27 August 2011

Bloody maths

Ladies and gentlemen—a view of Canobie Lake in Southern New Hampshire, if it were filled with blood instead of water:

I tinted the clouds red because I figured they'd reflect the lake a bit,
not because I was trying to make the scene even more sinister. :P (original image)
You may be assuming I'm a bit of a creep for creating that image (and I am), but lemme explain:

I was listening to the song "3rd Planet" by Modest Mouse the other day, when I was inspired to take one of the lines far too literally. Dozens of browser tabs, piles of conversions, and way more hours than I'd planned later, and we get the image above and this post.

The line goes, "When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming around in the water in the oceans in our bodies; and another had been found, another ocean on the planet, given that our blood is just like the Atlantic."

It's lovely imagery, but it got me wondering: how does the volume of blood inside all living human beings compare to the volume of large bodies of water like the Atlantic Ocean?

20 August 2011

Well, I guess it was fun while it lasted...

...(for some of us, anyway) but I'm pretty sure this is the death knell for the American culture. I don't mean to be alarmist, but this really seems like it could be the singular moment that the entirety of the 'Murkan experience has been leading up to. Do we really have anywhere to go after this?


Yes, that's what appears to be a face on a Walmart receipt. And yes--why would you even ask?--of course it's Jesus. You can click here for the full story, but why bother, really? You already know what it says, and the situation is so beautifully, horribly perfect that it really doesn't need anything added. It's so 'Murkan it hurts.

12 August 2011

Best cover ever?

I'm a person who enjoys a good reinterpretation of a song. And while I'm also a person who tries to avoid using superlatives, it's hard not to want to declare José González's take on the song "Heartbeats," originally by The Knife, the best cover ever.

In the interest of fairness, I'll put up the original version first, because I do think it is a good song on its own, and so deserves to be heard without the bias of having heard the cover:


It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but like I said, I do think it's a good song. But now we come to José González's version:


No disrespect to the original artist, but goddamn does that sound like the way the song was meant to be played. It's absolutely beautiful, and if not worthy of my zealous declaration then damn close.

Agree? Disagree?