I Hate Being a Grown Up

There is absolutely nothing fun to report for the weekend. I've been doing boring adult stuff for the last two days - all around housekeeping in one way or another. Bleah.

In lieu of anything interesting, I'll just give you more zombie follow up.

Five scientific reasons zombies could happen

*Warning* Adult language and some graphic zombie-ness in the link.

Zombie Update

Ongoing Public Service Announcements.

For those of us in Southern states - as if zombie humans weren't bad enough, now we have to worry about Zombie Fire Ants!

Apparently the Zombie Animal Threat doesn't end there either. I would enourage you to check here to see if you have imminent threats in your area!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled weirdness.

More Wonderful Web Weirdness

The Sultan's Elephant (Little Girl Giant)

Seriously - Why I'm Not Getting Anything Done

TED.com again

"Symbiosis" by Pilobolus

More geekery

Really - I'll get some real posts up eventually. Busy wandering through TED.com I'll tear myself away and get back to work someday.

In the mean time -

Levitation, Science and Sculpture

Drive-by Cool Stuff Alert

Theo Jansen, Creature Builder

Amazing - sculptures? Creatures? Artificial Life? Just go see.

This is why I'm on so many groups and sites - amazing things like this get passed on!

The Trees Are Watching (or Why I Flunked the Crazy Test)

A while back someone posted this quiz to one of my online groups. Most of us flunked with varying levels of distinction. Now bear in mind, the best description of this particular group would probably be "Merry Band of Misfits", as it involves artists, knitters, dyers, and general non-conformists. Also bear in mind, I in no way believe in any "diagnosis" delivered by a few questions online. The results, however sparked an interesting discussion.

The part most of us flunked, regardless of the other levels, was the bit about seeing, perceiving, or thinking differently than other people. One person related a tale of working in an artist studio collective, coming in, and mentioning "There's a really cool dead seagull across the street" at which half the studio emptied out to go see. Some of the others had at other times posted pictures where you could see a face in a flower, or an image in a stone. It seems those of an artistic or creative tendency see these things, but others don't - therefore the massive flunking of the "differently than others" portion.

On my part, I recall training for my current job. Most of us parked in the same area, which led past a row of trees to get to the building our training class was in. Due to the way the trees were trimmed, several of them had the appearance of eyes, or faces - one particular tree more so than the rest. I noticed this, and pointed it out to several people. The most creative of the bunch immediately said something to the effect of "Oh wow! How neat!" A couple of the others were more on the "Huh?" level, but after being shown "See? There are her eyes" said "Oh, yeah, I guess so....". The ones who were the most no-nonsense, black and white, career focused, "I don't have time for that" types maintained they could not see anything at all, even when specifically pointed out - and in fact, gave me and the other highly creatives odd looks and a wide berth for the remainder of training.

So which one are you? Is the tree looking at you? Can you see her?

What about now? Are you crazy too? Think about it for a bit. If you are, welcome to the group. Isn't it delightful to enjoy things other people can't?