Not To Worry

Tweeted by @Camilla_SDO, "Do not worry! This is not the largest Coronal Mass Ejection ever. Just a glitch in @NASA_SDO & we are fixing it."

Very funny! Coffee up my nose, not so much.

Glacier in... New Mexico?

My friend Al sent me a link earlier with the title "Instant Glacier," which I just got around to reading.  Sort of funny, sort of amazing.  According to an article in New Mexico Geology, Volume 26, #4 (November 2004),

Hail accumulations reaching 12 inches were followed by as much as 5 inches of rain. So much rain fell in such a short period of time that the pea- and marble-sized hail was carried along first as sheet flood and then concentrated in a small drainage tributary to Sand Draw (Fig. 3) estimated to be approximately 15–20 ft deep. Approximately 8 mi south of Clayton just off NM–402 (sec. 10 T24N R35E), the hail began piling up behind a 12–16 ft culvert that was unable to handle the flow. Hail filled the small draw, as rain continued to flow across the fields, through the tons of ice, and onto the highway.

And the result? Instant glacier! Check the link for many more photos and the full story. (579 kb PDF)

Parkas Rule

THIS! IS! PARKA! (silly pun for @morphosaurus, from Alaska in Pictures)

Video Games Are Getting So Realistic

Consider, for example, the most recent edition of Space Invaders. (See Bad Astronomy for winning strategery)

Like

xkcd-themed wedding cake, based on this comic:The world needs more nerds to get married and have little baby nerds. Via The Daily What.

The Youngest Geoblogger?

As far as I've been able to tell, that would be Sam at Geology Blues. A week ago, she posted a piece about her visit to Switzerland, which I found delightful. I can't read German, but according to her, the sign above reads "'Kids must be on Leash' because it is steep. I thought it was a good laugh." I agree. Keep up the good work, Sam, and as always,
(Wikipedia)

Goo Goo Ga Joob

Picture from Acting Like Animals, caption by John Lennon. Also, if you haven't read the story behind this song's creation (I hadn't), it's pretty darned funny. Quoth Lennon, "Let the fuckers work that one out."

Thorsday

Sadly, there's not a day named after Loki... he was always my favorite. From here.

Miscellaneous Amusements

Some stuff that has amused me and entertained me in recent days has been piling up, and I finally have time to throw it together into some sort of online slumgullion.What Would Jack Do?
Sofa Pizza, and from the same post:

WASHINGTON – In what might be the most serious challenge to Barack Obama’s legitimacy as President, a new poll shows that one out of five Americans are not convinced that Mr. Obama exists.

(The Borowitz Report)
I love optical illusions. This is another where if you can hold your eye fixed on a particular point, nothing seems to be wrong. But if you allow your gaze to wander naturally, the apparent motion is downright freaky. FuckYeahAlbuquerque
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr. Now look, we don't want kids to realize this. The fact that they don't is the only reason the human race still exists.
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr, posted with the note, "Michael Ian Black Goes After a Racist Obama-Hater During his Set." I have mixed feelings; speaking truth to power is dangerous, but worthwhile. Speaking truth to "fucking idiots" may not be as consistently dangerous, but I'm afraid it's pretty pointless most of the time. Idiots, by their nature, cannot comprehend that they're idiots.
Pop culture ore deposits and where to find them. Blackadder
I may or may not have anything more to say about this travesty later. I've been waiting to see how it unfolds. So far, pretty much what I expected. (Clay Bennett, from The Chattanooga Times Free Press)
The Daily What... I find it seriously troubling that I can find young women slightly older than a third of my age so appealing.
EpicPonyz... will this become a regular Thursday post? I have regular posts for Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. There's no particular reason to have one for the other three days, but no reason not to. And I've loved Norse mythology since about second grade. We'll see.

Earth Colors

Etsy seller Queinteresante has come up with a very clever idea: alternate labels for Crayola crayons which, instead of naming the color, name a compound, ion or element that has that color.
I just love that some of the materials are minerals. I didn't recognize sugilite or rhodolite; the former is a rare mineral found in magnesium-rich rocks, and the latter is a particular composition of garnet. We didn't do enough coloring when I took minerology.

Bubbles at The Beach

Humongous Bubbles, that is, at Nye Beach, Newport, Oregon.

Monday

Woke up at 3:30. Spent two hours trying to get back to sleep, then gave up. Early coffee today. It's Monday. Coincidence? I think not. (picture snagged from Facebook friend MB)

How The Internet Works

according to the late Ted Stevens. I'm sure we'll all miss his wisdom, and I know a whole state full of people who really resent paying taxes will miss his ability to get hundreds of millions of federal dollars for bridges to nowhere. (Senor Gif)

Aww, That's Sweet

Alexandra Shkandrij proposed to his sweetie on their favorite website, The Daily What, in the format of several memes. She said yes.

The Record Store Cats SPREE

see more Señor Gif

Señor Gif has posted a series of ten (to this point) Record Store Cats; above is my favorite. Rather than linking all ten, the general form of the url is below:

http://senorgif.com/2010/07/31/funny-gifs-its-caturday-the-record-store-cats-7/

The last digit for the above animation is 7; it was the seventh posted. Substitute 1-10 for that last number in the navigation bar and you can see the other nine. This is a case where the charm and humor is extended rather than exhausted by repetition. Actually, I just realized if you just enter the domain name and date, it takes you to the 7/31/10 archive (two pages; click "2" at the bottom of the first page).

Waitsing For The Weekend

Darius Whiteplume posted the following picture on his Tumblr a few days ago, and I've had it set aside trying to decide what to do with it. Letting it slide was not an option.He makes Jay Leno look underendowed in the jawbone department, but I love his music.

Hyperbole and a Half

I first read Hyperbole and a Half a couple of weeks ago when the post Dog ("A lingering fear of mine was confirmed last night: My dog might be slightly retarded.") was making the rounds on the pop aggregator sites. There is a ring of truth to the posts there that makes me wonder about how much real hyperbole is involved. Whether it's a little or a lot, it makes for wonderfully entertaining reading. The most recent episode involves a long-lived phobia of bicycles and the reasons behind it. Enjoy.

Dog Hates Dyslexics

So Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist clan announced they were going to protest Comic Con.Clue 1: Don't announce ahead of time who, when and where you intend to protest.
Clue 2: Especially if you're a widely despised hate group, and your target is comprised largely of young, intelligent, disrespectful and counter-motivated people.
Clue 3: Unless, of course, you enjoy being made even more of a laughing stock than you already are.
This is a small selection from Comics Alliance's piece, "Superheroes Vs. The Westboro Baptist Church," the best collection I've seen, but these hilarious protestbombing photos are all over the innertubz today.

Too Soon?

The Gulf Spill Cocktail. From Deep Sea News, and be sure to read comment #1 for an idea on how to make it even more life-like.

Portents of The Apocalypse

Climate change creating 'super marmots' that are bigger and more abundant

I, for one, welcome our new alpine rodent overlords.

Gotta love The Telegraph (UK) "Earth" and "Science" stories... the stories themselves are typical recycled press release material- broadly accurate, but often with some howlingly (or hysterically) bad errors (absent, as far as I can tell, in this particular story). But the editors who write the headlines seem to be under the impression they're working for the World Weekly News. I have often considered dropping these feeds from my RSS, but I guess I value the amusement factor too much.

Followup: The CSM also covers the story, albeit in more depth and with a less entertaining headline.