It's not a ch*p*c*br*

But it sure looks weird.

Via Weird Sh*t Blog, who also makes a ch-word joke.

Maybe that was the reason...

15 funny passive/aggressive notes at Oddee.


Long ago, in another job, I worked second shift and that meant I (as assistant shift supervisor when the real supervisor wasn't there) was the last one out of the building on Friday nights before they shut it down for the weekend. I had to accompany the security guard through the building for his last walk-through before I locked the door. The dude cracked me up. First of all, my lined vest really bugged him. He couldn't stand cold-weather wear that didn't have sleeves. It just didn't fit into his reality grid. By the way, man, I loved that vest. I still have it but it doesn't fit anymore. I put it away figuring my son would enjoy it some day. It looked cool, too. Sort of like that girl-magnet jacket that Kramer had on Seinfeld except it was a denim vest.

Anyway this security dude went through the building pushing down light switches that were already turned off and other weird stuff. The last thing he did was notice that someone had left a few seconds on the microwave timer in the break room and he hit the clear button to clear the time off. I had to suppress a sound of humorous derision right about there because it was so strange. The next Monday I told my supervisor about it and we were both laughing, as they say, "fit to be tied."

He was only one of a series of strange security guards at that place.

P.S. I don't think this note is passive/aggressive. Is it? It just seems to be a polite request from someone who probably needs therapy. Now, what I used to do with the ice cubes: that was passive/aggressive.

The lundehund

I got an interesting comment on an old post from the Eponym blog. Readers who have been around long enough may remember the Maine mystery dog. Here's the comment:

In 2001 I moved to Maine from North Carolina and I sold a lundehund there, This dog had extra toes, just like a lunde, I believe I may have been the cause of all of this. Sorry to say it but I thought the man I had sold the puppy to would have it neutered not allow it to breed in with the regular dogs around the area, do a search on lundehunds and you will see what I am talking about

Wikipedia: Lundehund. The dog in the photo there has the same kind of odd snout that the dead dog did. I think this may be the solution to this mystery. I don't recall ever hearing any results of the DNA tests that were supposed to have happened.

Crocodille?

click to enlarge

I've been indulging one of my more obscure hobbies lately: that is, collecting old hymnals. So I've been checking eBay and keeping track of a few which I plan to bid on.

I have no idea why "crocodille boots" is a "related search." As expected, it goes to a list of crocodile boot auctions. Also unknown is why it's spelled "crocodille."

More dream blogging

I was bored and going through the archives when I noticed this old post about a strangely-detailed dream I had a couple of years ago. So for lack anything better to post, here's another recent one that I wrote down while I still remembered it. I had completely forgotten about that old one.

*****

I dreamed that the whole country, or more likely North America (at least) had been infected by what we called a "zombie virus." We used "zombie" metaphorically; those who were infected were not actually undead. Anyone who had become infected changed to a very different person. They lost all interest in their previous life, severing ties with family and friends, abandoning their jobs, and essentially became mildly retarded. They could look after themselves in a very rough way, but in general were unable to clothe and feed themselves properly. They were not aggressive except that if they saw an uninfected human they would immediately give chase and try to touch that person--the virus being extremely contagious and was transmitted by only a touch. Because of the deterioration of the mental faculties that this caused, it meant that there was a critical shortage of experts such as physicians, scientists, engineers, etc.

So pretty much all infrastructure broke down, except for in a very few isolated communities. I was in one such community that centered around an enclosed compound and was dedicated to protecting a small group of doctors and scientists. The leader of the community was (mostly by acclamation) a doctor named Dane (first name or last name--I don't know). I was one of the people tasked with patrolling the grounds around the community to stop "zombie" incursions.

They didn't come to seek us out, but they had a tendency to wander around and occasionally one would stumble over us. Since they would immediately attempt to infect us, we had to kill them on sight.

The doctors in our community were convinced that this was a virus that could be cured and prevented. They had captured a couple of "zombies" (somehow) and were studying them to find the cure. And then I went out on a secret mission to observe the "zombies." I kept my distance and watched with binoculars and so forth. I saw some of them driving cars, although very badly and none of them had the wherewithal to maintain or repair automobiles. I even saw one small group engaged in a sort of rough football game. They were essentially scavenging off of what was left of the country but had no capability to renew, preserve or manufacture anything. Eventually I was discovered but since they were all not very clever I was able to outwit them and safely return to my home community.

There I discovered that one of the captured zombies had infected someone, and almost the whole community had become infected. The disease took several weeks to manifest and the doctors were working feverishly to formulate a cure while they still had the capability. They had discovered that the herpes virus killed the "zombie" virus: in order to be safe from the disease everyone would have to be infected with herpes.

At this point, I woke up.

Quaff, oh quaff!

William Shatner recites/performs "The Raven." With some kind of weird zombie face make-up or something.

Impressive

Wired Science has a photoshopped picture demonstrating the size of the Tunguska asteroid crater in relation to the pyramids and the Sphinx. Yikes.

Assuming, of course, that it was an asteroid, and not...something else.

Bad news for the haggis black market

US to lift 21-year ban on haggis:

Smuggled and bootlegged, it has been the cause of transatlantic tensions for more than two decades. But after 21 years in exile, the haggis is to be allowed back into the United States.

I didn't even know importation was illegal.  But then, it's not the kind of topic that usually arises in everyday conversation.

"Vatican reveals secret archives"

Vatican reveals Secret Archives - Telegraph

The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years.

High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots.

The book documents the Roman Catholic Church’s often hostile dealings with the world of science and the arts, including documents from the heresy trial against Galileo and correspondence exchanged with Erasmus, Voltaire and Mozart. It also reveals the Church’s relations with princes and potentates in countries far beyond its dominion.

In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan’s grandson demands that the pontiff travel to central Asia in person – with all of his “kings” in tow – to “pay service and homage to us” as an act of “submission”, threatening that otherwise “you shall be our enemy”.

But still no mention of that certain accursed tome.

Voynich Manuscript dated

Mysterious Voynich manuscript is genuine, scientists find:

Many historians have so far believed that the so-called Woynich manuscript, which includes illustrations related to natural sciences, is a forgery, and mathematicians and other experts have not able to decode it.

The book is named after Polish-American antiquarian Wilfrid Voynich, who acquired the text in 1912 in Italy.

Researchers at the University of Arizona used the radiocarbon dating method on the 246 pages written in Europe by and found that the parchment was made between 1404 and 1438, said Walter Koehler, an ORF producer who oversaw the TV documentary on the manuscript.

In addition, experts at the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago determined that the ink was not added in a later period. The text was likely written in Northern Italy.

Before these findings, 'there was no serious expert who would have dated it to pre-Columbian times,' said Koehler, but rather to the 16th century, when coded texts were in fashion.

This kind of blows the main theories about who wrote it right out of the water.

Voynich made it up himself - he was born in 1865
Roger Bacon - died 1294
John Dee - born 1527
Jacobus Sinapius (Emporer Rudolf II's personal physician) - born 1575
Jan Marci - born 1595
Raphael Mnishovsky - born 1580
Anthony Ascham - lived during 1500's
Antonio Averlino - born about 1400, died about 1469, a possible!

Possibly the most awesome money quote I have ever posted

"I was flailing away underwater carrying a dog with a kangaroo ripping into me."

As long as I'm sort of on the subject...

From eternal darkness springs cast of angels and jellied jewels (17,000 new deep-ocean species discovered)

Marine marvels found in the darkness of the deep (more on the same topic)

Dumbo of the deep: Discovered in the ocean abyss, the elephant-eared octopod (some cool photos)

I am giddy with delight

Untold eons ago, in internet relative terms, there was this website called The Gallery of the Absurd. Sometime in the mid-to-late 90s I came across it one Saturday--this was before either of the kids were born--while my wife was at work, and I sat here (actually there, in the old house) drinking Carlos Rossi red sangria and laughing hilariously for hours. Hours. Well, all good things must come to an end and eventually the guy who had put it together moved on to other things...

Having just caught up on all my blog reading and not being quite finished with my pipe, I decided to pass the time as usual...Scroogling my own name to see what turned up.

I do this fairly often, so I was surprised to see a new link turn up in the search results.

The Gallery of the Absurd is back, or has been back for a while, in blog form. And Derek has re-posted some of his old archives from the old site, which is how I found it because I had submitted a couple of things.

Boy, I can't wait to catch up.

P.S. And he's also still posting annoying J. Crew models.

P.P.S. And scary clowns.

When capitalism goes unregulated...*

Buy it at Amazon.

*It's satire, son, satire!

Juvenile coelecanths photographed for the first time

Details at Cryptomundo.

Telegram from the Secretary of the Navy to All Naval Stations Regarding Mars, 08/22/1924

All the details here.

From Beyond

'Something may come through' dimensional 'doors' at LHC • The Register

A top boffin at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) says that the titanic machine may possibly create or discover previously unimagined scientific phenomena, or "unknown unknowns" - for instance "an extra dimension".

"Out of this door might come something, or we might send something through it," said Sergio Bertolucci, who is Director for Research and Scientific Computing at CERN, briefing reporters including the Reg at CERN HQ earlier this week.

In the words of Crawford Tillinghast:

"What do we know," he had said, "of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have. I have always believed that such strange, inaccessible worlds exist at our very elbows, and now I believe I have found a way to break down the barriers. I am not joking. Within twenty-four hours that machine near the table will generate waves acting on unrecognized sense organs that exist in us as atrophied or rudimentary vestiges. Those waves will open up to us many vistas unknown to man and several unknown to anything we consider organic life. We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight. We shall see these things, and other things which no breathing creature has yet seen. We shall overleap time, space, and dimensions, and without bodily motion peer to the bottom of creation."

P.S. boffin: British slang. a scientist or technical expert

What the?!

Just checking my work email from home, and found this message. Other's names blurred out of respect for their privacy, whoever they are. There is a 118 Gayle Ave. in S.A., but I have never read that route. Also I have never turned off anyone's water. That's not my job. I can't help but think that sometimes our system is so convoluted that occasionally it generates emails all on its own. It just hasn't gained the required consciousness necessary to create true communication.


I wonder what would happen if I sent back a receipt.

The internet ghost town

The Mystery of Argleton, the 'Google' town that only exists online:

The town appears on Google Maps in the middle of fields close to the M58 motorway, just south of Ormskirk.

Its 'presence' means that online businesses that use data from the software have detected it and automatically treated it as a real town in the L39 postcode area.

An internet search for the town now brings up a series of home, job and dating listings for people and places "in Argleton", as well as websites which help people find its nearest chiropractor and even plan jogging or hiking routes through it. The businesses, people and services listed are real, but are actually based elsewhere in the same postcode area.

It would certainly explain a lot...

Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the claim at a conference in the Cold Springs Laboratory in New York.

But Prof Paabo said he was unclear if the couplings had led to children, of if they were capable of producing offspring.

"What I'm really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?" he said in an article in The Sunday Times.

Full article here.