with the name of Rex Bowen. I don't know if she knew him from before, or if she met him after me, but it was her place, and she could invite in whoever she wanted. But Rex couldn't talk in a conversation if his life depended on it.

Rex wasn't all that bad of a guy, but he had annoying streaks. Like he'd come in all strung out on meth, and then drink some of our drink and start singing show-tunes, or worse, lousy renditions of Deep Purple and Motorhead. I didn't think much of it, cause she kept on opening the door for him when he came around, I just got ready to cringe whenever he came by.

Anyways this one time he comes in - lit up like an electrical storm - and grabs the bottle, slams down a good fourth of it, and then begins singing this ridiculous made-up tune that went something like this.

Motion picture
Mo-tion Pic-ture
I wanna be in a motion picture...
motion
picture...
motion
picture
I wanna be in a motion picture...

Well, from out of nowhere this girl shouts out at the top of her lungs - and I mean a real scream,
"REX YOU RETARDED DOOF! SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Only Rex was waaay too into his song to care. I mean, he was feeling the groove. Swaying around the room with a bottle in one hand, and his other clenched around an air microphone.

Mo-tion Pic-ture
Mo-tion Pic-ture
I wanna be in a motion picture...lalalala

So she came up from his side, and from out of nowhere, latched a handcuff around the wrist that had the bottle. And with shocking strength, pulled him straight to the iron bedframe - at least 10 feet away, and locked the other bracelet around a big pole. The big doof barely even noticed. He just kept on singing his damn stupid song.

I wanna be in a motion picture.

"Rex," she said loudly and clearly. "If you don't shut up right now, I'm going to pull off your legs." He really didn't hear her. Or else, he really didn't believe her. That was, in my opinion, his mistake.

She got up, and went into a closet. She dragged out a large, and very heavy cardboard box. In the middle of the room, she opened it, and pulled out a big winch - like the kind you see on the front of heavy Army trucks. She carried it into the bathroom, which was sort of kitty-corner from the bed. There were some clanking noises that came from in there. Then she came out with a cable, and wrapped it around Rex's legs. Rex was still lost in song.

Mo-tion pic-ture, mo-tion, picture, motion picture, I wanna be in a...

"I'll show you a fucking motion picture." She said, walked into the bathroom, and the next thing I knew there was the sound of mechanical grating, and the cable got tighter. Rex stopped singing, and started screaming. I watched as his pants got tighter around his legs,
and his body began to straighten out - pulled from the one arm handcuffed to the
bed rail, and his legs wrapped around a winch cable. I decided it would be best if I didn't watch the rest.

When I opened my eyes, the bed was across the room, Rex was pouring blood from two stumps where his legs used to be, and she was covered in blood from head to toe. She said,
"How's that for a goddamn motion picture."
I paused for a second, and spoke,
"I think we're going to need more booze. I'll go get some. Start figuring out how to clean this shit up." I stood up and headed for the door.
"Yeah," She said, "that sounds like a good idea. I sure can't go out for anything!" She cackled madly as I walked out.

I walked away from the scene, never intending to buy her, or us anything ever again. She was a nice girl. She didn't seem like the kind of girl who would rip the legs off of a cricket. God, did I just think "cricket?" I must not be in the right frame of mind after just going through all that. She didn't seem like the kind of girl who would rip the legs off of a man. But then again, how well do you know anyone?

In Regards To The Tuesday Blimp Post Comments...

Which I notice, not many have decided to participate in. There was an educational bit from our pal Rhino, that went something along the lines of this...

Re roos, I think they can claw people and kick people but they are quite docile.

eg. Driving down a ountry road at night there was 15-20 of them lounging about. So they see the car, tey don't even move, you can virtually run over their tales before they shift, like cows I guess.

As a further learning aid, I would like you to watch this mere 15 second yoo-tube clip, Re: Cows.

It's Official, God Loves Aliens More Than Humans!

FROM THE VATICAN!

Seriously...sometimes people say funny things. This particular person happens to be Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory - and this is his line...

"Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates."

Yes...because Gjod has a beef with the HUMANS! Mebee it was cause we ate his sacred fruits, and later turned them into a successful cash crop. Whatever the reason, it doesn't seem fair to me, when some extraterrestrial being (probably with a fetish for invasive probing (wait, ain't that a sin too? Dang this gets complicated)) gets off scott-free.

Well, I guess I shouldn't really take this news item to the next level like this, especially when there's a news item like this that's gotten practically no coverage at all in the national/world media.