The .Gif Friday Post No. 657 – Morphing

[All found here, via here.]

There’s a huge bug in the tent.

Or not.

Continue reading “There’s a huge bug in the tent.”

A Slight Chance of Showers with Busty Winds

[Found here.]

USS Nimitz Halloween Cake [Updated – More Cake!]

Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Teresa Conde, from San Diego, sculpts a Halloween cake aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Oct. 26, 2020. US Navy Photo.

USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group are currently stationed in the Central Persian Gulf.

[Image and caption found here. I posted this because it’s still not Thanksgiving yet.]


UPDATE: Also on the Nimitz – A Veteran’s Day Cake

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Sarah Freitas, left, and Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Erica Rodriguez cut a Veterans Day cake on the aft mess deck of the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Nov. 11, 2020. US Navy Photo

Great Big Blobs

NASA scientists are studying planet magnetic fields and revisited raw data collected by Voyager 2 over three decades ago. They found that

Voyager 2 spotted a massive magnetic bubble pulling gas out of Uranus’ atmosphere.

https://www.space.com/uranus-gas-blob-voyager-2-discovery.html

Such loop-like plasmoids are typically formed as a spinning planet flings bits of its atmosphere to space. “Centrifugal forces take over, and the plasmoid pinches off.”

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/details.php?article_id=119

Uranus pinches off big blobs and flings them.

Preliographical Hot Links

Filipino Box Spring Hog, Tom Waits (1999) Album: Mule VariationsIf you don’t know who Tom Waits is, I truly feel sorry for you. Redeem yourself by clicking on this.


From the Dept. of Rare Honesty:
I received a letter from USAA this week.

“Attached is a check for $53.12. This amount represents a refund for all finance charges and fees that should have been reimbursed, as well as interest of $50.22.”

Apparently, the amount “disputed” was $2.90. Assuming 7.5% compounded interest, it dates to 1980. No idea what I “disputed.”


Peckerholes.

Remembering Snooty.

Jon Rahm’s got a Jesus ball.

HUGE solar flare and more cool astrostuff.

This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”

Spontaneous human combustion cases are rising.

Why over 100 Seattle police quit the force (in their own words).

Interview with David Kahn (author of The Code Breakers) on modern cryptography trends (2013).

In 1968, Bernd Boettger escaped from East Germany with a home-made submarine. [Related escape story here.]

Why I Hate Australians is a rant from 2006. It’s got over 1,200 comments; more are added daily.

[Top image: Ol’ Blue Boar weighs 500 pounds, is missing an eye, has razor sharp teeth, and is the meanest pig in the world.]


From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.


Saturday Matinee – The Darlings, The Dillards, New Grass Revival, Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, and Victor Wooten

The Darlings were a regular feature on the Andy Griffith Show, usually showing up whenever there was trouble brewing (like when Ernest T. Bass tried to woo Charlene Darling). The Darlings were The Dillards.

https://youtu.be/SNDKoN8nvLY

The Dillards, live at the Tonder Festival in Denmark in 1999. Entertaining intro to Ebo Walker, song starts about 03:45 in.

But there was also a real Ebo Walker, an upright bass player from Kentucky, and the song is not a tribute. From a  Reddit discussion:

Harry Shelor

“Crazy story time. Ebo Walker’s real name is Harry Lee Shelor Jr, (there’s a song called Ebo Walker, which Harry took the name from). Harry cultivated and grew marijuana. He ended up shooting a Kentucky State Police Detective by the name of Darrell Vendl Phelps. He began serving a 50 year sentence in 1981.”

Shelor was released from prison in 2013, age 70.

Prior to his arrest in 1981, Harry Shelor/Ebo Walker was a founding member of The New Grass Revival.

New Grass Revival covers Townes Van Zandt‘s White Freightliner Blues (ca.1981). This lineup consisted of

Sam Bush – mandolin, fiddle, guitar, vocals
Pat Flynn – guitar, vocals
John Cowan – bass guitar, vocals
Béla Fleck – banjo, guitar, vocals

https://youtu.be/KrlpFA5BbuU

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, featuring Victor Wooten on fretless bass , his brother Roy “Futureman” Wooten on Drumitar. That’s one tight trio.

Victor Wooten won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone.

That set of connections happened somewhat by accident, just like a lot of things these days. Find something fun to do this weekend accidentally, and when you’re done c’mon back here. Got some cool stuff for you to click on.

The .Gif Friday Post No. 658 – Demo Bueno, Stockin’ the Station & Zamboni Flambé

[Found here, here and here.]

1920’s Demolition Derby

[Found in here.]

Armistice Day: The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month of 1918

[Previously posted here. Related posts here.]


The sign on the front of the truck reads, “The Kaiser’s Funeral.”

26 September 1918

“We are in a camp near Auzeville and the big drive is to start. In fact the one that finished the ‘Boches’. Then the morning of the 26th dawned but dawn was preceded by a terrific barrage which was as loud as thunder and lighted up the whole skyline for miles. We were not flying ours but were held in reserve. Hundreds of “planes” were now flying over head. One bunch had over 150 in it.

Along about 8 a.m., along comes a boche plane and he burned three of the balloons all observers landed safe but one and his parachute burned and he fell to his death.

A fellow by the name of Barnett and I started out to see the fun. Put our guns on and started for the front line trenches which were about 5 miles north. After a short while we hit the trenches but of course our boys had advanced and were chasing the boche for a fare you well. We hit several mine craters where the boche had mined the roads but already our engineers had started to budge them. After another hour’s walk and dodging a few pieces of shrapnel we hit the town of Varennes and were keen for souvenirs. The boche were still in one side of the Varennes and we were in the other.

Machine guns were crackling with a steady roar and long streams of ambulances carrying away the wounded. Dead Boche were laying every where. The roads were filled with them. Long about then a Boche 77 took my ….. but never touched us. Then we started going through the dugouts and it was there that I got the general’s helmet. Also was almost lucky enough to capture a Jerry but a doughboy beat me to it. He was hiding in a dug out. Looked like he wasn’t as old as “Bugs” and he was scared almost to death.

After monkeying around a while we hopped an ambulance and rode back toward Auzeville. So that finished the day’s fun. But you ought to have seen the dead Huns. Some had legs blown off. Some had their heads and shoulders off and some were in pieces only. A great many had been burned by mustard gas and were burned to a crisp.”

PFC Walter Myers, age 19, US Army Signal Corps