'Twas brillig

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought. So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

-Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky

story

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Boys can wait

Melanie Martinez was recently fired from PBS. You don't know her, she hosted a nightly show that told bedtime stories to the under-six-year-old set.

The cause for Melanie's firing was that years earlier she was involved in producing some hilarious videos satirizing abstinance-only sex education public service announcements. Here's one (almost work-safe). Even funnier was "Technical Virgin: Saving Yourself" endorsing anal sex, which has since somehow been pulled from the internet.

YouTube Video, 0' 30"


Seemingly PBS pre-emptively caved to an attack of the fundies. You can say what you think of that here.

funny sex

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Betchya you never thought you'd see boobage on this site

Just contemplating the fact that people found this sweet, cute cover of BabyTalk magazine offensive makes me just want to go wash my brain or something.

More about fear of titties at Pam's House Blend.

sex

sex

The death of Cleopatra

Via my friend Pat:

Cleopatra's death was caused by an enormous pinchy bug, common in ancient Egypt. The theory suggests that she was only stunned by the asp bite, and was finished off by a pinchy bug as illustrated in this little known painting: The Death of Cleopatra by a Pinchy Bug, artist unknown.

Previous:
Pinchybug nose ring
Tom Sawyer and the pinchbug
Pinchybug

Link

Pinchybug nose ring

Sixteen year-old nearly starts a new fashion trend.
YouTube Video, 1' 54"

Previous:
Tom Sawyer and the pinchbug
Pinchybug

Rant

OK, folks, we're usually silly around here, but now I'm serious, and will type really slowly. This is a blastocyst. It's about two hundred cells (a hollow sphere, you can almost count them). It's smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

This one's about five days old. There are nearly a half a million of these in IVF clinics in the US that are scheduled to get poured down a drain, unless, with the client's written consent, they get donated to research.

Countless more are formed in womens' bodies as a consequence of the invasive (and somewhat distasteful) medical procedure known as whoopee. More than half of these are shed almost without notice.

Now if your Jesus cares more about this thing than that cancer thingy on my face then you need a new Jesus.

religion science

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It was a dark and stormy night

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2006

Awful and funny opening sentences of imaginary novels.

Winner:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

My favorites:

(Runner-up, Adventure)

She looked at her hands and saw the desiccated skin hanging in Shar-Pei wrinkles, confetti-like freckles, and those dry, dry cuticles--even her "Fatale Crimson" nail color had faded in the relentless sun to the color of old sirloin--and she vowed if she ever got out of the Sahara alive, she'd never buy polish on sale at Walgreen's again.

(Dishonorable mention, Adventure)

It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes, wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he'd been stranded on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers, decorative bottles, and special toe cream.

(Dishonorable mention, Detective Fiction)

Nick Stiletto, a three-inch ash hanging from his generic P&Q-brand cigarette, squinted through the wispy smoke across the nicked linoleum-covered table at the man in the blue suit, wondering why he had gone into private detection when he could have easily inherited his father's cat-stretching business in Peoria.

(Dishonorable mention, Purple Prose)

It had been a dark and stormy night, but as dawn began to light up the eastern sky, to the west the heavens suddenly cleared, unveiling a pale harvest moon that reposed gently atop the distant mesa like a pumpkin on a toilet with the lid down.

Lisa moved like a cat, not the kind of cat that moves with a slinky grace but more like the kind that always falls off the book shelf when he's washing himself and then gets all mad at you like it's your fault (which it wasn't although it probably was kind of mean to laugh at him like that), although on the bright side, she hardly ever attacked Ricky's toes in his sleep.

(Runner-up, Romance)

Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking.

Read them all, via the link.

funny story

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Dance like a monkey

Quicktime video, about two and a half minutes.


The New York Dolls with dinosaurs, Pat Robertson, Charles Darwin, Dick Cheney, pirate monkeys, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Via Pharyngula.

religion science

Dance with a theropod

I've got my own cyberpet dinosaur, a Ornithomimus. You can get one, too, via the link.

He lives on my desktop. He likes to get his belly rubbed. I can feed him and he even poops!

Link

Picture

We needed a bunny.
Via DeviantArt (I'm too old to even begin to understand that place).

Tom Sawyer and the pinchbug

For Scout. From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

About half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to ring, and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon.

The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod... Presently [Tom] bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was a large black beetle with formidable jaws -- a "pinchbug," he called it.

The first thing the beetle did was to take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was safe out of his reach. Other people uninterested in the sermon found relief in the beetle, and they eyed it too.

Presently a vagrant poodle dog came idling along ... He surveyed the prize; walked around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again; grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another; began to enjoy the diversion ...
and little by little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a couple of yards away, and lit on its back once more.

The neighboring spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy.

story

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Picture

A baby giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) at the Denver Zoo.

Giant anteaters are born after a six month gestation and climb through their mothers' fur onto the top of her back immediately after birth. Young anteaters normally ride on their mother's back for most of the first year of their lives. Seeing the youngster snuggled on his mother's back is quite a sight.

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Pinchybug

Photo by my friend Scout.
(A stag beetle.)

...they look like something prehistoric and certainly are alarming when you see one. We found this one the other night when it was still 80 degrees and humid at 9:00 PM. Well, actually, [the youngest dog] found it, but was so curious that she didn't devour it right away, but stood and stared at it for awhile contemplating whether it was something to play with or snack on. Once we saw it, I of course screamed and ran in the house ... After I calmed myself and looked at it through the glass, I was able to muster the courage to photograph it.

picture

Picture

Look, Scout, baby foxes!

Evil baby foxes.

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The Owl and the Pussy-cat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea.
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'

They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'

So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

-Edward Lear

story

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Comment spam

I got hammered again. They're still pouring in as I try to deal with it.

Word verification is turned on now.

Gorgeous

YouTube Video (Flash), 0' 28"

Bumper sticker

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Bumper sticker

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

YouTube Video (Flash), 0' 58"


YouTube Video (Flash), 1' 32"

Related:
Imagine
The end

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Flapper

How perfectly geeky is this? Highly technical but what could possibly be the point?

Some Canadians have developed a manned, powered, flapping-wing airplane that flew in a Wright-brothers-style first flight of a third of a kilometer over fourteen seconds,

Somewhat shaky video is here (about a minute). It's been down a bit, as I'm sure their server is getting hammered.

Link

Lyrebird

It's David Attenborough again. Watch, but especially listen to this lyrebird from Australia. Lyrebirds have magnificent plumage displays and are also quite remarkable mimics.

YouTube Video (Flash), about 3' 35"