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.