Snakehead fish

From an article in The New Yorker: "Three years ago, sightings in Maryland, in a pond behind a Dunkin' Donuts, inspired ominous scenarios; capable (it was said) of walking, or at least of propelling itself along the ground, with its pectoral fins, the snakehead would stride from waterway to waterway, leaving a blighted continent in its wake." Unfortunately, I can't offer up any footage of said fish, ambulatory, but I hope to encounter one, as they have been found nearby. Dang, these things are nasty looking.

Praying mantis eats hummingbird

If only there was enough awesome animal mortal combat (non-mortal, oldy) around for me to dedicate this blog entirely to its discussion and glory. Today I can offer photos of a praying mantis eating a hummingbird.

heavy metal umlaut

I was thinking about the Motorhead logo, and googled "heavy metal umlaut" and found this extensive, seemingly academic Wikipedia entry on the matter. A bit father down the the Google return is John Udell's "screencast" on the open source, er, development of the Wikipedia entry. And much of the rest of the return is discussions (e.g., e.g., e.g.) of Udell's discussion of Wikipedia's discussion of the "heavy metal umlaut" (that being said, this entry is a discussion of discussions of Udell's discussion of Wikipedia's). You know, it's the internet. Other highlights from my brief journey include: there's a gay heavy metal band/cabaret act Pink Stëël who have two consecutive umlauts; the band Assück; and it's nü-metal and not new-metal.

Shark v. Octopus

Holy smokes! An eternal swingset debate is settled. Video link, check it!

Grizzly Man

DZUSA buddy-blog, Burncopy, links the trailer to a film I desperately want to see. Grizzly Man is a documentary (although director Werner Herzog rejects the term, preferring to call his fictional and nonfictional works just "movies" [an aside, a question really, directed at you film types, I naively ask, is auteur simply another word for a director, or can it only be used to describe a director who subscribes to the auteur theory?]) about bear "expert" Timothy Treadwell whose breathtaking and harrowing footage makes up most (all?) of the film. Of course, Treadwell's repeated declaration "I would die for these animals" and his oft-macabre discussions of death-by-bear are especially haunting because Treadwell did in fact, get mauled to death by a grizzly.