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

(click for a bigger version on flickr)

(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.

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

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.

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:

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.

Parker enjoying the Breakfast of Champions, with Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium in the background.

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…

Let's see, Hawkeye fans and Hawkeye flags as far as I can see this way, even when standing on the car (it's a rental).

And more Hawkeye fans this way. Behind us was still empty at this point, but eventually also filled up with Hawkeye fans.

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

"Buuuuurrrrp."

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.

A yell of "Go Hawks!" from this height comes back as an echo. In fact, it comes back as an echo from about 40 different location, each echo having a distinct tone and intoxication level. These echos then get echos of their own in a bit of a "Go Hawks" ripple effect. It's a pretty cool physics experiment really.

There were also a couple of tour buses, which also echoed quite well.

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.

"This is a lot of steps for my tiny legs. Did we have to get seats so high up?"

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

"I'm sure they're great seats and all, but I can't see anything!! What's going on down there??"

"The view's no better over here. They're playing on the other half of the field."

"Kearn, can I sit on your shoulders?" "Sure Parker."

"Ahh, much better!!! Thanks Kearn!! Go Defense!!!!

"Come on Defense!! Stop them!!!!"

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.

"Yaaaaayyyyy!! Hawks win!!! Go Hawks!!! Or should I say 2010 Orange Bowl Champions!!!!"

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