Sorry for the silence, dear readers. Between the Thanksgiving holiday, various tasks around the homestead, and apparently a case of the "blahs" (tired, listless, achy) which might indicate I'm coming down with something, I haven't had the energy to post anything.
So, until I get my act together, please enjoy this outdoor rendition of "Carol of the Bells," modern edition (click HERE).
Every once in a while, I check the spam comments on this blog because sometimes a legitimate comment gets caught up in the filter.
I was rewarded with a doozie. Feast your eyes on this, all spelling/punctuation in the original and the most amusing parts highlighted:
CONTACT Mr Dennis Matrio call (+2348128462808 or WhatsApp him through this number +35795543364 or Email: dennismatrio@gmail.com Hello everyone my name is sandy kalipo i am from USA am here to give a testimony on how I joined the illuminati brotherhood, I was trying to join this organization for so many years now,I was conned by fake agent in south Africa and Nigeria,I was down,I could not feed my self and my family anymore and I tried to make money by all miss but all invail, I was afraid to contact any illuminati agent because they have eat my money,One day I came across a post of someone giving a testimony, thanking a man called Dennis Matrio of being helping him to join the illuminati brotherhood, then I look at the man email and the phone number that was written there, it was a nigeria number I was afraid to contact him because a nigerian agent eat my $2000 and go away with the money then I was very tired, confused and I decided to contact the person that was given the testimony and i called him and I communicated with him on phone calls before he started telling me his own story about when he wanted to join, he told me everything to do, then I made up my mind and call the agent called Dennis Matrio and he told me everything to do, and I was initiated, surprisingly I was given my benefit of being a new member of the great illuminati brotherhood I was so happy, For those of you trying to join this organization this is your opportunity for you to join CONTACT MR Dennis Matrio call ( +2348128462808 or WhatsApp him +35795543364 or email: dennismatrio@gmail.com
No red flags here! I'm certain this isn't from a scam artist in Nigeria. No siree.
It reminded me of this clip:
Everyone's heard of deep-sea angler fish, right? These are the creatures that attract prey toward them with a bioluminescent lure.
Fairly recently, this same principle was discovered in a snake. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the spider-tailed horned viper. Specifically, view the video at this link and watch its tail.
According to Wikipedia, this venomous snake lives in harsh desert conditions in Iran and uses its spider-like tail to lure in prey. When scientists described the first specimen they found, they attributed its tail configuration "to either a parasite, deformity, or tumors." Then a second specimen was found, and – whoa, Nellie – they realized this is how it catches prey.
I've never heard of this species, and I'll admit being gobsmacked. Here's a video of the snake luring in and catching a bird:
"I'm going to put this up on the blog," I enthused. "This is incredible."
"Ah, the biologist strikes again," observed Don, remarking on my past education.
The spider-tailed horned viper. Nature is amazing.
Oh wow. Wow wow wow. I stumbled across this video of a quartet of very creative musicians. Watch and enjoy.
The link is here. The Twitter post says:
What a marvel! A staging with all the creativity. Only these fantastic girls could have chosen such an amazing musical cocktail, with a sensational staging.♥️😄🎧 pic.twitter.com/Cm6viPE0WA
— Love Classical Music 🎺🎻💖 (@AlexTran677026) February 18, 2025
This is an orchestral version of the famous theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
I don't know what it is about this performance, but it just makes me happy.
Sorry for the silence, dear readers. We've had a lot on our plates, including an exciting homestead project I'll be blogging about shortly.
Meanwhile, this is a video that never fails to make me smile. Enjoy!
But not many share this indifference. Consider this recent headline: "Versace sample sale in New York City shut down by cops after fights break out among more than 1,000 shoppers: 'They're going crazy.'"
LOL: Straight out of "Confessions of a Shopaholic."
I stumbled on this short video clip and clicked on it merely because the caption read, "You can't watch this without smiling." Literally I had no idea what to expect. Cute cat videos? America's funniest home videos? What?
Well, one thing is certain. I didn't expect this. All I can say is ... wow. Just wow. Just absolute flippin' WOW.
Soak it in. Listen to it several times in a row. I get chills every time.
You might recall this comical scene from "The Emperor's New Groove" featuring the incomparable Eartha Kitt: "Pull the lever, Kronk! ... WRONG LEVER!!! ... Why do we even HAVE that lever?"
Well, something like that happened to me yesterday. I was working fast and hard on my online job, with at least 17 tabs open in three different windows (all essential for what I do). In right-clicking to perform a function, I accidentally hit "Close all tabs."
ARRRGGGHHH. Wrong lever!!
Cue the wail of frustration. Closing all tabs not only – well, closed all my tabs, but it also meant I had to log into everything all over again before I could get back to work. As I griped to a coworker, "Why does that option even exist???"
Okay, rant over.
A couple mornings ago, Don and I leashed up Darcy and went for our usual morning walk. It was chilly (44F), lightly raining, and very misty.
Sniffing his way along as usual, Darcy paused to investigate something caught in the grass. Thinking it might be a tangled bird, I started to pull him away, but he didn't seem inclined to be overly interested.
But I was. A closer look revealed two mating leopard slugs. I'd never seen such a thing before and was fascinated by this glimpse of the private lives of slugs.
Slugs, as you may or may not know, are hermaphrodites. They have both male and female organs. Rather than self-fertilize, however, they find a suitable partner and each exchange sperm to fertilize their eggs.
Additionally, leopard slugs have a courtship of sorts. When they find a partner, they climb to a higher spot and suspend themselves from a thick rope of mucus. This was the stage where we found them.
The slugs then wind around each other. Apparently leopard slugs always twine around each other anti-clockwise. (Any "clockwise" slugs can't mate properly and thus die out.)
At this point they each everted their male organs.
The organs themselves then entwined.
The entwined organs sort of fanned out to form a flower shape.
It's at this stage that sperm transfers from one slug to the other.
With the weather being what it was, and winter on the way, my first thought was it was a foolish time of year for slugs to be mating. However it seems they can store the sperm for months or even years, until conditions are optimal for fertilizing their eggs.
Here's a video on the mating habits of leopard slugs narrated by the incomparable David Attenborough. I feel amazed I got to witness such a thing in person.
This cracked me up.
It seems a man was walking in the woods in France when he came across a trail runner. The poor woman had inadvertently attracted a flock of lost sheep, which had been following her down the trail for quite some time.
I wonder what she did with them when she'd finished her run?
Spam emails can be so funny! Consider one I got this morning from "Jeff White," formatted exactly as received:
DEAREST ONEAm MR. White of the Claims Department with a bank here in London, United Kingdom. I wish to notify you that you are clear toclaim the total sum of Twenty Five Million Five Hundred thousand British pounds in the codicil and last testament of a deceasedcustomer (Name now withheld for security reasons). Kindly Contact me for more details on E-mail: [redacted]@citromail.hu
I look forward to your response, treat as most confidentialsincerely
>>Mr. White
Bwahahaha. I'm certain every banker in the U.K. addresses random strangers as "Dearest one."
Sure, Jeff. I believe every word. (/sarc/)
UPDATE: Reader Rozy Lass sent this video. I laughed so hard I cried.
Y'know, some of us don't discover our passions or natural gifts until relatively late in life. We've all heard stories of the grandfather who never knew he was a sculptor until he took a class, them wham!
Others, however, discover their talents at a very young age. Consider the following video in which the child is three years old. Let me repeat that: Three years old.
Watch and smile:
Drama on the African plains. A baby elephant was stuck in the mud. This is a crazy video.
Fortunately it has a happy ending.
You're probably familiar with the magnificent "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky.
This long piece of music culminates, of course, with a crash of cannon and ringing of church bells. Understandably for most performances, these are usually played with timpani drums for the cannon and deep chimes for the church bells.
But once in a while – you get the real thing. And when you do ... well, wow. Just wow.
I found a YouTube video showing the tail end of the Overture played by the Boston Pops Orchestra in 2019, where some military personnel are shooting actual cannons at the appropriate place in the music. Want to see how it's done? Watch starting at about the 50-second mark in the video below. Fascinating.
For decades, the Boston Pops was led by the legendary Arthur Fiedler. Under his leadership, the orchestra became one of the best-loved and most-recorded orchestras in the world. When I was a kid, we often watched the performances on television, which no doubt helped cement my love for classical music.
If you like George Gershwin music, Don came across this link in which the conductor Leonard Slatkin is conducting the French Orchestre National de Lyon in "Rhapsody in Blue." A pianist by the name of Khatia Buniatishvili absolutely nails this famously difficult piece of music. It's jaw-droppingly good.
Enjoy!
I love baroque music. I like to keep it playing very softly on my computer speakers, more as background music than anything else.
A few years ago, I subscribed to Pandora, where I could tweak and fine-tune the kind of music I liked. I've had that subscription for years. The trouble, however, is they tend to play the same pieces over and over and over and over and over and over........
And frankly I was getting tired of it, to the point where I thought about just giving up the subscription.
Well Older Daughter is up for a visit, and she introduced me to a really neat YouTube channel called Nemo's Dreamscapes, which specializes in background music. For example, the one I'm listening to right now now is "It's 1940s you're listening to adults party downstairs."
And that's all it is: background music, with chatter and laughter over the music, just as if you were a kid sitting at the top of the stairs watching the adult's party. Nearly 12 hours of it!
I'm hooked.
There are lots of other YouTube stations along these same lines: Oldies Music Play in a Coffee Shot When It's Raining; Dreamy Oldies Music Playing on an Airplane; 1910s Fall asleep while Grandma's reading a bedtime story; that kind of thing.
Seriously, if you're looking for some novel background music, check it out.
This Husky epitomizes how I feel about Alexa and other sneaky listening devices:
Go Maya!
(Hat tip to SurvivalBlog for the link.)
Your chuckle du jour.
This, of course, references the Eurythmics' famous song, "Sweet Dreams are Made of This."
At any rate, it made me chuckle.
