Biomes Blog

Entry #3496: Being There

Albino Monday: Surfers in Chili filmed this baby albino right whale.

Grieving as an atheist.

Meet Svetlana Pankratova, the owner of the world’s longest legs.

The dullest blog in the world.

Entry #3495: Galloping Psittacula

Parakeets running in slow motion.

The offline glass prevents the annoying habit of table/bar mates from constantly checking their messages or calls. It can only stand upright when sitting on a cell phone.

Even mountain goats don’t like being caught in storms. Taken at an elevation of 14,000 feet, goat kids run back to mom when lightning strikes.

Entry #3494: Freaky Friday

Today is the memorial service for Kurt. If you read my tribute to him two posts down, which focused on our shared experience of our pub trivia team, and may be was read at the service, check out this comic strip that came out today.

Entry #3493: Black Coffee in Bed

Even during a heat wave, I drink hot coffee in the morning, mostly out of habit. But it turns out that hot drinks cool you off on hot days. The coffee makes you sweat, which cools you as it evaporates.

Now we’re cookin': Meet the world’s largest Frito pie.

A video of an eight-foot oarfish, filmed by an ROV.

Entry #3492: On Kurt

I’ve only ever seen one episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. It was called “Beast”, and it aired on April 10, 2005. And I only watched it because the show's characters were based on my brother Kurt and I (and the rest of our pub trivia team and assorted groupies). It was written by Gina Gionfriddo, who was a member of our team for years, before heading out to Hollywood to make a name for herself. Her writing credit on this episode was her freshman attempt.

My brother and I were very close. We shared a bedroom throughout our childhood. The huge room, isolated from the rest of the house because it was originally designed to be a two-car garage, allowed us to form a strong bond through the years. And we also tormented each other, as two siblings separated by four years and imprisoned together night after night, are bound to do. Every weekend we’d try to stay awake to watch Saturday Night Live and make it past the first musical guest. I don’t think we ever succeeded. Every school day we’d get dressed while watching the early news on Channel Ten, just to make fun of Artie Lake’s wheeze while doing the weather and Frank Coletta covering the day’s stories. Frank always seemed like he was just about to burst into laughter just as they cut away from his set, and we were determined to be tuning in on the morning he finally cracked.

The Law and Order show was a murder mystery, centered around the various characters who actually represented our pub trivia team. It was about a dentist, played by Bronson Pinchot and based on another team member’s then boyfriend, who was framed for the killing of his wife. The character based on me was an overweight, bearded marine biologist who provided some of the clues to the crime, but really wasn’t integral to the rest of the plot. Thanks for that, Gina. 

There’s another pub trivia event Kurt and I used to attend, at the Wild Colonial in Providence. Ten years later and we've become a bit of a cultural figure there, even though we could walk in today and nobody would have the slightest clue who we were. A question that night was: “What is the only predator of a blue whale?” The answer was “giant squid”, which of course is ridiculous. Kurt urged me to contest it formally. I asked the MC how to dispute an answer. “You sit down, shut up and drink your beer” was the response. The whole matter made it into this USA Today article. To this day the web site icon for the Wild Colonial Quiz Night is a whale-eating squid. See it here. Not sure how the T-rex fits in.

For the next few years the name we gave our team was the “Whale-eating Squids”. Eventually you become infamous for slaughtering the competition week after week, so you have to mix up the names to keep people off their guard. Kurt came up with the perfect solution to this problem. Each week as he walked into the restaurant he’d pick a random license plate in the parking lot, and that would be our name for the night. “And in second place after three rounds with 47 points: RI cr305.” Works great until you realize, when the stats are called out after each round, occasionally someone will get up and walk out the door thinking they’re being towed.

Kurt left the public high school after only a few months as a freshman, mainly because of bullying, and enrolled in a private school. Moses Brown is a prep school, but he was there because of its proximity to the Brown University swimming complex, not for the academics so much. He was on the swim team, and made a star of himself. But as a diver, not as a swimmer. Divers were the loners of the swim team. Sort of like the high jumpers on the track team, which was my gig. I made all-state in my event, but Kurt made All-American in his. He was that good. After winning a huge meet in Exeter New Hampshire, one that could have very well been a step or two from the Olympics, he walked up to mom in the stands, handed her his trophy, and said “I’m done”. He’d accomplished all that he wanted to in this pursuit, and didn’t feel any need to pursue it further.

A few years after the Law and Order episode aired, we entered a 12-week marathon trivia contest sponsored by Guinness to determine the best team in Rhode Island. We won, and were flown to Atlantic City (I drove, not being one to get onto small planes and all), to challenge the championship teams of seven other states. We won the whole thing and we were awarded four days and nights in London, all expenses paid. Again, not being one for planes, I gave up my ticket. I heard they had a nice time in England.

Growing up, Kurt was a little kid, smaller than most of the others his age. Added to that, he skipped a grade in early elementary school, making him a year younger than his peers. Intellectually, he was way beyond naming colors and counting to a hundred. By the age of seven he had taught himself fluent Spanish, just because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Years later, under the stress of having to “come out”, he dropped out of Boston College, escaped to Madrid and taught English to students traveling to The States for college. He lived in the same apartment complex as Antonio Banderas. According to Kurt, he’s very short.

There are many things that may have contributed to Kurt’s death at such a young age, many of which I will probably never know or understand, but one of them is our culture's systemic homophobia. I have absolutely no doubt about that. 

In his last few weeks in the hospital, mainly in the ICU, I didn’t visit Kurt as much as my mother or younger sister did. They were rocks in this process, while I tended to isolate. We all have our own ways of dealing with grief, and mine is to withdraw within myself. But as I look back on our relationship, I can honestly say that my brother was the best friend I’ve ever had.

You can find our Law and Order episode on Netflix or Amazon by searching for “Law and Order: Criminal Intent: Beast”. It’s season 4, episode 19.

Me in orange, mom, who always looks 15 years younger than she is, and Kurt.

Entry #3491: I'll Miss You, Brother

Kurt, in 2010. Forty-five is way too young.

June 20, 1968 - September 22, 2013

Entry #3490: Like a National Guitar

Kthug on The Crazy Party.

In search of the living, purring, singing heart of the online cat-industrial complex.

Awesome people hanging out together.

iPod shuffle:

1. Graceland (Paul Simon)
2. Tolerance (10,000 Maniacs)
3. Home for Sale (Dwight Yoakam)
4. The Writing on the Wall (The Mavericks)
5. Sympathy for the Devil (The Rolling Stones)

Entry #3489: The Triple-triple

The story of Popeye.

“Craziest”, a video about one fanatic’s search for the triple-triple, is a philosophical take on the search for the perfect Scrabble play. I first posted this here back in 2004.

Animated GIFs slow down the site when embedded, and I normally don’t like them anyway. But this one by NASA showing the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) over Antarctica is worth a look.

Entry #3488: Captain Jack

Cousin, who now has 96 Biomes points (100 points gets you a $50 donation to your favorite non-religious charity or Democratic candidate), got yesterday's trivia. It's Rutger Hauer.

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

Since tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I hired Captain Jack Sparrow to come in and entertain the kids tonight.

Entry #3487: Dumbing Down

Kthug on the Wonk Gap, the GOP’s near-complete lack of expertise on anything substantive.

Vietnam has a new bridge that is shaped like a dragon. And it spits fire.

Trivia (10 Biomes points): Who is it?

Entry #3486: Speechless

If you're the praying kind, please save one for my 45-year-old baby brother. Posting will resume next Tuesday.

Entry #3485: Bionic Animals

Although I have no interest in either boxing or horse racing, this 1973 video of Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes reminds me of how dominant Ali was in his sport as well. This race wasn’t even close.

What it’s like to photograph the world’s largest shark.

What some great people have done to help severely injured wildlife, like “beauty” the bald eagle, whose beak was shot off.

Entry #3484: Type Hunting

Top ten lies told by Monsanto on gmo food labeling.

Driving a bus in Guatemala is now the most dangerous profession in the world.

Cool site of the week: Type Hunting collects photos of vintage typefaces.

Entry #3483: Possessio is Nine Tenths of the Word

The natural history of unicorns.

I don’t know how I missed this during the last election cycle. The O’Reilly vs Stewart Debate is hilarious.

What’s tainting the water in Louisiana? A Public Policy Poll asked conservatives who was more responsible for the [2005!] poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?. 29% said Obama and 44% weren’t sure. 

Entry #3482: Fruit Brute

Crash test between a 1959 Chevy and a 2009 Chevy. I don’t know why, maybe it’s all the tough steel cars used to be made from, but I would have expected the opposite result.

Cereals based on monsters. Fruit Brute (based on the Wolfman) appeared in two Tarantino movies, Reservoir Dogs (one of the best movies ever made) and Pulp Fiction.

Animal of the week: The escape artist, the red panda, including a timeline of zoo jailbreaks.

Entry #3481: A Gathering of Angels

Stuff you should know: How to get rid of an earworm.

I've had this earworm for over a week. It's driving me mad.

Entry #3480: Hippos

Today’s long read, and it’s a good one, is Was America’s Economic Prosperity Just a Historical Accident?”

Read what it’s like to be swallowed by a hippopotamus.

Animal of the week: Meet Huberta the hippo, the taxidermied hippopotamus who spent three years walking over a thousand miles across South Africa.