Biomes Blog

Entry #868

This week's water tower is found at Palmer Station, Antarctica.

Welcome to Palmer Station.

  Watch a steel ball being dropped into sand in slow motion.

Dept. of Educashun: Everything you could ever want to know about over 190 world countries at the Encyclopedia of the Nations.

Cool Site of the Week: Bald Eagle Cam.

David Lynch’s comic strip, The Angriest Dog In The World.  This dog is so angry he cannot move, eat or sleep.  Strange stuff, until you realize it comes from the mind that created Eraserhead.

Entry #867

As a member of the The Ocean Project (Scroll down. I'm the one whose logo they don't bother to put up.), I need to do one seafood consumer public service post every 1,000 blog entries (it's in my contract).  So here it is:

We've put out (most of the work was actually done by the Monterey Bay Aquarium) a guide to seafood choices with three catagories: Best choices (fish that are abundant, well managed and caught or farmed in environmentally friendly ways),  Alternative Choices (good alternatives but with some concerns about how they are caught or farmed), and Avoid! (species that that are overfished or caught/farmed in ways that are environmentally harmful).

Best Choices:

Catfish (US farmed)
Clams (farmed)
Softshell clams (wild-caught)
Dungeness crab (Canada)
Croaker (Atlantic)
Halibut (Pacific)
Herring (Atlantic)
Lobster (Spiny, US)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pollock (wild caught)
Salmon (wild caught)
Striped bass (farmed or wild caught)
Sturgeon caviar (farmed)
Tilapia (farmed)
Rainbow trout (farmed)
Albacore, Bigeye and Yellowfin Tuna (troll or pole caught)

Alternatives:

Basa (farmed)
Black Sea Bass
Bluefish
Hard shell clams (wild caught)
Blue crab
Rock crab
King crab (Alaska)
Imitation crabmeat or surimi
Haddock (line caught)
Hake (Red or Silver)
Lobster (New England)
Mahi mahi or Dolphinfish
Oysters (wild caught)
Scallops (Bay)
Scallops (Deep-sea, Canada)
Scup
Shrimp (Canada)
Shrimp (US farmed raised)
Squid
Swordfish (US)
Tilefish (Mid-Atlantic)
Albacore, Bigeye or Yellowfin Tuna (longline caught)
Tuna (canned dolphin-safe)

Avoid!

Chilean Seabass
Cod (Atlantic)
King crab (imported)
Dogfish (Atlantic)
Flounder (Atlantic, all species)
Haddock (trawl caught)
Hake (White)
Halibut (Atlantic)
Monkfish
Orange Roughy
Salmon (farmed)
Scallops (Deep sea mid-Atlantic)
Sharks
Skates
Shrimp (imported farmed or wild caught)
Red snapper
Sturgeon caviar (imported wild caught)
Swordfish (imported)
Tilefish (Southeast)
Tuna (Bluefin)

Ten Biomes points to the first one who finds me in any of the above links. (I know...that was cruel.)

Entry #866

This is an actual sign posted on a tree somewhere.  This dalmation's gonna get a fine.

I’ve always dreamed of sitting in my driveway and watching a movie in my car’s headlights.  Now that dream can come true.

Vote for Scott or a bear. I voted for the bear because it has an awesome set of claws.  I'm pretty sure that's a sloth bear.

Stuff You Should Know: Twenty-five ways to save at the pump.  Gas will hit $3.50 per gallon before summer. Count on it.  And for a Prius update, if you are looking for a new car, consider this Toyota.  It’s been about four months of driving one for me and I’ve been carefully keeping track of the mileage compared with my old Pontiac mini-van.  The average difference in gas money I’m spending per month almost exactly equals the car payment, which is pretty astonishing.  Granted, if you’re going from a Jetta diesel or a small Honda you obviously won’t see such a big change. 

Watch a woman being drawn from the inside out (click on x8 or x16 to speed the process up).

iPod Shuffle (is it Friday again already?):

1. Tunnel Of Love (Dire Straits)
2. Mosh (Eminem)
3. Idiot Wind (Bob Dylan, live)
4. I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan)
5. Child of Vision (Supertramp)
6. If I Give My Soul (Johnny Cash)
7. Dear Landlord (Bob Dylan)
8. Just Like A Woman (Richie Havens)
9. Sweetness Follows (R.E.M.)
10. You Know What They're Writing About (Van Morrison)

Entry #865

“My country seems on the verge of making an historic mistake…. My government is making a case for war against Iraq that is built upon fear and ignorance, as opposed to the reality of truth and fact.”
Scott Ritter, way back in early 2003, a weapons inspector and not all that dumb of a guy.

Hmmm. Maybe I’ll give the Red Hot Chili Peppers another listen. (Via Atrios.)

Stuff You Should Know: The origin of the phrase Catch-22.

  Protect your laptop with this Italian-syle pizza box.

Pet Corner: Guidelines for cats.

Bookmark worthy: Ducks Unlimited.

These are some pretty amazing 3D-like street drawings.

Entry #864

Animal of the Week: Vampire fish from Hell.  And this is another site with some info on this species' strange life cycle.  The male, a fraction the size of the female, is known as a sexual parasite.  In order to insure it finds a mate year after year in its lightless environment, a young one, once it finds a female, bites the skin and holds on.  Eventually the female's skin fuses with the male's mouth and they become bonded for life.  Blood vessels form between the tissues of the pair and nourishes the male.  Some females may have several males attached onto different parts of her body.

Now we’re cookin’: Square donuts.

The Golden Rock of Myanmar, with a pagoda built on top.

Wookieepedia.

Movie Rating: The Squid and The Whale.  Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are really bad parents going through a messy separation. Keep your eye on their younger child.  You’ll see this kid again soon. 4.1 starfish out of 5.

Scotty the Underbear’s greatest hits.

Entry #863

We lost some business last Tuesday when the Dept. of Transportation blew up the old Jamestown bridge and some people couldn't cross over from the island since the new bridge next to it was closed for most of the day.  Still, it’s nice to see that eyesore gone.  They’ll be hauling it out into deeper water to create an artificial reef.  Here’s some footage where you can watch the bridge go bang (click on the first video link).

Stuff You Should Know: Ralph Wiggum’s Words of Wisdom.

  The polar bears of Churchill.

Search Results: Someone found the Biomes Blog by yahooing “plants with eyes”.  It brought them here.

Trivia (5 Biomes points): Name the actor.

Movie Rating: Murder on a Sunday Morning.
You could leak a few tears at the end of this documentary.  I didn’t buy the case against this 15-year-old kid from the beginning, and it turns out they found the real killer a year later.  4.6 starfish out of 5.

On the heels of the latest faux outrage, designed by the GOP and the republican-shill media to distract us from the failures of Bushco, Chupacabra weighs in on the immigration “crisis”.

By the way, you want to curb the illegal immigrant problem?  It's simple.  Create a task force that audits businesses.  Anyone that hires undocumented workers is fined $1 million dollars and their CEO's and board of directors are sentenced to 3 years in jail.  Problem solved.  Republican politicians will never go for it because in order to satisfy the bigotted and jingoistic half of their base they would have to penalize the corporatist other half.

Entry #862

All last week the comic strip Get Fuzzy was imitating Pearls Before Swine.  It was pretty funny but I was a bit confused.  Here's an example from Friday:

  Get Fuzzy.

  Pearls Before Swine.

Come on Tom, that’s just gross.  Scientology makes people crazy. Or vice versa.

My post from the day after the 2004 elections.  It got some sort of blog recognition for "shortest post-election blog entry" or something.  I forget which site honored it. The Boy was the only commenter.

Slide show of the Week: How to make a “Triple Threat”.  Eat only one per year if you want to live past fifty.

Why you should always stand behind a tree when judging a road race.

Wow. Watch this octopus change color. Stick with the video and watch it in slow-motion reverse for the full effect.

Albino Monday:  Woodpecker.

Entry #861

Yesterday’s Earth Day list from Grist Magazine.

  Cool marine life gallery.

I think Kirk Cameron and his mustached friend have brain tumors.  Seriously, I’m worried for both of them.

Five Weird Habits Meme. Ntodd got tagged but is polite enough not to pass this on to some poor sucker so I’ll take the bullet and run with it (to mix metaphors).  I’m passing it on to our two trivia leaders, Shayera and Jim D, but with no obligations.

1. I’ve been to see movies in about a dozen theaters and I never, ever sit in the middle seats.  I’ll only sit along the side walls.  That’s not the weird part.  A few years ago I discovered that in theaters that face North or East I sit along the left wall.  In theaters that face South or West I sit along the right wall.  Without exception (well one: The Cable Car Cinema faces Northeast and I sit on the right, but that’s only because the right side has sofas instead of chairs.) I can remember where I sat during every single movie I’ve ever seen going back to “Jaws” when I was ten years old.

2. I always keep 500 movies in my Netflix queue.  And I choose movies by reading reviews in Entertainment Weekly, circling the ones I want to see and tearing out the page for later reference.  I randomize the entire list a few times a week so that I never know which movies will be arriving.

3. I have restless leg syndrome.  I’ll rock my knee so that the whole table shakes if I’m in a restaurant.  I try to control this as much as possible, especially if we've ordered expensive wine. Actually, now that I read the link I don’t actually experience any of the symptoms other than moving my leg (usually the right one) pretty much constantly if I’m nervous, bored or sitting still for more than a few minutes, so it probably is a habit rather than a syndrome.  The Boy does this as well.  You don’t want to sit down for a relaxing dinner with the two of us, which is probably why we both eat at our respective computers each night.

4. Any magazine I subscribe to I have to read cover to cover, even if I have no interest in the topic. And in order, which means that even though I am now halfway through the October 2002 National Geographic, every subsequent issue is sitting unopened and unread until its turn. When I discovered Skeptic Magazine I went online and backordered every issue so I could read them in chronological order. (Also, I can’t start reading until every insert is torn out.  The last one is used as a bookmark.)

5. Although spiders that I find in my house are released outside, I leave my back door open for a few minutes each night so I can be sure that those I haven’t found yet have some insects to eat.

Bonus Habit: This one’s fairly recent, but I can’t get to sleep without my iPod playing.  Now that I have an iBass I don’t have to sleep with the earphones on anymore.

Second Bonus Habit: I haven't missed a blog posting in 861 consecutive days. Now that's messed up.

[Update: Man, rereading this list makes me realize I have some issues.]

Entry #860

How to attract hummingbirds.

Today is Earth Day. Yippee.

The decider.

I’m The Decider (Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo).

In the global warming debate (like many, it’s simply an uphill battle against the willfully ignorant) it never even occured to me before to check what the insurance industry has to say about things. 

What a loser.  Fox News for dummies has flightsuit boy at 33% approval.

Morford: Sad Spouts Of Ignorance.  This is old.

Bob Balabananza.  Sure, he was the NBC exec on Seinfeld, the president of the Mayflower Kennel Club in “Best in Show” and Captain Orr in “Catch-22”, but did you know he was also the kid in the men’s room in “Midnight Cowboy”?

Timewaster of the Week: Pipecleaner dancer.

Entry #859

Regarding yesterday's trivia question, I'm giving Derryl 10 points for his answer.  The people in the photo are Python fans waiting outside a theatre for the play "Spamalot", and they have two empty halves of coconuts and they're bangin' em together.

Another transitional fossil is found, and this time it’s a snake with legs.  As the man says, “It must be rough being a creationist right now--the data against their mythology just never stops coming.”

Oh, this is rich. The state department has issued guidelines for Americans traveling abroad on how to act to counter the “ugly american” stereotype.  Jeebus, how about not dropping nukes on countries we happen not to like very much.  Would that help?

Rolling Stone magazine, awesome as always, profiles the worst president in history with an article called “The Worst President In History?”.

Movie Rating: Kill Bill, Vol. I. Giving the history of one of the assassins in anime was brilliant.  4.2 starfish out of 5.  Kill Bill, Vol II. Finishing up where he left off, Tarantino creates a work of art in revenge and every scene is a surprise. David Carradine, who was only a voice in the first volume, was terrific. Loved it.  4.6 starfish out of 5.

Some good stuff from the Letterman show.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Walk On (John Hiatt)
2. I Wish (Stevie Wonder)
3. Gun Shy (10,000 Maniacs)
4. You Better Hang Up (Don Henley)
5. Understand Your Man (Johnny Cash)
6. Love Field (Elvis Costello & The Attractions)
7. Send Me The Pillow (Dwight Yoakam)
8. Down The Line (Johnny Cash)
9. Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Bob Dylan)
10. In The Afternoon (Van Morrison)

Entry #858

Bookmark worthy: World Wildlife Fund.

Pet Corner: Dogs with head scarves.

Trivia (10 Biomes points): What’s gotten into these New Yorkers?

How sweet is this? 50 state polling of the idiot in the white house.  What do they put in the water in Utah? I'm proud of my fellow Rhode Islanders.

  Play! air hockey.

Here’s some descriptions of strange afflictions, like Dr. Strangelove Syndrome.

The Great Taco Hunt is a blog about L.A. taco joints.

Movie Ratings: Don’t watch “Shallow Hal” or “Bowfinger”. I should have known better. 1.8 starfish out of 5 for both, and that’s with bonus points for somehow actually making it until the end of each one.

Oh, this little kid is awesome. High five.

Entry #857

Animal of the Week: Transparent butterflies (via Maru).

How to make a butterfly garden.

The Dilbert diet.

Time Lag, by Wayne Uff, is an example of a beautifully succinct blog post.

Yikes. Take away the infant and I could be a grup.

Squid is a blog all about squid.

Shave Your Yeti.

Stuff You Should Know: How to cook with a shovelfull of hot lava.

A Canadian asks, after learning of our possible noocular invasion of Iran, “Is your entire country on crack?”  No, Dan.  Just our leaders and 36% of our citizens who are brain-dead neanderthals stupid or Foxnews brainwashed enough to still support them.

Movie Rating: King Kong.
Here’s what I don’t get.  These guys are pros: the director, the writer, the producer and the actors. Yet how many times will they nearly kill an amazing movie with an unbelievably stupid closing line.  In this one it’s:

Carl: “What happened.”
Reporter: “The planes killed him.”
Carl: “No, the planes didn’t kill him.  It was beauty that killed the beast.”
Darth: “Nooooooooo!!!!

Graham and I both started yelling at the screen and that was after experiencing three hours of heart-pounding action, amazing special effects, and a surprisingly touching and heartbreaking scene on top of the Empire State Building. Unlike the Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange version, kudos to Peter Jackson for setting this film in the 30’s. And also for losing 70 pounds.  Good for you, dude.  Watch the trailer. 4.4 starfish out of 5.

Entry #856

See some altered photos at “Pictures that Lie”.

Snopes' analysis of the pictures on the right.

Top ten strangest lego creations.  Check out Han Solo frozen in carbonite, made out of 10,000 lego pieces.

In light of that unusual bear mauling in Tennessee, here’s some insightful info on black bears.

  Teacup poodles.

So far we’ve thrown away around 500 billion dollars on Joe Isuzu’s Iraqi misadventure.  What could we have done with all that money?  Jim Smith (not his real name since he claims to be from Smithville, USA) points out that we could buy each American citizen about 16 twinkies a day for a whole year.  Of course, the casualty rate would be even higher I think.

Search Results: Someone found the Biomes Blog by googling “eyelash parasites”.  It brought them here.

Ten cool geek watches.

Entry #855

Things that go squish on my scanner. (Blog posts with animated gifs are annoying. Sorry.)

Help the kids over at Blah3 reach a million hits by the end of the month.

Melting Arctic ice is stranding walrus pups.

Still don’t believe Bushco is evil, evil, evil?

The Union of Concerned Scientists has an animation up on the ineffectiveness and dangers of using nuclear bunker busting bombs (I can’t believe they even have to say this.  This country is run by lunatics.).

Movie Rating: Reign of Fire.
Ah, so that’s what happened to Matthew McConaughey's career. 2.8 starfish out of 5.

Creationwiki: Keeping you stupid for several months now.  Their dinosaur page is priceless.

Albino Monday: Blandford's Fox.

Entry #854

Easter bunny caught eating too many Cadbury Eggs. Or a couple of these.

Get ‘em while they’re hot. Plush dolls representing all ten Old Testament plagues can be purchased here.  I want a “black cube of darkness”.

Easter facts from The Easter Page.  And their hysterical Easter Jokes page will have you rolling on the floor. In pain.

Hunting with the Peep Veep.

DarkSyde’s “If I Were Christian” is a fantastic essay and a perfect one for this holiday considering we are living in a time when our political leaders and their supporters couldn’t be less Christ-like.

Wiki on the Easter Bunny.

In celebration of Easter, that holiday in which we honor those egg-laying mammals known as platypuses bunnies, here is my favorite comic in the world.