Under anesthetic, subdivided and synthetic

You know, I completely forgot about this until dancinastrophys reminded me today....

En route to Caribou last year, I noticed planets along the highway on the way up. They'd been painted and positioned, to scale, along a length of US Highway 1. It's the Maine Solar System Model, the world's largest to-scale 3d solar system model in the world¹ -- 1:93,000,000 scale. A few moons (Luna, Io, Callisto and Charon among others) also make the cut. Pluto's since been retired, but it did get to hang out at the adults' table for a while.

The sun is 50 feet across, Earth 5.5 inches, Jupiter 61.4 inches -- Earth is one mile away from the sun, Pluto (pre-demotion, of course) was one inch across and 40 miles away from Sol.

¹Redundant much? Feh. But as we all know, Earth is the largest planet in the world.

Courtesy querldox: This girl is my new hero.

Aubrey Matthews, aka "Star," woke up Friday morning to a phone call that a villain named Black had stolen a golden star from the Idaho Historical Museum. A Life Flight helicopter and police escort vehicles took her to the crime scene to talk to investigators. Aubrey found a clue, and the chase was on. Before capturing Black, Star rescued people from a "smoke"-filled building on Front Street, someone from drowning in ParkCenter Pond, and ferrets at Zoo Boise who had been framed for stealing the golden star.

Simply must-read to believe.

Congrats to the gang from River City as the Shockers knock off #2 Tennessee 80-73 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. This, I think, is worth breaking out the WSU hockey jersey for.

I knew the smaller conferences would get some attention just after the first round, but this...this is awesome. Represent!

From AOL's Editors' Picks segment....

( Vague finale spoiler-esque synopsis follows )

Via Boing Boing: Ampulex compressa is a wasp that has evolved to tackle roaches, insert a stinger into their brains and disable their escape reflexes. This lets the wasp use the roach's antennae to steer the roach to its lair, where it can lay its egg in it.

Creepy, yet still somehow awesome.

beeform just got an iPod, and indeed it was genuinely an iPod in the box, and not a piece of raw meat, so good for her.

And querldox posted re: Google's acquisition of, in addition to their many IT assets, 250 pounds of Silly Putty. But the Googlinites were running into problems distributing said volume of bouncy/bendy stuff. According to a Boing Boing correspondent, hitting it with a hammer works (explanation here). But dropping a 50-pound chunk off a rooftop (with video!) may not yield the expected results.

Found this Brickshelf folder which has custom comic-based minifigs. My favorites...on the Marvel side there's Blink, Captain Britain, Cyclops, Gambit, Thor and Rogue. DC-ward there's Bizarro, Blue Beetle (II), Captain Cold, Deathstroke, Firestorm, the Question and the Spectre. And don't miss Alan Moore and the Watchmen.

Seventh Sanctum - Character Title Scrambler: Shift around a few titles and you get new - and potentially traumatic - fanfic and fanart ideas....

A lot of them border on the obscure -- even for me -- but a few of 'em work pretty well:

• Rembrandt van Rijn, Sultan of Swat


• Codename: Clem (Buffy)


• Henry Kissinger, Rock Legend


• Gareth Keenan (The Office), The Mighty


• Jedi Knight John Steed (Avengers)


• Mighty Morphin Eleanor Roosevelt


• Rock Legend Fox Mulder (X-Files)


• Elizabeth Swann (PotC), Pet Detective


• Ripper (BtVS), MD


• Mighty Morphin Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)


• Jonathan Levinson (BtVS), Queen of the Desert


• Robert Paulson (Fight Club), Heisman Trophy Winner


• Ed Wood, Knight of the Round Table


• Daria Morgendorffer (Daria), Starfighter

Via A², from the people who brought us the 200GB iPod Mini mod, Crimes inspired by video games - Uncyclopedia

1982

* January 8th - An explosion heard coming from underneath Flagstaff turned out to be caused by an attacker pumping explosive gases into a victim's stomach. Neither were identified.
* January 14th - A man riding atop an ostrich used a lance to kill two people and injure ten more.
* July 23rd - A Red Kangaroo mother managed to steal boxing gloves and went on a killing rampage in her Australian zoo, targeting each and every monkey in possession of an apple. The charges were later dropped when employees discovered the monkeys had kidnapped and blindfolded her joey.