Biomes Blog

Entry #2055

Elephant on a trampoline.

Geek Stuff: If you liked the movie Psycho, you might like this shower curtain and bath mat. Then again, maybe not.

Play! Cat Noir. Strategically darken the spots to prevent the cat from escaping off the screen.

Google’s mowing their grounds with goats.

Cool Site of the Week: Learn about Cahokia mounds.

iPod Shuffle:

1. I Took Your Name (R.E.M)
2. Twilight (The Band)
3. Broke Down Engine (Bob Dylan)
4. I Guess the Lord Must be in New York City (Harry Nilsson)
5. Blue Moon Rose (Everything but the Girl)

Entry #2054

Animal of the Week: The Maleo. This Indonesian shore bird can fly immediately after hatching.

Forty more examples of photo manipulation.

For yesterday's trivia question, I'm giving Knucklehead partial credit. It’s a $25,000 power nap capsule from Hammacher Schlemmer.

Leave it to Fox News to conveniently get basic geography very wrong. Egypt and Iraq aren’t even on the same continent.

Weird fortune cookies.

Entry #2053

Trivia (18 Biomes points): What’s this? Hint: it won't fit on your desk but it's smaller than a car.

Having a great vocabulary didn’t save the thesaurus from extinction/eradication/extirpation.

Ten celebrities who hawk gadgets on tv.

The evolution of cell phone design between 1983-2009.

Hump Day musical interlude: "Jackie Blue", by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

Entry #2052

Sesame Street turned forty years-old this year. Here’s a handy guide to the show’s muppets. Roll over each one for more info.

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Meet best buds Suryia the orangutan and Roscoe the blue tick coonhound.

Now we’re cookin’: How to make perfect brownies.

First Farrah, then Michael, and now Gidget.

Stuff you should know: “Susan Boil” and “paperview boxing” are among the most common internet misspellings.

Entry #2051

For today’s long read, Devilstower examines the evolution of the horse.

The right’s brilliant insurance insurance idea.

The blog glossary, or Blogsarry.

Why bacon is usually eaten in the morning.

Albino Monday: Chimpanzee.

Entry #2050

This week’s Green Thing is teensygreen, an environmental blog for parents to share with their kids.

This 2-second film is the first known moving picture, shot by a French inventor named Louis LePrince in 1888. All four characters shown died within two years of filming.

Buy your disappearing civil liberties coffee mug here. On the mug is written the entire Bill of Rights, but when you fill it with hot tea or coffee the parts negated by the USA Patriot Act disappear.

The art of listening.

Morford: Obama the muslim, extra lard.

“Turns out we are not eating any nastier, any more horribly than we were in, say, 1987. We are not necessarily putting into our bodies more dangerous, disgusting junk than we were back when everyone thought McDonald's Fishwiches were health food and shoving melted chemical cheese-like goop inside the pizza crust was some sort of genius revelation and wine coolers were the great American pastime. Isn't that wonderful?"

Entry #2049

Interspecies friendships.

Glenn Greenwald has a very good post up about tribalistic self-absorption.

The found alphabet.

Here’s a niche blog dedicated to awful library books.

This photo gallery of nearly 600 portraits of Native Americans is fascinating.

Entry #2048

Cool Site of the Week: Shipwrecks.

Geek Stuff: Last week I posted a link to ten annoying habits of a geeky spouse. Here are ten endearing habits of ours.

Movie Rating: SiCKO.
Michael Moore has another stunner, this one eviscerating the corrupt system of Health Maintenance Organizations. Like pretty much every idea that turns out to be bad for America, this one was hatched once again by Republicans (Nixon administration.) Fox News will scare it’s viewers into believing their lies about this issue because Moore is fat, or something. He pulls his usual over-the-top stunts to make his points, but they do make his points. I linked to the google video where you can watch the entire thing before, but there it is again. 4.5 starfish out of 5. As usual, here's Ebert's take.

Play! Soundory.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Kate (Ben Folds Five)
2. Piano Man (Billy Joel)
3. Another Sunny Day (John Mellencamp)
4. River Knows Your Name (John Hiatt)
5. Stalin Malone ( Elvis Costello)

Entry #2047

Animal of the Week: Water Bears, also known as tardigrads.

Learn about 1709, the coldest winter in the past 500 years.

Meet the sewer creature from North Carolina.

Unwise microwave oven experiments.

July's Eyesore of the Month is the Wasilla City Hall.

Entry #2046

The ten most diabolical fish on earth.

Whoever logged in from Grand Junction, Colorado yesterday afternoon was the Biomes Blog’s half a millionth customer.

Thinking about a vacation? Be sure to consider Brooksville, FL, where all city employees now wear underwear and deodorant while on duty.

Jib Jab’s been kind of lame lately, but this one on superhero Obama is pretty funny

Michael Moore’s health care documentary “Sicko” can be seen online for free on Google videos. Watch the whole two-hour film here.

Hump Day Musical Interlude: Warren Zevon’s "Spendid Isolation".

Entry #2045

One hundred images of lonliness and solitude.

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Watch this year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show contestants in the black-and-tan coonhound category. When you watch them sort of trot away they have this odd little waddle in their step. I thought that was just something a little bit wrong with Creole, but apparently it's typical of the breed.

Stuff you should know: How to tip a cow.

Elk has bar stool stuck on head.

Now we’re cookin’: Ten great grilled cheese sandwich recipes.

Entry #2044

San Diego is being menaced by jumbo flying squid. A while back I posted a photo essay on the dissection I did on one of these monsters. Part I is here and part II is here.

The Beagle, the bacon and the chocolate (via Arjay).

Today’s long read is a manly history of boxing.

Timewaster of the Week: Toggle, toggle.

Albino Monday: Tiger.

Entry #2043

This week’s Green Thing are products from Living Tree Paper Co., who make tree-free paper for books and offices. This was brought to my attention by Joel Harper, who asked me to preview his book “All the Way to the Ocean”.

Everyone loves that “new car smell”, but I wonder how many realize it’s the product of the toxic glues that hold the interior parts together.

More animal babies, and these ones are weird.

 

Morford: Your wonderful totally bogus freedom.

Buy your wearable towel here.

Entry #2042

Crazy bicycle concepts. This one is a super-compact folding bike. The round thing on the right side is the same bike after it's been folded.

According to this site I’ve probably eaten about 435 rat hairs this year.

Pet Corner: Control-A-Cat remote control is easy to use. Simply point the remote at your cat, press a button and hope for the best. Only $7.99.

Today’s slide show is a collection of cloud photos.

Here’s another niche blog, this one describing various ways we can spot a Canadian.

Entry #2041

Spinal Tap scene “These go to eleven”.

Geek Stuff: Ten annoying habits of a geeky spouse.

Play! Mahjongg Solitaire.

Movie Rating: Children of Men.
This film wouldn’t deserve much of a mention other than a few scenes I noticed about three-quarters of the way through. Britain is descending into anarchy and Clive Owen’s character is breaking into an illegal alien detention camp. As he enters we notice the sign over the entrance says “Homeland Security”, and as he passes a series of prison cages each one has inmates exactly replicating those first batches of photos we all saw from Abu Ghraib. The first cage had a single hooded man standing on a box with his arms outstretched and attached to wires, and it went on from there. It wasn’t even subtle, which was probably intentional. By coincidence I followed this film up with Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale, which was pretty dull but still a must see, especially for any wingnut you know who still thinks we went into that country for nothing less than noble reasons. 2.0 starfish out of 5 for Children and 3.0 starfish out of Five for Greenwald's doc. Here's Ebert's take on Children of Men.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Not Home Anymore (Whiskeytown)
2. It Probably Always Will (Ozark Mountain Daredevils)
3. 1,000 Miles (Dwight Yoakam)
4. Stop Thinkin' 'Bout That (James Taylor)
5. On A Night Like This (Bob Dylan)