I wonder if it will be friends with me?

“The Sperm Whale and the bowl of Petunias” by Stefan Schindler (All Rights Reserved; Used with Permission)

If you are incapable of loving this LEGO vignette based on the whale and bowl of petunias scene from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then you and I can no longer be friends.

My four year-old loves the perspective created by the miniature trees and mountain.

I appreciate that the work captures the idea that the terminal velocity of the bowl of petunias would be lower than that of the sperm whale, and that creator Stefan Schindler is a fan of science:

I’m also a great enthusiast of the scientific method and reason…

His LEGO renderings of the ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” space vehicle and his favorite t-shirt (a play on a classic evolution image) lends credibility to that statement.

*Hat tip to Ralph at The Brothers Brick.

Lois Drive? Really?

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I think I can speak for everyone that drives the Oates Highway between Hartsville and I-20, especially in the north bound direction, when I say, “What were you thinking?”

Would it have killed you to go with Lois Lane? I know it is a cheap joke, but, come on, just a little giggle. It’d be like an IRL easter egg.

Lois Drive Map

Macarons: The Sexiest Cookie Known to Man

Macaron (Photo Credit: Ben Witten CC BY-NC-SA)
Macaron (Photo Credit: Ben Witten CC BY-NC-SA)

I grew up in the Midwest. There are some wonderful things about growing up in the Midwest: friendly neighbors, sense of community, Big 10 football. Quality food experiences, however, does not make the list. As I started to explore the world and its food, I made some amazing discoveries. Near the top of that list was the macaron.

A little “o” can make a big difference. As a kid I was drawn to these spongy lumps that glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth and left coconut in my teeth for days called macaroons. Then, I discovered a true macaron, with a delicate, crisp outer layer that gives way to a soft, slightly chewy inside sandwiched around smooth, sweet, creamy buttercream. It was an epiphany. I am not saying that macarons are better than macaroons1. I am simply saying that they are not the same.

Macaroon: chunks of hastily prepared stickiness to adorn a middle school pot-luck table.
Macaron: colorful bites of Parisian decadence that can make women swoon, bring men to their knees, and cause unicorns to weep.

Continue reading “Macarons: The Sexiest Cookie Known to Man”

MLF – Mermaid Liberation Front

I did not watch the Animal Planet fake mermaids documentary. I was busy watching The Little Mermaid with my kids. Contrary to popular opinion, the funniest part of this movie is not Sebastian trying to avoid being cooked or Scuttle mistaking a fork for a comb and calling it a “dingle hopper”.

It’s that poor, naive Ariel thinks young women are more liberated in Renaissance Europe than in Triton’s undersea kingdom:

Betcha on land they understand
That they don’t reprimand their daughters
–Little Mermaid, “Part of Your World” (by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman)

Pedantic Cow

The Laughing Squid is a font of linkjoy, like this stylized, but functional illustration of a cow’s digestive processes.

Cow from Nova Jiang on Vimeo.

Nova Jiang’s sculpture, Cow, is not, however, a “Rube Goldberg-style” machine, as described in the Laughing Squid piece:

“Cow” is an interactive wooden sculpture that demonstrates the complicated digestive system of a cow with a complicated Rube Goldberg-style mechanism. – EDW Lynch

Rube Goldberg-style machines are unnecessarily complicated. The game Mousetrap involves the construction of a Rube Goldberg-style machine. The “This Too Shall Pass” video from OK Go we featured as our Song of the Week shows the operation of a Rube Goldberg-style machine.

This machine is not unnecessarily complicated. It is necessarily complicated, because digestion in cows is complicated.