Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical



Thank to Aerobot!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Travel Photos: #0002

Tax dollars hard at work in southern Utah on July 21, 1998!



I seem to remember the fellow being annoyed by our gales of laughter.

Travel Photos: #0001

We took these in 2001 in the famous Sedlec Ossuary near the medieval mining town of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic, where the remains of thousands of black death and Hussite War victims were arranged by a local woodcarver in 1870.

Here's The Bride posing under the chandelier.






Here's the Coat-of-Arms of the local lord - the Schwarzenbergs - reproduced in the same materials, followed by a more pedestrian rendering of the same for comparison. And yes, that is a 20 or so foot tall mountain of skulls and femurs in the background.









































Of special interest is the lower right quadrant, wherein is depicted a raven plucking the eye out of the corpse head of a Turk - a little shout-out to the Schwarzenberg conquest of the Turkish fortress of Raab in 1599. This is badass even on the painted version, but especially when lovingly rendered in human bones. Here's a closeup I found on the googleweb:



























As soon as we arrive the woman manning the door asked if we minded if she ran a small errand for a few minutes, leaving us alone in the place. We looked at one another, then answered, "Uhhh... We guess so?" And with that she closed the heavy wooden doors at the top of the stairs and locked us in behind them. Of course nothing came of it, but we were definitely hoping she looked both ways before she crossed the street on her errand lest an accident leave us forgotten to eventually become a part of the exhibit!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Great Ozzy Interview!

Most interviews with Ozzy Osbourne ask the same boring questions or are cut to highlight the damage he has sustained. Chris Hardwick delivered an in-depth, conversational interview that allowed Ozzy to make his points, which were witty, candid and down-to-earth. As a framework are the top 10 questions submitted by Digg subscribers, some of which are quite thought-provoking.

Click here to see for yourself!

Thanks Rowebot!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

So... who pays for it?

Congressman Joe Barton from Texas (R), the ranking Energy Committee member, has apologized to BP for the deeply shameful act of President Obama "shaking down" a corporation to the tune of $20 billion for Gulf region repair and restitution. This is surprising, since the only realistic alternative is for the American Taxpayer to foot the bill for most of the cleanup and countless lives ruined, the kind of bailout he bitterly opposed two years ago. Check it out!





Or perhaps Congressman Barton imagines a third path, in which no one pays and the Gulf Coast can go f$ck itself?

Just for fun, here is Secretary Chu failing to explain plate tectonics to Mr. Barton, who smirks like the high school oaf who thinks he has just stumped the brainy kid.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A message of some kind?

From the AP:

A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.







Friday, June 11, 2010

Civilization in Decay






Click here for a cool collection of photos of abandon subway stations at The Infrastructurist.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Peaches Piggy - NSFW!



Thanks Grimmbot!

The New Face of British Petroleum














































The imagination reels to consider the cloud of death that stretches a mile to the seafloor and who knows how many tens or hundreds of miles from there.

BP has lost fully 50% of its market capitalization since that rig exploded, but the company is quite healthy with oil at $60 a barrel. The Gulf Coast will continue to feel the repercussions from that blast for decades to come - environmental and economic - as we witness and endure these and other convulsions of the dying oil economy.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Gotta get this book!




















This example was in the comment section at Amazon:

"Errors in Communication Between My Hairdresser and Me in the Form of What I Said and What He Heard":

Said: Just a little off the length, and a little thinned out?
Heard: Could you make me look like a clown's apprentice?

Said: A little shorter, thanks.
Heard: I want the style that would emerge if you combined all three of Charlie's Angels.