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Well, if Google Image Search is any indication then it looks like elephants really can paint. Better than me, I might add. You can even commission a painting from your favorite elephant at this site:
http://www.elephantart.us/Aet.htm
Here are some samples.
Thanks Derek!
I do not know how this is possible…
Via haha.hu.
This is a blooper reel from a video we’re making for work. It’s totally ridiculous!
Why don’t you check out the rest of Khalua69’s videos.
And one more:
I could not resist this gem…
Very, very fascinating. Watch a tank fire it’s gun and see the slowly expanding particles as the camera tracks the payload throughout it’s trajectory and, ooh!, see the shock wave cut through he air!
I love this stuff…
As some of you may know, there was a lot of construction going on at our place in 2007 and into 2008. Much of the project was delayed due to the incompetence of the folks over at the Building Department, Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York. We suffered about 3 months of senseless delays because people were simply too lazy and stupid to sit down and look at our plan.
It’s not really their fault. The folks over at the building department of the Town of Hempstead Nassau County New York work in a system that provides no reward for performing well. Nay, they work in a system that rewards doing a horrible job. There is no competition. There is no accountability. The people you work with do not care. Their bosses do not care. The head of the building department doesn’t care. If you get angry on the phone because they screwed up, they just hang up on you.
So today, I took off work to babysit the inspector who was scheduled to come between 11-1pm. One of my sons was home and I told him we’d go to McDonald’s for lunch as a treat. 11 comes and goes, so does 12, then 1pm. At 2pm I made lunch for my son and me. I called the building department and guess what? They had no record of the inspection today. In fact, the inspector was completely out of the office today!
So, now we have to reschedule. This affects an appointment we had for a new appraisal for the house.
How do you spell frustration?
This guy has an amazing repertoire of rubbery, upside-down, flipping and body-pretzel skills.
This is hilarious!
Thanks Tom!
More wacky videos from College Humor.
The subtitle on this one is, “We dare you to watch this entire video.” All I can say is that I’m glad I don’t know what the furry cheese omelette is.
Sweet new Line Rider animation for your enjoyment.
From College Humor, the best site on the internets.
Being somewhat learned in this sort of thing, I feel for the guy. Though I’ve never done exactly this before.
via haha.nu
This is a pretty amazing short clip that shows HIV infection at work and ways to prevent the vital steps required for infection and replication. What astounds me are some of the physical mechanisms that happen in cellular biology. It’s not all chemical reactions as I guess I had always assumed. All sorts of crazy chopping, snipping, and zipping (yes, zipping) happens all day in your body.
via haha.nu
A friend sent this over today… bizarre and fantastic.
Enjoy!
Thanks Charles!
Very cute.
Bonus - Runaway Spool
My son Antonio won the grade 1–3 spelling bee at his school today! We’re very proud of him. He’s in 2nd grade. The runner up missed “success” and Antonio had to spell that correctly before spelling the winning word, “forget”.
Each student is given a word picked from a list appropriate for their grade. This is how they can get all the grades to compete in a single event.
He came in second place last year and was determined to win this year. As part of that determination, he would write spelling lists and practice them by himself for fun. He did this the whole school year.
To get into this competition of about 13 kids for grades 1–3, he won two-days of preliminary rounds in his class.
Congratulations Antonio!
The Bad Astronomer would like this one…
The later it gets, the suckier are my posts:
Brilliant, great production value:
While you’re at it, be my Facebook Friend.
If you have a spare 6-7 minutes, I implore you to click this link and truly what the sub-prime crisis was all about:
http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1
So, there’s lots of rain out there, right?
Gaming was canceled tonight so I figured I would turn in early. Before I did, I thought it a good idea to check the basement for water leakage. My electrical closet sometimes has water at the bottom of it during a big rain and I thought this a good opportunity to catch the problem in the act, rather than the next day where I am normally left scratching my head. Yes, I know, electrical closets and water should not mix.
As I shut down around 10:45pm, I went downstairs to be greeted by the sound of “running” water. Like, from a goddamn faucet. It was coming from somewhere between my foundation and the drywall.
Water had filled up the well that sits outside of our nice big emergency evac window. Water does as water tends to do… find low ground (ala, my lovely basement). As I gazed out the window, I could see half the window was above water and the other half below. Holy crap! My window sill looked like I was about to sink into the North Atlantic!
I ran upstairs and flung open the door to my backyard. I yanked my pool pump out from the top of my pool cover (screw the pool) and I dragged the pump to the well so I could lower it into the abyss that was outside my basement window. Unfortunately haste makes waste. I had damaged the fragile plastic connector that bound the pump to the hose. Now my hose and my pump are useless and I was, well, hosed.
Still, there was no time for a pump designed to slowly drain water from atop a pool cover. I needed to evacuate about 24 cubic feet of water and fast. I went into the house and found the biggest pot I had. I also grabbed a smaller plastic Tupperware® bowl since intuition told me that I might need it when I got toward the bottom (I did).
In my pajamas and my workboots, I was up to my knees in water. I scooped and threw, scooped and threw. I noticed that the water I evacuated was coming back into the hole. So, I threw farther to move the water into an area that would not drain back toward me. I was completely soaked. My feet were numb (recall that it is Winter). Still, despite my misery, I saw gravel in about 20 minutes. I used the small tupperware to get the rest. I dug a hole in the gravel to allow me to scoop every last bit of water. Oh, I’m so clever.
Feeling accomplished, I went back in the house and checked my other basement window, the one by my garage. Water was pouring in! It was not that bad, but it was coming in from there too. I noticed that my contractor had placed a pump in that one and it was overwhelmed a bit, but doing it’s job. I placed a wet towel there and investigated from the outside.
That window is by a piece of my driveway that is still mud since concrete can’t be poured until it’s dry and a bit warmer. The whole area was filled with water!
Grrrr.
I went back to the unfinished portion of my basement and saw that it was moderately flooded, but only by about an inch. The finished side of my basement was elevated so there was no damage to the wood floor. I opened up my dry-well and took a broom and swept the pooling water into it.
All of this is the result of essentially unfinished construction. My driveway will be poured in a few weeks and my yard needs to be landscaped better to create the proper pitch so water runs away from my house. All of this will be dealt with in time.
I’m drinking a Sierra Nevada as I write this. I took a shower and am relatively warm and cozy. I’ll climb into bed soon, but before that I’ll knock back a Leffe and check everything out again.
If we hadn’t quit gaming early, I’d be totally screwed about now.
Cheers.
