The Urban Pantheist

The snow here is falling in a way that suggests that any minute the cork will come out and we'll be buried. According to the forecasters that won't happen in Boston, and D.C. is already under a foot of the stuff. Also, the word "snowpocalypse," coined by the internets and popularized by damnportlanders has been picked up by major international news media. I'm looking forward to the many posts by my friends in the midatlantic states about their own snowpocalypses.

We finally finished watching "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" last night. Alexis said it looked like it was made by robots (I suggested perhaps the script-bot 2000) but had a general positive opinion of it. I enjoyed it a lot, an felt that the by-the-numbers script was probably an improvement over the deliberately confusing version spread over years of comic book storylines--including crap written by Rob Liefeld. It wasn't exactly Iron Man, but it was a vast improvement over the third X-Men movie.

After that, we were looking for something light and funny that we haven't watched over and over again (our cartoon collection is well-worn) and I remembered that I got a copy of Thor At the Bus Stop that my brother gave to my father to give to me. (He prefers the drug mule method of dvd exchange to trusting the us mail I guess.) Andy played it for us the last time the three of us were together and I loved it--A low-budget fantasy comedy held together with it's script and talented ensemble cast--oh, and the amazing props designed by art designer F. Andrew Taylor. Nepotism aside, it's really funny and heartwarming, and I hope that it comes to a film festival near you, Failing that, buy the DVD!



I said it was like a pg-rated Kevin Smith movie, but it's much funnier than that makes it sound. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to play on either of our semi-functional DVD players, so we'll have to bring it out to the x-box and make it a living room family fun time movie.

I went to visit my Dad the day before yesterday, driving right after work. I really hated the drive--the Mass Pike has become too small and too often congested with traffic, just like the roads it was designed to replace. But the next day, driving in the morning, it was really nice. I like the area a lot, especially north of Connecticut. If I thought there jobs for us there, and if I thought we could deal with cold and snow better in the country than in the city, I'd lobby hard for a move to Belchertown. As luck would have it, Alexis is going to Belchertown tomorrow to add to her photo portfolio. (Warning--naked picture of me hidden somewhere in that gallery.) Maybe she'll love it, probably she'll just complain about how cold it is.

I was surprised when I found out that non-New Englanders think the name "Belchertown" is funny. I've heard it since I was a child and never really thought about the fact that the word "belch" is in it. Now if it were "Flatulantown" that would be something.

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to drhoz for this link of old photos of celebrities, in most cases before their peak of fame. A sample image:

Rat Information Portal.

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Disgusting substance of the day:
Iodine solution, Muddy River muck. (TIE!)

You would think that Muddy River muck, a virulent brew of organic decay laced with pollution, would win hands down. But the iodine splashed into MY EYE. When I broke through the ice into ankle-deep muck, it quickly and harmlessly froze on my pants and boots rather than soaking through.

A couple of years ago I posted an image I found and titled it 'What "omnivore" really means'. Today, thanks to regretsy, Alexis discovered a similar image. I might have to get myself one of these prints.

( it's called 'Morning Muricide' )

Usually when mushrooms are in the news it's because someone ate the wrong ones. Here are two stories more interesting than that:

Russians, ever the mushroom hunters but increasingly more urban, keep getting lost in the woods.

Different species of mushrooms accumulate heavy metals out of the environment differently; Chantarelles deliver more than your recommended daily requirement of lead and neodymium, for example.

The latest version of my mushroom class handout is here: ( Click here to see it ) I am providing it here because there are links in it, and they will be much easier to use here than they will be on a photocopy. Of course, I hope this stuff is useful to everyone else reading this as well. (I posted an earlier version a month ago, this version has a couple minor changes.

This coming Saturday is International Vulture Awareness Day. I feel like I should have found out earlier, but I don't really know how to celebrate, either. Carrion birds are some of my favorite, and I'm glad the conservation community has given them an awareness day.

Vultures do face some weird conservation challenges, including veterinary drugs (one of which is now banned due to its deleterious effects on vultures) and idiot tourists (wishing to see the nesting vultures move, tourists have been spooking them; without the right wind conditions, the vultures plunge to their doom.)

Another life form I like are the slime molds. They move and eat like animals, but reproduce like fungi. One species solved a maze. Some scientists are exploiting this species to act as a kind of micro-beast of burden. They're calling it a "Plasmobot." The article hails it as "the first ever biological robot using mould." That's science journalism for you.

Photos of bird on bird violence

This occurred in the very urban location of Post Office Square.

This December has felt like it was two months long already.  I have a few little things I'm looking forward to in January, and they've been "just a few weeks away" for what seems like forever.  Not the least of these is getting the new Prez on the job.



From a Time magazine series.  Thanks to momomom for the link.

Paying attention to politics angries up my blood.  Watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on hulu.com helps a little bit.  Now that the conventions are over, maybe I'll stop thinking about it for a little while.

I just read this news story.  The gist of it is that one guy is complaining that the local game and wildlife service (of Pennsylvania) didn't respond to his calls about an emu on the loose.  First, that's stupid.  Emus in North America are livestock.  Call animal control.  Second, as a footnote in the story, the police eventually responded to the situation and did what police seem to do every time they are confused.  They tasered the emu.  Yes, you read that correctly, faced with a large, loose, exotic animal, the cop shot the animal full of painful electricity.  Good going!  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, the emu dropped dead rather than running headlong into traffic or civilians or something.  Does nobody own a fucking net?  Whatever happened to dogcatchers and their big nets?  Can we put a moratorium on police taser use until they stop using them on animals and nonviolent protesters?

Here's a kind of cool story.  In an certain zoo's animal hospital, it was noticed that some of the poison dart frogs were getting thin.  Upon close observation, the frogs were targeting and striking, but not capturing the prey (wingless fruit flies).  One vet, a herpetology specialist, had the idea that a vitamin deficiency could be the cause.  The mucus-secreting cells on a frog's tongue are adversely affected by a lack of vitamin A.  The tongue becomes less sticky, so that the prey does not stick to it.  After a topical application of vitamin A supplement, the dart frogs were able to successfully catch their prey.

In other interesting zoo animal news, the world's heaviest flying bird (a bit heavier than a wild turkey and about tied with the mute swan) is the kori bustard of sub-Saharan Africa.  It needs large territories away from humans in order to survive, so expanding human populations and the encroachment of agriculture is threatening its survival.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that its feathers are highly prized for the bizarre hobby of fly-tying.  This is a craft wherein bits of feather are cut and and shaped and affixed to a hook, to mimic the appearance of a flying insect that lives near fresh water.  Sometimes these are even used in an attempt to catch fish, or lure tourists to Montana.  (I kid; even my writing hero David Quammen puts on rubber pants and wades into freezing water in an attempt to snag trout with an artificial caddisfly.)  These hobbyists will pay obscene amounts of money for their desired feathers.  Hunters and poachers in Africa are all too willing to kill bustards to satisfy the market for their feathers.  Part of the Species Survival Program for the kori bustard is an attempt to flood the market with cheap or free feathers to whomever wants them--a donation is asked for, but that's all.  There are about 150 kori bustards in captivity around the world.  Hopefully they can help protect the species from this peculiar source of predation.

On a personal note, Alexis and I have been doing more fantasy home shopping, but strangely they've all been in the same area.  Hmmmm...

Today was probably the last hot day of the year.  I celebrated by getting sweaty and filthy at work.


EDIT:  One last political note.  Earlier this week I made a flip joke about Hillary supporters voting for the Dark Side because of the VP pick over there happens to share their anatomy.  An old classmate of mine has made buttons (and stickers and shirts?) that cleverly refute the assumption that women would do such a thing.

The Onion steals my idea about making vicious lies about the presidential candidates.

The 6 cutest animals that can still destroy you. Hey, I've worked with 2 of these! Amazing they kept it down to only 2 Australian animals.