Biomes Blog

Entry #1144: Animals of the Week

I've got a two-fer for you as today's Animal of the Week. Both of these were shot by my business partner, Rebecca, using the video option on her camera, so the quality isn't great. The first is my new octopus I mentioned a few weeks ago. As you can see, he's doing well but is still a bit nervous about being in his new home. He's eating well and seems to be very healthy, especially considering he was moved from January water temperatures to our facility that we keep at about sixty-five degrees. If you're wondering about the lighting, I always keep an octopus' tank lights covered in red plastic tubing to help calm them down. Being mainly nocturnal, they don't like bright lights.

The second video is really something. We were doing a field trip for a visiting class of fourth graders when one of the students called Rebecca over and said that one of our lobsters was dying. Turns out it was in the process of shedding its exoskeleton, which they normally do only at night. Watch the little tail-flick as it leaves the old shell behind. Also, this lobster was found without claws (they lose them in fights with other lobsters). Notice the tiny new claws after the animal molts.

Entry #1143

Did you earn your high school diploma? I did.

You paid attention during 97% of high school!

 

85-100%  You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high!  Good show, old chap!

Did you deserve your high school diploma?

BreathCapture. Forever close.

Here’s a video of Stephen Colbert at Harvard’s Institute for Politics. Yeah, it’s over an hour long so hardly anyone will actually watch it. But it’s really worth the time.

“You can’t be passionately moderate, it’s like wearing an extra-medium.”

Animal of the Week: Apple maggot.

Seriously, how could it possibly have been worse? This is one of the best indictments of the right’s worldview as I’ve ever seen.

  Real or Hoax? I got 10 for 10.

Entry #1142

Ebert reviews “49 Up”, part six in Michael Apted’s long-running documentary series where he follows the lives of fourteen British children born in 1956 and interviews them every seven years. His subjects are all 49 years-old now. I watched “7 Up” and “14 Up” (actually called “Seven Plus Seven”) when I was a kid and was mesmerized by them. So, thanks to the wonders of Netflix I rented all 7 - 42 Ups and we watched them in a ten-hour marathon this weekend. These films are all incredible, but I wouldn’t advise viewing them in this format since the majority of each film is flashbacks to earlier movies to give you some perspective on each character’s life history. By “42 Up” we were a bit punch-drunk and giddy from seeing the same scenes five times in some cases.  Still, I’ll give 5 starfish out of 5 for the whole project. Here's the trailer for "49 Up", which we'll be watching on Wednesday.

Watch this guy solve a Rubik’s cube with his feet.

Oh, but it’s a hoax and this other guy figures it out.

Another niche blog: Indexed.

One incredibly ignorant father, someone so dumb that he actually believes earth is only 14,000 years-old, is all it takes to remove Gore’s documentary from a school’s curriculum. [Update: I think this got reversed. Anybody got a link?]

Albino Monday: New Zealand's Weka Rail.

Entry #1141

This week's water tower is found in St. John's, MI.

Great. According to the doomsday clock it is now 11:55 pm.

Can you spot the joke on the Bryan Loves Trista page? (2 Biomes points for the first one.)

Here’s a list of each state bird with accompanying artwork by James Audubon.

Play! Type or Die.

Jibjab’s 2006 year in review.

Here’s a bunch of videos of sleepy kittens.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Graceland (Paul Simon)
2. Daily Grind (Little Feat)
3. Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)
4. Ro Ro Rosey (Van Morrison)
5. Ballad in Plain D (Bob Dylan)

Entry #1140

This week's Marine Life Series is up. It's about responsible shrimp buying and I was surprised to discover while writing this that it's not so much the harvesting method, but where the shrimp are from that matters when choosing ecologically safer types of shrimp to eat.

How many people can say they’ve been half swallowed by a great white shark?

If you drive a hummer, you ain’t helpin’.

Stuff You Should Know: Why you can’t buy an iPod at a discount.

Today’s slide show is the Humane Society’s 2006 Year in Pictures.

Entry #1139: Stuff I Forgot to Post

Deer in the yard.

Stuff You Should Know: How to make a toothbrush bracelet.

The first annual Monkeyfist Awards, and nine of the winners are on my blogroll (although I think one of them had an in). Yay, team.

Jimmy Buffett bans Canadian seafood from his restaurants to protest the annual harp seal hunt.

“The most stubborn man on Earth.” And no, that’s not admirable.

Unreal chameleon octopus (thanks to Princess).

Check out the customer tags on Amazon's page for the ex-Mr. Britany Spears’ new album.

Don’t mess with Kasatka or she’ll drag you down to the bottom of the pool.

Entry #1138

Cool site of the week: Darwin Bell’s sign language.

Billionaire dropouts.

The Emma Maersk is the largest container ship in existence. It is 1,303 feet long.

Here’s a bunch of photos of boobies.

Are you a socialist or a capitalist? This quiz is nonsense and nearly every question presents a false choice. I’m a small business owner, an employer and believe in a (regulated) free market. Yet it puts me at 88% socialist, mainly because I had to leave nearly every question unchecked (ie: disagree with the statement). But it’s a quick quiz so see how you turn out.

"Justifying space exploration because we get non-stick frying pans is like justifying music because it is good exercise for the violinist's right arm."  -- Richard Dawkins

Entry #1137

I didn't watch the SOTU address because I had better things to do than listen to a dull-witted bore tell me more lies, like enjoying a night of poker with friends. But I did check in with some news sites after midnight to get a feel for how this annual shlock-fest went and to see the dems response. The second site I checked had this graphic of Senator Jim Webb (D-hero). How many "mistakes" will news orgs like CNN screwup when captioning photos of democrats (remember a photo of Obama labeled "Osama")? What a bunch of hacks.

Here are the Oscar nominations. Check out who got a nod in the Best Documentary catagory.

Animal of the Week: World War I bi-plane dinosaurs.

Play! Star Castle.

Entry #1136

Trivia (5 Biomes points): Who’s this?

  Russian death tunnel.  That driver of the double bus deserves some kind of award. And near the end this truck comes out of nowhere. This is nuts. 

Pet Corner: Ferret clothes.

Here’s a coloring book for executives.

Watch this time-lapse video of a cicada moulting.

Today’s long read is this essay on blogging in ‘07, and it is first rate. Of course, it’s written by Hunter so those of you who follow Dailykos at all know that it will be even before reading it. If my brain worked half as well and my writing was a quarter as good I probably wouldn’t just have a little link blog.

Entry #1135

Via Blah3, watch these intelligent people get interviewed by an Aussie on the street. Good god, I didn’t know whether to laugh or sob.

Movie Rating: Little Miss Sunshine.
I went into this viewing very skeptical that I would enjoy it. What a surprise that it is the most entertaining movie I’ve seen in months. Alan Arkin (a personal favorite going way back to his Yossarian days) was exceptional. This is a very funny take on a seriously disfunctional family.  4.3 starfish out of 5.

Monster sneakers.

Luxury rides, making the most out of causing climate change.

Check out the blog “Adopt A Microbe”.

Albino Monday: Water tiger

Entry #1134

This week's water tower is found in Clare, MI.

Top ten myths about Iraq in 2006.

Buy your Fish’nFlush here.

Holy cow, this kid’s a human dolphin. Blind since childhood, he’s apparently figured out a way to use echolocation to get around.

Olduvai George on Nimravids, the other saber-toothed “cats”.

Reminder: Links now open in a new window.

Entry #1133

This week's Marine Life Series is up. It's about oyster drill snails.

R.I.P. Art Buchwald. Watch the video at that link.

You go to this site, type in your information and get a free DVD of “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Morford: Candles Make You Kill Yourself.

Meet the king of hypermiles.  I tried out some of his tricks in the prius yesterday and they really work. I drafted a tractor trailer all the way up I95 and watched the mileage average go steadily up and up. Of course, many of these might fly in Wisconsin, but here in Little Rhody they are bound to get you cut off, shot at or worse. I did use his "no braking" philosophy in my old van once, out of necessity. One of my brake pads came off and I managed to drive the 50 miles from Providence to southern RI without using them. Timing lights so they were always on green when I went through, coasting through turns and pulling off the last mile in neutral and making a brakeless stop into my mechanic's driveway all to avoid scoring the rotors without having to call triple A. But unlike this guy, I wouldn't want to drive that way every day. Still, him getting 180 mpg in a hybrid is pretty damn impressive.

Entry #1132

Barack Obama NOW! is a blog all about....Barack Obama. Now! I like the guy as much as anyone but I don’t think this is a smart move. He needs to stay in the senate, build some chops and get some legislative experience behind him. On the other hand, Senators don’t win presidential elections so perhaps it’s now or never. I think the fact that Edwards only has one term under his belt is a big plus for him.

Compare yourself to a squid.

In the past twenty years I’ve had two much loved dogs die in my arms. The first was Siegred, a German short-haired pointer I adopted from my grandmother after she died. Siegred died of a heart tumor as I carried her to the car to be put down in the middle of the night. I buried her in the back field wrapped in her favorite blanket, in the pouring rain at 3:00 in the morning. The second was Dundee, my first Rhodesian Ridgeback, and that loss nearly killed me (my salute to her is here). Ngazi is only six but because of the epilepsy and megadoses of phenobarbitol that is destroying her liver, the loss of her is always looming. So coming across this site (via Creek Running North) was just beyond depressing.

Check out Parvum Opus, another really nice photoblog.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Georgia On My Mind (Willie Nelson)
2. Your Smiling Face (James Taylor, live)
3. Sweet Mama (Allman Brothers Band)
4. Ships (Patty Loveless)
5. Emotionally Yours (The O'Jays)

Entry #1131

Sure, I was blown away by my visit to the Grand Canyon last October. That doesn’t mean I would ever pay $25 (the proposed fee by the Hualapai indian tribe) to set foot on this skywalk when it opens next year. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even if they paid me $25. I’m a wuss when it comes to heights.

Watch a bottle of supercooled, but still liquid, water instantly freeze when it’s opened. How cool is that?

It's a Bluetooth handset that wirelessly connects to your state-of-the-art Bluetooth cell phone which in turn connects to a global billion-dollar satellite network which all condenses down to making it look like you're talking on a phone from 1977.

Adopt a manatee here.

I finally found a good version of the treadmill music video “Ok, Go”.

Entry #1130

I friend of mine caught an octopus for me and we’ve been busy securing its aquarium with an escape-proof lid. To get an idea of how nimble these creatures are, here’s an incredible video of one (about the same size as mine) escaping from a plastic box through a one-inch hole. The one pictured here has learned how to unscrew a jar top to get at the food placed inside.

A little bit of good news from China: Pandas are making a small comeback in the wild thanks to zoos.

The Tunisian government is letting people live in the Tatooine houses George Lucas built for filming Star Wars.

Watch this short movie to get a feel for just how big our nuclear arsenal is.