Snap, Crackle, Pop!

Going camping again tomorrow to Ojibway Provincial Park in Northwest Ontario, Canada. Northwest Ontario makes it sound like I'm going to Hudson Bay or something; but in actuality N.W.O. is the part of Ontario that extends above Lake Superior. It's amazing how big Canadian provinces are. The bulk of Ontario's population is north of the US across from lake Erie, with Toronto and the other metropoles in that area. That's by New York. Same province, but HUGE. Going along with us is Krista and her boyfriend Matt. I would be far more annoyed by that if they didn't have their own tent. That tent - it was the present that Jerry gave Krista for her birthday on the night we went out to the Gasthaus - the night before he died. (Maggie keeps calling while I write this to go over the food list. Incidentally, crunchy kicks ass over creamy peanut butter.)

I feel like I've been doing substandard bloggages recently. To compensate, I've decided to fill up today's blog with links to stuff that interests me. It's common knowledge that we have five senses - Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and Touch. What if we had more? It's not that weird; in the animal kingdom I can think of at least three additional senses that some animals have.

• Pit Vipers are a family of poisonous snake that can sense heat through an organ underneath their eyes. Think of it as night vision. On the other hand, they are deaf, so they get a make-up sense, right?


• Elephants can feel ultra- and infrasonic vibrations through their feet, making them able to detect sounds through non-auditory means over many miles.


• Certain fish can feel their way around by generating an electrical aura that allows them to feel their surroundings.

Now that's cool. Usually when we think of electric fish the Electric Eel comes to mind. These fish (they are not really eels) can produce an immense amount of electricity, delivering shocks up to 650 volts at a shot. That's enough to kill a human, stun a horse, or briefly light a light bulb, or start a car. They live in the Amazon basin.

Then there's the electric catfish, which is apparently a fairly popular aquarium fish. I think it would be a neat conversation piece to have a large electric catfish in my house, but I don't think I'd want to deal with cleaning the aquarium. A more scientific description of the electric Catfish can be found here. Interestingly enough, the ancient Egyptians knew about the Electric Catfish. We know this because there are heiroglyphs that depict these critters. Electric Catfish can deliver a beefy 400 volts or so; certainly enough to hurt.

There are another 3000 species of fish known as electric rays. Some of them can deliver charges strong enough to endanger divers or even photography equipment.

By the way, I have secured my place as a footnote to history by shipping the batteries for the Tortoise Battlebot to Oakland. The competition will be this weekend. Although it is against the Rules for competitors to tell the rest of the world what happened before they air the episodes for season 3, I may drop tantalizing hints of what to watch for. Hee hee. After dealing with 120 pounds worth of batteries, I wish they had just brought along an eel or two. That would be a novel power supply.

Updates

I still get several hits a week looking for information on the "Brad the Cad" email scandal. Reminiscent of this, but fortunately less exploitative of any women is the recent "Chung King" email unpleasantness. Peter Chung, a new associate for an equities firm stationed in Korea, was caught bragging about his pants being down and the bragging email was, similarly to the BTC scandal, quickly forwarded everywhere. He has been, needless to say, fired. The actual email can be found here. Thanks to the Obscure Store, once again, for the blog fodder.

From 13: early reports indicate that the Lord of the Rings movies, the first of which will be out this Xmas, indeed will kick ass.

Finally, from one geeked out fan group to another; the church of the Jedi has their own website, at least for Australia. Now that's geeky. From the Null Device.