(no subject)

today there will be a partial eclipse of the sun. it will begin at 4:15 PM PST, and will be at it's maximum (about 75% coverage) by 5:23PM PST.

i hope you will join me as i run around outside banging on a pot with a ladle in an attempt to scare away the dragon that is devouring the sun.

(no subject)

bad haiku monkey!
bad!
bad!

sad

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/10/national/main511611.shtml

i always thought that cowboys waited for the bad guy to shoot first.

(no subject)

thanks to didymos for the link.

coffee777 and i keep wondering how far the reality show trend will go, long ago he postulated that the trend will, and indeed can ONLY end with the death of a contestant. in the nineteen seventies, Chuck Barris, in an interview, said that the ultimate game show would be one where losing contestants were killed. we aren't there yet, but this example (if it really did occur,) seems to be pushing that envelope:
http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/nasubi.html

stop and smell the flowers

this eclipse is the second rare thing i've seen in recent weeks. the week before last, one of the UW's three "Corpse Flowers" bloomed, (a rare event, the last of the trio to bloom did so in 1999,)it's a huge flower, and the bloom is three feet across, which filled the greenhouse with a stench that (according to the UW police) exactly mimics the smell of a rotting human corpse. (the plant works by luring carrion beetles and flies inside, where a complex system of plant trapdoors holds the bugs and covers them with pollen for three days, at which point it releases them-- the ressurected flies then go one their merry way, to get trapped in, and pollenate any other nearby corpse flowers.) thinking that i might never get the chance to smell a flower that blooms every four years, i ventured in and took a whiff. truly impressive. i don't think it's an experience i will repeat.