Category Archives: Science

Today in Giant Squid News: Archie, the Motion Picture

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Archie encased perspectiveWell okay, Archie the YouTube video.

How to pickle a Giant Squid in several easy steps. It's just too bad they don't have a shot of Damien Hirst pacing back and forth, chain-smoking and screaming, "No-one understands my VISION, dammit!"

But you totally know it happened.

Archie people

I've read the comments on blogs around this watery globe, and I think that the red-haired girl shows serious FIGWIT potential. Lab tech grooming will never be the same! Where is the fansite, people??????

How to Pickle a Giant Squid!

For fun? Profit? Actually, I don't mind getting needles myself, Squid Roebut it seriously icked me out watching Archie get his shots. Her shots, excuse me. But we all know that when you travel, you need your shots; I just never thought of formalsaline solution as helpful. Perhaps I should update my vaccinations?

Welcome to the blogroll: Fat Joe Thomas

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Possibly the best book review site ever. Let's take a look, shall we?

A review of:

How to Know God :

DeepakizzleThe Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries by Deepak Chopra

This is one of the most stunning books I've ever read. It is a complete 160-degree turnaround from how he had been. In this book he realizes he's no longer angry, it's time to make friends and be happy. And, then, not weeks after the publication, he is gunned down by the East Coast individualists. The feud between the two coasts has been raging for too long. The West Coast spiritualists (led by Deepak) hate the East Coast individualists. No one really knows the cause of the rivalry, but some people think it started when Neal Donald Walsch (an East Coaster) said Deepak looked like Dr. Segal. At any rate, these two groups have hated each other ever since.

And, that hatred was certainly evident in Deepak's works. His 1992 book Perfect Heath: Sumpin the East Coast Know Nothin' 'Bout was a bitter tongue lashing against his rivals. And, nothing stung more than these lines from 1990's Quantum Healing: Deepak 4Ever Y'all — "When the spirit of life swells within you/kick that mofo sucka out/coz the East is the beast/and they got nothin ta pray about".

Three little words: STREAMING EAGLE CAM

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Eagle Snatch sounds dirty eh?

Update: the camera has moved here.

Nesting bald eagle streaming webcam, brought to you live by the guy in whose yard they’ve been hanging out for 14 years. And yes, there’s eggs people, there’s eggs! The feed is not without flaws, but then, it’s hanging out in the bedroom of two of the most impressive predators the world has ever seen.

Background on the Eagle Cam

Last week, the website went online as the eagles laid two eggs that are expected to hatch by the end of the month.

Retired accountant David Carrick said he has been keeping an eye on the pair of eagles in his secluded property for 14 years. But about 18 months ago – with government permission – he got an even closer look, installing a camera in the nest while the eagles were away on their annual migration.

He said the eagles noticed the enclosed camera and “pecked at it” and then got on with their lives.

Now up to two million hits a day and growing. I’m sooooooooo jealous!

Eaglewhatchoolookinat?I am reminded, as I so often am, of a story that makes Americans look bad. Yeah, I’m a bitch: I’m fine with it. My friend Christi and I were returning to Vancouver from Victoria via the Swartz Bay ferry. It had been a beautiful day: warm, clear, and windy the way it gets on Vancouver Island, with the air pummelling you as if you were just a stray plastic bag in its hands. The kind of day that makes you think, if you had just exactly the right jacket, you could become a kite, or at least an oversized flying squirrel. Okay, maybe not you. But I could, I’m real small.

So it was that kind of day. And we’d seen the typical Active Passian and Gulf Islandian and Beacon Hill Parkian and Lower Mainlandian wildlife that day, which is to say more than just a handful of raptors. So we, being no fools, scrambled onto the ferry and went straight for the windowseats; it always takes the tourists ages to figure out where to sit. They seem to think, if they bumble around long enough, a Lido Deck will materialize and Julie the perky activities director will tell them where to go. As a result, they spend a great deal of time tumbling up and down the stairs like large, squashy Pachinko balls and end up wherever gravity finally has its way with them, usually the buffet.

As Christi and I settled into our window seats, tucking our backpacks under the seats, a group of Americans passed us by, looking for places to plug in their laptops. A nasal cry rent the air.

“Can you believe it? What was the point of this whole trip? Why did we have to leave and come here? Victoria is just like Seattle.”

At that moment, in all innocence (for once in my life) I looked out the window and said, “Oh look, a bald eagle.”

Christi replied, in a loudly incredulous voice, “ANOTHER one?”

New: Update on Eagles

Other eagle news on the raincoaster blog:

Catalina Island Eagles

Colorado Eagle Cam with three chicks

The latest on the Hornby Island eagles

The brand-spankin’ new Eagle Cam outside Swartz Bay

EVEN NEWER-ER

Peregrine Falcon Cam

Customs is your friend

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Polar BearYou might not believe me when I say that, but Customs is your friend. Specifically, the customs agent who goes through your luggage and finds the four hundred pounds of bear meat from Canada, along with the approximately 60,000,000 worms with which it was infested.

Don't mess with Canada! We'll poison your skinny French ass! 2, 4, 6, 8, time for us to infestate!

Of course, if you knew the first thing about cooking wild game, you'd never have had the problem in the first place. The headline really should read "Don't Eat Canadian Bear Sashimi." People who don't know how to eat bear should not shoot bear, and if they do they definitely shouldn't stow it in their luggage, sneak it across the Atlantic, and invite a snotload of their soon-to-be-ex friends over for a feast.

Don't eat Canadian bears: French health officials 

[and yeah, you can read an invisible "or" in there too if you're feeling mean]

PARIS, April 3, 2006 (AFP) – France's health watchdogs have issued an unusual warning about bear meat, citing the case of French hunters who shot a bear in Canada, ate the meat and then fell violently sick with a parasitic disease…The bulletin warned hunters against "the common mistake of thinking that meat that comes from animals which have been hunted in the wild is always healthy."
 
Those who ate fully-cooked portions of meat suffered no ill-effects, but those who had even a mouthful of portions that were rare fell ill. The meat was found to be crawling with the worms — the average was 295 larvae per gramme.

It is, of course, still permissable and even on occasion encouraged, to eat Canadians. But ask nicely first.

The internet will never be the same

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It's a sad day, ladies and gentlemen. One of the memes that shaped our world is no more.

Bonsai KittensThe Bonsai Kitten Website is toast. http://www.bonsaikitten.com

It seems like just last year (because it was just last year) that some poor, distraught and bleeding soul forwarded me an email that told of acts of unspeakable barbarity: the forcing of tiny, helpless felines into cruelly warped and demented forms to satisfy a market's twisted and obscene desire for fashion. It was with a sense of joy unbounded that I read the email, for truly there is no pleasure on Earth which can compare to the smugasm provided by informing some bleeding heart that it is bleeding over a stupid joke.

Dear *insertbleedinghearthere*Bonsai Kitten Instruction

I am delighted that you forwarded this email to me, as well as your livejournal friends, your co-workers, your MP, the alumni magazine of your alma mater, and Izzy Asper, who is dead. It truly shows how important we are to you.

And the emotion! Well it's obvious to all just how strongly you feel about this issue, and how courageous you are in taking action by forwarding this email to three hundred and seventy-nine near-strangers. Surely someone, somewhere, will be moved to actually do something?

Bonsai Bottle KittenIn the meantime, it is my great pleasure to inform you that your campaign has already had its desired result. Not only are no more Bonsai Kittens being produced in the sweatshops of Guandong and Jakarta, but – O can you guess??? It's unspeakably fabulous! Better than you could have believed possible!

Not only is the production of Bonsai Kittens ended, but the campaign has been so successful it has actually reached back in time and prevented the invention of Bonsai Kittens! That's right! Not only do they not exist, but now, thanks to an unstoppable army of emailers such as yourself, Bonsai Kittens in fact never existed!

Isn't it all just too marvelous? You should be so proud.

Sincerely,

raincoaster

But you can order one of these snazzy Bonsai Kitten Christmas ornaments but only if you act fast! Forward this to five of your friends…

http://www.omegagrafix.com/mouseover/bonsai.htm

Bonsai Kitten Ornament