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The Halloween quiz.
Ghosts on the Prairie. There’s a section here about Harry Houdini. Here’s the scoop on that guy
Pet Corner: Dog halloween costumes.
Embarrass your pet here.
Dept. of Educashun: The history of Halloween.
(This entry post-dated since I'm up at the New Hampshire Kerry rally all day. Hopefully I'll have pics.)
My old toadfish, Jabba, died this week. We replaced him with a new specimen, who will hopefully live as long as Jabba did.
As any pet owner can attest to, sleeping dogs exude an odd odor that I’ve never been able to figure out, and it seems to vary from dog to dog. After four years I’ve finally nailed down the comparison. When she’s sleeping Ngazi smells like Smartfood.
Here are a bunch of illusions for you. Nice picture gallery.
Twelve years ago I found about two dozen rare brittle stars and added them to our marine life collection. This past month they have been dying off on us for no apparent reason. It seems we have discovered the life span of a brittle star. I mentioned this to some of the marine researchers at Woods Hole today and they were pretty stunned. One of them was nice enough to give me a dozen young ones to replace our aged population.
Pet Corner: Allergic to cats? Hey, no problem.
Play! Save a hamster and help Kerry win the election.
Fake trees. These are actually cell phone towers.
I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate. Then I took it to a potluck. I stood in line for some cake. They said, "Do you want white cake or chocolate cake?" I said, "yes". -- Steven Wright
Public Service Announcement:
During last year’s primary election they moved my regular voting station from the fire house to the high school. No signs on the door, no letter in the mail informing me of the change. I had to go to a different voting place in town and ask the officials there where I was supposed to vote. You can avoid all this hassle by using this site. (via Hoffmania)
Pet Corner: A digital camera for your dog.
Movie Review: Shark Tale. You’ll be hooked!
So, I got me some tickets to a Kerry rally up in New Hampshire this weekend. Report here Sunday night. Meanwhile visualize winning.
Animal of the Week: Harbor seal.
Now that the water is getting colder, it's about the time the harbor seals should start arriving from Maine and Canada. When I was a kid it was unheard of to find them in Narragansett Bay. Now they're a pretty common sight.
In high school I did an internship at Mystic Aquarium working with the seals and other marine life. At that time one of the seal residents was Andre, who died in 1986 in Rockport, ME and was made famous by a lame movie in which Andre the harbor seal was played by a sea lion. Every week I used to feed THE Andre. Cool or what? The NOAA Aquarium in Woods Hole, MA, who were nice enough to donate two dozen baby chain dogfish to Biomes last year, keeps some in their outside pen. Here's more on them. And more.
Play! Original Pac-Man (thanks Graham).
Today in History: In 1865 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson publishes "Alice in Wonderland"
Stuff You Should Know: How to tie your shoes.
When a group of you are out at a Chinese restaurant, here’s how to decide who takes the leftovers home in those little folding boxes: Each person takes a fortune cookie and reads how foolish they are. Then turn the fortune over and add up the “lucky numbers”. Highest total gets the goodies.
Quote of the Week: The Big Dog’s answer to the question “Is there anything you have in common with President Bush?”.
"In eight days and 12 hours, we will both be former presidents."
Search Results: Apparently when you picture-search AOL for the term “biomes Highlands”, one of the first results is the second picture on this entry. Odd.
Bonus Comic:
This is a virtual Band-aid museum.
A little piece of Dylan: Walking Down the Line (1962).
Stuff You Should Know: Here is every public swimming pool in the world. Think I’m kidding?
“And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.” --Buck Laughlin: Mayflower Kennel Club color commentator in the movie “Best in Show”.
This is funny in the movie, but not in real life.
Albino Monday: Koala.
This little movie is a highly technical analysis of suburban botanical life cycles.
How to draw a tiger.
Stuff You Should Know: Microwave oven myths.
Ouch.
Cool Site of the Week: The found alphabet.
Sat. images by Maru
Now we’re cookin’: Weird fortune cookies.
We’ve discussed “earworms” here before. Here’s an annoying song all about annoying songs.
Stuff You Should Know: How to ship a hippo. And more conventional pets.
Timewaster of the Week: Carrots don’t talk.
Tomorrow is my 40th birthday. Which means if I’m lucky, my life is half over. Yay.
Health Tip: If you have a headache and decide to take some aspirin, don’t mistakenly down a full dose of your dog’s anti-seizure medication. My apologies to anyone I may have called last night complaining about sea urchins crawling all over me, or some such nonsense.
Watch President Gore's speech from the other night here. Yeah it’s long, but it is very, very enlightening.
Stuff You Should Know: Famous curves.
Plastic nose pencil sharpener.
So, guess who all these folks are voting for.
Kerry rally in Minnesota.
Play! Pass the Pigs. Once you figure it out it’s very addicting.
I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, "Steven, time to go to sleep." I said, "But I don't know how." She said, "It's real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left." So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said "I thought I told you to go to sleep." -- Steven Wright
Dept. of Educashun: The Statue of Liberty timeline.
Movie Review: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Jim Jarmusch and Forest Whitaker. ‘nuf said. 4.8 starfish out of 5.
The Bush countdown clock.
I blogged this months ago, but the “Cat in the Kettle” video has been updated (and slowed down a bit). I think Harry Chapin would approve.
Who's this guy?
Icon Story (via Hoffmania).
Really boring books for children.
Animal of the Week: Oyster drill.
This small snail feeds on bivalves (mainly mussels and young oysters) and barnacles by drilling a hole through the shell and sucking out the soft body inside. It combines mechanical and chemical means to invade the shell. First it secretes an enzyme which softens the shell, then uses its sharp tooth (called a radula), to scrape bits of shell away. It alternates scraping and enzyming (I made that word up) until a perfectly round hole penetrates the prey’s protective shield. Here’s more and more and my fact sheet here.
Apparently someone wanted to read the Biomes Blog in French and google translated it. Maybe that’s real common, but it’s a first for me. It looks like this.
Welcome to the Creationist’s Fossil Shop’s plant page, which of course includes a fossil TV that was created in 4000 BC.
Now we’re cookin’: Buy your popcorn machines here.
Micheal J. Fox talks common sense.
Just received the new Star Wars box set from Amazon. Hope it rains this weekend so the boy and I can have a marathon.
This site documents the changes.
Search Results: People keep finding this blog by image googling “snow leopard”. Here’s more on them.
Check out this swarm of krill.
Here are 100 life magazine photos that changed the world.
Stuff You Should Know: How donkeys were invented.
Bonus Comic: (Click it.)
Calvin sez: Don't forget to vote!
As the weather gets colder we’re getting down to crunch time for capturing marine animals for the center. Today we stocked up on shore shrimp, american eels and some more fresh water fish for our mill pond exhibit. Also, we replaced some of our young lobsters which keep dying off on us because of this new “shell rot” disease running through the population. We had a clam bake at my sister’s wedding this summer and I noticed nearly every lobster served showed signs. It seems to get worse in captivity, perhaps because of the slightly higher temperatures we keep them at encourages the bacteria. Here’s more. Now we’re cookin’: Falafel. This is a 30 minute Charlie Rose interview with Jon Stewart. Go here. Today's Biomescenter hit counter:
A little piece of Dylan: License to Kill (1983).
Actor Jeff Bridges wants you to try this.
Albino Monday: Sea lion.
Cool Site of the Week: Find out how much nasty stuff you’ve eaten without even knowing it. According to this site I’ve eaten 425 rat hairs this year. Yum.
Scientists have created the world’s smallest Sydney Opera House, seen here through an electron microscope.
Here’s the real deal.
Pet Corner: Caskets for your pets.
Stuff You Should Know: Words made up of only vowels.
