the mongoose is an impressive animal

this is a video from britannica onlin, via youtube. featured is a mongoose attacking and killing a cobra. i am indescribably impressed; i had begun the evening watching videos of ferrets playing with kittens, and i ended on mongoose vs. cobra. and dare i say, Wow! that is some stealthy steely shit.

this woman must be awesome and i wish she were my friend!

via videosift.com
this a video that i found on neatorama today. it's very good, and will no doubt set off a minor trend. to the dismay of mall police everywhere.

"physics in action," indeed!

what exactly is "scrapple"?

i was reading a post on LunchInABox which mentioned scrapple. thankfully the word was linked to the wikipedia article on scrapple, which i have just now read. and now i'm not sure what to think - is scrapple the homemade versin of spam? the all-pork version of spam? what's that about buckwheat flour? head-cheese, what?

okay, gross. i just had to look up "head cheese" after i wrote it. and head cheese is not the same as scrapple. gross. anything involving offal, i am not really excited about.

but anyway, scrapple! for the record, this post comes to you from someone who has never tried corned beef. i might try a scrapple sandwich.

just so you know!

wombats are ridiculous animals, and i wish i had a few on my lap right now. i could walk a pack of them slowly around the block, motivating them further with a little hanging hay bale tied to a fishing pole.

they're sort of like small rat-bears that eat grass and related fibrous things. can you not deal? i cannot. this picture is one of several from www.wombatcountry.com, and obviously wombat country would be down undah.

here we have an article about wombat sex from The Age, an australian paper. hilarious picture included.

first i was going to post about premium flavored m&m's

then i decided to post about the cat with no face. but then i got teary looking at - graphic! disturbing! - pictures on the cat's blog. in fact, the pics remind me of those bus advertisements with the cleft palate babies. so i finally decided to post the mechanical silver swan built in 1773.

the swan swims on a river of glass rods, and every day at noon and three, it finds and eats a silver fish. will your stupid robot AI work two hundred years from now!? that's what i said. so get impressed over this robo-swan, cry over disfigured cats, and check out candyblog's review of the new premium m&m's that might be really good.

neatorama was so frikkin' good today. i can't even stand it.

some people just burn a photo of their ex.

and other people react to critical hyperbole by selling their entire lives on ebay! "just like you said i would, aren't you happy i took you literally!?" this grieving, jilted man is selling his job, his house, his computer, his motorcycle, his friends, his pride, and his self respect. among other things, like his grill and his jacuzzi.

yessir, he got dumped. after twelve years. so can you really blame him? (i think he's being an idiot, but whatever. who sells their friends? as if friendship can be bought and sold?!) read more about Mr. Ian Usher and his situation on geekologie, or go straight to the guy's personal blog.

o, to be a man with things to sell and a jet ski to leave behind! my goodness.

as of 4:17 pm on June 24th, 2008, the ebay auction is at AUD 315,000.00. which seems to be about $300,000 in american greenbacks, too.

holy paypal, batman!

bacon madness continues

and now, bacon floss. yes, BACON FLOSS. that's bacon-flavored dental floss. in a silly dispenser with greasy/sporty bacon stripes. courtesy of geekologie and some other bacon maniacs, i bet.

the last time i bought bacon was when i was trying to make the perfect bacon-facsimile bookmark; this pertains to a library-related urban myth about finding actual raw bacon used as a bookmark. so i decided i'd fry up some bacon and then take a picture of the most perfectly cooked strip; from that point, i would color-print the photo and shrink/enlarge to bookmark size. then i planned to laminate it.

but you know, that plan didn't quite work out. my camera didn't take sharp enough pictures, and lamination is expensive. therefore, i ended up eating a whole package of bacon in two days. true story.

at least it was the low fat kind. wasn't it?

buh-dum CHING.

hit the button! hit it! but make a bad joke first. my boss did ("rimshot" cannot be turned into a verb worthy of At Work Usage, we have discovered), and then she sent me the link. because she's awesome, yo.

click the button, click it!

but is there a facebook app?!

girls, the internet does everything. it even has a site that will track you period, and predict your next period. i just signed up, and according to my admittedly-erratic bodily cycles, i'm a 42-day girl. but if you're mostly kinda maybe regular, and can't be bothered to keep track on paper (paper, pshaw!), and are completely addicted to the internet, this website could be useful to you.

and the site's all pink and cute and stuff. i threw up a little, but i liked it.

library-related posts from Overheard Everywhere are awesome!

The Way I'm Stealing Your Bra

Student: So if I, like, read something in the library and I memorize it, am I, like, stealing it with my mind?

Instructor: Yes. You can steal things with your mind.

Copy Editing Class
Edmonton, Alberta
Canadia

from www.overheardeverywhere.com on June 14th, 2008.

pancake batter in spray can is frickin' organic

we're confused! doesn't pancake batter in a spray can belong in the same "food" category as tinned meat and velveeta cheese? but wait, it's organic! it must be okay, and even good for us. let's eat it.

well, according to the product information page, Batter Blaster is indeed organic and probably good for you. even though it feels wrong, and you'll automatically be labelled as a Lazy Person if you buy it more than once.

i might like to try it, though. because it would go great with my Real Vermont Maple Syrup Gun, my freeze-dried blocks of Free Range Whipped Cream, and my Organic Sliced Strawberry Transporter/Dehydrator/Rehydrator.

read a review of Batter Blaster here, on one of my favorite food blogs, LunchInABox! bento-mistress biggie is brave, and admits that while the spray batter tastes fine, it "feels wrong".

what happened to the days of honey-lavender truffles and maple-bacon lollipops? i miss those days.

so it wouldn't be french-press, but german-drip?

coffee is good. i have a pyrex french-press in which i brew strong coffee for consumption in small glasses, with ice. and then i saw a picture of this thing, and it looks neat. and it claims to have made illustrious food writer and gastronomer m.f.k. fisher's favorite cup of coffee! and i do love me some mary fisher. so thank you BoingBoing! the below excerpt is from Gourmet magazine, in an article about the guy who invented the neat-looking Chemex coffee maker.

"The Chemex coffee maker is part chemist’s funnel, part Erlenmeyer flask, with a blond leather band in the middle corseting its hourglass curves. An iconic symbol of German modernism and simple, functional Bauhaus style, the device—a Pyrex glass container with a sturdy paper filter—produced M.F.K. Fisher’s favorite cup of coffee and still holds an alluring power over coffee purists and design geeks. Its success launched its inventor, Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, into the arms of the design establishment (the coffee maker has been a part of the MOMA’s design collection since 1944, just three years after Schlumbohm patented it), and in the early years of World War II, it was considered a patriotic alternative to products made from metals and plastics (which were essential to the war effort). A Time Magazine article from November 1946 quotes the ebullient inventor as saying, “with the Chemex, even a moron can make good coffee.”

another gem from OverheadNewYork!

Is That a New Gay Bar in Chelsea?


Tourist: Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to MoMA from here?

Suit: Fuck you, what do I look...

Tourist, indignantly interrupting: No, fuck you, you motherfucking piece of shit. You don't want to answer, you say "I don't know". All you New Yorkers are a bunch of cock-sucking assholes.

[Suit, stunned, gives directions.]

Bystander to tourist: Where did you learn to do that?

Tourist: The Midwest.

--Outside the Guggenheim

Overheard by: Ehem. (June 7 2008)

new discoveries in styling mousse prompt smug sculpture?

so many amazing pictures available here. it's like Aveda meets Noah's Ark, i swear. thanks to neatorama and this nifty little blog called omgOWNED.

the walrus and hare are particularly good. and the bear. is that a warthog, really? actually they're all good. that's a giraffe! jeeeez. i wonder if the hair sculptures are heavy for the models? like, are their little necks going to snap if they turn their head or try to look at their feet? or maybe it's light n' crunchy once it dries, like normal styling gel.

crunch-crunch-crunch. actually i use pomade, whatever. original source of the images might be this clickable thingie.

Strangely Orange Snacks

so there's this arty blog called Bent Objects, the kernel of which is (photographs of) little sculptures made from everyday objects. like paperclips. and cheese doodles. but it's really good, and forgive me if i've blogged about it before. i just came across another arresting image from that witty Bent Objects creator, Terry Border; the stars of "Strangely Orange Snack Appreciation Day" do their thing in the image above. i like.

click here for "Preserved Specimen" (pickled pickle-baby?!)

click here for "Relishing Life...and Death" (olive and gherkin engaged in mortal combat with toothpicks = awesome)

garfield without garfield is pretty funny.

so, neatorama told me that there's an online comic strip involving the traditional Garfield strip by jon davis, but with all characters aside from jon arbuckle removed. it's called Garfield Minus Garfield, and it's kind of awesome. check out the archives, too. these cartoons exist with the blessing and admiration of Garfield's creator.

brilliant!

neatorama's "Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines"

truly excellent, link to it here! machines that dispense live fishing bait, fresh eggs, pet supplies, medical marijuana, and ipods. machines that dispense peanuts for crows (who make their living finding loose change to exchange for machine-peanuts!!!). a claw-machine game that swaps that damnably elusive stuffed animal for a live lobster - put in more quarters, you've almost got him! i need lobster bisque TONIGHT!

actually, you know what i need? monistat in a vending machine. in fact, make that monistat, condoms, dental dams, a selection of "personal lubricants", and latex gloves. and disposeable speculuums with flashlights. sometimes i'm curious, you know. don't have time to make that gyno appointment. maybe DIY pap-smear kits with pre-paid postage to the laboratory? dude. vending machines would be killer convenient.

neatorama, you are awesome.