Institute of Jurassic Technology: August 2009

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Wild Kingdom in our back yard: Katydid about to get eaten by Miranda

I have a thing with Carnivorous plants. They're just too cool.

Last Mother's Day I sent The Wife to the local Orchid show with some money and said "get something that makes you happy." It was her first Mother's Day after all. She came home with the most amazing plant -- a Nepenthes Miranda Asiatic cobra plant. It's gorgeous.

I must plug Sarracenia Northwest here. They are a local Portland Oregon plant nursery that specializes in carnivorous plants. I'm happy they had a display at the Orchid show so the wife could run into this impressive plant. If you ever had an itch to get a carnivorous plant, click that link and see just how much variety and information they provide.

So -- on to the video.

Today when I came home for lunch I saw a bright green leaf on one of the pitchers. Then I saw it move. I got closer and saw that it was a Katydid. I've never seen one in our area so Miranda did quite a job of luring him in from who-knows-where. Amateur video to follow.

And the video in which I find out my flip camera software has no "rotate left" option in its edit options. Sorry 'bout that, but I'm posting it anyway.

Enjoy beautiful plants eating bugs,

Bp

[photograph via Petflytrap]

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Saturday Night Awesome: Craig Ferguson (the Late Late Show) on the Deification of Youth

The fact that this rant sounds like a perfectly sound hypothesis to me proves that I'm an old geezer.

But I challenge you to provide sound counter-argument. Seriously.

Enjoy settling into your golden years,

Bp

[via yesbutnobutyes]

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Backwards Beekeeper shows how he harvests honey

I just stumbled across this video on Boing Boing, and am now intrigued. The video is a nice watch about how the "Backwards Beekeepers" harvest their honey. One gets the sense that they do much of their beekeeping in an unconventional, bee-friendly fashion.

Here is a link to the Backwards Beekeepers blog -- I've only just started researching their methods and philosophy and I do like it, and their attitude. Biologically, their philosophy of maximizing and propagating already-naturalized populations of bees makes perfect sense. I strongly suspect I'll have more to report after I've spent some more time with their information.

Enjoy folks using their heads, and making awesome local honey in the process,

Bp

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Pretenders -- L.A. punk meets 80's guitar rock

Driving with a friend tonight, the musical conversation somehow turned to good punk. He's younger than me by at least 10 years, so I asked if he was familiar with The Pretenders first album, or any of the harder songs off of it. He was not, and this post was born.

The first album (self titled) by The Pretenders has something like 6 or 7 hits on it. Their hard-driving, punk-inspired songs really caught my attention at the time, more so than the good but over-played hits. Their drummer had a fast, syncopated style that I really enjoyed.

Here is one example of these "harder" songs from their early years, The Wait, caught live in 1984. Surprisingly good concert footage for Youtube:

Chrissie Hynde is an absolute phenomenon if you really look at the span of her career, her stage presence, her lyrics, and the range of styles she successfully mastered.

I can't let this post go by without sharing another song that exemplifies the qualities of my favorite early Pretenders songs.
Tattooed Love Boys at first listen simply sounds like a raunchy song about rough sex, but on closer examination is much darker than that (as her announcement in the beginning of this performance exposes).

Although there is much much more to explore with this band, Chrissie, and their various styles and rebirths -- I'll leave this to these early songs that my younger friends may not have been aware of.

Enjoy being introduced to new/old music,

Bp

Monday, August 17, 2009

German Biological Illustrations from 1904 --- Gorgeous Stuff

The book is Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformed der Natur (Artforms of Nature). The prints are fantastic, classy, beautiful, etc. Check out the wiki commons page here for more. [I must admit, it also makes one wonder just how many tattoos out there in the world are based on this work, I'm just sayin']