Category Archives: Weird

life lessons from the undead

Posted on by

brainsssss...brainsssss....Stephen Hawking.... 

Because hey, Britney Spears is alive and you think she can give you better advice than a gore-clotted zombie revenant, crazed with bloodlust and hungry for brains?

At least zombies like brains.

The ever-servicey Guardian has a lovely article on life lessons we can learn from zombies. (I must include a small ed. note here, to the effect that we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have, it must be admitted, even when we don’t want to, that we deleted the Zombie Blog off the blogroll, although it should be noted that this was after a long time, and with great reluctance, and we only did it because that blog was not so much undead as actually, factually, and for all intents and purposes really…well, is it indelicate to put it this way? Dead)

Man-made viruses are bad things … 

We, as humans, are fragile things

… When the character of Rhodes is spectacularly dissected by zombie hordes in Day Of The Dead, and screams “CHOKE ON ‘EM!” as they tuck into his guts, he is, in a very real sense, acknowledging his own dehumanised position in consumer culture. Yes he is.

The US military ruin it for everyone

…In Day Of The Dead, they are all racist, sexist and insane, with disastrous results. Quite where the inspiration comes from for this bumbling, disaster-prone, incompetent redneck vision of America‘s military might, is a matter for considerable debate.

Your family messes you up

No genre has reflected the increasingly obsolescence of the nuclear family unit more gleefully than the zombie movie, which posits that family life will not just mess you up, it will also attempt to eat your spleen too…

Always stay close to a helicopter pilot

No matter what goes down in any given zombie movie, you can be sure of one thing – if you haven’t got a helicopter pilot with you, then you are fubar…in the Zack Snyder remake of Dawn Of The Dead, there is no helicopter pilot anywhere to be found, and where do they all end up? Dead, that’s where. So if you are ever introduced to a helicopter pilot, be nice to them

Women are better in a crisis than men are

This may not be news to our female readers (on your side, sisters!) but zombie flicks are either keenly aware of women’s inherent stoicism, or the blokes who make zombie flicks are just trying to suck up…

Animals can be zombies too

Hmmm. Not quite sure how this one can be applied in modern society, but there are zombie monkeys in the 28 series, zombie alligators in Day Of The Dead, zombie dogs in Resident Evil, zombie spiders in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, and in Zombie Creeping Flesh there is actually a zombie kitten. Yes, you read that correctly. So I guess what this teaches us is maybe that keeping pets is cruel. Or something.

In summary, then: stay away from pets and family members, retain a keen awareness of your own mortality and the power of science, and hang out with female non-US military-affiliated helicopter pilots. Valuable lessons, there, for all of us.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drop a friendly note to my old buddy Flygrrl…

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

pix o’ the day: wall of water

Posted on by

tsunami boat 

Surfing randomly for a photo of a mother for some other blogging project, I was floored to come across the Tsunami blog, which is a record of the Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand. The picture pages (20!) are astonishing. Unfortunately, the page is copy-protected and I can’t post image links, you’ll just have to follow the text link. The images here are authentic, but from other sites.

Yes, some of the images are hard to look at, but some of them more than make up for that, like picture number one on the Tsunami blog, which shows the tsunami approaching like a blue wall crested with clouds, and a Swedish mother running straight towards it, into the surf to save her children.

They all made it.

While you’re there, check out the images of the 2002 Chinese tidal bore. Some of these were circulated in 2006 as “tsunami pictures” but they are actually old photos of a rare occurrence where a river encounters an unusally strong incoming tide and the result is a tsunami-like wall of water that travels rapidly upriver. Apparently, it’s an annual occurance in that Chinese city and people just love it; they hang around the riverbanks and when it comes roaring their way they go all Running of the Bulls, giggling and jogging out of reach.

You know, I really hope they get cable in China soon, and free up the internet, because these people are obviously STARVED for entertainment.

tidal bore wave

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

fallen-blossom jellyfish discovered

Posted on by

Well take a LOOK! What would YOU call them?

stauromedusae jellyfish

Discovered at a depth of over 8500 feet, these beautiful and mysterious life forms are unlike any known jellyfish. What no-one knows is, why are they pink? Colour is theoretical at that incredible depth, as there are no naturally-occurring light sources except the glow of the phosphorescent hunters. If there are gay rights activist/jellyfish enthusiasts out there, this is definitely their totem animal.

The new species is from the Cnidarian (phylum of jellyfish, corals, anemones) order stauromedusae…  The new species is unusual in its color (pink) and its proximity to to the superheated vent fluids.

the Living Intestine: the Juno Ledge Sea Serpent

Posted on by

We’re talking Sea Monsters, people. So you know we mean business.

Now, everybody knows that Nessie‘s just a big ol’ lump o’ dinosaur, not a serpent at all. And Caddy‘s a figment of some screech-addled sailor’s story-telling impulse. And Ogopogo…well, we do not speak of Ogopogo. The ancient Fossil Shark was a shark, after all, if quite serpentine in spots and from certain angles, especially in candlelight.

But now, at last, we’ve found a genuine Sea Serpent. My shrivelled and blackened heart leaps up…

Beneath the surface of our crystal blue waters live a myriad of marine life.

Sometimes we can see them from the air — steely eyed shark congregating by the thousands, graceful stingray, gliding along the shallows.

But go deeper…

You never know what you’ll find. Just ask Jay Garbose.

“This is a first and I’ve traveled and video’ed all over the world.”

Take a look at what he found and listen to the story — it’s no fish tale.

“I was diving on Juno Ledge. That’s about a mile off shore of Juno Beach. At first I thought it was a sea cucumber although no one has ever seen one stretched 7 to 10 feet the way this one was. It’s sort of grey and putty like and very smooth and taffy like in the way it stretches. Some of my friends and I have sort of dubbed it the living intestine.”

And it is just exactly as beautiful as that description would lead one to believe. At first, I thought it was a hoax. Once I saw it moving and had observed its blundering, slow, mindless, horrible writhings, I prayed it was a hoax.

Click to view, if you dare.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

loltrek, the lol of lols

Posted on by

i can has nerdgasm?

we has tribbles and also troubles

First there were lolcats (and note, please, that I am restraining myself from using lolspk here, or even l33t for verily, I am way dignified, yo).

Then there were lolgays. and gebrils. They’re big on gebrils. We even hear there are lolgeeks…

Now, to complete the lolfecta for the grand prize, there is:

loltrek.

oh hai u want tribblz?

As if this grand conceit were not already pluperfect, please identify the source of the following vintage meme, for additional geek points and a free virtual propeller beanie:

oh hai, i has meme

and here is your soundtrack, for rocking and geeking out.

Numa, numa, baby!