Sources for .gif files like this are generally unknown to me, and I’ve been collecting them for years. No copyright infringement is intended, etc., etc. These can be found all over the internest, if you know where to look. – Bunk
Month: August 2007
Didymo = Rock Snot
Your Town, This Planet (Strutts News Services) –
No, we’re not talking about punk or rap music here. Rock Snot is real. Be afraid.
From CSM: “In the late 1980s, a freshwater alga began mysteriously blooming in the rivers of Vancouver, British Columbia, covering once-pristine riverbeds with a thick, woolly mat. Dubbed “rock snot” for its yellowish color and globular form…”
From AP via MSNBC: “It looks like a clump of soiled sheep’s wool, a cottony green or white mass that’s turning up on rocks and river bottoms, snarling waterways.”
From SNS: “Janessa Vapors, a nineteenth-grader at the Institute for Apocalyptic Studies at the University of Social Engineering, Placerville, California states, ‘Global Warming is not the problem, but Rock Snot is a real threat. We’ve got to find a way to harvest it and process it into food. Theoretically, if everyone on this planet ate a pound of it a day, the equivalent of 10,337 cars would be taken off the road; I’ve run the numbers. We’ve got to start now to solve this crisis, but we need more government funding.'”
If you want to keep Rock Snot from proliferating, quit messing with it and eat it. I don’t know about you, but I’m already packing to leave before it gets me, just in case, and I suggest you do the same.
All photos and quotes are from embedded links above.
The Zen of Nancy
Ernie Bushmiller’s “Nancy” was one of the most innocuous yet ubiquitous comic strips ever. It was never funny or clever, it was just odd, and it ran in hundreds of papers for decades. There are many Nancy afficionados/analysts out there, just google ’em. One of the best taps into the zen of the strip, with a game called, “Five Card Nancy,” and it’s not funny either.
Although Nancy didn’t have a mom or a dad in the strip, her Aunt Fritzi took care of her. Fritzi was a babe, and better looking than Blondie. Honest.
Nancy’s best friend Sluggo was odd in his own zen-like way:
There are so many pointless, humorless comic strips around today that try to be funny. At least Bushmiller’s “Nancy” was deliberately pointless and rarely humorous, but it was drafted in a tight recognizable style.
Sources: Nancy panel clipped from the Sunday funnies years ago; Aunt Fritzi from here; Sluggo panels from here and here.
HE has a sense of humo(u)r.
Yamba, New South Wales – (Strutts News Services)
Once again, GOD played a prank on the seaside community of Yamba on Thursday when he purchased a bottle of Ivory Liquid, metasized it, and poured it into the Pacific Ocean just 10 miles off the coast. The ocean knew what to do and churned up foam that spread 30 miles.
“Only the Almighty could pull one off like this,” said resident Robert “Dinker” Dinques. “We joke alot that HE must be bored watching us and all, and once in a while HE stirs the pot up a bit.”
Photos via Arbroath. True story may be found there as well.
Boy, 10, Brought Home by Mothership
Basil Mills, Nebraska – (Strutts News Services)
While 10-year-old Donny Plunck played the time-tested game of “See-How-Far-You-Can-Throw-A-Rock,” trouble was brewing. Unaware that he’d been tracked down by a larger and more intelligent force, he suddenly found himself airborne, and was transported back to his home over a mile away, by his left wrist.
Donny recalled the ordeal vividly. “It was a frightening eerie silence, all the way home, except for the wind.”
He was levitated all the way to his bedroom door when he heard a booming voice from above: “I TOLD you to clean your room! Now DO IT before your FATHERSHIP comes home!”
Donny was not harmed in any way, and his room was spotless by 5:23PM.
Photo via Neatorama. Sort of.
“What’d you say?”
(Photo & caption blatantly lifted from Mattress Police in May ’07, and entirely without Diesel’s permission. I’ll give ’em back when I’m done.)
Inexpensive Chandelier
Just think… without shadows, we couldn’t see anything. Otherwise, just think. Or not.
Photo via Design Corner.
ZIGGY DEAD AT 36
Ft. Lauderdale, FL – (Strutts News Services)
Beloved cartoon character “Ziggy” succumbed to a heat stroke on Thursday, when record temperatures caused an overload in the local power grid, shutting down the air conditioning in Mr. Z’s beach front condo. He was found unconscious and unresponsive by Lt. Commander Lannie Foosers of the Ft. Lauderdale Health and Rescue Division, and was pronounced dead on arrival at Holy Cross Hospital.
“Ziggy was a good guy, a guy you could trust,” sobbed neighbor and close friend, Ms. Janessa Vapors. “He wouldn’t not do nothin’ to not harm a flea, and now he’s gone. He’d trip over my sprinkler hose and get soaked at least once a week.”
“He always looked kinda waxy,” commented Mr. Bob Bieber, Ziggy’s groundskeeper. “He never looked like he had pants on, but his dog was okay.”
From Toonopedia: “His supporting cast includes a dog, Fuzz, whose main function is to echo and amplify Ziggy’s actions; a cat, Sid, who is afraid of mice; a parrot, Josh, who seldom has anything encouraging to say; a duck, Wack; and a fish, Goldie. These are augmented by an endless stream of auto mechanics, department store clerks, fortune tellers, psychoanalists, waitresses, etc., none of whom do much to brighten his life. He does not have a girlfriend.”
(Photo: Ziggy and Fuzz in happier days)
Rest in Peace, Zigman. We’ll miss you.
Wavy Gravy Lives!
George Carlin, and later Cheech y Chong, were arguably the first hippie comedians, although an argument could be made that all hippies were comedians. At least these guys were intentionally funny.
But Wavy Gravy owns the title of being the First Hippie Clown. He even played Woodstock, and he’s still alive.
Proof can be found on the Wavy Gravy Homepage.
1913 Waco, Texas
There’s an excellent ongoing compilation of photos of early Americana from Shorpy. Many photos, like this one, have descriptions of who, what, when and where. Be sure to read the story of “Shorpy.”
“Waco, Texas. November 1913. Isaac Boyett: ‘I’m de whole show.’ The twelve-year-old proprietor, manager and messenger of the Club Messenger Service, 402 Austin Street. The photo shows him in the heart of the Red Light district where he was delivering messages as he does several times a day. Said he knows the houses and some of the inmates. Has been doing this for one year, working until 9:30 P.M. Saturdays. Not so late on other nights. Makes from six to ten dollars a week.”
According to this calculator, $6 to $10 a week in 1913 equates to $124.55 to $207.58 per week in 2007 dollars. Most of Isaac’s earnings prolly went for food for his family.
Tacky Raccoons 