Chicago's Midway Airport, known as "the world's busiest square mile," has runways that are shorter than those of most major airports. When landing there, I often end up fighting the forward momentum in my seat due to the hard braking required to prevent ending up in the surrounding Chicago neighborhoods, like this
Running across this today makes me feel like a flying wimp, though. The World's Scariest Runways slideshow features video clips of frightening takeoffs and landings, sometimes mere feet over people's heads! This makes me appreciate the training and skill of the pilots and crew who get us safely up and down every single day around the world, even in the most harrowing of circumstances.
Kika, the mom of the original Shiba Inu 6 that became a livestreamed internet phenom, has a new litter! Only five this time, born on Saturday, January 16th. If you missed it the first time around, here's your second chance!
The original puppy cam was started so the owners could keep an eye on Kika and her pups while they were at work, and it went viral. People worldwide were heartbroken to see the pups leave Kika for other homes. Kika is a great doggy mom, and the people who run the cam are cool too. They almost never show themselves, and if they do it's only their hands or feet.
...and it is the best one yet! This one features naturalist David Attenborough and researcher Jane Goodall, as well as Carl Sagan. Ms. Goodall's contribution came from this talk she gave at the 2002 TED conference. The artistic depictions of cellular activity in this video are simply stunning.
Feeling a little blue about those extra holiday pounds? Wishing there was something you could do to lose them without spending a fortune at the gym? You may have found your solution right here!
This guy might be able to help - he's quite...um...energetic and...intense
or you might like one of these - the demonstrator gal says she plays ball with her kids while she uses it! Oh my...
The chick in the blue shirt seems to recognize how wrong this all is
Flabby arms? This might be just what you need! I wonder if this is Michele Obama's secret...
I think that daily email estimate is low, if you factor in spam and mindless forwards - sometimes it seems I get that many spam emails in a month or so, despite filters!
This video belongs here, even though it's a lil' dated - eighty-something-year-old former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens attempted to describe the Internet as "not a big truck, but a series of tubes" while debating net neutrality, and of course someone had to poke fun :)
I don't like this time of year much, with the getting dark early and all, but I love the year-in-review pieces that start showing up about now. Plus, we get to look back on the first decade of the 21st Century, and what a decade it was!
First is the 2000's in review by Newsweek magazine. It's not embeddable for a blogger, so you'll have to click below to view. Very well done.
I'm really not an AutoTune freak, but it does seem to have become a phenomenon these last few years as society becomes more techy and/or lazy.
The retrospectives here were put together before all the Tiger shit hit the fan - it'll be fun to see how he is portrayed in those to come. Pretty crappy timing for him, fooking up at the end of the decade and all...
I’ve never seen an episode, but I am happy for him, since he was my first love after all. He looked like this back then…
These pics were taped to my ceiling above my bed when I was 10 or so. When I opened my eyes in the morning (or afternoon, on Saturdays) he was the first thing I saw, and life was good...
And I still love him today, especially since he can be silly and make fun of himself like he does in this greenscreen take for Weird Al Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” video
AutoTune was touched on in the previous post. Here's a vid explaining it further, featuring Professor Al Yankovic.
My parents were fairly old when I was born – Mom 46, and Dad 51 (although that’s becoming more common these days with new fertilization techniques). Thus, I never knew or saw my parents as young(ish) people – Dad was always bald, and Mom always gray, both with dentures and various medical conditions as far as I can remember.
Mom, while never having had the opportunity to attend college, was very intellectually curious and educated herself on many subjects later in her life, including art history, botany, archeology and anthropology. She taught herself how to paint with oils in her sixties, and a couple of her paintings of Irish scenes hang in my home today. She was also somewhat of a pop culture junkie (I guess that’s where I got it from), and we would stay up late at night watching Monty Python or Fawlty Towers on public TV, or Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder and Johnny Carson.
One of Mom’s favorite self-taught subjects was astronomy, and she was a huge fan of Carl Sagan. Running across these videos by the Symphony of Science musical project recently reminded me of her admiration of Sagan’s work and the universe in general. She would've loved these.
Carl Sagan - and Stephen Hawking! - "sing" in this video (thanks to AutoTune) - A Glorious Dawn
Do you see her? She's RIGHT THERE, fer chrissakes! And she's CRYING - see the bloody tears streaming down her right cheek? She's weeping for us all, or maybe for the Balloon Boy for having such lousy parents.
There were witnesses too. PLUS, the slide still exists and can be produced for any skeptics or miracle experts (like the Pope) who might want to take a closer look at this divine portrait of the Mother of God, in BLOOD no less!
This is too much. I have to go lie down now.
UPDATE: Take another look at the first photo. To Mary's right/our left, is that a . . . LAMB? Head, front half of body and two front legs? Is the Lamb of God, i.e. Jesus Christ, in the same slide of BLOOD as his weeping Mother Mary? (Actually I think the lamb is made of purple stain, but STILL!!)
Oh, I am speechless and swooning. What an iconic work of biological and spiritual art!
This movie is being talked up loudly for Oscars, even though it won't be out until November. This story of an obese, illiterate black teenager who is abused in every way and is struggling to survive is based on the novel Push by Sapphire, a writer who taught teens in Harlem for many years. The role of the social worker who helps Precious was originally supposed to go to Oscar winner Helen Mirren, but when she couldn't commit, director Lee Daniels amazingly gave the role to Mariah Carey. He trusted her acting skills but told her to leave her divaliciousness at home - it is said that if she showed up with an entourage or even with makeup on, he had a backup actress ready to go. She apparently complied.
This will be a painful movie to watch, no doubt, but to paraphrase Oprah - how many times have we seen this girl walk down the street, or passed by her at Walgreens? How many times have I not noticed a girl like this, carrying so much pain?
I enjoy learning about the artwork and stories behind people's tattoos. Although I have none, if I were to get one or more they would probably be of the geeky/nerdy variety. I'd probably go with some representation of the double helix (DNA), something that captures its strength and fallibility at the same time.
Here's a set of geeky tats. IMHO, I don't think scientific tats should be lumped in with gamer tats, but that's just nerdy me.
We've all heard of someone getting Chinese letters tattooed on themselves that they thought meant something like "unique" when they really translate to "strange." Hanzi Smatter is a site dedicated to the translation and mocking of Chinese lettering tattoos in Western culture. Dumb Americans really need to stop doing this.
Discussed here are results to date of the combined efforts of an Iraqi physician and an American official of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to meet a desperate need for nurses in Anbar province in Iraq. Their one hospital has no nurses and relies on family members to care for patients, and the village that just graduated their first group of 10 nurses' aides has one female nurse and one midwife for over 50,000 people!
Cultural differences can be difficult to deal with when caring for Middle Eastern women in America and elsewhere. Even if they can speak English, they are often painfully reluctant to discuss symptoms and bodily functions, or reveal their body for examination, which unfortunately is necessary for a physician to make a diagnosis and recommend treatment. It is immensely more difficult if the patient does not speak English and the only translator is a husband or son. If it is a gynecological issue in particular, women will simply not say the necessary words to describe their problem to their relatives, or any man, nor will the men allow it. This presents a difficult dilemma for any healthcare provider. Hospital translation services have improved greatly in recent years, and many large facilities now prohibit family members translating for each other. Smaller facilities such as physician's offices, however, often have no other option.
As stated at the beginning of the article, many men in this conservative part of Iraq would rather let their sick wives die than be touched by a man for assistance. The CDC official and the physician coordinating these efforts to supply qualified nurses to this population deserve commendation, as do the brave women signing up heroically to become nurses and care for their fellow countrymen in such a desolate, discriminatory and dangerous environment. I wish them well.
An elderly couple playing a duet on a piano in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic - watch how they lovingly pat each others behinds when they switch places. So sweet :)
Some horrible frenemy (maybe that blonde chick) let this poor asymmetrical lady from The Real Housewives from Some Pathetic Place leave the house in this unfortunate low-cut lavender dress. Those poor boobies are disoriented and searching for somewhere to settle down and rest for awhile.
Ladies, flat-chested or droopy is better than this.
