Politics & Pop Culture. Also, episodes of squirrel-induced rage.
I know I’ve already posted one opossum video this week, but it turns out the massage video is even more hilariously sublime than the pedicure video and I feel compelled to post it, just in case you haven’t checked it out already.
tags: me pearl, opossum, opossum massage
filed under: wild kingdom | 9 Comments »
Guillermo del Toro’s Hobbit may have gone down the drain, but now the director is apparently taking a whack at making a scary 3D movie version of Disney’s Haunted Mansion:
He tells trade paper Daily Variety, “We will make the Haunted Mansion the most haunted place on Earth. We are not making it a comedy. We will make it scary and fun at the same time. For me, the Mansion needs to be the haunted house movie for this generation.”
The Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom (Orlando, for those who don’t speak Disney) has always been my favorite ride. I haven’t seen the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion movie, although I intend to get around to it eventually. I find the prospect of del Toro’s interpretation intriguing. On a related note, Mom and I are going to try to go this October to check out the ride when it’s re-themed as Nightmare Before Christmas.
tags: 3d, disney, guillermo del toro, haunted mansion, walt disney world
filed under: movies | No Comments »
Pearl is a deceased squirrel who channels prophesies and advice through her (former) human caretaker. Pearl has an extensive website that features more than just her caretaker demonstrating the proper way to give an opossum a pedicure, but it’s the pedicure video that originally caught my attention, so that’s what you get today.
“The most entertaining opossum pedicure tutorial you will watch today, guaranteed.”
After you watch this video, you will feel saner, guaranteed.
Via Husband via The Daily What.
tags: daily what, mepearl, opossum, pedicures, youtube
filed under: seriously?, squirrels | 1 Comment »
I like spiders. They’re interesting creatures, many are even quite beautiful. They don’t bang around in the walls, they don’t generally do any damage to your home, they don’t smell, and they don’t talk on their cell-phones while they swerve in and out of your lane at 40 MPH on Connecticut Avenue.
Nevertheless, I had to kill a large wolf spider last night in mom’s bathroom.
How large? I’m pretty sure it was actually howling at the moon when I interrupted it.
I intended to trap it under a glass and repatriate it to the wild, but I was a micro-second slow and crushed it with the side of the glass when I trapped it. I felt pretty horrible watching it die. Then I made Husband flush it down the toilet while I stood outside the room yelling hysterically for him to be careful.
Before you pass judgement, hear me out. I believe you’ll agree with me that the spider got what was coming to it based on it’s hostile behavior, aggressive posturing, gargantuan size, and overall hairiness.
Here’s what happened:
I flipped on the bathroom light and the arachnid in question was standing on the floor in front of the bathtub. Normally, one might say that a spider was “sitting” on the floor, but there was nothing passive about this sonofabitch. It wasn’t resting, it was merely pausing between acts of wanton destruction and cold-blooded killing.
It looked up at me like it was daring me to step into the room.
It shifted it’s mass back onto it’s abdomen, lifting it’s cephalothorax up slightly as it did that creepy thrumming thing spiders do with their 4 front legs when they’re obviously planning something. It’s an elegant motion, like graceful fingers elegantly drumming upon a table, or harp-strings set in motion.
Except instead of beautiful music I heard a slight crunching sound as the spider then used those elegant legs to reach over and idly pick through the pile of carnage by it’s side. I think it was using a puppy’s femur as a toothpick to work some gristle out of it’s gleaming razor-sharp fangs.
The spider nodded it’s head ever so slightly at me, as if to say, “You’re next, pal.”
If I’d had either a shotgun or the shopvac handy there would have been less screaming. Or maybe more screaming, but less spider.
I’m willing to entertain the possibility that the behemoth wasn’t actually sitting on a pile of gore and licking the blood of toddlers from it’s pedipalps, but I haven’t had any coffee yet so I can’t really be sure.
tags: kingdom of the spiders, spiders, wolf spider
filed under: true life 2010, wild kingdom | 3 Comments »
As reported in the Telegraph, and a million other places, BrewDog created a special edition cask for it’s End of History Ale. (Hello, clever publicity stunt, your mother is calling). The Ale is sold out, but I can tell you where you can get some squirrels if you’d like to try your hand at replicating at least one element of the product.
tags: brewdog, end of history ale, squirrels
filed under: squirrels, true life 2010 | No Comments »
tags: family
filed under: true life 2010 | No Comments »
Interesting. The Washington Post had a front page story about seat hogs on Metro – people who take up two seats even when people have to stand. These people either pretend they don’t see the people standing or get aggressive and rude when asked to move.
The disdain – or even outright venom – from the able-bodied towards the article is rather perplexing to me. As someone who can’t stand for very long on Metro and who has had a ridiculously large number of ugly encounters with seat hogs, I have to say that I think the people who don’t get it out to spend a day riding the Metro with someone who can’t stand. Maybe it would open their eyes a little bit. Maybe the ones who are most vocal about assuming the problem lies with the people who can’t get a seat are themselves seat hogs.
I doubt an article will shame the unrepentant seat hogs into being more considerate, anyone that aggressive about not sharing a seat isn’t going to be fazed by a newspaper article. That may sound pessimistic, but I’ve been riding Metro for over 20 years and this problem just gets worse and worse and I feel like over time these people have learned that there are no consequences to their refusal to share a seat or give up a disabled-access seat so it doesn’t seem like the situation has any chance or improving.
tags: metro
filed under: true life 2010 | 7 Comments »
In this week’s New Yorker, Nora Ephron hilariously lampoons the 1st three of maybe four books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series.
If you haven’t read the books but plan to (ahem, Husband), you probably shouldn’t click the link and read the whole piece. It won’t make much sense but it might spoil some plot points for you if you’re super-fussy about that kind of thing. The pull-quote doesn’t spoil anything, so giggle away at that.
“I can’t really go on without an umlaut,” he said. “We’re in Sweden.”
But where in Sweden were they? There was no way to know, especially if you’d never been to Sweden. A few chapters ago, for example, an unscrupulous agent from Swedish Intelligence had tailed Blomkvist by taking Stora Essingen and Gröndal into Södermalm, and then driving down Hornsgatan and across Bellmansgatan via Brännkyrkagatan, with a final left onto Tavastgatan. Who cared, but there it was, in black-and-white, taking up space. And now Blomkvist was standing in her doorway. Someone might still be following him—but who? There was no real way to be sure even when you found out, because people’s names were so confusingly similar—Gullberg, Sandberg, and Holmberg; Nieminen and Niedermann; and, worst of all, Jonasson, Mårtensson, Torkelsson, Fredriksson, Svensson, Johansson, Svantesson, Fransson, and Paulsson.
“I need my umlaut,” Blomkvist said. “What if I want to go to Svavelsjö? Or Strängnäs? Or Södertälje? What if I want to write to Wadensjö? Or Ekström or Nyström?”
It was a compelling argument.
She opened the door.
tags: new yorker, nora ephron, Stieg Larsson, umlaut
filed under: books, humor | 1 Comment »
Happy 40th birthday, Heather!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve known Heather since we were 11 or 12. She looks like we did in high school. It’s kind of annoying really. ;-)
tags: hokgardner
filed under: true life 2010 | 2 Comments »
Unfortunately, the article isn’t available online so I had to do screen captures of a pdf. Page 1 and page 2.
tags: fibre space, hard times cafe, old town alexandria, that horse is going to melt!, yarn bombers
filed under: art, true life 2010 | No Comments »
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