Stray Hawkeye

In case you’re having a hard time getting too excited about the Iowa vs Minnesota game this weekend, you’re not alone.  The Gophers have been horrible and even fired their head coach half way through the season (a danger here in Minnesota apparently).  The Hawkeyes, though bowl eligible (my goal for every year) and not a bad season, have been a bit disappointing given the expectations coming into the season, which was basically to go to the national championship game, and as it stands a BCS game is pretty well out of the question, by a fair margin.  Beyond that, (knocking on wood until my knuckles bleed) it’s a reasonably safe bet we know how the game will turn out, we hope.  Minnesota has no chance of a bowl game.  Iowa more or less knows where it’s going as much as one ever can until they announce it.  It’s right after Thanksgiving.  And it’s going to be outside and cold.  And basically every other Big Ten game is of more consequence.

So, now that I’ve got you sufficiently hyped up, there are at least two points of interest for the game.

Iowa has shut out Minnesota back to back the last two years (55-0 and 12-0), which has only happened once before (1955-1956) in the series.  So if they do it again, it’s a first (and great salt to pour in the wound).

The other thing is, it’s the 75th anniversary of Floyd of Rosedale.  Who is Floyd of Rosedale you ask?   Only the best rivalry trophy in college football:

Floyd, right where he belongs

I may be a bit biased in saying a 98 pound bronze statue of pig is the best college football trophy, but really, the story behind it is about as good as they come.  MPR has a great recounting of the origins of the trophy (which admittedly I’ve pointed out before, but it’s worth the repost).  Totally worth the read.

If there’s a better back story for any trophy in college football, I’d love to hear it.  I mean really, compare that to the Heartland Trophy – a statue of a bull with a giant head it can’t lift off the ground (why a bull?  who knows!) that Iowa and Wisconsin have played for since the distant history of… 2004, when someone said, hey, this is a always a good game and an incredibly even rivalry, there should be a trophy for this.  A rivalry so bitter in fact that a former Iowa player with a Tigerhawk tattoo is the head coach at Wisconsin and feelings have gotten so harsh they’ve decided to suspend the rivalry for at least two years because the new divisions resulting form the Big Ten conference expansion suck so bad to let things cool off.

So, happy birthday Floyd.  And Go Hawks.

This article on miniature models of cities is interesting, but I’ll admit that mostly I just wanted to type the title for this post :)

Two cool articles on the art of forming a glob of mud into a shiny polished ball called a “dorodango” (Japanese):

• This one is more of the philosophical / metaphorical side of it, and is a really good introduction.
• This one is about someone’s first attempt to actually make one.

Is there some specific art term for art that’s meant to be temporary / transient, like these or the sand paintings that Buddist monks do?

This list of predictions about the future (now the present) is interesting for the outlandishness of some of it, how a absolutely spot on some of it is, and to think about which would have been which 15 years ago, when the list was made.

A really fascinating story about itching.  Really interesting for a lot of reasons, especially for the physical / psychological overlap, the unknown parts of it, how perception works, how we interact with the world, and the interplay of strict scientific doctrine with inquisitive scientific experimentation.

Warning: The articles contains graphic descriptions of some really disturbing medical conditions and situations.

It will also make you feel itchy for about 2-3 days.  And it’s fairly long.  I’d say it’s worth it, but judge for yourselves and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The article.

I really like the last couple sections.

Cuddling chimps

There is a tree in Athens, GA that owns itself.  And all the land within 8 feet of it’s base.  The article is rather interesting just for the oddness of it all.  Especially in light of the general strictness of most property laws and claims.  One of my favorite pieces of interplay between official law and law as people actually deal with it:

Athens-Clarke County confirms that the tree is in the right-of-way and is thus “accepted for care” by municipal authorities; according to city-county officials, local government and the owners of the adjacent property jointly serve as “stewards” for the care of the tree, while Athens’ Junior Ladies’ Garden Club serves as its “primary advocate.” Regarding Jackson’s deed, one writer noted at the turn of the last century, “However defective this title may be in law, the public recognized it.” In that spirit, it is the stated position of the Athens-Clarke County unified government that the tree, in spite of the law, does indeed own itself.

My question then, is what the tree does for a living to pay the property taxes on itself?

Damn Interesting is a great site, which is unfortunately undergoing a bit of an extended period of inactivity.  It has great articles (even the old ones are still good, I know, amazing in this new ever 5 minutes internet) which combine reporting on obscure events and locations with a wonderfully dry sense of humor and an engaging narrative style.

This one came to mind because they’re not only interesting articles, but they stick with you.  A few days ago I was discussing websites with a friend from work, and we both remembered a particularly line from a particular article.  This article.  To not spoil the particular line, it comes immediately before “When airline mechanics finally arrived…” very near the end of the article.

There’s plenty of other great stories on the site, that one just happened to stick out in my mind.  A great site to spend some time reading.  I believe they also have a book out as well.

It’s rare that a movie is so profoundly terrible that the reviews panning it can be so good, but apparently the new Transformers movie takes awful to a new level.  After reading the review, I kind of almost want to go see it to see if it is actually that bad, because it sounds impressive.  If so, perhaps the government could step in to help these GM models as well, after all, we can’t have our American movie characters failing.

I can just see the trailer for the third movie now – Transformers 3: Rise of the Honda:

Yeah, it’s not quite as intimidating, but I hear it gets twice the gas mileage, lasts forever, and has great resale value.

Review via Boing Boing.

Ever want to know what it’s like to do drugs without having to go through the whole nasty bit of actually doing drugs?  Erowid Experience Vaults is a huge catalog of reports from various people who have taken just about every type of mind/perception altering substance there is out there.  These cover the good, the bad, the ugly, the mundane, and the downright frightening.

I haven’t read all of them by a long shot (there’s something like 20,000 articles on the site), but they are sort of interesting to see what various substances do to you, how people’s experience differ, and all the various specifics in each story. Needless to say, since these are user submitted stories, the quality of writing varies wildly, as does the credibility.

The other fascinating thing that struck me right off the bat is the huge variety of things that people will use to try to get high and the absolutely profoundly long list of different substances.  They doesn’t just cover the usual suspects, it covers basically any substance or activity that can notably alter your perception, good or bad, intentionally or unintentionally.  From the standard suspects (cocaine, pot, heroin, acid, meth), to the medically acceptable/endorsed (morphine, nitrous oxide, lithium, paxil, viagra (one of the only times you’ll see that on the web and have it not be spam), and many more), to the physical (fasting, hyperventilation, sleep deprivation, sweating), to the basically socially acceptable (caffeine, chocolate, tobacco, gensing, alcohol), to the “really?” (ginger, cheese rind, tea, vitamin C).

Needless to say, some of the articles are more than a bit distrubing, and most are something less than a pick me up.