Photo: Jose Hernandez / National Geographic Magazine

Hernandez: "This is a shot of three eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle."

This photo won an honorable mention in the "Nature" category in National Geographic's 2008 International Photography Contest (click to see winners in various categories).

Fimoculous: 2008 End-of-Year Lists

Fimoculous gathers links to 2008's end-of-year lists on one page. There are ninety book lists so far, along with lists on everything from advertising to words. I like Tampa Bay Online's 50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year), which includes links to the stories behind them for more information.

Why reenact wars when you can reenact Far Side cartoons?

by entitee, from the Far Side Reenactment Pool on Flickr. Setting up a shot to contribute might be a fun way to spend a few hours.

Toothpaste for Dinner

I was sick and seeing double most of the weekend--too dizzy to read or watch a movie. The upside was digging around in the Toothpaste for Dinner archives as an alternative to more strenuous visual pursuits. Some favorites so far:

Apostrophe's! Extra apostrophe's! Use 'em for plural's!

There are so many wonderful t-shirt's on the internet that I never buy any, fearing an uncontrollable downward spiral. This, though--this could break the seal:



T-shirt $16 at Sharing Machine (choose "Toothpaste for Dinner" for merch related to the webcomic).

From The Guardian, "Body swap research shows that self is a trick of the mind":

"Brain scientists have succeeded in fooling people into thinking they are inside the body of another person or a plastic dummy.

The out-of-body experience - which is surprisingly easy to induce - will help researchers to understand how the human brain constructs a sense of physical self. The research may also lead to practical applications such as more intuitive remote control of robots, treatments for phantom limb pain in amputee patients and possible treatments for anorexia." (read rest of article)

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I went to Oberlin College, but am ashamed to say I never thought to check out the Oberlin Public Library. I see now that this was a mistake:

"OBERLIN, Ohio, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A public library in Oberlin, Ohio, has a holiday display that features a legless Santa Claus being pushed down the stairs by a sadistic Christmas tree.

Conceptual artist Keith McGuckin, who created the Oberlin Public Library display, created a narrative to accompany the image that explains Santa's legs were destroyed by an alcohol-fueled incident involving power lines, and the tree pushing St. Nick's wheelchair down a flight of stairs plans to visit a strip club with the money he took from Santa's Salvation Army kettle, The Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, Ohio) reported Thursday." (read rest of article, which includes mention of previous Oberlin library displays by McGuckin, including ones with "Nazi gingerbread men and drug-smuggling elves.")

UPDATE: Library director decided to take display down, said it was "becoming too much of a distraction."