Boiling Lava!

One thing I've always liked has been the power of volcanoes. They're basically these (relatively) tiny zits on the face of the Earth that occasionally pop and rain down searing lava onto any people and animals in the vicinity. The aforementioned animals/people may or may not be serving as sacrifices in a dark, ancient ceremony to appease an angry, vengeful, animistic god. Kali-maaaaahhhh! An interesting website to visit every now and again, should you need to find information on volcanoes and/or find out where to sacrifice virgins to make it rain more, is the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) website: www.usgs.gov

The USGS website is the atypical government web portal. It's full of links, poorly organized, and about as fun a a filing cabinet full of tax forms. However, some of the content is downright awesome, provided you can find it. One of the cooler things available is the portal to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO): http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvo/activity/kilaueastatus.php. This portal is where geologists and vulcanologists post up all the goings-on at Kilauea, the only active volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. Right now the volcano is doing some pretty neat things eruption-wise.

It's currently hosting a giant, football field-sized lava pond in a hole in the main caldera area. Seriously, this thing is really damn big. You could almost sacrifice Rosie O'Donnel in there if you could find a plunger big enough to help shove her corpulent bodice into the hole. Conveniently, the hole opened up a few years ago right below one of the main tourist lookout areas. Sadly, no tourists have yet fallen into the hole, as the HVO immediately closed the area off because of "safety" reasons and not wanting to be "sued" if people "died" by "falling" into the "boiling lava". "Quotation marks". Also, "link": http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvo/cams/HMcam/.

It is also bleeding lava into the ocean, no doubt angering Posiedon in some kind of wierd inter-religious deity pissing match between the goddess Pele and the Olympians. The volcano is also erupting lava into the crater at Pu'u O'o, the main eruption site that so much stock footage was taken of in the 80s and early 90s. The webcam for the main eruption site is here: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvo/cams/POcam/. Right now the crater is pretty flat, except for a few spatter cones. It's basically like a giant lava-covered parking lot. Lava or not, it's probably cheaper to park there than it is in downtown Atlanta. Probably smells better, too.

Pangolin Conservation

Sooo... earlier I mentioned that Pangolins were endangered and that dumb people were eating them and rubbing dried pangolin dick in their eyeballs to cure blindness, or something like that. Here is a list of organizations taken from www.savepangolins.org that you can donate to in order to keep people from wondering what my blog title is about any more than they already do. If pangolins go extinct, I'll have to change my blog's name, and I just don't want to do that. Donate now or you might have to go to "How's Your Devonian Ocean Prokaryotic Organism?" Let's face it: nobody wants to type that.


Support these organizations with pangolin conservation programs:

• Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity (ACCB) in Cambodia www.accb-cambodia.org
• ASEAN-WEN www.asean-wen.org
• Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program in Vietnam www.carnivore-pangolin.org
• Conservation International-Cambodia www.conservation.org
• Education for Nature Vietnam www.envietnam.org
• Fauna & Flora International www.fauna-flora.org
• TRAFFIC www.traffic.org
• Wildlife Alliance www.wildlifealliance.org (and donate directy to their pangolin program via their Global Giving page)
• Harapan Rainforest www.harapanrainforest.org

If you don't donate to one of these organizations I will be sadder than a Shriner whose tiny car has just been run over by a garbage truck.

HYPE Update!

To all who were planning on going to this week's HYPE, my plans have changed slightly. Due to some boring shit beyond my control, I will now be attending the 9:50 pm showing of 127 Hours instead of the 7:25 showing. The theater remains unchanged. I will still be seeing it at the Regal Hollywood 24 cinema off I-85 in Atlanta, GA.

Also, it has come to my attention that Zoo Atlanta does not have any pangolins. Now I has a sad. Apparently, they are really, really endangered, mainly because dumbasses with no knowledge of medicine or chemistry are eating them and probably grinding them up and rubbing them on their balls or some equally stupid shit, all to supposedly cure themselves of random things that could just as easily be taken care of by seeing a damn doctor. Spoiler alert! Pangolin parts can't cure shit except maybe hunger, and even then it's probably easier just to eat a salad or some chicken.

I think I may have to do some kind of fund-raiser for pangolins, because that's just the kind of nice guy I am. OK, you can all stop laughing now. I may not give two-thirds of a shit about some things, but cloning extinct species is probably only going to be feasible after I'm dead, and I just don't want to grow old and die in a world with no pangolins. I've never done a conservation effort before, but hell, everybody has to take a first step. You don't just up and declare yourself a massive nonprofit organization with celebrity Hollywood donors overnight! Or maybe you do. I told you I'm really inexperienced at the whole money-raising thing.

Like Watching a Burlap Sack Full of Shrieking Rabid Weasels

That's how I characterize the state of most political commentary on the internet. It can be fun to watch idiots go from zero to full-on foamy-mouthed derpy madness in only 1 post. However, you can only take so much blood and fur flying around before you get bored and start to hate yourself a little for enjoying it on some base level.

A technical illustration of the aforementioned simile.

As such, I am going to keep my blog as politics-free as possible. The real world's problems suck, and I want to keep my writings as suck-free as possible. I know, I know, hard to do when my entries have all the shining qualities of wastewater treatment plant effluent, but I will try to increase the awesome and decrease the suck whenever possible. That means no "wings" or "sides" or any other terms that can both be used to describe political affiliation as well as dinner-menu items.

HYPE alert! I will be going to see 127 Hours at the Regal Hollywood 24 cinema in Atlanta, GA tomorrow at 7:25pm. Join me, or I will come to your house and wistfully gaze through your window while you sleep, pondering what might have been, until the cops knock me down with a water cannon. I will be handing out free invisible coupons good for 1 free Internet when you purchase an in-stock Internet of equal or greater value!

Be there or be a four-sided polygon whose interior angles are all 90 degrees!

Well, That Didn't Take Long

That's what she said! But yeah, I figured it would only be a matter of time before I broke one of the promises I made to readers at the beginning of this blog. That being the promise to update at least once a week. I kinda figured it wouldn't take too long for this to happen, but at least I have a few readers now to call me on it.

So here's something I'll try to do to get more people interested in the blog. I'm just throwing ideas out here, but I just came up with something that should be both interesting and nice when turned into an acronym: HYPE! That is, How's Your Pangolin Events!

Every week I will post an entry detailing what I think I will be doing at some later date, and get people to follow me along on whatever mudane activity I choose. We'll eat, drink, and talk about who-knows-what! Unless we're in a library, or some other place where merry-making is frowned upon. Then we can whisper in hushed tones and make furtive glances towards random people. I'll soon be on my way to developing a fantastic secret society / personality cult, complete with followers who are more than willing to swill a few buckets of cyanide-laced 4Loko at the drop of a hat. Mwahahahahaaaa! So, dear puppets readers, like Scar from The Lion King said, "be prepared" to follow me into the dark (read: poorly lit because I don't have the cash to spring for decent lighting) world of HYPE. Or not. This whole thing could collapse in a few days for all I know.

But, for now, I think my first HYPE event will be a movie. That movie being 127 Hours. Come along for all the arm-chopping you can handle! I don't know exactly when I will be seeing this, but it will probably be in the next day or two. I will post up a short entry detailing the where and when (as well as posting up a google maps address). If you've already seen the movie, come again anyway! Oh lawsy, I'm so lonely... *sniff*

So, loyal readers. This week I will get back into the swing of posting things again. I've never run a blog, so I figured I'd have a few lapses in personal discipline when it comes to staying on top of a writing schedule. Wait... that makes it sound like I've been having S&M sessions with my own blog. I don't even know how that's possible. Now I feel dirty. Be back later, I'm going to go scrub myself with raw lye and wire brushes!