A Piscene Post

Which is not to be confused with an obscene post, although this one contains quite a lot of uncovered things that smell like a fish! And some that smell even worse, once you look closely.

Given the sudden influx of Fishes of Unusual Size (or FOUS) news, we can only assume that somehow, somewhere, for some obscure and nefarious purpose, the meerkats are behind it all. Are they secretly bringing about the death of the great super-fish of the uncharted depths, perhaps in an obviously futile effort to thwart the long-awaited rising of Great Cthulhu?

It would explain much. It would explain so, so much.

First, the unexplained sudden demise of the shockingly gender-confused and grossly, unspeakably swollen Benson, Giant Carp of Bluebell Lake.

Benson the Carp

Benson the carp, a former resident of Bluebell Lakes, was a female fish and should not have been called “he” in the article below.


Alas poor Benson. Born around 1984 and at times England’s largest freshwater fish, this awe-inspiring carp has been found dead at his home at Bluebell Lakes near Peterborough.

The facts of Benson’s life are well known for he was the UK’s most famous fish. Stocked into the Bluebell at around 10 years of age, Benson was already well over 10kg (22lb), on his way to super-stardom. At his peak, he was caught at over 25kg (60lb), though more recently he had slimmed down to around 50lb – still a leviathan. He gained his name because of a small hole in his dorsal fin that looked exactly like a cigarette burn.

But what made Benson so special, so beloved, was his generosity. It’s estimated he graced the landing nets of more than 60 anglers, dusting them all with immortality.

Under normal circumstances, we would simply lament Benson’s passing but there is anger today and a sense of suspicion. Carps can live to 60 or 70; Benson was cut down in his prime. Raw tiger nuts have been found on the banks at Bluebell. Unless these nuts are cooked and expertly prepared they can prove toxic to carp and the fear is that Benson could have been poisoned by one of his pursuers…

Benson, carp, born 1984, died 2009. Leaves behind numerous widows, thousands of offspring and 60-odd lovelorn captors.

Ah, the ways of the meerkats are murky, , malevolent, Machiavellian. It would be just like them to poison the UK’s biggest load of carp.

As if that weren’t bad enough, it seems they’re lurking off the coast of Oregon, attempting to get away with the illegal murder of one of nature’s most noble beasts, the Great White Shark. Cunningly disguised as mere tourists, they’ve obviously used their considerable hypnotizing powers of cuteness to make good their escape after the senseless slaughter of this beauty of the deeps.

Great White Shark from Depoe Bay Oregon

Oregon State Police Fish & Wildlife Division is continuing the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the possession of what is confirmed as a 12-foot Great White Shark in the Depoe Bay area this weekend.OSP Sergeant Todd Thompson says an OSP Fish & Wildlife Division trooper was working on the Depoe Bay docks August 8, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. when a shark was brought in by a recreational tuna boat.

“The trooper says he contacted the boat occupants after they had already gutted the shark. They indicated the shark had become entangled in their crab gear and was pulled to the surface when they pulled in a crab pot,” Thompson said.

The report pointedly omits any mention of the trooper’s leaning over and scratching the “occupants” under their chins while murmuring “Who’s a cutie? YOU’RE a cutie! Who’s my little cutie? Awwww…” but we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have our sources.

And who could have been behind these vicious, unprovoked attacks? It’s a terrible thing, my friends. Indeed, the facts of this case are such that the truth of it is nearly unspeakable, surely unthinkable. And yet, it is so. Behold, the myrmidon of the meerkats, their trained fish-ssasin:

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Pic o’ the Day: Cthulhufish

There’s something redundant, yet charming about this three-degrees-of-referential, irreverant car adornment.

cthulhufish

Sure, sure, my friends may take pictures of things for me, but would they take a crowbar and pry it off a stranger’s car for me? Noooooooooo. I don’t ask much…

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Science for Sadists or Aeronautics from Aerchie

I’ve always heard those Aussies were somewhat rough around the edges. Having seen the instructions for creating your own airplane that Archie posted on his blog, I have to say that was somewhat understating the case, in the way that the Irish troubles are referred to as the Troubles.

This, my friends, is how Bruce goes to Kitty Hawk. Click on the image to go to his site and see the rest of the instructions. And you’ll need your airsick bag.

Build a plane

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YouTuber of the Day

I love that word: YouTuber. It’s like a 21st Century “Mister Potatohead” reference, but ambiguous enough that they’re not sure whether or not they should be angry.

I stole it from Kevin Smith. Do you think he’ll mind? He looks like a man who loves his carbs.

In any case, here is my YouTuber of the day, BrianShaneRushton, and he is here and is my YouTuber of the day because of the awesome comment on this jarringly…jarring video:

Super Funny Snowflakes

For weeks and weeks I’ve been scouring the internet, looking for the funniest pictures of snowflakes. Not unlike those people who throw lolcats pictures together. Savvy? Ever notice that the Looney Toons cartoons since the death of Mel Blanc have sucked? Whoa, there’s like a cat in here and hes acting all crazy and meowing. It snowed a lot now it’s raining, load damn you load! I hope it doesn’t get all icey. I had spaghetti for dinner, the sauce was kind of chunky, I’m not into that but oh… well. No two snowflakes look alike. Ever notice blue jolt soda tastes like pepsi blue? That’s what someone told me, I liked that stuff when it first came out but after the first couple times it got terrible. Gonna get energy drinks tonight, I like original rockstar and green and yellow monster. Yum yum. This video is taking so long. 50 megabytes. Kind of big for something I ran through windows movie maker to lower the file size but come on. gettin’ a headache. What was the last name of the family in Malcolm in the middle? I mean, I never really liked that show but i still had theory about it. Like, I always thought that they likely lived in Nebraska. Well, it’s loaded now. I just wanna say that this video has nothing, I mean absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. Or Santa or Jay Santos or anything like that.

Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (approx 10μm in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures colder than 4°C because, in order to freeze, a few molecules in the liquid droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement close to that in an ice lattice; then the droplet freezes around this ‘nucleus’. Experiments show that this ‘homogeneous’ nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures colder than 4°C.[1] In warmer clouds an aerosol particle or ‘ice nucleus’ must be present in (or in contact with) the droplet to act as a nucleus. Our understanding of what particles make efficient ice nuclei is poor – what we do know is they are very rare compared to that cloud condensation nuclei which liquid droplets form on. Clays, desert dust and biological particles may be effective,[2] although to what extent is unclear. Artificial nuclei include silver iodide and dry ice, and these form the basis of cloud seeding.

Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment (air saturated with respect to liquid water is always supersaturated with respect to ice) and grows by diffusion of water molecules in the air (vapor) onto the ice crystal surface where they are deposited. Because the droplets are so much more numerous than the ice crystals (because of the relative numbers of ice vs droplet nuclei) the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometres or millimetres in size at the expense of the water droplets (the Wegner-Bergeron-Findeison process). The corresponding depletion of water vapour causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals effectively grow at the droplets’ expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters (aggregates). These aggregates are snowflakes, and are usually the type of ice particle which falls at the ground. [3] The exact details of the sticking mechanism remains controversial (and probably there are different mechanisms active in different clouds), possibilities include mechanical interlocking, sintering, electrostatic attraction as well as the existence of a ‘sticky’ liquid-like layer on the crystal surface.

The individual ice crystals often have an hexagonal symmetry. Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in colour due to diffuse reflection of all spectrum of light by the small ice particles.

That is how not to do a video with sound effects. This is how to do one:

Michael Bay Eating Cereal

And this is his flowchart. Every superhero has a breakfast-choice flowchart. It really IS the most important meal of the day.

Michael Bays Breakfast

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Meerkat Attack!

meerkat attack, the fucker!

I know we’ve discussed this before, mostly on Twitter and in the Anti-Fairy Conspiracy comments, but NEVER turn your back on a meerkat. They’ll rip your throat out as soon as look at you, and if they know you’re onto them, there is no end to their wicked, weasely wiles.

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