Saturday, June 19, 2010

Top 10 Weirdest Sights In America


Source


Albino Squirrels - Olney, Ill.
Red eyes and snow-white fur make albino squirrels look like something out of a sci-fi movie, but in Olney, Ill., the rodents might as well be royalty. City laws give these rare white squirrels the right-of-way on every street (jay-walking permitted), and police prohibit visitors from leaving town with one of the estimated 111 colorless pets.
Flikr - westerntragedy

Albino squirrels scurry down trees in towns nationwide (at least five other American towns boast similar populations), but Olney provides something of a safe haven for the animals, who don’t exactly blend in like their camouflaged counterparts. For guaranteed sightings, visit on Saturdays in October (this year’s schedule is set for Oct. 9, 16, and 23), when a citywide squirrel census takes place (volunteers actually go around counting the number of white and gray squirrels to keep track of the population). Otherwise, find a park bench at Olney City Park, scatter a few nuts on the ground, and wait, camera at the ready.

Marfa Lights - Marfa, Texas
The Marfa Lights have baffled scientists since the first recorded sighting in 1883. Visible only on clear nights, the weird yellowish-green orbs float, bounce around, and vanish then reappear over the Mitchell Flats, just outside of Marfa, Texas. Explanations range from the mundane (mirages, car taillights) to the otherworldly
Flikr - Rob Thomson - his website

(alien spacecrafts, displaced souls), but the fun of these inexplicable lights is certainly in the mystery. Each Labor Day weekend, Marfa residents celebrate the phenomenon at the Marfa Lights Festival. The three-day fest – complete with live music, street parties, and local arts and crafts vendors – kicks off with a Friday night parade and has become a reunion for former Marfa residents and mystery lights fanatics alike (there are several full books on the topic, by the way). Year round, visitors flock to the viewing center, about 10 miles east of Marfa, for a glimpse of the mystifying glows.

Petrified Wood Park - Lemmon, S.D.
Visionary Ole S. Quammen probably deserved New Deal funding for his Petrified Wood Park in Lemmon, S.D. At the onset of the Great Depression in 1930, Quammen commissioned some 30 men to scavenge the Great Plains for rocks and fossils (and earn him an “amateur geologist” title). Besides putting food on their tables, the
South Dakota Tourism

team's efforts dug up gobs of petrified wood chunks that Quammen later turned into one weird site, featuring statues of everything from waterfalls to wishing wells. Today, the park features 100 towering cones of the ancient wood (each embedded with dinosaur-era fossils) and occupies an entire city block in downtown Lemmon.

Banner Image: Carhenge - Alliance, Neb.

Continue to the rest of the list..

I Love Animals

Ohh, you poor baby's!! Aww... OMG

My post of the month, here........



I am so thankful I ran across this video.

I have been moved!

entensity

Such Classy Champions



Click the pic of fire to read the story...

Friday, June 18, 2010

Real Guitar Hero



Yean - Let's see those kiddos try the REAL one! Muahhahahahaa!

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The Book Of Lists


































When I ran across this, I was like, "Hey I have that book around here somewhere!" So, yeah.. that shows my age. It makes me wanna go look for it, because I'll bet I could find some great stuff to post!

Anyone else have it?

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Still Amazing



This scene from T2 is still an incredible..

Has it really been 19 years!?!? That blows my mind a little. No, a lot.

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Vintage 1970 Circus Cover






























Click to enlarge..

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A Quick English Lesson


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Stop Wasting Stuff






























Click to enlarge..

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Weight Gain


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Outdoor Concert Guide


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The Ultimate Irony


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Thursday, June 17, 2010

5 Ridiculous Gun Myths Everyone Believes


Source

It's a Cracked.com list, and most of their lists aren't that great. But this one is.

Even in gun-crazy America, most of us aren't shooting things as part of our day-to-day routine. So most Americans actually know very little about guns. Hollywood writers realized this a long time ago and, being writers, used it as an excuse to never do any fact-checking ever again.

5. Silencers Turn Gunfire Into a Gentle Whisper

Where You've Seen It: In The Line Of Fire, Die Hard 2, No Country For Old Men, Shooter, practically every James Bond movie.

The Myth:

Cautious spies and assassins know that if you're going to take out a bad guy in an office or a library, be sure to use a silencer. It turns the concussive "bang" into a neutered "ptew."

Itty-bitty handguns aren't the only things you can silence. Giant freaking shotguns can even be fitted with a special silencer that renders them inaudible in quiet suburban neighborhoods.

Also, while silencers look all slick and expensive and fancy, Hollywood says pretty much any long, hollow tube will do the job. Grab a two-liter, stuff it with socks or something, and you can be just as dangerous as Mark Wahlberg in Shooter.

The Problem:
Exploding gunpowder is loud. Really loud. As loud as a jet engine. A little metal tube won't do a whole lot to stop that. This is what a suppressed handgun actually sounds like:



It still sounds like a freaking handgun. It does not make a soft phut that you could mistake for a kitten landing on a pillow.

An unsilenced gunshot is around 140 to 160 decibels--that's in the range where hearing it once can permanently damage your ears. If you've never had a gun go off next to you, trust us when we say it's loud enough that your whole body will flinch at the sound of it. A silencer can get that all the way down to 120 or 130 decibles, aka the sound of a jackhammer. Still loud enough to cause physical pain if it's close enough to you.

So a silencer really just makes a large gun sound like a smaller gun. If you're James Bond and are sneaking into the enemy's compound with a silenced pistol, you're basically hoping the guards will decide your gun is too small and wimpy to be a serious threat, and leave you be.

So why the hell do silencers even exist? Well, if you're in an outdoor, noisy environment, they can make quite a bit of difference. Specifically, they make it really hard to tell where exactly the shot is coming from, or how far away it is.

And as for silenced shotguns? They do exist. Here's one in action:


#4. Machine Guns are Magical Death Machines

Let's go see #4 thru #1.. I wouldn't post this if it wasn't a great article. That's what I do.

Everywhere

Why Haven't More People Done This?

Or perhaps a better question would be, "Why haven't we heard about it or seen it yet? Or, "Why haven't I done this yet?"




But I remember at most of the restaurants I worked, we used to have a single 4-ft. tall CO2 container for each box/nozzle!

Here's their page - with a good video clip..

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Introducing: The Whitney Music Box



A musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book "digital harmony". (WIKI)

In three minutes, the largest dot will travel around the circle once, the next largest dot will travel around the circle twice, the next largest dot three times, and so on.

The dots are arranged to trigger notes on a chromatic scale when they pass the line.

The music was generated using my own syd synthesis software, the animation was programmed in flash actionscript.

Click here to go experience The Whitney Music Box for a few.. Be sure to click on a few of the other arrangements on the right!

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It's About Time


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Now She Shops Alone


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Now That's How You Bring A Round!





























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The Ingenious China-Hong Kong Flipper Bridge



One of the most vexing aspects of traveling between mainland China and Hong Kong is the car travel: People in the former drive on the right side of the road; people in the latter drive on the left (a vestige of the British empire).

So to quell confusion at the border and, more importantly, to keep cars from smashing into each other, the Dutch firm NL Architects proposed a brilliant, simple solution, the Flipper bridge.

The bridge does exactly what the name suggests: It flips traffic around. The key here is separating the two sides of traffic, using a figure-eight shape. One side of the road dips under the other, funneling cars that were traveling on the left to the right (and vice versa), without forcing them to encounter head-on traffic at an intersection. The bridge makes what should be a disorienting switch exquisitely easy.

Continue reading..

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Top-10 Things To Do On Flag Day


Source

10. Go read this article about the history of the Flag of the U.S.A.

9. Find a good baseball game to watch.. unless of course you watch baseball regularly.

8. Start thinking about fantasy football.

7. Write a petition to Congress to substitute this national holiday with Super Bowl Sunday!

6. Drive around town and count the number of houses who actually remembered to fly their flag. If they fly theirs every day - they don't count!

5. Start making your 4th of July plans!

4. Have a going-away party for Spring.. Unless of course you live in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida, where it's already been summer for 5 weeks.

3. Go play golf - The U.S. Open is almost always right around the corner.

2. Write a "Top-10 Things To Do On Flag Day" list.

1. Call my sister, Barbara, and wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Awesome - A One Stop Shop!


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Apology Accepted


Now clean this chit up!

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Vuvuzelas


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Vuvuzelas

These things are the cause of all that annoying buzzing you hear when watching a World Cup match. And here I thought they just had a monster sized hornets nest inside the broadcast booth.



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WIKI

Homer Is Stuck



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That's One Way To Think About It






























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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Sometimes It's The Only Option


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Cocktail Party


All types welcome!

By the way, this was post #1000. Woohoo! Only took me 10 months..

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Wadn't Me


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Kitty vs. Mirror



Too Cute!

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