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  2. Discharges from the PZ-spot

Discharges from the PZ-spot

By pharyngula on September 8, 2006.

Every week, someone finds something that reminds them of me, and they send it off in an email. I think that every day someone strolls through a fish market and the PZ-spot in their brain lights up like a Tesla coil, triggering odd associations that can only be relieved by grounding them out in an email message. Some examples are below the fold.

A reader got a nice 60s vibe off this image, and thought it was perfect for me. Or maybe it was the octopus…

i-ec4e5afef1987e40a3469189322ca43b-43-born-1000.jpg

This is a jigsaw puzzle spotted at COSI:

i-e3ecbd8076396c741fb3262242ceaed3-octo_jigsaw.jpg

Phil saw an episode of Cthulhu's Clues on his hotel TV, and of course he thought of me.

i-9d5e27dabf9f7524d5b7fc0dda17b904-cthulhus_clues.jpg

Hillary notes that the images that get highlighted on my blog seem to violate all of the rules of cuteness. Except maybe #24. All I can say to that is…Oh, for cute.

i-1380ae8729f89e34d27eaf64932b3eee-mn013596_md.jpg

(Hillary also liked this story.

But it took half an hour for them just to join up, then they stayed that way for three hours. It kind of got boring. Then she reached around, grabbed him around the neck and bit his face off.

Now that's cute.)

Lately, I've been finding Myspace to be getting more than a little weird. I keep getting invites to be friends with people named Kissababe and Sexyhotty, and they've all got pictures of vertebrates in bikinis. I've been turning them down, but I don't know…if I got an invite from Licksasquid, I might accept.

i-a558a55496337a610ef3983af91cc816-octopuss63vmwn7.jpg

At least, one reader thought I'd like this. It could be improved if there weren't a couple of mammals obscuring the view.

Tags
Art
cephalopods
Organisms
Weirdness

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I'm another one who had just had that "must tell PZ" impulse. :-D

Have you seen the "Pirateology" book (by Dugald Steer), PZ? A friend just bought it for their sproglets because they had enjoyed the "Dragonology" book so much. On the other hand/hook, you and yours might be a little old for that sort of thing ...

Hey, at least we're thinking of you. :) Imagine how horrible it would be to just be ignored. Instead, you are eternally condemned to spring to people's minds whenever they encounter cephalopods. Or pirates.... Argh!

You might think twice about Catherine Chalmers, PZ.

Her previous work, "FoodChain" (boy can you tell a gumby arts project from the "cool" abuse of grammar, ie, dropping spaces, in the title) is about as artistic as a pitbull arena. She feeds a tomato caterpillar to a non-native mantis, and feeds THAT to an Australian white's treefrog. In both cases, the animals have no freedom of action aside from killing and/or dying. I find this unnecessarily sadistic and the conditions, as "natural" as the colisseum.

In another work, she "executes" cockroaches on miniature electric chairs and nooses (which obviously wouldn't work on a cockrach but hey, who cares?). And paints nail-polish patterns on them to highlight "camouflague." Woa.

As an artist, I find her presentation shallow and vain, and her context as meaningful as a kid pulling the legs off of a daddy-long-legs.

As an armchair zoologist, I find her treatment of animals cruel, and her information seriously out-of-touch with reality.

you can get more loads of her mundane Sex in the City/Discovery Channel mishmash on www.catherinechalmers.com

well PZ,
I'm majoring in biology at the UA in Antwerp, Belgium and after silently following this blog for the better part of a year, my PZ-spot lighted up enough to start thinking about sending an email, and then, probably invoked by a certain noodle appendage, this post came up (or could it be just a plain coincidence .. nah must be a designed occasion)

it's a movie I encoutered through google-video
Henry Rollins pro evolution
I'm not sure how old it is though, because he makes it sound like the've just come up with ID
but he certainly makes a clear statement
greetz

Practically every Bizzaro reminds me of you.

That's a good thing, right?

I heart Henry Rollins.

Here is another...

Kraken of Doom
Its a funny little game called "Pirates of the Spanish Main", come in booster packs with various different boats, crew, treasure and monsters.
There is nothing wrong with 30 somethings sitting around drinking Chardonnay and messing about with tiny, teeny boats...nothing ;)

Am I the only one who thought "Discharges from the PZ-spot" was going to be something, well, not so fresh? Remember, when you trackback someone, it's like trackbacking with everyone they've trackedback, too.

The "Cthulhu's Clues" link is broken. Is a fix available? I haven't been able to find one via Google.

When I saw this, I thought of all the Pharyngulati -
It's an amazing computer animation of the inner workings of a cell:

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/6850.html

You see cell-cell adhesion, cytoskeleton, actin and tubulin polymerization, mRNA export, translation, and secretion. Of course they left out the best part of the cell, the chromosomes - maybe that'll be the sequel.

Here are a couple of sites you can add to your reading list.

http://www.badscience.net/?p=295#more-295

The dorkbot mentioned in the article might be of interest to nerds. As perhaps the other link it gives.

http://makezine.com/blog/

This will also be good for kids who are interested in tinkering with things. Scroll down to the little robot and the batometer and marble rolling.

Finance-challenged musicians will like the carboard box bass.