F*cking Cool

I wish I had thought of this. Michael Black created a time lapse video of the snow accumulating during the Eastcoast blizzard yesterday from his patio in Belmar, New Jersey. It gives you a very good idea of what it looked like outside our backdoor. Still blowing like a bandit, but the sun's out finally. Street still has yet to be plowed - don't know when we'll be able to get to our mailbox. Not that the postman will be able to get up the street ;) Enjoy! Via Laughing Squid.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

 

Piebald!

"Piebald! Piebald! Piebald!!" This is what my poor husband woke up to today ;)

I had gotten up and let the dogs out when I spotted something white and brown in the woods. My mind first thought, 'goat', since the coloration seemed to fit a goat best. Then I saw all the other whitetail deer wandering around. My mind then thought, 'mule'. I don't know why it thought that, I guess I was still sleepy.

Turns out it was a whitetail deer with piebald coloration. Looked something like this:

I'm really hoping to see it again and not mind-spaz :)

Spaghetti

I'm working on a new painting that will involve spaghetti. My initial search through Google Images included the following that I thought neccessary to share with all of you.

1. Spaghetti Worm. This little beauty has been removed from his tubular home so you can see how delicious - I mean, awesome, he is! He's a California native, living in Newport's Back Bay

2. Spaghetti Squash Fritters courtesy of Janet Is Hungry. Sure I found lots and lots of delicious pics of spaghetti but this golden nugget of goodness jumped right out at me. Janet has lots and lots of great food pics and recipes to go with them. First page she's got a killer recipe (with pics to match) for a Banana, Peanut Butter, Cinnamon Muffin. Mmmmm...Kristin's hungry too :D

3. Spaghetti and Cheese Ice Cream made by Heladeria Coromoto, a Venezualan restaurant (which has over 800 flavors of ice cream!!!), via Turkey Hill Ice Cream Journal. Reminds me of Ice Cream City in Tokyo where Ed and I sampled Honey, Azuki Bean, Chestnut, Snake and Squid ice creams.

4. Chmurka the Hamster loves spaghetti. Via Flickr

This Is What I Need

While doing a search for jellyfish (and no, this article has nothing to do with jellyfish, but...) I came across practicalfishkeeping.com. I'm pretty damn sure that this is not practical, but they had a lovely piece on the world's largest planted aquarium. "It has been created by nature exhibit design consultants Green Chapter who have also produced many of Singapore and Malaysia’s best public and private aquatic exhibits" So this amazing 'fish tank' is in someone's home in Malaysia.

Roland Seah is the genius who created this beauty and is the founder, head honcho, big magoo for Green Chapter.

If you want to read more and see details on temp, construction and the lucky little fishies who get to live here, click here.

Everything is Relative

This has been a very hard winter here in the northeastern US. In fact, it's been pretty hard for the entire US. Record rainfall in the west, snow in the south and blizzards up here. Two blizzards in one week, in fact. We're complaining and cold and tired of shoveling. Just went out today to buy a new shovel or maybe even something gas powered to help with the ol' back and there's patio furniture out! Ugh. Not one shovel in any store here.

So to help myself feel a bit better and not think to much about the snow piling up on our roof, I searched out some photos of Yuki-no-tani, or 'snow corridor' in japanese. The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route sees snowfall near the 20 meter mark and allows for snowplows to create these corridors which attract tourists the world over. I wouldn't mind seeing it in person some day myself.

I Would Much Rather Be...

...at the bottom of the sea. The Census of Marine Life "is a ten-year effort among marine biologists around the world to catalog and understand ocean life. More than 210 expeditions will examine and document the 95 percent of Earth's oceans that remain relatively unexplored. A final report will be unveiled in October 2010. " - National Geographic

Below is a see through sea cucumber that was recently discoverd on one of these expeditions.  

I can't wait until the whole report comes out.

 

 

Beauty/Terror in Nature

I was wandering the webs this morning and followed a trail of scientific photographs to i09.com "We Come From the Future". At first I was going to post this amazing pic from their posting "The Microscopic Beauty of Photography's Smallest Subjects":

Atherix ibis (fly) aquatic larva (25x) which was part of the Nikon Small World contest. Cool, creepy, beautiful. Once again, I assert that nature is a better artist than any of us.

But then I perused the postings from yesterday and saw this horror-movie-oh-no-it's-really-happening-shit:

Scientists Rewrite Flies' Memories, Bring the Dollhouse Closer

What the f*ck?! You're telling me that scientists are screwing around with the brains of flies and changing their memories?! Yes. You're seriously saying that they used lasers to etch new memories into the brains of flies and made them react differently to a specific odor that previously they had no reaction to?! Yes.

This is crazy-cool-mad science-I'm frightened-the apocolypse is coming-do we have enough aluminum foil to cover our heads-time people. I am one inch closer to moving out into a cave and giving it all up because SCIENTISTS ARE FUCKING AROUND WITH CRAZY SHIT AND I WANT NO PART OF IT.

But, damn, it's so cool ;-)