Entry: Ghost-riding

Perhaps this blog relies overly much on the cracks that Wikipedia breaks in my white, middle-class perspective on the world. It happens all the freaking time, though! And like the Minister of Cliches once said, "Write what you know." And what I know is that I'm very prone to doubletakes, followed by exclaiming "People do that?!" in a shrill voice.

Take ghost riding the whip, for example:

...when a person puts a car with an automatic transmission in drive or allows it to idle and then the driver (and passengers) of a vehicle exit while it is still rolling and dance beside it or on the hood or roof.

Ghost riding is an activity that has been practiced in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years during what are called sydeshows. The popularization of ghost riding the whip is a byproduct of the popularity of Bay Area music and hyphy culture in general.

Now, I'm not personally familiar with hyphy culture, but it would seem to me that the majority of ghost-riders do not (a) ghost-ride golf carts, (b) ghost-ride at what appear to be summer camps, (c) wear yarmulkes. And yet, the Wiki article gives us this photo as illustration:



Don't make this more confusing for me than it already is, Wikipedia.

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: 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: 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.

Commons: Picture of the Year/2008

Okay, so this entry is technically cheating, since it's from Wikimedia Commons-- doesn't that sound like a delightful spot to go a-picknicking? "Oh do come down to Wikimedia Commons with us, Millicent! Grace has assembled a delightful basket for our dinner, and the Kensington boys shall play bowls and fence for our amusement!"-- ahem, as I was saying: Wikimedia Commons.

The article I was looking at was the results of Picture of the Year 2008. The entries were the year's featured pictures, and the voting body were users from the various Wikimedia projects, including my reason for existing on this planet, Wikipedia.


One would expect that the top ten photos would be images from great scientific and historic occurrences and far-flung locales frozen in time and put on the Internet for the benefit of those of us who, for whatever reason, are probably never going to be privy to such sights in reality. Most of the entries are really beautiful and intriguing photos. (First place: HORSIES! Second place: GUY BREATHING FIRE!)

But there was one picture on the top ten that really caught my attention. Cooler than a fountain of pahoehoe lava spurting from a Hawaiian volcano. More dramatic than a burning building in Quebec. More iconic than Dorothea Lange's photos of migrant workers during the Great Depression.

What was this amazing picture that captured the hearts and minds of Wikimedia users the world over, gaining the #7 slot?

A scantily-clad anime girl. Comma, you hopeless pack of nerds. Wikimedia users: turn the computer off, sit in the corner, and think about what you've done.

Entry: Natalie Tran

Sometimes when I really like someone or something or somewhere (somehow), I check the Wik' to make sure the object of my affections has an article, because I am a deeply insecure person who needs to know that other people likes what she likes. I like. Yes. Anyway.

I was very pleased to see that vlogger Natalie Tran (communitychannel) has a healthy article. Kind of silly of me, considering that she has thousands of subscribers, but like I said, deeply insecure. She's been vlogging for a few years, but I only started watching her videos about a month ago, and I have the biggest hetero-crush on her. (I know it's a bro-mance when it's two guys, but what is it with a girl and a girl? Ho-mance? Axe commercial? Doesn't require a name because women are expected to be more open to feelings of affection?) She's smart and funny and prolific and cute as a button, and Australian accents are like a +5 in my book. If Hitler had an Australian accent, I'd probably be all, "Well, he was evil incarnate, but he pronounces his r's so cute! Maybe I'll just sweep the Lambeth Walk thing under the rug and blog about puppies." Okay, probably not.

Anyway, Natalie Tran is awesome (and curses a little bit. Beware, office slackers):



(Disregard that last bit, though. My mother is a saint. And doesn't go on YouTube, like, ever.)

I was shocked, though, to see that the two photos in the article are going to be deleted:



NOOOOOO! WHY, WIKI? WHY???????

(Additionally: you like my MSPaint job? That's how I roll: using a track pad and sprawling on the couch.)

I can only take solace in the fact that after May 14, 2009, my hastily constructed jpeg will stand as a monument to the article as it once was. Goodnight, sweet prince.

Entry: Ratatoskr

So my boyfriend and I have been playing through Tales of Symphonia 2 on the Wii, and there's a character in the game named Ratatosk. I knew I'd heard that name somewhere, so I Wiki'ed it-- of course-- and found out that Ratatosk is a squirrel in Norse mythology who lives on Ygdrassil the World Tree. Already knew that, kind of a mythology geek, just needed a refresher. But what surprised me was the accompanying picture:



Maybe it's just because I've only been exposed to Eastern grey squirrels for the majority of my life, but I'm pretty sure there's not an existing variety of squirrel with green fur and a horn. Now, this drawing is from Iceland. Why am I not surprised? Between this and the Yule Lads, I'm really starting to wonder about Iceland.

It does put Bjork's music into context, though; on an island with green horned squirrels and spoon-stealing Christmas imps, she must be downright boring. I'll bet she's like the Kenny G of Icelandic music, and her music is so internationally popular because the citizens of Iceland decided she would be the most palatable for mundane continentals. Honestly, I don't know if we can (or should) go any further down the Reykjavík rabbit-hole beyond swan dresses and completely a capella albums.

Entry: ...None?!

Tonight I learned a lesson of such value and importance, it surpassed everything I've read on the Wik' in the past few days. And I learned it from the back of the box that my dinner came in*.



To extrapolate: cardboard is flammable. A maxim I will hold dear to my heart for all time.

One has to wonder if this warning was the result of a lawsuit.


* To save face: I like cooking, I'm pretty decent at it, I just didn't have the energy for it tonight.

Entry: Dormouse

Dormice aren't mice. They are rodents, but unlike mice, they have furry tails.

Then why, I wondered, wouldn't they get a more accurate name?

Aha, Wikipedia had the answer to that: they hibernate up to six months of the year, and their name stems from the Anglo-Saxon "dormeus," meaning "sleepy." That made sense to me, although they should have been named the Anglo-Saxon for "friggin' adorable:"

Entry: Toilet-related injury

I was expecting this entry to be amusing on a Dave Barry level, and was somewhat disappointed. I am, however, enchanted with the accompanying photo, because of its accompanying caption:



And I can only hope that you, reader, are titillated by the fragments of the article I've included in the picture. "Splits?" "Pulling?" "Buttocks?" Oh my!

Entry: Hare

The differences between rabbits and hares:

- hares live above-ground, in a nest of grass called a "form." (Rabbits, in case you've never seen a Warner Brothers cartoon, dig underground burrows.)
- leverets (baby hares) are born furred and with sight-- but they aren't nidifugous. (See? It all connects.) Kittens (baby rabbits, don't get confused here) are born hairless and blind. Score one for the hares!
- hares have not been domesticated, while rabbits will cheerfully poop on your carpet for as long as you let them.
- hares tend to be larger, with longer ears.
- hares will jack you. Look at this crazy-eyed mofo:



Do not turn your back on a hare.

Entry: Jackalope

The legend of the jackalope is apparently pretty old, as this 16th century illustration, erm, illustrates. And here I thought it was a fabrication of the 19th century prairie imagination.