I’m a total sucker for this kind of stuff:

Watch more National Geographic Channel videos on AOL Video

And who knew that the reason the cross bar on women’s bikes are lower is to allow space to carry an orangutan?

Via User Friendly

I’m sure there’s some good, scientific reason for this storage area at the Smithsonian:

(via Kottke), but there’s only one thing that comes to mind upon seeing it (tapers off around 3:20) …

What does Margaret Thatcher have to say about all of this?

The delivery is terrible, but the crowd seems to love it. I guess that’s politics for you.

How have I not posted this before?

You may think that many of the traditions and celebrations that are now part of the Easter holiday have absolutely nothing to do with religion.  That they’re actually mostly left overs from pagan holidays celebrating the equinox and the start of spring, and that Easter was meant to ease conversion by occurring at nearly the same time and taking many of the same themes.  That perhaps candy and bunnies and dyed eggs shouldn’t be such a big part of the celebration.  That there are no more than five puns you could make around the Easter Bunny and religion.  Turns out, you’d be wrong.  Dead and resurrected wrong:

Any one else notice what the lizard guards are wearing on their heads at 1:23 in that clip?  Remind you of anything?

Via Friendly Atheist

As it’s lent, McDonald’s has brought back their Filet-O-Fish sandwich for a limited time (aka, until Easter), and they’re running a new round of derivatives of this commercial, with the same singing fish song:

Yes, I know, it’s not only annoying and a little creepy, but it will get stuck in your head until you want to kill yourself by, in an ironic twist, driving to McDonald’s and actually eating a couple of those sandwiches so your heart clogs up with enough grease to sputter to a slimy, sludgy stop.  Clever advertising ploy that is.

Anyway, I have to say that when I first heard the song, it got me thinking.  The lyrics go:

Give me back that Filet-O-Fish.

Give me that fish.

Give me back that Filet-O-Fish.

Give me that fish.

What if it were you hanging up on this wall?

If it were you in that sandwich you wouldn’t be laughing at all.

It’s particularly those last two lines that got me thinking.  What if it were me in that sandwich?  I mentally pictured a rubber-ized cheesy Lazytown version of myself on a plaque, singing that song.  And, being the (sometimes overly) logical person that I am, my next though was of course that the song ceases to make sense.  (Right, because it made so much sense before, but hang with me here.)  It wouldn’t make sense to be singing about wanting a piece of fish back, I would need to sing about wanting an equivalent piece of myself back.  And thus the song started running through my head with the word “fish” replaced by “human”.

Give me back that Filet-O-Human.

Give me that human.

Give me back that Filet-O-Human.

Give me that human.

What if it were you hanging up on this wall?

If it were you in that sandwich you wouldn’t be laughing at all.

Kind of takes it to a whole new level of weird and creepy, doesn’t it?  And now, every time I see one of those commercials on TV, I can’t help but mentally substitute “human” into the song.

Just thought I’d share.

The heart is a complex thing:

Via Make

The artist (Haruki Nakamura) has a website, though it’s mostly in Japanese, so I can’t tell you much more about it, other than the consensus seems to be they’re all made out of paper of some sort.  Here are a couple more videos of the same artist’s works:

What you have 3 days after you shave a Snuffleupagus.

The shiba inu puppy cam is back with a new litter of fuzzy little balls of cute:

Online TV Shows by UstreamIf that doesn’t make you smile and melt a little, you need help.

If the embedded video doesn’t work, try here.

Via Cute Overload and BoingBoing. Previously featured on Stray Hawkeye with the previous litter here.

This is a part of the dino saga, if it doesn’t make any sense, read these.

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After a good night’s sleep, we got up early to go tailgating.  Okay, not that early, it was an 8:00 PM game, but the point here is we went tailgating, and Parker got things started off right.

Does anyone else ever wonder if the beer (Land Shark) was named after this really old Saturday Night Live skit, and for that matter, if they had this particular clip in mind when they got naming right for the stadium where the Dolphins play?

No? Just me? Okay, moving on with tailgating then…

A few hours of tailgating later, night falls, and we learn that Parker can apparently hold his beer substantially better than Sinclair.

Yes, Parker was also standing on the car.  Life lesson?  Never buy a used car that was a rental.  Ever.

So, it was getting closer to game time, and we decided to head into Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium, up the giant spiraling corkscrew ramp, which gives a pretty good view of the tailgating festivities.

Now you may be saying, “Kearn, those last two pictures don’t have Parker in them at all, and tailgating seemed to go by rather quickly.”  Did I mention we were tailgating, and I was drinking?  Good, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point out that arepas may be the best drunk food ever.  It’s like you took cornbread, but made it into a sort of pancake form, and then once that was cooked, you heated it up on a grill with cheese (um, a kind that’s white, I have no idea which kind) between two of these cornbread pancake things until it was all gooey and warm.  Delicious.  They serve them at Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium.  Anyway, after that delicious break, we made it into the stadium, and back to Parker.  Luckily we left ourselves plenty of time to get to our seats.

“To be in the Hawkeye section, yes.  And to be on about the 45 yard line on the Hawkeye side, absolutely.”

Now, you may notice that between those two pictures, Georgia Tech went about 40 yards on offense.  This was basically the only time this happened during the game.  This was also basically the only time Parker was watching.  Now, I tend to not be too superstitious, but this was enough to make me convince Parker to stay in my pocket for the rest of the game, thus the lack of more game pictures with him.  Once it was safe again, he came came out to watch some more.

Previously here and here.

• Expired
• Starry Nite
• The Kraken
• Ambition
• Making Conversation
• Season’s Greetings

Previous post in the dino-saga here and here.  And yes, it took me forever to get around to downloading the pictures from my camera for this episode, so it’s a little behind the times, but it keeps you up to date with the saga.

---

Sinclair has been hanging out at my place for quite a while now, and after getting rested up after his long journey from Florida, we started our search to see if we could find Minne.  So far we’ve had no luck, but it appears from her twitter account that she’s planning to come back in the spring.  After much consoling and a few cookies, I got Sinclair to accept that he won’t be able to see her until then.  In the mean time I’ve been distracting him with Hawkeye sports.

Sinclair took me up on the suggestion that we go down to the Iowa vs Minnesota game this year and go tailgating.  Nessie sent me a letter and said that she was going to swim up to meet us there, but that Mississippi current was too strong for her, and unlike Sinclair, every time she asked a barge captain for a ride, he’d scream in fear and mutter something about needing to “cut back” and run away.  However, she told me that she had a certain feeling we’d meet another Iowa fan at the game if we told her where we’d be tailgating, so I sent her the address.

We drove down to Iowa for the game the night before so we could sleep a little there and go tailgating.  We got up early, but Sinclair was pretty restless.

So I told him to go for a little walk to burn off some energy, since he seems to be good at that.

“Come to think of it, Sinclair, are you old enough to drink?”

“Oh, I suppose that makes sense, kind of.  Ready for another?”

“Sure.  Are you guys hungry?  We’re a little too lazy to do actual grilling tailgate food, but we do have some cookies and chips.”

“Sinclair, that’s an awful lot of beer to drink that fast, especially for someone your size.”

And I think we all know where that leads.  About 20 minutes later it was almost time to go to the game…

“Here Sinclair, have some water.”

“Thanks, I think I might stay back and take a little nap.  Parker can use my ticket and go to the game with you guys.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“Yeah, though it is a little chilly.  Do you have anything I could borrow to cover up with?  I’m cold blooded and all…”

“Sure, here, hop in the car.  I happen to have an old Iowa Marching Band raincoat that you can cover up with.  It even has the old fuzzy fleece liner in it.  I’ll even tuck you in.”

So, we started walking to the game.

Parker made some friends along the way too.

It took a little while to get in, but we got there just in time.

It was a little quiet for a while after that.

Parker got a little bored during half time…

He takes after the defense.

A little while later, they got ready to kick off the second half, and we’re all lucky Parker was there.

Parker quickly ran down and restrained the unruly fan.  After all, we’d hate to see the Minnesota team catch fire for the first time since Decker got hurt.

The second half was, shall we say, less than photogenic.  But at least one fan in front of us did get pretty excited.

Until we finally arrived at the greatest (if also most blurry) play in football, the victory formation.

A side note, dinosaurs are incredibly slow on steps.  So, it took a little while to get down there and we missed Floyd, but we did get to see…

So, after the meanie security guard, we decided to go meet the band.  They were much nicer, one even let Parker try his horn.

Then we went over to meet the cheer leaders, they were pretty nice too, and seemed to like Parker…

Over all it was a fun game and a great day.

Until next time Mr Kinnick, until next time.

The news last night had this amusing clip of a cat climbing on a police officer while he was issuing a speeding ticket:

I started laughing really hard about half way through, when he keeps going with writing the ticket, because it made me think of this bit from Super Troopers (despite the warning, this is one of the most clean parts of the movie):

“Do you need some help with that cat, sir?”  “You just stay in the car, meow.”

• Career plans
• Groverfield
• Capitalists
• Elephants never forget

After my post suggesting Halloween costumes for our local lake creature, and Nessie’s comment on it, Nessie sent me another note:

Hi Kearn,

I forgot to mention, I have a little buddy down here too.  His name’s Sinclair.  When he saw your post about Minne and her website, he couldn’t wait to get up there.  He’s pretty young, and has lots of energy, and kind of wears me out, so I thought it would be good for him to burn off a little energy with an outing, so I let him go ahead.  I gave him some directions to Minneapolis, but my directions might not be the best since I haven’t been there before.  I also gave him your address so he could get a hold of you when he gets there.  Hope you don’t mind.  He’s quite friendly.

Oh, and be sure to have a little extra food on hand.  I packed him a lunch before he left, but I’m sure he’ll work up quite the appetite on the trip.

I’m moving a little slower these days, so I think I’ll just plan to meet up with you at the Iowa Minnesota game if these fins can hold up to that strong Mississippi current.  See you then,

Nessie

Sure enough, tonight I heard a little tapping at my door, and when I opened it, there stood a little tiny, shivering green dinosaur.  I could tell from his tattoos that this must be Sinclair, so I brought him in and got him some hot cocoa, a blanket, and some lawn clippings.  He thanked me, and I asked him how his trip was.

“It was good, and there were all sorts of wonderful things and nice people along the way.”

“How did you manage to get up here so quickly?  It’s a long ways from Florida, I didn’t think I’d see you for at least a few more days yet.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t walk the whole way, I made friends with a sea captain, and he gave me a ride over to New Orleans, and then a barge friend of his gave me a ride up the Mississippi.  It was a really fun ride, he even let me ride up front!”

“Then, once we got up to Minneapolis, I saw a waterfall in the river, and I got scared, so I jumped off the barge and swam over to the shore.”

“As soon as I got out of the river, I saw a little path going up the hill, so I thought I would go up and see if anyone could help me find my way.”

“As luck would have it, as soon as I got to the top of the hill, there was a big guy sitting right there, so I asked him if he knew how to get to Lake of the Isles, but he didn’t say a word.”

So, I asked one of his friends there.

“Thanks Mr Guthrie!”, I shouted, and headed toward the big bubble.

It seemed sort of quiet, but it must be a wonderful place to have all the huge inside space when it’s so cold out, they must use it for everything thing here.  It must be busy all the time!  I guess I must have caught it on the one quiet day of the year.  So, I kept going, and turned right, like Mr Guthrie told me to.

Then I saw all these giant square rocks sticking up into the sky.

Then I saw a building that I read about on Stray Hawkeye, the headquarters of the Star Tribune.

I had to get my picture with their sign.

But then I wasn’t sure where I was going again, so I decide to ask someone.

“Sorry, I’m terrible with directions,” he said, “Lucy might know though.”

“Thanks Lucy!  And my that’s a pretty colored dress you have on.”

“Thank you Sinclair, and good luck on your trip!”

So, the directions said I’m supposed to follow the train tracks to Nicollet Mall, and then turn left.

I decided to stop for a snack, I was getting awfully hungry from all that walking.

That should hold me over for a little bit.  After a couple blocks, I check for directions again, just to be sure.

So, I started walking down Nicollet Mall. It’s a busy place!

I was getting really cold, especially with no hat, so I decided to go inside for a little bit, and try out the skyways.

Let’s see, just up the escalator here.  Hmm, I might stop for a little snack while I warm up.

I decided I should go back outside, so I could get my bearings again, and right there were some of Minne’s goose people friends!

I decided to go make some friends.

I was just thinking, I could use another snack, and then…

I didn’t see any trays, so I just helped myself.  I got a full tummy.  And you know what I saw next when I started walking again? A playground!!!!

That was awesome.  But, I should probably keep walking.  Bye bye playground!

Okay, over the bridge, through the garden, and then through Kenwood.

So, I rinsed off my feet, and then walked through Kenwood.  Not much interesting there, just lots of big houses.  The people back there must have huge families to need that much space.  Even a lake monster would have a hard time filling some of those houses!  So, I just kept walking.

So I eventually found my way over to the part of the lake where Minnie was supposed to be, but she wasn’t there.

Then I remembered that Nessie had given me your address, so I decided to come visit you before it got too dark out, and see if you knew where Minne went?”

“I’m sorry Sinclair,” I said, “but I don’t know where Minne went.  Actually, I don’ think anyone knows where she went. We’ll need to investigate.  But first, let’s get you ready for bed.  You must be exhausted from your trip, we can work on figuring all this out in the morning.  Now go brush your teeth.”

“Do I have too?”

“Yes Sinclair.  We don’t want you to end up with cavities from all those snacks you had today.”

“Okay.”

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Where did Minne go?  Will Sinclair ever find her?  Why did he travel so far to see her in the first place?  And what does all of this have to do with Iowa Football?

Find out next time, on another exciting episode of Lake Creatures Of Our Lives!

Like giant flippered boulders through the hourglass, so are the pleosaurs of our lives.

• Cool cake 1 – This piano cake is clever and looks pretty easy to make. (Via Craftzine)
• Cool cake 2 – This Van Gogh cake is quite a bit more advanced, but really cool.  If you click through that one to the cake maker’s (megpi) Flickr portfolio, she has all sort of other cool ones too.  I especially like this peacock cake with accompanying cupcakes, and this UFO one- the cow detail is awesome.
• And, a cute, non-traditional penguin pumpkin for Halloween. (Via Craftzine)