No, I’m not kidding. We all know that everything is bigger in Texas, and that in the middle of Texas is X er, oil. As a matter of face, Our Good buddy, Walt (when he bothers to show up) is something of an oil man himself these days (When good bloggers go bad and pillage our mother the Earth). As a matter of fact, there is a saying (that I just made up) that says, scratch a Texan and you’ll find an oilman.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, not to Texas, where they are (apparently) trading in their HummVees for electric cars.

You Know Gas Prices Are High When Texans Start Driving Golf Carts Low-Speed Electric Vehicles Catch On;

By ANA CAMPOY

July 31, 2008

HOUSTON — In the garage where chiropractor Rick Peters once parked his Dodge pickup, two tiny electric cars now sit back-to-back next to his wife’s small SUV.

For trips to work, to run errands or visit friends, Dr. Peters, 43 years old, and his wife, Kris, hop into the munchkin-size cars while their old gas guzzlers gather dust. Admittedly, it’s cramped inside the miniautos, which move along city streets at just 25 miles per hour. But the Peterses are converts to their low-speed vehicles.

(Via the Wall Street Journal)

See what I mean? What hope is there for the rest of us now?

The Perfessor

So as I was beating the bush looking for our lost leader, I think that the problem that I’ve been having is that I’ve been looking, well in the bush, not the heavens. You see, knowing not only what a geologist (rock nerd) that ol’ Walt is, I nearly forgot what a science nerd he is as well.

Hence, Rocks + Nerd + Science + Nerd = well, a pretty far gonzo space rock nerd. Needless to say, I think I found him on a well what can only be described as a Vision Quest for Planet X, the missing 10th planet of our Solar System. To wit:

If I’m reading this correctly, According to Space.com there is apparently a large planet-sized object three times as far from Earth as is Pluto. The new body (called Sedna):

The hidden world — thought to be much bigger than Pluto based on the model — could explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies. Its existence would satisfy the long-held hopes and hypotheses for a “Planet X” envisioned by scientists and sci-fi buffs alike.

Via Space.com

I mean, we all know how goofy Walt gets for this stuff, so it is perhaps not entirely impossible that he made his way to the Houston Space Center in an effort to sneak aboard the space craft so that he can be the first person to step foot on Senda in 2015. So, I know that you all will join me in wishing Walt well on his desire to find new means of fuel subsidies, even if it means he has to go to the ends of the Earth, er, the Solar System to find them.

(Here is where I was going to insert a faked quote by Alison saying something like “I always knew he was out of this world,” but I figured that was pushing it, even for me, so, I figure I’ll just wind it up here, and move on to, you know, important stuff.)

Hey, it could happen. I mean, the part about Senda is real, and well, we do all know that Walt is a bit, ah, off (especially these days, diggin’ around in the dirt, takin’ pictures of cows, and talkin’ all crazy like there’s Black Gold (Texas “T”) out there in them thar hills or sumptin’)

Or, I could just be hallucinating again, like that time in college when my hair caught fire, and I was chased down the street by that dinosaur…and got Debbie Gibson pregnant with my two-headed love child…

Mmmm…Let me get back to you on all of this, eh?

The Perfessor

If you’ll look at the video I posted yesterday, you might see something I did not initially see.

Right before the Crown Plaza implodes, a door starts to close. It stops closing before the building collapses.

Watch the video again

It could have been a gust of wind, but the wind would have continued on a little bit, and you can see by the plume of dust after the explosion the wind wasn’t that strong. So, no gust of wind.

You can see the door moved after the initial set of blasts, but before the final collapse, so there certainly were vibrations close to the door.

The makers of this video did contact the Houston Police, and the police sent out “cadaver dogs” in search of a body under the rubble.

The dogs hit on something yesterday.

Yes, the whole thing sounds like an episode from MAGNUM, P.I. — only in this one, Magnum doesn’t escape at the last moment.

Person may have been inside imploded Medical Center building [Houston ABC TV]

Why would someone close that door as the building collapse is a half second away?

===
UPDATE:

From the comments on the Houston Chronicle story on the mystery, an instant Urban Legend has been born:

I heard from a co-worker that has a friend who’s cousin used to work in that hotel and he said that there was a guy and his wife that were staying in the hotel while his daughter was being treated at the children’s hospital across the street. One night, while the couple were there, the woman died in her sleep. When the man woke up and found his wife dead, he was so distrought that he couldn’t deal with it so he just didn’t tell anyone about her death and he just went on about seeing to his ailing daughter in the hospital. For two days the cleaning lady was startled when she went to the room to clean because she thought she was walking in on a sleeping guest. After three days she realized that someone was dead in the room. No charges were filed because the woman died of natural causes but every year the man would come back and stay in the same room that his wife had died in so that he could be close to her spirit. This guy that worked in the hotel said that after they announced that the hotel would be torn down, the man came back and stayed until finally he was asked to leave beacause the hotel was closing. Some people said that a man matching his description was recently seen around the site. A homeless guy that walks that area said that some guy had told him that his wife’s spirit was in that hotel and that he was trying to figure out how to get her out of there. Noone I have talked to has seen this guy in the last week or so but we we are thinking that this might be that man.
Anyway, thats what my co-workers friends cousin said.

Grain of salt available for taking at the door…

Part of a competition to explain what String Theory is when you’re not dealing with cats at play.

String Theory is way over my head, but that doesn’t make me stand back in awe of people who research the topic.

To make it cute, this entrant used a rubber duck as a visual prop. Why a duck? (Viaduct?) Why not a duck? (Old Marx Bros.)

Anyway, if you’re not interested, don’t click below

continue reading "String Theory in Two Minutes [ducky!]"

That’s right Rebles and Federation Storm Troopers, soon (if not already) you will be able to be sending out your snail mail (hey, does anyone still send snail mail?) by stuffing it inside R2D2. Yep, the US Postal service is indeed issuing mailboxes in the form of the little droid.

That’s right, Mail is fun again! You see, the Postal Service is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Star Wars with these R2D2-style mailboxes.

All I can say about this is that I’m surprised that the Postal service is suborning federal crimes, because you just know that some hard-up (hard core) fanboy is — sooner or later — going to boost one of these little babies and that‘s when the fun is going to start, because diverting U.S. Mail is a federal crime, worse (if you can imagine it) than rape or multiple homicide.

Personally, I can hardly wait.

The Perfessor

To answer the question: What the best mermaid’s wear…

In Thailand, there’s quite a lot of Tilapia filet production, and someone came up with the idea to make bras and handbags out of Tilapia skin.

Uh, okay…

Sound not required for this vid showing the actual production of bras and some finished handbags.

continue reading "Bras made out of fish [vid]"