Costumes

Here we are. From left to right: convict, ninja, split personality.

Hodgepodge

It's nearly November, and it's been more than two weeks since my last post. The following is an assortment of unrelated findings.

It's Halloween in Brooklyn. I'm torn between costume ideas. Originally I wanted to go cyberpunk, but I have neither the cred nor the accessories to pull it off. A simple Steeler's jersey could transform me into Ben Roethlisberger, but with a quick shave and a waxed mustache I could be a chimney sweep (soot and blackened toilet brush) or a Frenchmen (beret and baggette). But with C Rob's Halloween blowout approaching, I've decided to go with the good old half man half woman, a lazy choice, but always good for a few double-takes. I'll post a picture once the deed is done.

Elephant News
Boingboing brought to my attention a heartbreaking article about the deteriorating state of Elephant societies. After decades of mass poaching and loss of habitat, elephant populations across Africa and South Asia are displaying increasingly troubling behavior, raping rhinos and gorging humans. Though hard to read, the article is fascinating in its discussion of the parallels now being drawn between human and elephant psychology. Snippet from the story:

What Bradshaw and her colleagues describe would seem to be an extreme form of anthropocentric conjecture if the evidence that they’ve compiled from various elephant researchers, even on the strictly observational level, weren’t so compelling. The elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans: abnormal startle response, unpredictable asocial behavior, inattentive mothering and hyperaggression. Studies of the various assaults on the rhinos in South Africa, meanwhile, have determined that the perpetrators were in all cases adolescent males that had witnessed their families being shot down in cullings. It was common for these elephants to have been tethered to the bodies of their dead and dying relatives until they could be rounded up for translocation to, as Bradshaw and Schore describe them, ‘‘locales lacking traditional social hierarchy of older bulls and intact natal family structures.’’

It's a long piece, but worth reading. Lesson: Elephants respond to human violence in some of the same ways humans do. Way to go us.
And now...
Some Random Links
If you haven't seen the World of Warcraft and 911 Truth episodes of Southpark, do yourself a favor and indulge in some TV on the internet.

If you have a friend in Australia, this might be a fun and useful toy.

Watch "The Fountain" trailer, read an interview with Aronofsky, and play on the website.

I solemnly swear to post at least once more this week.

Rubik's

From boingboing today: RuBot II, the Rubik's Cube solving robot overlord:

Bow down to your new master.

If you think that's impressively nifty like I do, check this guy out. That's f_ckin' talent. I'm not trying to detract from the accomplishments of the great two-handed solvers of the world, but one hand, come on. Here's a clip of another Rubik's Bot, and if you're interested in seeing more human Rubik's competition, there's plenty on youtube. Enjoy.

Animatronic Fashion

The future is now. This video from Paris Fashion Week is something out of a dream. Cut to about half way through for the good stuff.

On a personal note, having finally moved into the new place, I will be without home internet access for a while, so, forgive me.

Preoccupied With Sex?

Then you must be gay.
Okay, that's a logical fallacy, but it's at least as true as Paul Weyrich's remarks on Morning Edition yesterday. Weyrich (pictured here), some big shot conservative Washington insider, authored a letter on behalf of a bunch of other conservative Washington politickers calling for Hastert to resign in the wake of Foley's outing as one screwed up dude, but then changed his mind after receiving a personal phone call from "Denny" the next morning. In the interview with Michele Norris yesterday he had the following to say about Foley and homosexuality:

Weyrich: Here is the real problem: It has been known for many years that congressman Foley was a homosexual. Ah, homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued, or should've been continued as chairman of the committee on missing and exploiting children is - given their knowledge of that - is just outrageous.

Norris: Now before we go on, I think I can say Mr. Weyrich, that there are quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.

[Myslef included. Eager for a response. Drum roll...]
Weyrich: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it, it happens to be true. I mean, ah...

Norris: That is your opinion.

Weyrich: Well, it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them.

Norris: I want to return to...

And Norris moves on. Oh, those poor medical professionals who have to deal with sex-crazed homos at two hundred dollars per hour. They've got it hard, don't they? Great interview though. Good for a disbelieving laugh while waiting for the bus on a beautiful fall day in New York. Thanks, Paul, for being an imbecile.

Hot Cheetos

From the window of the crosstown bus, I recently witnessed a little girl down a bag of hot cheetos in the back seat of her parent's car; tilted back her head and chugged the remaining crumbs forming a flamin' hot cloud of dust around her face. She then greedily sucked her fingers clean. It was my first hot cheetos sighting after having learned of the phenomenon a couple weeks ago on the boingboing podcast. They helped me find this video...

...which is posted to this silly blog where you can watch more tweens eating hot cheetos.

I had no idea. Flamin' Hot Cheetos are huge! And it's become a problem for some parents and teachers. One school district in California has tried banning them altogether. A friend who spent a short time teaching in L.A. more than a year ago told me, "I had to pry them out of their cheese-dust encrusted little hands. A kid made me taste one, they're horrible." The web is busting with gossip about the snack - are they superior to regular cheetos, did Frito-Lay intend to get kids hooked, etc. Just do a quick search if you're interested. And apparently there is such high demand in areas where they're not easy to come by that you can turn a profit hocking them on eBay. If I was more of an entrepreneur I'd start buying bulk.


In a related story and my first exclusive, also while on the crosstown bus I recently saw Joel Godard, the announcer for Late Night With Conan O'Brien. He was looking disheveled but was content to sit quietly in the back of the bus reading a copy of Aviation History Magazine. That's right, you read it here first: Joel Godard reads Aviation History Magazine!

Last Weekend

A little Mountain Goats.


And some feral horses on the island of Assateague. These "ponies" are descended from domestic herds which grazed on the island in the 18th and 19th centuries. They have since adapted to the shore environment by growing smaller than their domesticated ancestors, and by sporting stomachs bloated with a lot of fresh water to compensate for their extra-salty diet of marsh and dune grasses. Really, they look and act like average horses, but be warned, these horses are wild. For some other pictures of the trip to Assateague try here.