Entry: Andre the Giant Has a Posse

This kinda blew my mind. It was one of those instances where you see something, and you don't know what it is, and it turns out to be a random configuration of stuff that you already knew about. Although, if you know what molecules are, then pretty much everything falls into that category, but you're a smart group, I'm a lazy writer, you know what I mean.

So I had seen these stickers around in the public sphere, slapped to various large objects:



And I never paid them much mind. Until I stumbled upon the sticker's Wiki article! (Well, I didn't literally StumbleUpon the article, my friend and I were having a discussion about culture jamming and you don't care at all.)

Those stickers are a portrait of Andre the Giant (aka Fezzig from The Princess Bride), as created by Shepard Fairey (aka the guy who did the Obama "Hope" poster). And the "OBEY" is a reference to They Live (aka the movie with the guy with the crazy sunglasses). It's a crazy pop culture golem! My favorite kind of golem.

Entry: List of Music Genome Project attributes

Prepared to lose an entire afternoon to this one, space cadets.

Like all cool kids, I utilize Pandora now and then to expand my musical horizons. Oftentimes, however, I go to look up the attributes of my stations and have no idea what the hell any of them mean. For instance, I'm apparently really super into "extensive vamping." And, until I turned to the Wik', I had no idea what that was. Basically, it means I'm a simpleminded twit who likes to hear the same thing repeated many, many times in the span of four minutes or so. Also recurring: "major key tonality" AND "minor key tonality." I'm such a fencesitter.

But perhaps your taste in music is overly specific, and you've wondered to yourself: what other musical attributes that I don't care for are floating around in the aether? Thanks Wiki. You've really outdone yourself this time.

Here are some highlights:

"Backbeat Hand Claps." Specifically hand claps. No drums, no footstomping.
"Blazin' Rappin'"/"Tight Lyrics". Perhaps my dorkiness is preventing me from understanding exactly what this term means, but doesn't that seem a little subjective for something calling itself a "Genome Project"?
"Lyrics with Heavy Erotic Content". Is there a subgenre of this that I don't know about? Don't get me wrong, I'm hip, I listen to Serge Gainsbourg... but I can't imagine not wanting to laugh my ass off at lyrics with heavy erotic content.
"Mystical Qualities". One of the backup singers is a unicorn, say.
"Sexist Lyrics". Okay, as a member of the group that usually gets the short end of the stick when it comes to sexism, I'm biased. But why the hell would someone actively seek this out as a quality of music?
"Use of Dirty-Sounding Organs". What, like a rectum?
"Vinyl Ambience". Just throwing it out there as a name for a drag queen act. Think about it, girls.


If anyone has any information as to which bands or songs embody the aforementioned, please let us know.

Entry: the Watusi

In true Bader-Meinhoff fashion, I got in a discussion about this with my friends at dinner last night, and then again with my coworker this afternoon. Anywho.

I wish to attend a function where there will be dancing, but find myself lacking proper instruction for an obsolete and spastic-looking move! O Wikipedia, can you help me?

In the classic Watusi, the dancer is almost stationary with knees slightly bent, although may advance forward and back by one or two small rhythmic paces. The arms, with palms flat in line, are held almost straight, alternately flail up and down in the vertical. The head is kept in line with the upper torso but may bob slightly to accentuate the arm flailing.

That's a good start, but my flailing feels a bit stiff and rehearsed. Perhaps, Wikipedia, perhaps you could help me to better embody the spirit of the Watusi...

The dance, which became popular in the American surf/beach sub-culture of 1960s, may be enhanced if one imagines that ones feet are on sand.

Thank you.

Entry: Tsutomu Yamaguchi

So, how's your Monday been going? Get stuck in traffic? Forget your lunch at home?

"Yamaguchi, an engineer in Hiroshima on a business trip for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on August 6, 1945 was just stepping off a tram when the atomic bomb Little Boy was dropped over the city just 3 kilometers away. The resulting explosion destroyed his eardrums, blinded him temporarily, and left him with serious burns over the left side of the top half of his body. He was wrapped in bandages for his skin wounds, and he went completely bald. Like many of the survivors of the atomic explosions, Yamaguchi suffered from effects caused by the explosions for much of his life. His wife was also poisoned by the nuclear fallout. Yamaguchi spent a fitful night in an air raid shelter before returning to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day. Yamaguchi was once again 3 kilometers away explaining to his supervisor how close he came to death just a few days before when the second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped."

Not only did he survive two nuclear explosions-- in fact, Yamaguchi is still alive-- but he wrote a book about his experience and is an activist for nuclear disarmament. Instead of, you know, in a padded room somewhere still trying to deal with the psychological implications of being in two nuclear explosions in three days. That's the truly amazing part, to me.

Entry: High Five

This entry is a guest entry, which comes to me from Kirk, aka # μ from DO-xiii. Do you enjoy video games? How about laughter? ...wait, neither? What the hell is wrong with you? Check out Disorganization XIII anyway... freaking weirdo.

I found out about the entry for high-five via reddit, since I too an a lover of narwhals and bacon and recycled shit from /b/.

The high-five article is one of those articles that you think you know everything about, but goes on to surprise you. Part of what makes it awesome is entries for historically significant high-fives, such as the Jackson Five. But most of it is due to the awesome illustrative pictures explaining the "Too Slow" prank.



Not only is this series of pictures hilariously entertaining, they're an inspiration to us all to make Wikipedia a brighter place. Think of how many of the average digicam pictures merely contain a couch full of inebriated people, or a high-angle shot in someone's bathroom. If you're one of the cool kids, you'll devote at least a few of these pictures to contributing to an open-source internet encyclopedia. Actually, scratch that last sentence.

Entry: Palm Dog Award

This is adorable.

Since 2001, the critics at the Cannes Film Festival have awarded the Palm Dog to outstanding performances by a canine or group of canines, real or animated, in one of the films shown at the festival.

Of course, out of the winners and nominees listed, I've only seen two of the films: Dogville and Triplets of Belleville. And let me say, I am pissed that the dog in the former won over the dog in the latter. Bruno is a charming, funny dog, who is pretty realistic for an animation. Moses is, for 99.99% of the role, a sound effect. Lame.

Entry: Staffordshire Hoard

Alert reader John sent me a link to this article. Thanks again, John!

This past July, amateur treasure hunter Terry Herbert uncovered the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found to date, estimated to be worth over 1 million GBP! Which is over $1.5 million in real money!

Says John:

"The article itself is cool, but one line really grabbed me:

'The hoard was reported to the local officer of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and on 24 September 2009 was declared treasure by the South Staffordshire coroner.'

The coroner?! What the what?!? Why not the undertaker? Or the baker? Seriously. Those kooky Brits."

It does give one pause. Maybe they figured that he rifles through the dead's possessions enough that he was one most likely to be able to discern the crap from the good stuff?

Another thing to ponder: They found over 1500 pieces of armor and weaponry in about 20 square meters, with "no traces of any graves, buildings, or other structures have been found." How did they all end up there? A big giant battle, followed by a big giant pile of dead bodies that nobody bothered to clean up? A big giant barracks where everyone decided to become pacifist hippies one day and left all their swag behind? A big giant something else?

Entry: Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116

It seems I'm not as good as getting this blog back to its former prolific state as I had hoped; not through lack of material. I'm getting really interesting links from people, which is awesome! Thanks, link senders!

Case in point: the awesome See ASea sent me today's article, about young Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, a lad who has turned into a bit of an urban legend. I've heard this story brought up as an anecdote before-- "Did you know there was some lady who named her kid a string of random numbers and letters that's pronounced 'Steve'?"-- but this is the real deal.

It happened in Sweden in 1991. Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding initially intended to not name their son anything, in protest of a law that disallowed names that would be considered offensive, unsuitable, or "can be supposed to cause discomfort for the one using it." However, since they had not given their son a name by his fifth birthday and faced a fine from the court, they attempted to name him Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (pronounced "Albin"), "claiming that it was 'a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation.' The parents suggested the name be understood in the spirit of 'pataphysics. The court rejected the name and upheld the fine." I have to say, though, that rejecting that name on the last term given in the law is pretty reasonable; asking a first grader to write Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 on the top of his worksheet is pretty cruel. Hell, I can't even be bothered to type it out, I've been copypasting this whole time.

They then attempted to name their child A, also pronounced "Albin," but apparently in Sweden there is a law against one-letter names. That's kinda lame. So they gave up and named their kid Albin.

To be honest, I find naming your kid Brfxx... to be more palatable than some of the ridiculous spellings that American parents come up with for common names in a halfhearted stab at originality. But then again I'm not a parent, so What Do I Know. And besides, using a kid's name to make a statement about a law that sucks in theory but relative to other laws probably doesn't matter that much? Swedes, you are awesome. You only trail Iceland in terms of awesomeness.

Entry: Thagomizer

I thought I'd stick with the vague etymology theme I've had going on and talk about a link that friend of the blog Galadriel linked me to a while back. Thank you, Galadriel! Or, should I say, hantanyel.

If, like me, you went through a serious dinosaur phase as a kid, you probably remember that the stegosaurus is the one with the big plates sticking up off his back and a spiked tail. And if, like me, you went through a serious Far Side phase several years later, you probably remember that Gary Larson drew strips about cavemen, like, all the damn time.

Well, apparently paleontologists really took a shine to this particular comic



because the term thagomizer has become an accepted (if informal) synonym for stegosaurus' tail spikes. Seriously, is there anything better than a scientist with a great sense of humor? Okay, there's plenty of things, but... they're still pretty cool.

I love that the article is careful to point out that "The fate of Thag Simmons notwithstanding, stegosaurs and humans did not exist in the same era." Suck it, creationists. (Assuming that Leviticus will let you.)

Entry: Avocado

Another dirty-minded friend, another adult-themed entry.

Emma told me to check out the article for Avocado, the most delicious of non-sweet fruits, specifically the "Etymology" part. So, innocent lamb that I am, I click on the link she tweeted me.

Well, my friends, innocent lamb no more! Avocados were named after balls. Balls.

Okay, specifically the Nahuatl word for testicle, "ahuacatl." On top of that, avocados have quite a sordid reputation: "Historically avocados had a long-standing stigma as a sexual stimulant and were not purchased or consumed by any person wishing to preserve a chaste image. Avocados were known by the Aztecs as 'the fertility fruit'."

This is shocking! Especially for me. I love avocados-- or at least, I used to. I live in a small town, I don't want gossip to spread about who I pick up at bars due to what I pick up in the produce aisle. (See what I did there? I am a clever one.)

And my longstanding and famous love of guacamole (for once, I am not lying for the sake of humor-- I am a guacamole fiend); what have people been assuming? That I like to mash up balls and mix them with lime juice, salt, garlic, and cilantro?

...although, if I ever become a high-powered corporate shark of some kind, that might not be a bad image to have. Or a dominatrix.

Entry: Mantis Shrimp

Another urgent text message regarding a Wiki article, this time from Ziggy! Ah, the benefits of surrounding oneself with irredeemable nerds.

The first thing that struck me about the article was, of course, the colorful photo:



"Oooh!" I said to myself, "How pretty! The mantis shrimp must be the geisha of the sea."

But then I actually set about reading and gaining information!

The mantis shrimp is cold-blooded, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. The hundreds of species of mantis shrimp are separated into groups by what kind of claws they have: spearers have appendages with barbed tips, while smashers have "possess a much more developed club and a more rudimentary spear". Shrimps got spears.

On top of that, they are very good at using their claws for carnage: "In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness...about the acceleration of a .22 caliber bullet. Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface. The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produces measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1,500 newton that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface, which means that the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follow. Even if the initial strike misses the prey, the resulting shock wave can be enough to kill or stun the prey." Shrimps will cut you. With physics.

Additionally, their eyes can move independently of each other and can see both ultraviolet and infrared. And they exhibit high intelligence and complex social behavior.

So, in conclusion, my original hypothesis was wrong. Mantis shrimp are the samurai of the sea.

There's a lot of detailed information in the Wiki article, but it leaves a lot of questions. Why haven't mantis shrimp conquered humans yet? Is there an ongoing government project to transplant crazy shrimp eyes into human subjects, making a hybrid supersoldier? What is my obsession with analogies comparing marine life with Japanese stereotypes? The world may never know.

Entry: Christopher Guest

You guys know who Christopher Guest is, right? The director behind mockumentaries like Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting for Guffman? Husband to Jamie Lee Curtis? Former SNL castmember? Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap? 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling, in the County of Essex-- OH SNAP BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT, FILM NERDS!

It's true. Even though Guest was born in the USA, he inherited the barony when his father died in 1996. He even served in the House of Lords until 1999, when the House of Lords was reformed to remove power from random people who were born into nobility and should be spending their time and energy directing humorous and largely improvised movies, as opposed to governing a country.

Entry: Boston Molasses Disaster

This is tragic and in no way totally awesome.

The blurb at the top of the article pretty much says it all: "The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150."

I've long held the opinion that any food, given that it is in enough quantity, eventually becomes really disgusting. You know: bulk jars of maraschino cherries, buckets of salad, Michael Moore's lunch (HIYOOOOO!)... I assumed that when I see a food item in such a vast quantity, my mind simultaneously interprets it as something I can eat (because it's a food item), and something that I can't eat (because there's so much of it), and the result is repulsion. But now, I see it's a survival response.

The 35 mph speed is interesting, too. My original response was "35 mph? Pfft.", but then I realized that it was with regards to a substance that is a cliche hallmark for slowness. Plus this was 1919, when nothing when 35 mph, ever. And considering that the company that owned the molasses factory "ultimately paid out $600,000 in out-of-court settlements (at least $6.6 million in 2005 dollars)"... relatively speaking, the wave of molasses must have caused a sonic boom.

Also, I don't know what the status of syrup production is in Boston today, but to be on the safe side, I encourage my Massachucetts readers to wear flotation devices at all times. You can't be too careful, kids.

Entry: The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover

(Before I start the post, it's only fair to warn you that it contains spoilers for The Monster at the End of This Book. I give away the ending. If this is a problem, visit the children's section of your local library before continuing.)

One thing I hear a lot is, "OMG, Regina, you're so pretentious." All the freaking time! Even more often than "Ma'am, you're making a scene."

And, okay, it is kind of true. Every cultural object I love is meta-this and post-that. And I thought it all started in college, or maybe late high school, when I saw Being John Malkovich and it opened my eyes to a whole new world of highly theoretical intellectual masturbation. And if it features John Cusack in some way, so much the better.

The Wik', however, has proven me wrong. My love of post-modernism apparently extends back to early childhood.

When I was a wee child, and the family computer was only useful for playing Reader Rabbit, one of my favorite books was The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover. We probably owned a copy of it, but my memory situates me in my pediatrician's waiting room, reading it with my mom. I liked Grover, probably because he was the only creature in existence more neurotic than I. (Well, okay, Telly could have probably benefited from the occasional benzodiazepine tablet too.)

Anyway: the Wikipedia article describes The Monster at the End of this Book as a "post-modern children's book" that is self-reflexive; Grover is conscious of the fact that he is a character in a book (he tries to stop the reader from turning the page by tying the pages together). I guess you could also argue that since it ends with the reader and Grover confronting the monster at the end of the book-- which turns out to be Grover himself-- thus forcing Grover to accept his identity as a monster, it is a sort of bildungsroman as well. Although, he doesn't really age during the course of the book. An $80,000 liberal arts education put to use, ladies and gentlemen.

I was so excited to have one of my favorite books growing up put in this light. Next time I'm at a party drinking PBR from a keg and feeling insecure because I'm not dressed like I got attacked by a Goodwill, I'll be sure to smugly mention the fact that I've been into metafiction since I could read.

That, and I was totally into Rilo Kiley way before they got all mainstream.

Entry: Gullibility

Sorry for my tardiness in updating, I've been a combination of busy, distracted, uninspired, and sans Internet. Ever onward.

Last night, one of my "friends" took advantage of my trusting nature for the sake of entertainment and told me that "gullible" is not in the dictionary. You'll be happy to know that I did not run to look it up. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me several times... still shame on you.

It did, however, lead me to wonder if there was a Wikipedia article on "gullibility" and if it mentioned the joke. As it turns out, gullible is not on Wikipedia.

No, it's really not.

No, really, click on the damn link. It's not there.

See, would-be mockers, the Wik is on my side.

Entry: Scientology

The Wik' has found itself in news headlines once again, after deciding to ban the IP addresses of both the Church of Scientology and some of its more biased and outspoken Wiki-critics for engaging in editing wars. I'm going out on a limb here and linking to a non-Wiki news article about the incident from wired.com.

Hush now, Church of Scientology; dry your eyes. I know what you're going through. I remember the fateful day at a former job where I tried to edit an article's grammar only to find that the IP I was using had been banned because someone else had been making inappropriate edits to the Dragonball Z article. I felt frustrated and sad and totally confused, because I don't think any of my coworkers could have even told you what Dragonball Z is, let alone find a reason to edit the Wiki article. And, of course, I think you guys are a complete scam and the fact that you use the legal system to bully your critics is disgusting, so while I don't feel sorry for you in the least, I can relate.

Entry: Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

Thanks to SeeaSea for sending me a link to this article!

"Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den," on top of being an awesome title in a variety of circumstances, is a classical Mandarin poem written by Yuen Ren Chao, a contemporary Chinese linguist.

In a stunning feet of tonal language acrobatics, the poem is 92 syllables, all of which are "shi." In Hanyu Pinyin, a method of Romanticizing Mandarin, it looks like this:

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

The English translation:

In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

Yes, fellow Westerners, in classical Mandarin, "shi" means all those things. Since it's a tonal language, the distinction comes from how each syllable is said (if your voice goes up at the end, for instance).

The poem isn't profound (unless there's an extended metaphor in there that went completely over my Western head), but still a really impressive example of constrained writing. I can't even crank out a decent villanelle.

Entry: Hamlet

I'm not feeling terribly witty today ("But Regina," you say, "when has that stopped you from posting before?"), but luckily my good friend Greg from Art History, LOL also peruses the Wiki, and has some thoughts on Hamlet. And considering that he played Guildenstern-- oh yes he did-- he is an expert on the subject.


"It's 4:30 on a Tuesday, so I am surfing the Wik. And I've looked at the origins of Hamlet before, but today I just really, really read it. I noticed a few things of interest!

1. The names are WAY better. Gertrude is Gerutha. Claudius is Feng. Old Hamlet? Horvendill! Other notables? Former King RORIK SLENGEBORRE! (I guess he's the Fortinbras analog...)

2. The first half sounds pretty close to the play: king is slain by jealous brother, jealous brother marries queen, pissed off son concocts a plan of faked madness, and is shipped off to England before coming back and killing people. But, then there's this whole part that, uh, I don't quite remember. Amleth/Hamlet marries the English princess, kills the ENTIRE court of Denmark by getting them drunk and pinning them down with a burning tapestry, demands the people make him king, goes back to England for his wife, kills HER father, hops up to Scotland to win the heart of the Scottish queen, takes them both back to Denmark, and dies in battle with the young Fortinbras analog.

Um. Is this the plot of Hamlet 2? I didn't see it."

[Ed. note: No. The plot of Hamlet 2 involves Jesus, a time machine, and a gay men's chorus, wrapped up in a package of gratuitous nudity and satire of the Inspirational White Teacher Helps Urban Minority Teens trope. In other words, it's better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote or thought about writing. Although I admit it could have benefited from a burning tapestry.]

"3. The article contains the phrase: '[he] sent Amleth as proxy wooer for the hand of a terrible Scottish queen Hermuthruda, who had put all former wooers to death'. Proxy wooer? It doesn't get much better than that."

I am changing every username I have to proxy_wooer.

Entry: Jeffrey Hudson

Between this guy and Jack Churchill, I think I need to start a new category of entries specific to crazy-ass people doing crazy-ass things. Or some categorization of a similar nature. I'm going to quote the first paragraph of the article; I can't imagine how I could possibly embellish.

"Jeffrey Hudson (1619 – circa 1682) was an English dwarf at the court of Queen Henrietta Maria. He was famous as the "Queen's dwarf" and "Lord Minimus", and was considered one of the "wonders of the age" because of his extreme but well-proportioned smallness. He fought with the Royalists in the English Civil War and fled with the Queen to France but was expelled from her court when he killed a man in a duel. He was captured by Barbary pirates and spent 25 years as a slave in North Africa before being ransomed back to England."

To quote Ryan North: "Daaaaamn!"

According to the article, he joined the court of Queen Henrietta Maria when he was presented to her in a pie in a banquet. I thought that was pretty awesome-- "Oh man, he so had the edge over the dwarves who were just faxing in their cover letter and resume!"-- until I read on and discovered that he was in fact given to the Queen as a gift from the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, who could apparently give their subjects as housewarming presents in those days. Um. Yay democracy?

Entry: Snow Leopard Award

This is just a mini-entry as a follow up to the Mother Hero medal: the Soviet Union also gave the Snow Leopard Award to accomplished mountaineers who made it to the peaks of the five mountains in the USSR taller than 7000m:

"In Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains there are 3 Snow Leopard peaks, Ismail Samani Peak (formerly Communism Peak) 7,495 m (24,590 ft), Peak Korzhenevskaya 7,105 m (23,310 ft), and Ibn Sina Peak (formerly Lenin Peak) 7,134 m (23,406 ft) on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. In the Tian Shan there are 2 Snow Leopard peaks, Jengish Chokusu (formerly Peak Pobeda) 7,439 metres (24,406 ft) in Kyrgyzstan (divided by the border with China), and Khan Tengri 7,010 m (22,998 ft) on the Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan border."

Communism's got side quests!

Also, I love the fact that one of the mountains used to be called Communism Peak. That's so creative. Can we rename Pikes Peak as Capitalism Peak? No, wait, let's rename Mount Rushmore: Capitalism Mountain with Dead Guy Faces. You know you want to.