Perhaps I’ve gone insane, or perhaps I’ve found the most awesome phobia in human existence. Either way, I think we all might get a kick out of this.
Anatidaephobia is defined as a pervasive, irrational fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches.
I don’t know who to thank for this phobia’s existence, but it made my day.
Ryan
Yesterday, I received a frantic message to turn on CNN, as something was happening. Having my television nearby, I clicked it on and turned to Channel 44. Sure enough, I see what looks like a UFO skimming through the air. It’s just a large helium balloon, but the headline is what catches my attention.
“Six year old believed to be inside balloon.”
I don’t know if this is a case of bad parenting, children doing drugs, an accident or any combination of those things. All I know is that they had about ten cars beneath the balloon chasing it all over Colorado until it landed. No six year old inside. I’m not sure how it ended, but the kid was presumed to still be at home hiding under his bed so he wouldn’t get in trouble for losing a valuable balloon.
The father now has to deal with grounding his son, grounding his other son for lying that the first son had climbed into the balloon and paying off the law enforcement for wasting valuable resources in a wild goose chase.
Kudos, CNN. One of the most strange stories ever aired.
Ryan
It’s evolving.
(Video was removed, but it was comprised of a boy blindfolded tossing a log in to a recycled bin. He takes the blindfold off, hands it off to his brother. Brother one sets the projectile log at the feet of brother two, takes a second log, places a wooden board on it to make a teeter totter. Brother two throws the log, hits the other end of the teeter - totter. The other end of the board lifts and cracks him in the nuts.)
Ouch.
Ryan
Genius.
Ryan
Yesterday, I woke up when it was still darkish outside to the cat peeing directly through the sheets of my bed on to my leg. Needless to say, I was not impressed. I attempted to clean it up with a special pet spray to no avail. I was getting frustrated at this point. Not only that, I discovered our fluorescent black light that we bought apparently does not detect urine like it’s supposed to. I went immediately to washing my sheets. I had no breakfast, I was tired and felt like I was going to vomit from the smell of the chemicals. It was a horrible day.
Today I woke up with a twinkle in my eye and a smile as bright as the sun. I snuggled in further to my clean, fresh bed because it felt amazing. My father tells me he’s going out to pick up tacos, a wonderful cold front has blown in and cooled my room to perfection and that I’m going to go see a movie today. I take a shower, I’m feeling absolutely wonderful and I come in to my room to write this blog post.
In comparison, I’d take day 2 over day 1 any time.
Ryan
Oh. My. God.
Ryan
Professor Kirchhof here to explain spacial physics in a nut shell.
Take four very, very strong rods. Place said rods in four different places to make a square, but place them trillions of miles apart. Attach very strong trampoline fabric to these four points, pull it tight. Take a bowling ball and set it anywhere on this fabric. The large indention around it represents the indention in the space - time continuum. Roll a marble to the side of this indention. One of two things will happen. It’ll curve and keep going in a different direction without slowing down much (assume there’s no friction) or it will curve and go in to orbit around the ball for a while. You’ve just demonstrated an asteroid veering off course or an asteroid turning int0 a moon.
Now, this was a planet on a two dimensional plain. Imagine these planets on a three dimensional plain — aka, trampoline fabric all around. It creates a gravitational field in all directions.
Let’s go back to our two dimensional plain. What happens if the fabric rips? What’s on the other side? No one knows. You’ve got yourself a miniature black hole. In a three dimensional environment, since it’s rip in all directions, it will suck things through to God knows where.
Ta - da, quantum spacial physics.
Ryan
P.S: Yes, I know the image is a bit awry.
Fajitas are, apparently, deadly now. My dad is using cayenne pepper to sizzle up the fajita meat and it is smoking up a storm. You can’t walk through the house without your nostrils and throat stinging.
My father has effectively gassed our kitchen.
Ryan
The man’s got a lot of things on his shoulders from Bush screwing up the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if the folder Bush left for Obama had a note saying ‘Good luck, asshole’ in large print inside it.
I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed, though. He’s only recently enacted on his first promise - health care. This is great and all, and he’s still got three years, but I do hope he can pull through.
Good luck, Barack.
Ryan
Oh, it makes me angry when I hear someone blurt out ‘we’re alone in the universe’. It makes zero sense. One of my beliefs is that not all life is carbon based. There could be hydrogen based sky jellyfish on Jupiter for all we know. Recently, I’ve studied and studied on the subject regarding extraterrestrial life and extrasolar planets. Accounting for planets, dwarf planets and probable dwarf planets, we come to the determination that there are not eight, not nine but seventeen planets in all. Around our sun, which is a normal g-type star. Our star is the vanilla of the universe, and even then it’s still relatively small.
Moving on. Let’s see if I can remember these seventeen worlds in order.
Mercury, no moons.
Venus, no moons.
Earth, one moon.
Mars, two moons.
Ceres, no moons.
Jupiter, more than 62 moons.
Saturn, more than 62 moons.
Uranus, probably more than 27 moons.
Neptune, probably more than 13 moons.
Pluto, 3 moons (Charon, Nix, Hydra).
Orcus, 1 moons (Vanth).
Haumea, 2 moons (Hi’iaka, Namaka).
Varuna, no moons.
Quaoar, 1 moon (Weywot).
Makemake, no moons.
Eris, 1 moon (Dysomnia).
Sedna, no moons.
In the last few years we’ve almost doubled the amount of planets known directly to the public. I find this amazing.
“We’re a rare case, why don’t we detect the planets in other star systems,” some might ask. To this, I’ll answer with two things. One would be steam blowing out of my ears, the second would be this.
We do, but we only detect the occasional few because these are both 1.) big and 2.) close to their parent star. Hell, we can’t detect all of the moons and planets in our own solar system (yet). We just do not have the technological proficiency. I truly would not be surprised if there was life around every star. Intelligent life? That’s a discussion for another time and place.
The moral of the story is that I get angry when people tell me we’re alone in the universe.
If anyone needs me I’ll be in the angry dome.
Ryan