Biomes Blog

Entry #290

In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said, "Cut it out." -- Steven Wright

Home late, dog's having more seizures, tons to do and a debate that starts in a few hours.  So here's something I threw together the other day (actually I stole it).

Ways to Annoy People on the Beach
If you see kids building a sand castle, say, "That's not a real castle!"

Ways To Annnoy Your Roommate 
Become a mime.  Nothing is more annoying than a mime.

Ways To Annoy People On The Subway
Tell other people your problems. They really want to know.

How To Annoy People On An Airplane
Call the stewardess "nurse".

Ways To Annoy A Cop
You're not gonna check the trunk, are you?

Annoying Things To Do In A Discount Superstore
Move "Caution: Wet Floor" signs to carpeted areas.

Annoying Things To Say To Other People
I've just been treated for tapeworms.

Ways to Annoy Usenet (internet newsgroup) Users
Post a message asking how to post messages.

Annoying Things To Do At A Drive Through Window
Specify that this order is "To Go".

Annoying Things to Do at the Bowling Alley
Wear a baseball uniform, bowl sidearm.

How to Annoy A Blind Date
Repeat every third third word you say say.

Ways To Annoy People At The Movies
Clap when the good guy gets killed.

How To Annoy Your Waiter
After he describes each special, you shout, "Stinks!"

Ways to Annoy a Yankee (Northerner)
Take your own sweet time when doing ANYTHING.

How To Annoy Your Driver
Point to the right and tell the driver to make a left.

Annoying Things To Do In A Swimming Pool
Ask people if they have seen your pet shark.

Entry #289

The Far Hill Country Day School sent their seventh graders all the way from New Jersey for their annual shark petting field trip.

Animal of the Week: Rattlesnakes. From the Albuquerque rattlesnake museum.

Driving around today I saw a Hummer 2 with that bumper sticker that says this.
This was either a really poor joke or qualifies for this week's Ironic Sight Award.
Really, in today’s world, what kind of dope buys one of these? But did you know they also come in shoes, golf carts and bicycles?

Stuff You Should Know: The largest living organism is a mushroom.

Pet Corner: How to make gravy for your ferret.

How not to get abducted by aliens.

Is your name a retired hurricane?

Entry #288

Via Political Animal, I took this “handedness test” and scored 80% right handed.  The only answer I gave as “left” was for using a broom (upper hand), which made no sense to me.  Doesn’t the power when sweeping come from the lower hand?  The upper hand just sort of guides the pole.

Ok, so I agree with their sentiments, but man, this has to be the ugliest, most insanely busy website around.  I was looking at it and my dog had a seizure.  Not kidding (she’s had two this afternoon), although corrolation does not equal causation.

Now we’re cookin’:  How to deep-fry an oreo.

Rebecca brought her bucket-o-critters to the new Robert Bailey School (Providence).

Pet Corner: Buy an Amazonian giant centipede.  And other lovable pets.

Entry #287

I hadn’t realized that I sort of made it into the USA Today back in July. We started our pub trivia season last night at the Wild Colonial in Providence. The owner, Maurice, who is also the M.C., came by afterwards to give us our third place prizes, and told me I “figured prominently” in an Associated Press story that came out this summer. So, of course I googled it and, well, I wouldn’t have used the term “prominently”. Basically, I’m guilty of causing the fact-checking issue at the end of this article.
Also, we didn’t “boo”. I went up to the scoring lady and asked what I should do if one of their answers was wrong, because the correct answer is “killer whale”. She said “you can sit back down, shut up and drink your beer”. That quote didn’t make the story.
We renamed our team “The Whale-Eating Squids”, just to be annoying.

A little piece of Dylan: Blood In My Eyes (1993).

Happy Birthday Samuel Adams (1722). Brewer, Patriot and Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Now we’re cookin’: Kitty litter cake.

Dept. of Educashun: The 50 States.

Watch Rob make an idiot out of an idiot.

Albino Monday: Moose.

What's up with my archives? (Update: They magically fixed themselves.)

Entry #286

Happy Birthday Alison (7).

This is handy. It’s called “Littlink”.
I tried it to link to the story of the 15 foot Great White shark swimming around Cape Cod this week. Let’s see if it works.

Movie Review: Fahrenheit 451.
Very dated. But worth a look. It's all about a society that keeps people stupid for the good of us all. Let’s hope it never comes to pass. We can start on Nov. 2.
3.7 starfish out of 5.

Watch a Nike sneaker evolve.

Dept. of Educashun: Exponential growth explained. If you fold a piece of paper 100 times its size will equal the radius of the universe.

Check out the world’s smallest website.

Entry #285

Happy Birthday John (9).

Stuff You Should Know: The 8th annual solar challenge has begun.

Timewaster of the Week: The alphabet in color.

This is the Chinese symbol for “grapefruit”. I’m not good with languages to begin with, but Chinese just blows my mind.

Search Results: Someone in Thailand found the Biomes Blog by googling “How to memorize Pi”. It brought them here.

The shrine to Don Knotts.

Entry #284

This site wants you to know that it has won a lot of awards.

Pet Corner: Dog noses.

Stuff You Should Know:  Company name etymologies.

Here’s the world’s funniest joke (as determined by humor scientists.  Seriously.)

Play! Maximaze.

Entry #283

The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my car keys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a while. I was speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, "right here, officer". Later, I parked it on the freeway, got out, and yelled at all the cars, "Get out of my driveway!" -- Steven Wright

The Community Preparatory School (Providence) visited us for a field trip this morning.

Praises to the Georgia DOT. A bridge was scheduled to be demolished but is home to this colony of female bats and their young. The Dept. decided to wait until the young learn to fly before leveling the bridge. Nice work guys.
Similar to my story in Entry #169. Nice to know that a government agency can have the same moral bearings as the Biomes Center.

Now We’re Cookin’: Fast food nutrition charts.

Man, today is really dragging. How many seconds until tomorrow?

So, here are a few questions for you.

Update:: Hey, cool! Go to Netflix, search for the movie Kelly’s Heroes. Then scroll down to “Member Reviews”.

Entry #281

Today in History: The West African country of Mali celebrates its independence from France in 1960.

Spent most of the day travelling to several schools along the Boston to Worcester highways, and that area is absolutely plastered with K/E bumper stickers. Only one B/C all day (and he yelled at me at a stop light. Heh.)

Dept. of Educashun: Famous Trials.

Old Astronomy News: The US spacecraft Galileo, which was sent to study Jupiter nine years ago, is finished. To avoid it crashing onto the moon Europa (which may possibly have life on it, and microbes on the craft could contaminate the natives), NASA crashed it into the planet a year ago today. And no, this didn't cause Jupiter to become another sun.

Animal of the Week: Dead squirrels.
As in, what's up with the squirrels this year? They are all over the road. In a quarter mile stretch of Route 1 before my exit I counted 21 just in the southbound lane. Was this a bumper crop year or are they getting less road savvy?
Occam's Razor tells us there is simply more of them, but still.

Meet Baney the frog.

Entry #280

The North Windham School (CT) started their One-Month Aquarium today.

Public Service Announcement: This guy’s music is awesome. So is his.

Here are a whole bunch of badly outdated books about dinosaurs. I clearly remember having several of these as a kid.

Take another silly quiz:

What Finding Nemo Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Stuff You Should Know: Spider myths.

390 things to do before you die.
I have 382 left. I better get moving.

Bonus Comic: This is eleven years old, but how fitting today. You know, racewise.

Entry #279

Froze my butt off this morning diving to stock up on some of our animal basics like sea urchins, sea stars and sea cucumbers. My old wet suit is 23 years old and I'm 23 pounds heavier so I tossed it last week and bought a new mini, which didn't quite cut it after a really cold night dropped the water temperature. (Mine is blue and black. Who would wear yellow and red?)

Is it Real or a Hoax?
I got 10 out of 10, but then I’m really into the whole Snopes/email debunking thing, and I’ve seen all but the last one before.

A little piece of Dylan: What Good Am I? (1989)

Is it November yet?

Dept. of Educashun: Fish posters of the world.

Today’s long good read: Kerry’s speech at New York Univ.

Albino Monday: Red-tail hawk.

Arrrgh, This Be Entry #278

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

First, get yourself a real pirate name. I'm "Pear-Shaped Ferdinand".

We'll start with a primer on pirate jargon and follow with a brief history of pirates.

Now get your sea legs with more pirate talk. You are now well on your way to irritating your friends and family by talking like a pirate, aaarrrrggh.

The Rigging of a ship.

Here is a scene from the movie "Saving Pirate Ryan":

Entry #277

As usual, Saturday image stolen from maru, who gave me her permission a long time ago.

So, I'm housesitting for a friend this weekend and I just spent the last hour chasing his escaped alligator around his basement. Here's what I learned today: If an alligator is sleeping underneath a big aquarium stand, do not try to capture him by grabbing his tail and pulling.
I'm serious.

Stuff You Should Know: How to save wet books.

The U.S. constitution is a forgery!

Meet Freddie the dog. He has a link blog.

And here’s a blog in Klingon.

Entry #276

Meet the dairy lama.

The answer to yesterday's question: Yes it is Omar Sharif (whose real name is Michael Shalhoub).

Via The Loom (which you should be reading, by the way) here’s a really cool bacteriophage movie. (Bacteriophages are basically viral parasites on bacteria.)

Health Tip: How to tell if you are constantly being mauled by bears.

What’s your “ecological footprint”? Mine is 17 acres, which isn’t so hot. Mainly, it seems, because I eat too much meat.

If you can catch a single fly with a chopstick, I’ll send you a teeshirt. (Not really.)

Remember to check in on Sunday as we celebrate International "Talk Like A Pirate Day".

Entry #275

The judge asked, "What do you plead?" I said, "Insanity, your honor, who in their right mind would park in the passing lane?" -- Steven Wright

So, who's this guy?

Be the most popular kid on the block with your new sip ‘n swirl straw.

Stuff You Should Know: The top 100 wonders of the world.

He's here, he's gone. He's here, he's gone. He's here.

Search Results: I’m the first choice when you google “chinese stinkpot army picture”.

Real men ride bikes with concrete seats.

Take the “are you an idiot” test. I guess I am.