In Defense of -Ismlessness

Posted on September 16, 2015 by wellsdc

“Isms” in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an “ism”, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus. I’d still have to bum rides off of people. – Ferris Bueller

I have struggled for some time with how to describe myself. I have finally concluded that no single “-Ism” defines me. If you want to know what I believe or what my stance is on a given issue, you are going to have to ask me.

Joe Flintham [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)], via Flickr

I’m not interested in any ideology that doesn’t think lambs are cute.

Photo credit: Joe Flintham [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr.

The Immortal Bob Ross

Posted on September 15, 2015 by wellsdc

I meant to write a post about Bob Ross—he of the “happy little trees”—back in July, but…well, stuff happened. Once July ended, it kind of went on the back burner. Last week, however, College Humor published an article by Amir Khan entitled “15 Times Bob Ross Was EXTREMELY Bob Ross,” which offers a touching tribute to the man:

Bob, you taught us how to find those little happy trees within ourselves, and for that, we are eternally grateful.

The post is definitely worth a look.

By pumpkin46654, via College Humor

Bob Ross, as you may know, hosted a public television show called “The Joy of Painting.” You might not think that this would be a path to a sort of superstardom, but here we are, talking about the man. I don’t think you could find anyone on Earth who, once they knew who Bob Ross is, wouldn’t love him, at least a little bit.

The Internet has been a gold mine of Bob Ross, from memes and animated GIFs to Autotuned music videos: Continue reading →

Texas Is Bigger than…

Posted on September 14, 2015 by wellsdc

You may have seen a meme (the idea kind of meme, not the image macro kind) going around comparing states of the northeastern U.S. to urban areas of Texas, like this one showing that Connecticut is about the same size as Houston:

Via The Bull / Facebook

(h/t G)

I found a site (MAPfrappe) that lets you do this by tracing outlines on the map, then dragging them around for comparison’s sake. It even adjusts your outline to account for the Mercator projection. I used it to make an outline of Oahu to show that it’s about the same size as Austin, but then wondered why I spent time doing that when I could have traced Texas in order to compare it to other places around the world.

You can use my outline to compare Texas around the world, too, but here are a few comparisons: Continue reading →

Monday Morning Cute: Friendship Knows No Species

Gallery

Posted on September 14, 2015 by wellsdc

You may have heard the story of the goat who refused to eat for six days after he was moved to a new animal sanctuary and separated from his best friend, a donkey. When the two were reunited, he found … Continue reading →

What’s the Opposite of Curmudgeonly?

Posted on September 11, 2015 by wellsdc

I was going through posts on my old law blog, and found a post from about 3½ years ago in which I tried out something called the AgeAnalyzer. Using what I’m sure are extremely advanced socio-dynamic algorithms, the site examines a website and guesstimates the age of the writer. Back in 2012, it estimated my age, based on my law blog posts, as 51-65 years of age. I was 37 at the time.

My last post to that blog was in 2012 sometime. Now that I have moved my erstwhile blogging activities to this site, and refocused my efforts much more towards animal GIFs and WTF moments, I thought I’d see how this site compares, in terms of computer-estimated age.

Yup, AgeAnalyzer thinks the author of this blog (who is the same person as the author of the other blog, plus three years) is 26-35 years old.

A 26 year-old would have been born in 1989. I was in high school in 1989. People born in 1989, based on a quick and lazy Google search that made me realize how little I know about anyone who became famous after roughly 1999, include:

Harry Potter,
The cheerleader,
The redhead from Mad Max: Fury Road,
The Olsen who doesn’t have a twin,
Catwoman’s roommate,
Daenerys Targaryen’s personal assistant Missandei,
Maeby Fünke,
The new Pavel Chekhov,
Sybil Crawley,
McLovin, and
Anakin Skywalker (the annoying one—no, the other annoying one).

I hadn’t heard of anyone else.

Meanwhile, famous people sharing my birth year include: Continue reading →

Dachshund Therapy

Posted on September 2, 2015 by wellsdc

I haven’t been posting much of late. Rather than offer my various excuses (busy, inadequate allocation of time, who I am as a person, etc.), I instead offer this video of a dachshund on vacation on a beach in Greece:

Be sure to note the “ear wings” effect at around the 2:40 mark.

Here’s a dachshund in South Carolina trying to play with a crab: Continue reading →

Don’t Feed Your Tortoise Pancakes, Please

Posted on August 26, 2015 by wellsdc

I saw this little guy on Facebook a while back:

Yes, it’s a tiny tortoise eating tiny pancakes (originally from BuzzFeed Blue). Tiny versions of things that are normally much bigger are almost by definition cute, but there may be a darker side to this GIF, alas. Continue reading →

Monday Morning Cute: It’s Not Like Sloths Will Clean Themselves….

Posted on August 24, 2015 by wellsdc

…..right? I mean, they’re called sloths, aren’t they?

I don’t know if this little sloth is happy about this bath, but he certainly is cute.

Bonus cute: Ferrets can be jerks sometimes: Continue reading →

This Week in WTF, August 21, 2015

Posted on August 21, 2015 by wellsdc

– No points for good intentions: You have to admire the man’s sense of responsibility, although its belated nature does make it hard to be too sympathetic with his plight. I am referring, of course, to the man in Abbotsford, British Columbia who jumped into the back of what he thought was a taxi after concluding that he was too drunk to drive himself home (h/t Sean Robichaud).

There were two problems with this plan: (1) he came to the realization that he was too drunk to drive while he was driving; and (2) it was a police cruiser, not a cab.

Oops.

– To be fair, plush-animal technology has made huge advances in recent years: A 911 caller reported a live tiger on the loose, which turned out to be an extremely lifelike stuffed tiger. Not “stuffed” in a taxidermy sense, but “stuffed” in a normally-snuggly/cuddly sense.

By Monika Wahi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“Oh, sorry, is this your couch? I just needed to rest for a—hey, is that a stuffed antelope? Yum!”

Continue reading →

Monday Morning Cute: The Protective Little Elephant

Posted on August 17, 2015 by wellsdc

This little guy is either really friendly, but shy; or he feels very protective of the adults in his family, but is hesitant to reveal to them how much he has been training (you know, since they want him to focus on his schoolwork.)

Or, he’s a megalomaniacal future king of the elephants. Who among us can ever truly understand their ways?

(h/t Jean de Brunhoff) Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Huh, I see these are the droids you were looking for after all. My bad.