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[Error: unknown template qotd] Well, I was just watching a Discovery channel special on the Roswell incident and was considering writing some thoughts on it, but since this greeted me on the page I figure I might as well, right?
Personally I'm rather partial to Nessie, if only because of The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Well, Nessie and Gorgons I guess. I just think it's a fantastic movie and the way Nessie is worked in is adorable, and it's exactly what I thought of when I first saw one of Ursula Vernon's pieces, whichever her first hooded-creature-with-fish was (I can't find the link).
Heh, this topic (well, anu chupacabra discussion) always reminds me of that Jackie Chan cartoon and the crazy stuff that happened in it. I really liked that show... And it's weird how stuff like that changes you, even when you don't know it. I know I've talked about how I randomly have a lot of Dr. Evil turns of phrase, but every once in a while I'll drop an Uncle saying, haha. (Although I can't remember specifically which one it is right now... But I'm sure it will turn up.)
SO this whole Roswell thing I was watching. You know, I'm really not so big on aliens in the green-man sense (or whatever they're called... you know, greens versus grays or whatever; whatever your standard cartoon alien is), but I could see maybe something more animalisitic exisiting in space. (I'm sorry, but I LOVE the movie Evolution.) And even though I'm warming to the fictions from Indy IV (...in a way... but not really), I really doubt any evidence thus far presented. (Oh, Von Daniken, you crazy motherfucker... It still kills me there was no polynesian/melanesian/micronesian cultural artifacts in the "treasure chamber" or whatever the hell you want to call it.) Espeically after watching this special, because honestly I'd never read or seen anything nonfictitious about Roswell before. But basically what it was (this... "crash site" lol) was bits of weather balloons, a radar reflector and some government sensor that was supposed to sense nuclear tests in Russia from a high altitude. Lol, so anyway they spend like 15 minutes going back and forth between believers and skeptics and the skeptics talk about Project Whateveritwas and the believers talk about how that evidence was just a double coverup of sorts, and the whole time I'm kind of lol-ing. So anyway they decide on this show (er, "Best Evidence" I believe it's called, and I've never watched it or heard of it before) that they're going to try to recreate the object's crash because it had a seemingly large crash site (WHICH MUST MEANS IT'S ALIENS Y/Y?) so they do a half-size model with twelve weather baloons and the radar reflector and the detector model and they have this thing tied down and their plan is to shoot the balloons down to simulate this crash.
Which immediately my engineer alarm goes off and it reminds me about that joke with the spherical chickens. I'm sorry, but you can't shoot down objects ten feet above the ground and expect the same results as a high-altitude crash that apparently may have ALSO crashed during a rainstorm and ALSO sat in the desert for a week or so. So the believer (which, my bad, I didn't catch what his actual job is) is going around going "look at this! These reflectors aren't broken up at all and there's string everywhere! Neither of which was present in the so-called evidence I believe they just faked anyway", and I am literally (YES, literally, I live in a house of engineers okay, we'd do this and we DO do this) shouting at the TV about experimental accuracy.
Because clearly ten feet is very similar to several thousand feet and all that air resistance, amirite?! =P
I don't hate the guy or anything, but I think it's entertaining nonetheless, especially for something I knew so little about. Weather balloons, really? That's what we're making a big deal about? I'm going to laugh if I get some drama-filled comments because this is a writer's-block post, lol. But just to be on the safe side, you should know I love Star Wars and Star Trek (and Evolution...lol) and Ender's Game and that I have always considered running SETI stuff and was a little sad when they got shut down (or did they not get shut down? I never really followed up on if they raised enough money to save their data dish which I think was ALSO used in one of the James Bond films...yes?).
PS, how weird would it be if James Bond had to fight aliens? I mean once we run out of Russians and terrorists...I will not make an Indy comment I will not make an Indy comment
And back to the original question at hand... Besides Nessie and Gorgons and chupacabras and aliens (er, which aren't anywhere near to being my favorites incidentally) I think the really weird animals (mythical or modern, so long as they're crypto) are the most interesting. Chimeras, sphinxes, the fact that Polyphemus the Cyclops was probably inspired by the discovery of a Triceratops-relative's skull, fire salamanders, all that weird stuff. (Wait, do Scylla and Charybdis count? Also did you know that's the origin of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place"? I love The Odyssey.)
Hmm, this is really putting me in a Halloween mood. I really wish I still had those culture-myths books my gradeschool had, I loved the Hawaiian one.
WAIT WAIT WAIT, Quetzalcoatl is really cool too, if just for saying its name. Quetzalcoatl. Lotlotl.
Haha, if I don't cut myself off now then I'm not going to get anything done, I'll just spend the rest of the day talking about cryptozoological species.
WAIT, I'm a fucking moron, my favorite is, of course, the mercat. (I found that page after I had my screenname, but it's still the general gist of it all. Mermaid + cat, and I probably should have mentioned earlier in this post that The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie and always has been.)
Dammit, in searching for all my links (I'm not on my computer, so I can't get to my favorites), I found this in an older entry and it's totally applicable.
WAIT, I love jackalopes too. See where this is going? I warned you!
I almost made a god/gods joke, lol.
...And I am considering switching "lol" to "lotl" just to piss people off and have fun. It's SO DAMN FUN to say!
Personally I'm rather partial to Nessie, if only because of The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Well, Nessie and Gorgons I guess. I just think it's a fantastic movie and the way Nessie is worked in is adorable, and it's exactly what I thought of when I first saw one of Ursula Vernon's pieces, whichever her first hooded-creature-with-fish was (I can't find the link).
Heh, this topic (well, anu chupacabra discussion) always reminds me of that Jackie Chan cartoon and the crazy stuff that happened in it. I really liked that show... And it's weird how stuff like that changes you, even when you don't know it. I know I've talked about how I randomly have a lot of Dr. Evil turns of phrase, but every once in a while I'll drop an Uncle saying, haha. (Although I can't remember specifically which one it is right now... But I'm sure it will turn up.)
SO this whole Roswell thing I was watching. You know, I'm really not so big on aliens in the green-man sense (or whatever they're called... you know, greens versus grays or whatever; whatever your standard cartoon alien is), but I could see maybe something more animalisitic exisiting in space. (I'm sorry, but I LOVE the movie Evolution.) And even though I'm warming to the fictions from Indy IV (...in a way... but not really), I really doubt any evidence thus far presented. (Oh, Von Daniken, you crazy motherfucker... It still kills me there was no polynesian/melanesian/micronesian cultural artifacts in the "treasure chamber" or whatever the hell you want to call it.) Espeically after watching this special, because honestly I'd never read or seen anything nonfictitious about Roswell before. But basically what it was (this... "crash site" lol) was bits of weather balloons, a radar reflector and some government sensor that was supposed to sense nuclear tests in Russia from a high altitude. Lol, so anyway they spend like 15 minutes going back and forth between believers and skeptics and the skeptics talk about Project Whateveritwas and the believers talk about how that evidence was just a double coverup of sorts, and the whole time I'm kind of lol-ing. So anyway they decide on this show (er, "Best Evidence" I believe it's called, and I've never watched it or heard of it before) that they're going to try to recreate the object's crash because it had a seemingly large crash site (WHICH MUST MEANS IT'S ALIENS Y/Y?) so they do a half-size model with twelve weather baloons and the radar reflector and the detector model and they have this thing tied down and their plan is to shoot the balloons down to simulate this crash.
Which immediately my engineer alarm goes off and it reminds me about that joke with the spherical chickens. I'm sorry, but you can't shoot down objects ten feet above the ground and expect the same results as a high-altitude crash that apparently may have ALSO crashed during a rainstorm and ALSO sat in the desert for a week or so. So the believer (which, my bad, I didn't catch what his actual job is) is going around going "look at this! These reflectors aren't broken up at all and there's string everywhere! Neither of which was present in the so-called evidence I believe they just faked anyway", and I am literally (YES, literally, I live in a house of engineers okay, we'd do this and we DO do this) shouting at the TV about experimental accuracy.
Because clearly ten feet is very similar to several thousand feet and all that air resistance, amirite?! =P
I don't hate the guy or anything, but I think it's entertaining nonetheless, especially for something I knew so little about. Weather balloons, really? That's what we're making a big deal about? I'm going to laugh if I get some drama-filled comments because this is a writer's-block post, lol. But just to be on the safe side, you should know I love Star Wars and Star Trek (and Evolution...lol) and Ender's Game and that I have always considered running SETI stuff and was a little sad when they got shut down (or did they not get shut down? I never really followed up on if they raised enough money to save their data dish which I think was ALSO used in one of the James Bond films...yes?).
PS, how weird would it be if James Bond had to fight aliens? I mean once we run out of Russians and terrorists...
And back to the original question at hand... Besides Nessie and Gorgons and chupacabras and aliens (er, which aren't anywhere near to being my favorites incidentally) I think the really weird animals (mythical or modern, so long as they're crypto) are the most interesting. Chimeras, sphinxes, the fact that Polyphemus the Cyclops was probably inspired by the discovery of a Triceratops-relative's skull, fire salamanders, all that weird stuff. (Wait, do Scylla and Charybdis count? Also did you know that's the origin of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place"? I love The Odyssey.)
Hmm, this is really putting me in a Halloween mood. I really wish I still had those culture-myths books my gradeschool had, I loved the Hawaiian one.
WAIT WAIT WAIT, Quetzalcoatl is really cool too, if just for saying its name. Quetzalcoatl. Lotlotl.
Haha, if I don't cut myself off now then I'm not going to get anything done, I'll just spend the rest of the day talking about cryptozoological species.
WAIT, I'm a fucking moron, my favorite is, of course, the mercat. (I found that page after I had my screenname, but it's still the general gist of it all. Mermaid + cat, and I probably should have mentioned earlier in this post that The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie and always has been.)
Dammit, in searching for all my links (I'm not on my computer, so I can't get to my favorites), I found this in an older entry and it's totally applicable.
WAIT, I love jackalopes too. See where this is going? I warned you!
I almost made a god/gods joke, lol.
...And I am considering switching "lol" to "lotl" just to piss people off and have fun. It's SO DAMN FUN to say!
