Unsought Input

Believe it or not the Chinese earthquake that killed 12000 people and counting was predicted by a mass migration of frogs. Yes, the massive earthquake in China yesterday that killed thousands of people was predicted by an incredible movement of frogs that was noted by the public as a bad omen. The government told the people that the idea was silly and that it was just the frog’s natural migration (across major roads that had not seen this kind of frog travel previously) for mating. The mass movement was first noticed on May 5th.

Even with all of our scientific methods of testing this just goes to show we still don’t know enough to tell when horrible tragedies like this will occur. But animals do. Or apparently they have some idea. Maybe we can prevent all the deaths next time by watching out for weird things like this. Or maybe will we evacuate a whole area and nothing bad will happen at all. Who knows?

An interesting article over at Cracked (yes, I know this is a comedy type site but they have good interesting articles, for real!) recently talked about Psychological Experiments done on people that have gone horribly wrong. You never would have guessed, would you? Either way, I thought it was a pretty interesting article and that I would share it with anyone who cared. I assume you care if you are still reading.

Either way, the article talks about five main experiments that Cracked thinks proves humanity is doomed. I find this interesting because if these are traits humans have had for years, why aren’t we extinct yet? There has to be some benefit (or at least it’s a habit/trait that doesn’t kill us) or else we would all be goners and something else would be here in our place.

For example, they talk about the Stanford Prison Experiment which if you haven’t heard of it you can watch this nice little clip that informs you of it. It was a college experiment that went horribly wrong, as you can assume would happen.

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This is a cool video.  Shows a lady that just won’t die.  And it has nice music too.  Check it out if you will.

Okay, not the death, but still a fierce battle between the forces of good and evil.

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Here is a cute little animation about an alien.  My addition to the study of UFOlogy, if you will, even though I didn’t make the video, only found it on youtube.

I found this tidbit of internet the other day and I just felt the need to share with everyone. This site looks nice and professional.  In fact they even dare to let their motto be “make an educated decision” while they write articles telling us about five “Weird Careers in the Unknown” which include careers in “Cryptozoology, Ufologist, Parapsychologist, Paranormal Investigator and Conlinguist (unfortunately neither Wikipedia nor Google knows what conlinguism is so I had to direct you to that site, Google suggested I had misspelled cunnilinguist). This site, a college career advice site, feels that it’s okay to tell people who are looking for a new career in these troubling times that becoming a cryptozoologist is an awesome and exciting new career choice. In fact, here is a paragraph from the introduction of this article to explain:

These career paths are not for the faint-hearted. Any of these will almost certainly mean danger, spooky experiences, scanty paychecks, and/or ridicule from the mainstream public. If you think you have what it takes to be the next Fox Mulder, check out the following careers.

Scanty paychecks and/or ridicule? Sign me up right now! And, seriously, the next F0x Mulder? Did no one tell this guy that Fox Mulder was an imaginary character on a Science Fiction TV program and never really existed? What kind of career path is this? How many Paranormal Investigators have to have second jobs to pay the rent? How many Conlinguists (which if you didn’t figure it out yet, these people’s jobs are to create, write and speak fake languages from fictional characters from movies, books and tv shows) need to work at McDonalds just to eat? I think it’s time to scrutinize each section of this guy’s article and then add one more “exciting and fictitious” career to his already lacking list. (more…)

This is a cute little animation about two gentlemen fighting for the hand of a fair(ly well endowed) maiden.  Don’t let me ruin it for you by telling you there is a little twist.  Please enjoy!

You know you want to just laugh or cry with these. For those of you who are internet ignorant of what cosplay is, basically people dress up as cartoon or video game characters (the key to this is that most of the characters who are cosplayed are animated) and walk around anime conventions or sometimes at Halloween as well. Basically one would expect to see this during Halloween but cosplayers take it one step further and dress like this for events and conventions all year long. It’s really a strange hobby and most people who do this spend a lot of time and effort to make their costumes better than anyone else as to always be “pwning n00bs”. I am planning to go undercover one of these days to a convention of supreme nerdlyness so I can get some insider pictures and also really cheap comics and candy. Here are some pictures I didn’t take.

I am sure most people will recognize this famous trio, Mario, his brother Luigi and Princess Peach. This one in my opinion is not so bad. This will be the highlight of our trip through cosplay and for that I apologize. (more…)

I recently stumbled on this site that tells you the average pay rates for jobs depending on where you live. Useful, right? Unfortunately for those who are taking the internet seriously, this site has been rendered useless. You might be asking your self how this is possible, the internet is infallible. I know, it’s a shock to us all. Let me just give you some average job salaries.

customer service in Ohio

$31,000

pizza delivery professional in Ohio

$33,000

pizza boy in Ohio

$86,000

First off, I don’t know anyone working at the local big box retail store that makes 31,000 a year. And second, let’s look the difference in title. Obviously that means a lot to your employers. I mean, if you are a pizza delivery professional you only make 33,000 a year but if you just shorten it to pizza boy you make more than twice that much. It must be sex appeal. You definitely sound sexier as a pizza boy.

Let’s keep going:

dracula in Ohio

$84,000

frankenstein in Ohio

$97,000 (more…)

We learned that men are clueless about women, just as we girls alway suspected.

Arthur C. Clark, author of 2001 A Space Odyssey, is dead.

So is Anthony Minghella. 

And a fun video, Japanese human Tetris game.

  Over on Neil Gaiman’s web journal there is all sorts of news about his newest novel, The Graveyard  Book, due out by the end of the year. If you weren’t sure, I am pretty excited about this whole affair with Mr. Gaiman being one of my favorite authors of all time. A quick little quote from his site quoting Kurt Busiek talking about the novel:

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK’s title is an homage to THE JUNGLE BOOK, since TGB is about a boy whose family dies, and who winds up being raised in a graveyard, by ghosts, and the other things that lurk there.

The boy, named Nobody (”Bod” for short), learns many things, discovers odd places and curious people, deals hesitantly with the world outside the graveyard and eventually has to deal with the forces that killed the rest of his family, and who are still looking for him. I won’t say much more about the plot, because hey, it’s not going to be out for months.

But I think it’s likely Neil’s best novel yet. It has a great deal of warmth, whimsy, dark fantasy (verging on horror), adventure, charm, suspense, monsters, ghouls, a witch, school bullies, policemen, ancient burial mounds, knife-wielding killers, dancing, mystery, trouble, a dash of romance, life lessons, and a creature named Silas, who is both what he seems to be and not. And the most endearingly dangerous and threatening ancient terror you’ve ever met. The story’s engaging, there’s a real sense of menace, and it builds to a strong and satisfying climax.

Either way, it’s in my things to check out list. If you are unfamiliar with Neil Gaiman’s work you can read American Gods for free on line. Personally, I like American Gods and it’s sequel Anansi Boys the best of his work. You can read the whole novel. In fact, I insist you read the whole novel. It’s free. The whole book. And it’s a pretty big book. You can read a few pages a day while at work or before bed. Whenever. But it’s free and it’s available and it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

Which brings me to my next little subject, has anyone heard of Endless Reflections, the Sandman graphic novels? That link right before this sentence was something I stumbled upon which makes me think that there might be a TV series for the Sandman comics. How cool would that be!? If anyone has any news, please post in comments. I looked all over wikipedia and his site with no avail. I really hope this isn’t just a joke, I think this would be the coolest TV show.

I find in interesting that Seattle is planning on banning bottled water.  Recently we had a post on prescription drugs in the tap water which featured a video from Penn and Teller that told how ridiculous bottled water is.  I mean, you spend 8 dollars a gallon for bottled water, which to any normal person bitching about 3.50 at the gas pumps should seem relatively ridiculous.

Seattle decided to ban bottled water for it’s city workers as a branching off from the banning the use of plastic bags in the city.   I really wish this whole thing would catch on.  Obviously people are too stupid to think that paying 8.00 a gallon for bottled water (most of it just tap water repackaged or water that does not even meet tap water regulations) is a bad thing for them, much less for the environment.

Here is the deal.  Buy reusable bags.  Buy a water bottle and drink the tap water you already pay for by paying taxes.  Save the environment.  Save yourself some money.  It’s a win-win situation.  It just makes sense, don’t you think?

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Some quick links for your consideration.

Barack Obama’s Oil Sense Act Legislation Bill

New Kevlar material that is flexible and thin, you can wear like clothing

A rare form of the Russian Tractor Spider

I think someone wants a little bit of attention. This one is from a local paper to where I live as well.