Operation Global Media Domination: no more games

TIAIt seems nobody cares if Harry Potter is dead. Nobody but the BBC, that is, which commented on my post about the story in the Guardian. The BBC is trawling my blog for readers: while I am somewhat stunned at this micro-, nay, nanomanagement, I’m okay with it if they’ll only give me the linkie luv. Translation: they don’t allow you to leave the URL of your blog your signature, ie like this: raincoaster. Frightfully Web 1.0 of them.

In other OGMD news, the Mento and Diet Coke Fountain Madness is dying out as those mad scientists lay the smackdown on YouTube and the video has been kaput for a week now, after nicely threatening the existence of my blog. I wonder how long you have to respond to those threats before the powers that be nuke the blog. Could be tricky, as I do not actually have electricity at home at the moment.

And although for the past several days it’s been beating the coprophilia out of the Beautiful Agony post, today nobody is interested in Watching the World Cup For Free. Is it over or something?

I only care about the Stanley Cup, yo. Do they even have ice in Carolina?

knitiloids!

KnitiloidsTwo Squid-related posts in one day!!! Can you fucking stand it???

Pretty thrilling, eh?

From Knitie, via BoingBoing, comes news of these adorable knitting patterns. Craft your very own tentacled beauty from a vanished era; I prefer the longer, more squid-like version, but then I’m a size queen when it comes to Squid.

Hey, sometimes a Squid is just a Squid.

Every scary prehistoric beast should be made into a huggable toy, and I say it’s the nautiloid’s turn.

Their living relatives include the squid, the octopus, and the famous chambered nautilus.

Henry VIII: first known casualty of Atkins diet

Hank 8...everything in sight, apparentlyFrom Fortean Times. I have friends who’ve been on the Atkins diet, megaprotein, zero carbs, avoid carrots and many other veggies, as they’re terribly starchy; each and every one of them swears it works. And each and every one of them is overweight. What do they teach them in school nowadays? (besides math)

June 28. Henry VIII, the king who destroyed the fabric of monastic England and most of its sacred shrines, was born today in 1491. It used to be thought that he died of syphilis, but it was malnutrition that did him in, according to historian Susan Maclean Kybett; specifically, he didn’t eat his greens. It seemed that scurvy, caused by vitamin C deficiency, is the only disease that fits his symptoms – ulcerated legs, bad breath, collapsed nose etc. There was a prejudice at the time that only lower orders ate vegetables; the rich could afford more exiting things like venison.

Fatkins

Thank god that particular fad is over. I’m a little tired of going to restaurants with people who smell like abatoirs and who insist on ordering three courses and then whining about how they can’t eat two of them.

On the bright side, I’ve much enjoyed the extra servings of dessert and even convinced one poor sap that Martinis are high in carbshere, let me get rid of that so it doesn’t bother you. You can have the twist, though.

Japan surrounded by plagues of gigantic jellyfish

Nomura's Jellyfish gets takeout

They might as well surrender. All hail our Scyphozoan Overlords! Really, tabloidy news doesn’t get any better than “Japan surrounded by plagues of giant jellyfish” unless we could somehow work KFed and Posh into it.

From the Daily Yomiuri Online, via Japanprobe, who blames it on China. I thought everything was Korea’s fault?

Doctor, there’s trouble! The sea is full of jellyfish!” the student shouted…

Full! I tell you! Full, I say!

300 million to 500 million Echizen jellyfish were flowing into the Sea of Japan from the Tsushima Strait every day. After moving northward through the Tsugaru Strait, the jellyfish swam into the Pacific Ocean, ringing the coast of the nation. During their seagoing voyage, the jellyfish grow up to 1.5 meters in diameter and 200 kilograms in weight…

“The only solution seems to be to contain the source of the plague. We urge researchers to determine the cause of the plague. We also ask officials involved in the industry to hold talks with their counterparts in neighboring nations to tackle the plague,” Nishiyama said.

Ah, isn’t this the point at which the smart people start ignoring the experts and invading radio stations with old 78’s of Indian Love Call? Buy land UPHILL, people, buy land UPHILL.

And here, Nomura's Jellyfish attends a buffet

now THAT is what I call a Happy Meal

from Sploid.

A 25-year-old [Australian] woman was recently arrested for attempting to smuggle drugs into the country from Singapore by swallowing a mind-boggling 329 heroin-filled condoms.

Now, it says right there they were not just "containing" heroin, but were actually filled with the stuff. Let's think about that a moment, shall we?

Oh would it fucking kill you to play along?

So, they were condoms. And they were filled. I don't know (and wouldn't presume to guess) whether or not you're familiar with the usual dimensions of a filled condom, but it does take up a bit of volume, variable though it may be from iteration to iteration and even from moment to moment.

Now let's do the math.

As I recently completed, at the cost of three irrevocably spent months out of my life and, additionally, significant cost to the Canadian taxpayer, the JobSTART pre-employment training program, which is designed for those coming out of long-term prison sentences and aimed at helping them complete their high school equivalency (ours is not to reason why, because at Welfare they're not used to reason and it upsets them), I am all up on this math shit, yo.

The average condom-stuffing unit is six inches in length, and, for whites, one point five inches in diameter. This, however, is useless information because unless it was actually China White she was carrying, it was probably brown heroin, and as you can see from the reference page, Brown condom stuffers have an average length of between six point two six inches and eight inches, along with an average diameter of two inches.

If it was China White, of course, we would need further research to determine whether the Chinese (4-5" in length and 1.25" in diameter) or the White (5.5-6" in length and 1.5" in diameter) were dominant in this sample.

Assuming, then, that the sample in question was brown heroin, the average volume of the condoms in question was:

[8-(8-6.26)/2=8-1.74/2=8-0.87=7.13]x(pi)(rxr)

which is 7.13×3.14×1=22.3882

Twenty-two point three eight eight two cubic inches of brown heroin per condom is quite a mouthful. Let us hope they were the flavoured kind; they go down easier.

More math:

329 condoms x 22.3882 cubic inches = 7365.7178 total cubic inches, or about 19,000cc's of heroin.

That's larger than the Caribou 6000 expedition pack which, we note, features "An adjustable inside shelf helps to compartmentalize your packing" which would no doubt have come in handy, had the Aussie in question possessed a gastrointestinal system provided with such.

7500 cubic inches will cost you $110 to fire in the kiln here, although should you attempt to do so with heroin I would expect a few pointed questions and maybe a massive sugar craving. But it's better than patchouli!

It is also the size of the intimidating-looking Extended Mission Ruck. This damn thing looks like it was engineered so you could go over to Iraq and just scoop the insurgents, securing them safely in place with one of the eighteen billion, not at all fetishistic straps festooning this 100% Made In America monster.

EMR

To put things in perspective, 7500 cubic inches is the capacity of this Modular Hauler truck bed, the largest the company manufactures.

It is also, for our metric-savvy readers, approximately 19,000 cubic centimetres, which is the size of the engine used at KittyHawk.

Back then, 19,000cc's only sufficed to get one man 15 feet off the ground. Nowadays, it could provide decent highs for over 600!

Ah, progress!