Skylights in the Shower

photo: meanlouise

Florida builders have been making epically bad home design decisions since the first Spaniards hauled their sorry hides onto these shores 500 years ago.

Somewhere along the way, some builder said, “Hey, let’s put skylights over the showers in these ‘villas’ to distract from the fact that the bathrooms are in the dead center of the houses and therefore dark as caves.”

For the last 10 years, every time I’ve stayed at my mom’s house I’ve looked up at some point while showering and thought, “Hey, those skylights are some pervert’s dream.”

Not today. Today I looked up and thought, “Hey, Roofers!”

Shark Weak

Megalodon fossil cast, image by MeanLouise.

edited at 8:20 p.m. to update some links.

The Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week opened last night with a pseudo-documentary that is so abysmal that the words “fraudulent” and “bullshit” and “lies” are among the kinder assessments I’ve seen thus far. And I haven’t even looked very far.

The wildly differing goals of fiction films and documentaries are, I think, pretty well understood by most reasonable people. Crappy sci-fi or horror production houses aren’t big on maintaining a stable of science advisors. Hell, even the biggest budget movie or tv show will throw science to the wind in the pursuit of good storytelling.

It happens.

Sometimes, this becomes an opportunity for interesting conversation or an opening for some innovative science education programming. Other times it’s just a fun opportunity to get together with your science-y pals and have a few laughs.

Discovery is not the SyFy channel. Discovery purports to be a purveyor of science. Discovery needs to be held to a higher standard than Hollywood.

Discovery’s annual ichthyological bacchanalia has become an increasingly irresponsible blurring of fact and fiction and their sensationalization of the behavior of sharks – animals that are already misunderstood, over-fished and, in some cases, endangered.

This year, Discovery has taken things a step further, casting aside science in favor of science fiction delivered in a deliberately misleading fashion.

Christie Wilcox’s excellent piece, “Shark Week Jumps the Shark: An Open Letter to Discovery Communications,” is vital reading for anyone who doesn’t understand why paleontologists, conservationists, science communicators, documentarians, and ocean scientists, among others, are already pulling their hair out and tweeting madly about this year’s Shark Week.

This year’s Shark Week kick-off special, Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives, claimed to provide evidence that these massive beasts are still out there, using scattered anecdotes and scientific testimony to support the assertion. There’s only one problem: the entire “documentary” wasn’t real.

No whale with a giant bite taken out of it has ever washed up here in Hawaii. No fishing vessel went mysteriously missing off of South Africa in April. No one has ever found unfossilized Megalodon teeth. Collin Drake? Doesn’t exist. The evidence was faked, the stories fabricated, and the scientists portrayed on it were actors. The idea that Megalodon could still be roaming the ocean is a complete and total myth.

The heart of her argument is this:

The real science of these animals should have been more than enough to inspire Discovery Channel viewers. But it’s as if you don’t care anymore about presenting the truth or reality. You chose, instead, to mislead your viewers with 120 minutes of bullshit. And the sad part is, you are so well trusted by your audience that you actually convinced them: according to your poll, upwards of 70% of your viewing public fell for the ruse and now believes that Megalodon isn’t extinct.

The letter continues on as Wilcox outlines the reasons for her fury and ends with samples from Discovery’s facebook wall that show that she is far from alone in condemning their absurd content. You should go read the whole thing. It’s not that long, you can spare the time.

I was even more disappointed in Discovery for Megalodon: The Monster Shark that Lives than I was for the hoax-y “mermaids are real” programs they’ve run the last two Memorial Day weekends. See also: Valerie Strauss’s Washington Post article, Mermaids: The official U.S. position (yes, there is one) (which raises serious points. Go read it). See also: Southern Fried Science – Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary. See also: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s statement on aquatic humanoids.

Jacquelyn Gill has a timely guest-post on her blog, The Contemplative Mammoth, by PhD students Meghan Balk and Catalina Pimiento. I suggest reading The Megatooth Shark: Megalodon to learn actual things.

If your kids watched this fetid show, I suggest downloading the University of Florida’s Megalodon educator’s guide. UF is also the home of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, a great source for dispelling some of the myths and rumors programming like Shark Week disseminates in the name of ratings and profit.

Want some interesting (and intelligent) shark week commentary (52 weeks a year) on twitter? Start with David Schiffman, aka @WhySharksMatter. And perhaps turn off Discovery in favor of Nat Geo Wild’s Sharkfest. I’ve heard rumors it will have real science. Instead of, you know, bullshit and rumors.

updated to add links to other indignant blog posts:
It’s Okay to be Smart: “Shark Weak” (good title).

Wil Wheaton: “Discover Channel Owes it’s Viewers an Apology.”

I can control o/possums WITH MY MIND

Image of North American O/possum By Cody Pope (Wikipedia:User:Cody.pope) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.

I can control opossums. With my mind.

With my mind, people.

My mind.

Incidentally, since I can’t decide whether to use “possum” or “opossum” I’ve decided to go with o/possum from now on. The o/possums will understand.

I don’t know how useful this ability will be, but I like the idea of it, even though o/possums weird me out.

Damn. Now the o/possums know they weird me out. Shhhhh!

Although I don’t really believe I almost burned down Gatorland with my mind, as I have previously suggested, I choose to believe I’ve got this o/possum thing locked down.

I’m going to be sad if it’s the only X-man power I ever develop, though.

So what proof do I have of this ability? I’ll admit it’s a maybe possibly a little bit sketchy…

Dana was one of the winners of my inadvertently o/possum-themed blogiversary give-away. Yesterday, I decided to drop her prize off at her house, which is less than 1/2 a mile from mine – well within any rational person’s acceptable o/possum mind-control perimeter.

Before I arrived, one of her neighbors told her he’d seen an o/possum run into her yard. There is only one explanation (that is currently being posited here on my blog) – I sent this o/possum to her house!

I believe that I shall stop short of declaring myself the o/possum queen, because no good will come of that.

I’m also not going to be brushing their teeth anytime soon.

I forgot to take a picture of Dana’s present, but once all of the blogiversary presents have been received there will be some picture posting. Also, since I’ve decided that everyone who commented but didn’t win the drawing will be receiving a postcard I still need to send some emails and round up some addresses.

Sharknado + Swamp Shark

Last month’s SyFy Craptacular of the week, Sharknado, is being released for a (probably) one-day only theatrical engagement.

This means loads of fluffy press, such the Washington Post’s, “Sharknado’s next prey: Big-screen audience,” in which writer John Anderson and art-house owner Greg Laemmle seem to miss the point of craptaculars entirely (or can’t be bothered to take 3 minutes to read about The Asylum’s production process).

No one sets out to make a bad movie, Laemmle said. “But maybe in the case of ‘Sharknado’ they did.”

Vitale of Syfy disagrees. “These movies are made to be entertaining,” he said. “They are made on purpose to be fun; they’re not created to be a ‘Troll 2’ or an Ed Wood movie. ”

We’ll let that slide in order to get to an in-depth discussion of the critical questions raised by Sharknado in this post I wrote when Sharknado first aired and then forgot to post:

1) Sharknado: could it really happen?
2) Who the hell is Tara Reid and what is she famous for?
3) Did that dude just make a menstruation joke while I was slightly distracted by Tara Reid’s IMDB page?
4) Is Aubrey Peeples related to Nia Peeples?
5) Tara Reid? She’s no Ian Ziering.
6) Did you see Swamp Shark?
7) Did you know John Heard was in the Pelican Brief?
8) The Peach Pit? What the fuck? Why would anyone think that would be a good name for a diner?
9) Do you think it’s true Nia Peeples used to open for Liberace in Vegas?
10) This movie is halfway over, are we still sober?

Sharknado: could it really happen?
Sure, why not?

Who the hell is Tara Reid and what is she famous for?
All kinds of crap, it turns out, but she never seems to imprint on my brain. She’s no Ian Ziering. He was in Beverley Hills 90210. (Not the shitty reboot, either. He was in the shitty original show).

Did that dude just make a menstruation joke while I was slightly distracted by Tara Reid’s IMDB page?
Yes.

Is Aubrey Peeples related to Nia Peeples?
No.

Did you see Swamp Shark?
I did. I just pulled out my notes. Here they are, in their entirety: “Blah blah blah blah. Running. Screaming. Terror. Swamp. Shark. Blah.”

Did you know John Heard was in the Pelican Brief?
I worked on location on that movie for 2 days. I never met John Heard.

The Peach Pit? What the fuck? Why would anyone think that was a good name for a diner?
Whatever. If you want me to believe that you’re being pursued by sharks in a flooded L.A., at least hose off the pavement for the exterior shots so we can pretend along with you without needing to get up to get another drink.

Followup question:
Why don’t we have a monkey butler so we don’t have to get up to refill our adult beverages?
Monkeys make terrible butlers.

Do you think it’s true Nia Peeples used to open for Liberace in Vegas?
I have no idea, but Nia Peeples and SyFy/Asylum alum Tiffany were on an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap together.

This movie is halfway over, why are we still sober?
Mischief managed. Moving on…

Not enough people have seen Jaws, judging by the tweets I’m seeing. How could you people not catch that the scene where two characters compare scars and one of them tells the story of being in a shipwreck and everyone else being eaten by sharks is an homage to the scene in Jaws where two characters compare their scars and one tells the story of being in a shipwreck and everyone else being eaten by sharks?

And that character saying, “We’re going to need a bigger chopper!” was a reference to one of the most quoted lines in movie history.

You people on the twitter, you disappoint me.

Many articles about Sharknado were like the mutants that figure in many SyFy movies – plaintive struggles for hip pop culture credibility grafted on to the genetic lattice of massive sharknado-driven web traffic. See also: the Atlantic trying to explain how the Federal Reserve is just like Sharknado.

If you’re interested, Here’s an amusing interview The Asylum’s David Michael Latt did with the Examiner about the fast, cheap but totally in-control production process they’ve honed. (Also probably the only time you’ll ever see me link to the Examiner on purpose).

I do find it amusing to read tweets and posts from viewers who are trying to maintain a facade of ironic distance, despite the fact that their twitter feeds display evidence that they previously “discovered” B movies in 2009 when they watched (in an ironic way) the Debbie Gibson opus, Mega Shark ve Giant Octopus and again (ironically, obviously) in the 2011 follow-up, in which Gibson battled Tiffany in Mega Python Vs. Gatoroid.

In conclusion, Sharknado was good for the internet traffic of a lot of websites who wrote gratuitous articles about it.

Like this one.

Dinocroc vs. Supergator & My High School Reunion

Dinocroc vs. Supergator is predicated on the idea that “alligators and crocodiles are mortal enemies.”

I called bullshit since the 2 species co-exist in South Florida, but Husband reminded me we aren’t dealing with a regular gator and croc, we’re talking about Supergator and Dinocroc.

Sure. Whatever.

The movie opens with a scene wherein David Carradine‘s character shouts, “What the hell is going on?”

This is a question we will ask our television for the next 90 minutes.

I’m having trouble keeping track of the characters who are neither Dinocroc nor Supergator because these people are boring and unidimensional. Plus, they keep getting eaten before I can even try to feign interest in them. Plus, I’m texting with JunglePete, who is attending our 25th high school reunion on Siesta Key on behalf of Heather and myself.

JunglePete and I were on the reunion planning committee. I thought we came up with some excellent themes, including Family Everglades Camping Weekend Of Terror, in addition to the multi-page list of alternate themes we proposed which our committee chair confiscated and burned in front of us.

The final decision was to not have a theme.

If I was at the reunion, they probably wouldn’t let me watch Dinocroc vs Supergator. Silly geese.

I’m starting to doubt that Supergator is actually the friend of all children.

Dinocroc isn’t very bright, even for “A Primeval” with enhanced intelligence.

Frankly, I’m not sure which monster we’re supposed to root for.

Husband thinks we’re supposed to be rooting for the humans.

That’s unfortunate.

I actually didn’t go for complicated health reasons, but you’re welcome to believe I stayed home to watch Dinocroc vs Supergator.

Or that one member of our class always has to sit out the reunion in an undisclosed location. Just in case.

(The confiscating and burning of our list didn’t actually happen, but it probably would have if we’d all met in person).