Weirdness
pharyngula | September 15, 2008Yeah, this is one of the weird things about these blogs — you learn about trivial odd things that happen to total strangers far, far away, and you can't resist offering advice. Rowland dropped a beer bottle on his big toe, the nail is turning black, and it hurts, and now thousands of people know about it. It's somehow charming.
Anyway, I know all about this. My father was a manual laborer, and he was always getting smashed digits … but he had a treatment that worked really well. I had friends who'd come over to visit when I was a kid, and if they had a black nail, my dad would just chortle…
pharyngula | September 14, 2008I've never been to Burning Man despite being a bit of a dirty hippie myself, so I wonder if I should make the space cowboy pilgrimage next year: the theme is Evolution.
Very cool, but it could also be very weird.
pharyngula | September 13, 2008Now you can find out what name Sarah Palin would have given you!
(Disclaimer: the one and only thing I like at all about Palin is that she gave her kids unusual names.)
pharyngula | September 13, 2008I'm always tickled and disturbed when I hear news about JZ Knight. Knight, as some of you may already know, is a New Age charlatan who claims to "channel" a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior, and dispenses ludicrous advice in a growly voice and gets paid big bucks by the gullible. However, now one of her former students dared to turn around and use moldy wisdom she learned from a hokey old invisible friend, and fleece some rubes of her own. So what does Knight do? Sue, of course.
The only thing that could make the trial sillier is if the court put Ramtha on the witness stand.
Ooops, it's…
pharyngula | September 8, 2008One of the quirks of this small town is the music I sometimes hear in the local grocery store. We don't get the usual boring muzak that was screened by some beancounter to maximize inoffensiveness — I was quite charmed the first time I went shopping there, and instead of boring old 1001 Strings soft-soaping pop, I actually heard them playing Patti Smith belting out "Gloria". Now it usually isn't so transcendently magnificent — in fact, it's still usually the kind of thing you might hear on a soft-rock or easy-listening or country station — but at least now and then you get to hear something…
pharyngula | September 8, 2008Or, at least, future vacation destinations. How could I resist a place that has a Devil's Brewery, Bryggeriet Djævlebryg, and markets a godless beer?
GudeløsType: Imperial stout
Data: 8.9% alc/vol, OG app. 1.090, IBU app. 65
What? Bryggeriet Djævlebryg and the Danish Atheist Society have entered into an unholy alliance and the result is "Godless": This first batch is a somehow accessible imperial stout with its 8.9% abv. It offers burnt notes from the malt mingled with sweet nuances and a warming depth from the alcohol. This brew is primarly aimed at members of the Atheist Society, but it…
pharyngula | September 7, 2008Lots of you have been mailing me this comic today, 9 Chickweed Lane, because it contains a bizarre proof of god. I know, it's supposed to be funny, but let's take it seriously just for a moment.
To summarize the argument: Darwin's theory predicts a progressive increase in human intelligence, refuting the Christian account; people are stupid; therefore, Darwin is refuted; therefore, god exists.
I assume the humor in the comic lies in the blatant illogic of the silly rationale the pompous ass in the blue overalls is bloviating (I hope…I don't read this one very often, so I don't know if the…
pharyngula | September 3, 2008Apparently, it's an eppendorf pipette. If you aren't a science nerd, an eppendorf pipette is one of the ubiquitous tools of molecular biology — it's a calibrated gadget for dispensing minute quantities of liquids.
Eppendorf is now selling an automated pipettor called epMotion … and judging by the promotional video and music, it's also intended to raise estrogen levels. Don't watch it unless you want to be emasculated!
(The tune is rather catchy. I'm suddenly in the mood to cuddle.)
epMotion Song
Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends your thumbs into overdrive
And spending long nights…
pharyngula | September 3, 2008Harper Collins is about to release a children's book called The Daring Book for Girls(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) in Australia. It contains a very short section on how to play a didgeridoo — and wouldn't you know it, someone is offended.
But the general manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, Dr Mark Rose, says the publishers have committed a major faux pas by including a didgeridoo lesson for girls.
Dr Rose says the didgeridoo is a man's instrument and touching it could make girls infertile, and has called for the book to be pulped.
I think Dr Rose has confused aboriginal…
pharyngula | August 31, 2008As Orac says, the latest Jack Chick tract is pretty loony. Did you know that if you're a good Christian you can fend off vampires easily?
pharyngula | August 28, 2008I've spent my evening curled up with a wracking cough and nasty pains in places I didn't know I could hurt — I think I sprained my diaphragm — and while stumbling dumbly through the web, I belatedly found the story of the recent Georgia bigfoot. I know, it's last week's news, but I'm feeling a little addled.
Anyway, it brought back old memories. Way back when I was a teenager, I used to build balsa wood model airplanes in my grandparents' attic. It was a good deal: my family didn't have to deal with the smell, I didn't have to worry about my brothers and sisters stomping on a delicate wing,…
pharyngula | August 28, 2008The pope has condemned this silly sculpture as blasphemous, and German Catholics are trying to get it removed from display.
They can't be serious, can they? It's kitschy and funny. But really, they're unhappy about this.
The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture.
"Surely this is not a work of art but a blashphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone as the museum board was meeting.
The Vatican letter said that the work "wounds the religious…
pharyngula | August 28, 2008
Two things I find absurd are people who see Jesus in random patterns, and internet polls that try to impose patterns in noise. Here's something that does both: a moth was found with speckles that are supposed to look like Jesus.
"His hair right here and you can see the mustache and the beard and there's a little slit right there that looks like His mouth and when he would move the mouth would open so it looked like he was trying to talk to you."
Kirk Harper spotted the moth on an RV trailer Monday, and right away could tell it was unique.
"I immediately thought it looked like Jesus and…
pharyngula | August 25, 2008Once upon a time, Charles Darwin crossed the equator in the Beagle, and he received the traditional hazing:
We have crossed the Equator. I have undergone the disagreeable sensation operation of being shaved. About 9 oclock this morning we poor "griffins" two and thirty in number, were put altogether on the lower deck. The hatchways were battened down, so we were in the dark and very hot. Presently four of Neptunes constables came to us, and one by one led us up on deck. I was the first and escaped easily: I nevertheless found this watery ordeal sufficiently disagreeable. Before coming up,…
pharyngula | August 25, 2008I bet all they had to do was tell the investors what it is — an Australian musical romantic zombie comedy with giant cephalopods — and the money must have come rolling in for $QUID. I'd pay to see it.
Although…the teaser does need more squid in it.
(via Twitch)
pharyngula | August 19, 2008One of the chores I got done this afternoon, after a much needed nap, was to go through the mail that accumulated during our long absence. Part of that job is sorting out the pile of magazines that I did not subscribe to, but that some people out there think they can sign me up for and annoy me — but which, since I did not authorize any payment, and which are usually sent to me under some sloppy permutation of my name, I simply never pay for, and eventually the publisher gets tired of sending me without recompense and the subscription fades away.
It's a weird mix: lots of conservative…
pharyngula | August 6, 2008I think McCain is in big trouble when Paris Hilton runs intellectual circles around him.
pharyngula | August 5, 2008Who knew that water droplets suspended in the air could could refract light and produce a rainbow? It can't be. Why, it must be…a government conspiracy! This never happened before!
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
You might also enjoy this collection of real church signs. My favorite is "A 4 inch tongue can bring a 6 foot man to his knees." Sometimes, there is truth in these aphorisms.
pharyngula | August 4, 2008I'm not. Yet.
It's actually a little bit disturbing: you can do free criminal searches on anyone. Check up on your friends! Your spouse! Neighbors! Turn them in for big cash rewards!
pharyngula | August 2, 2008I've always wondered why Natalie Portman was such a geek icon, but the final transformation in this video clarifies all.
(via BoingBoing)