1924 replies to this topic

[meatcutta78]

Why is nature beautiful?

It helps us put our brains on pause. @ least thats what it does for me

Funny I was looking at the pic up above and the 1st thing that came to mind was how beautiful the ocean looked,
not how screwed that idiot was.

[el midgetron]

Why is nature beautiful?

I am not completely sure if you comment was in response to mine. If it was, I thought "ignorance" would be a good caption (if it were to be a motivational type poster) because the dude in the kayak seems completely ignorant of the fact something is sizing him up to be its lunch.

If it wasn't, then I would have to speculate that nature is beautiful because we have been staring at it for millions of years?

While your question first makes me think of autumn leafs, rolling meadows and brilliant sun-sets, the cynical troll who lives in the vacant space in my head challanges those concepts with dog poop, maggot infested corpses and second-hand knowledge of menstrual cramps. Which leads me to speculate that perhaps we see nature as beautiful because we tend to indentify with it from afar?

It is an impressive photo though and I didn't mean to challenge its virtues.

[Soupie]

While your question first makes me think of autumn leafs, rolling meadows and brilliant sun-sets, the cynical troll who lives in the vacant space in my head challanges those concepts with dog poop, maggot infested corpses and second-hand knowledge of menstrual cramps. Which leads me to speculate that perhaps we see nature as beautiful because we tend to indentify with it from afar?

Nope, my question was unrelated to your response, which gave me a good chuckle.

But in response to what you say above, there is a crazy documentary about a man who lived "among" the bears of Alaska for a time and at one point filmed himself commenting on the beauty and splendor of a steaming pile of bear poop. (Incidentally, he was eventually savagely killed by one of the bears.)

Also, I know many people who are positively repulsed by snakes and lizards... and many people, including myself, who find snakes to be among the most beautiful creatures on the planet.

Along with the nature question... If you're a man, have you ever questioned why you were so damned infatuated with and attracted to the fatty sacks that hang on a woman's chest and um, er other girl parts of the female body? They're freaking irresistible!

I imagine the non-evolutionary answer would be simply that God created us that way -- God created us to find nature, including the female body (and male body for women... and, er, the reverse I suppose for homosexuals, er, wait... that's not right, is it?).

Anyhow, it's something I've always wondered about. Why do most people find the ocean beautiful, even if they're seeing it for the first time as an adult. All it is is a pile of blue/green water stretching forever to the horizon. What's the big deal? How about a huge mountain range stretching into a purple sky dominated by even larger clouds?

Do animals such as bears and wolves find their surrounding to be beautiful? Since humans definitely do, what might be the evolutionary advantage of the human ability to experience the appreciation of beauty?

Is it kind of like Midge said... we see nature on an unconscious level as a long lost home that we'll never return to or be part of? Before the "garden/consciousness" we were one with nature, now we're on the outside looking in?

[el midgetron]

The man, the myth, the legend screaming jay hawkins -

Screaming Jay Hawkins, the Constipation blues

Ever wonder whats rolling around in the head of Screaming Jay Hawkins? Check out this micro-documentary -


I put a spell on you (live)
I put a spell on you (studio)

[Imp]

http://lolthulhu.com/

[el midgetron]

KUNG FU ELECTION

(no Ron Paul character, typical.....)

[Soupie]

[el midgetron]

I almost wish these were real

http://blip.tv/file/520347

[el midgetron]

The underbelly world of jacques el midgetron.




Louis the octopus clearly thinks two heads are better than one when it comes to toys.

The 1.8m-wide (6ft) creature is so attached to Mr Potato Head that he turns aggressive when aquarium staff try to remove it from his tank.



'He's fascinated by it,' said Matt Slater, of the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall. 'He attacks the net we use to fish the toy out every time we try to take it away.'

Mr Slater added: 'Octopuses are very intelligent and they like to be stimulated and busy.'

--------

It was a friendship that could inspire a Disney movie. Oscar the dog and his best friend, Arthur the cat, were inseparable in life.
So, when 17-year-old moggy Arthur died, Oscar was left inconsolable. Their owners, Robert and Mavis Bell, buried Arthur in the garden.

But Oscar's love for his friend would not die – and during the night, he pulled the cat from his grave, carried him inside, laid him in the basket they used to share and gently cleaned him up.
Which is one of those things that's heartwarming when an animal does it, but kind of creepy when a human does the same.

Mr Bell found the pair curled up together in the basket. He said: 'Oscar had watched me bury Arthur. They had been inseparable.'

Arthur is now buried in a secure grave in the garden at the Bells' home in Wigan and Oscar has a new playmate kitten called Limpet.

'He's already very protective of her,' Mrs Bell said.

---------



A dog was admitted to a veterinary clinic in Austria, barely able to stand on his own four paws and reeking "like a beer hall," a newspaper reported.

Dingo, a three-year-old labrador weighing 40 kilogrammes, was a pitiful sight when his owner, a hunter, brought him in to the surgery in the Salzkammergut region, the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten quoted vet Karl Hofbauer as saying.

"The dog had dreadful wind and diarrhea, and was vomiting a lot," Hofbauer said.

"When I got him up on the table, it smelt like a distillery."

Tests indicated that the dog had a blood alcohol content of 1.6 grammes of alcohol per litre of blood.

But that was not the result of Dingo having one drink too many, the owner insisted.

The hungry pooch had stolen and secretly devoured half a kilogramme of fresh yeast dough from the kitchen.

Alcohol had formed inside his stomach as a result of the fermentation process, leaving poor old Dingo stone drunk.

"Nasty-minded people said that we hunters are often drunk. With me, it's my dog," joked the owner.

------

"the best way to observe a fish is to become a fish"

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Are those people using flipflops to float that surge protector? That's just crazy! I'd have used a pair of arm floaties.


And I would get upset if someone tried to take my Mr. Potato head too.

[Imp]

Fuel tank door stickers


"Please insert gently"

Geeze, I want an Autobot insignia one, now...

Oh, and more anime car decal goodness...

Oh, one of the pages has a link to one of those PVC girly figurines with nipples showing, but you'd have to scroll down past all the decal pictures. Fair warning.

[el midgetron]

In 1983, as the residents of Calcata, a small town 30 miles north of Rome, prepared for their annual procession honoring a holy relic, a shocking announcement from the parish priest put a damper on festivities. "This year, the holy relic will not be exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It has vanished. Sacrilegious thieves have taken it from my home." Not since the Middle Ages, when lopped-off body parts of divine do-gooders were bought, sold, and traded, has relic theft been big news. But the mysterious disappearance of Calcata's beloved curio is different.

This wasn't just the residuum of any holy human—nor was it just any body part. It was the foreskin of Jesus Christ, the snipped-off tip of the savior's penis, the only piece of his body he supposedly left on earth.
Just what the holy foreskin was doing in the priest's house—in a shoebox at the back of his wardrobe, no less—and why and how it disappeared has been debated ever since the relic vanished. Some suspect the village priest sold it for a heavenly sum; others say it was stolen by thieves and ended up on the relics black market; some even suggest Satanists or neo-Nazis are responsible. But the most likely culprit is an unlikely one: the Vatican.



And why not? Protestant doubt ("They couldn't let Christ's body go without keeping a piece," John Calvin quipped) and the scientific revolution, which changed our thinking from superstitious to skeptical, have taken their toll on a relic that once rested high atop the pious pecking order of blessed body parts. It's understandable that the 20^th-century church began feeling a bit bashful about the idea of its flock fawning over the 2,000-year-old tip of the redeemer's manhood. Still, when I arrived in Calcata six months ago, the idea of a Vatican theft of Jesus' foreskin sounded more like a ganja-induced brainstorming session with Dan Brown and Danielle Steele. But some transplanted bohemians, a deathbed confession, and a little historical context have convinced me otherwise.

Could the "sacrilegious thieves" Magnoni mentioned in his 1983 announcement about the relic's disappearance actually have been Vatican emissaries? The thought of masked, black-clad Vatican agents on a mission to steal Jesus' foreskin does sound alluring. But for residents like Capellone, who swear the Vatican now has the relic, the thief could be Magnoni himself. Some locals claim they saw him go to Rome the day before he made the announcement, generating speculation that the Vatican asked for it and Magnoni not only failed to stand up to them, he delivered the relic himself.

Sold, stolen, or delivered to the Vatican—or even all three—the holy foreskin of Calcata is probably gone for good, even as some residents persist in the hope that it will return. And the church is certainly breathing a sigh of relief. While most of the other copies of the relic were destroyed during the Reformation and the French Revolution, Calcata's holy foreskin lived long past its expiration date, like a dinosaur surviving the meteoric blast of the scientific revolution.

But if it had survived, it would have been only a matter of time before someone wanted to clone it. And that could have given the Second Coming an entirely new meaning.



Depending on what you read, there were eight, 12, 14, or even 18 different holy foreskins in various European towns during the Middle Ages. Coulombs, a French village near Chartres, had one. Chartres also had a famous foreskin, as did the French towns of Charroux, Metz, Conques, Langres, Anvers, Fécamp, and Puy-en-Velay. Auvergne even had two. And the French weren't the only ones obsessed with all things holy and foreskin. There were also pious penises in Hildesheim in Germany and Antwerp in Belgium. Santiago de Compostela, the famed pilgrimage town in the far northwestern corner of Spain, had one too. Not to be outdone, Rome's San Giovanni in Laterano also had a copy of the holy foreskin; this is the one that ended up in Calcata.

http://www.slate.com/id/2155745/

Edited by el midgetron, 21 January 2008 - 08:32 PM.

[Soupie]

It's understandable that the 20^th-century church began feeling a bit bashful about the idea of its flock fawning over the 2,000-year-old tip of the redeemer's manhood.

Absolutely fascinating, Midge! Like you and I talked about in PMs, these glimpses of what historic man once believed and/or cherished is absolutely fascinating. I don't think there is any way we, with our air conditioning, refrigeration, electricity, phones, knowledge of biology, internet, etc. can even conceive and completely understand how man made sense of our complex world thousands of years ago. It seems so bizarre and silly to us, but I'm sure it made perfect sense to everyone back then. (Although there might have been one chap or two who were thinking wtf?)

[gilgar]

Remember

[gilgar]

[Imp]

HEMA

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and besides it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.

It really is cute.

And my friend sent me a link to look at Amazon's Kindle.

I want it so bad.

[el midgetron]

When I saw this a couple years ago on republican campain items I thought it was just "one of those things". But how does that happen to the offical banner of the United States? I seriously hope this is a hoax.....................

[Scumdogg]

Wait, what's going on now? I think i'm missing something...


EDIT: Oh wait, is it because the stars are upside-down? Is the implication that Hillary Clinton has hand-stitched some sort of devil flag to accompany her on the campaign trail?

Edited by Scumdogg, 31 January 2008 - 11:22 PM.

[mrjayberry]

HEMA

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and besides it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.

It really is cute.

Its good to see ghettoblaster is the same in any language

[Nachoz God of Metal]

[Soupie]

[el midgetron]

You're provoking me Soups, you're provoking me! (read in the voice of george costanza)


On the "original Star Spangled Banner" the stars didn't really point north or south. They were positioned in staggerd opposing rows with a tilted orientation -





As far as I know there is no official specifications on the orientation of the points of the stars on the flag. Still, I don't like them being inverse and I think its an odd (very odd ) varriation to suddenly show up out of no-where.

Heres Hillary with another crappy flag. The uneven blue field is againts the offical specifications but lacks any sinister connotations (other than being photographed behind the anti-christ).

Edited by el midgetron, 21 February 2008 - 11:22 AM.

[galthisan]

 Image138.jpg   423K   29 downloads
i made jo some clingfilm accessories

[asator]

 Image138.jpg   423K   29 downloads
i made jo some clingfilm accessories

I keep trying to get my wife to wear something... similar.

She wants no hand in that though. Much to my distress.