Tag: fish

Art smells like rotting, burning fish

Modern art can be pretty weird or boring. For example, rotting fish as art? That’s odd and not very interesting. Rotting fish spontaneously combusting? Count us in.

An exhibition of the art of Lee Bul in London had its opening delayed because one of the pieces of art caught fire unexpectedly. The South Korean artist’s work “Majestic Splendor,” which is a series of rotting fish with sequins on them, is one of the highlights of the show. However, it smells really bad. To combat the smell, officials used a chemical that isn’t flammable, but can increase how flammable other things are.

Majestic Splendor was in the process of being removed as an obvious safety risk when it spontaneously combusted. Luckily, the rotting fish and other great works were not damaged.

Take it from Snee: Playing god on a budget

While some of us may have been born into wealth and power, and even fewer of us may claw our way up the ladder to it, the rest of us have to get by with what little material success we’ve scraped together. So, how does one feel better about their station? By applying their arbitrary rules to some self-made underling, usually children.

But, children are expensive. They eat, they break things and they refuse to get a job to pay for either. And of those who do work? Even renting children as actors costs millions of dollars once they get their SAG card.

That’s why I’ve come up with this list of non-children to homeschool into your own slightly-less-than-divine image. Continue reading Take it from Snee: Playing god on a budget

Archaeologists find earliest evidence of Peter Benchley in 1st Century tomb

A group of archaeologists who thought they found Jesus’ tomb a few years back believes they struck paydirt again, this time unearthing what may be the earliest grave ever marked with the Jesus fish. The inscription (see above) is theorized to represent Jonah — the testicle hanging off the fish’s lip — being eaten by the fish God sent after him. (It was the Old Testament. Fatherhood really changes a deity.)

The tomb in question dates back to the 1st Century. Previously, the Jesus fish has only been found on tombs as far back as the 2nd Century, when early Christians believed in adorning the most expensive thing they owned with faith-advertisements and representations of how many times they’ve procreated.

Even if you don’t believe, just remember: one day in the future, somebody is going to unearth your remains and think you might be Steve Jobs because you insisted on being buried with your iPad.

Fish deadly to humans, this time for eating purposes

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program has assigned a red “avoid” recommendation to wild-caught California and Oregon salmon, based on continued low levels of salmon returning to the Sacramento River. Gee, that’s helpful. While that advice may seem clear cut, the change in recommendations can be confusing.

The avoid rating for Oregon salmon applies only to fish caught south of Cape Falcon. It does not apply to the entire state of Oregon. That’s because there are two different salmon stocks being fished on the Pacific coast-those that spawn in the Sacramento River, where stock levels have been troubled in recent years; and salmon fished from the Columbia River, thought to have moderately healthy population levels.

Hey, nature, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but when you came into existence, you agreed to an unspoken social contract. The terms were that we wouldn’t eat all of you, just the strong majority of you, and as such, you wouldn’t try to kill us. By keeping your population in a perpetual declination, you are clearly trying to kill us, albeit, very slowly. Knock it off.

Take it from Snee: The rainbow in every oil spill

So, how about that leak in the Gulf of Mexico, right?

You’re probably expecting a punchline about how terrible it is, or how many animals are going to die or how we could have avoided all of this by investing more in alternative renewable energy back in the 70s.

Well, you’re not going to get that here. In fact, I think this is a good thing. Allow me show you how, in every oil spoil, there’s a rainbow lining.

NOTE: Rick Snee is writing this article of its own free will. Any checks from BP have not cleared yet.

Continue reading Take it from Snee: The rainbow in every oil spill

And lo, the fish fell like rain

We don’t want to freak you guys out or anything, but the world might just be ending. The only other possibility is that our animal foes have dangerous new technology.

More than 300 of miles away from any water, a desert town in Australia was attacked by hundreds of fish falling from the sky. It rained fish for no apparently reason. The good news is that no one was serious injured.

Now, “scientists” will try to tell you that this happened because a tornado formed over water, sucked up the fish, and deposited them in the town, but that’s a long, long trip for a tornado. This leaves us with the very real possibility that the animals are somehow able to launch themselves into the air en masse so that they can take out our small towns.

Well at least they aren’t robofish

Fish are a threat to us all, that’s why we can catch them and eat them. But then we have regulations to make sure we don’t kill too many of them. To defy these regulations, specifically the gender ones, the number of transgender fish in U.S. streams is increasing.

No, not the fish that like to cross dress, we’re talking dude fish with some lady parts. Also, they have a lack of sexual identity about them. However, if you want to start racing female fish, you’re about to have a sure bet.

Robofish are here, and they are watching you

We often think that science will show us new ways to defeat our enemies, but we forget that in science, as with any industry, there are those who are hellbent on destroying the righteous cause. Today, we find some such scientists at MIT.

There, they are creating a school of robotic fish for no other purpose than to kill humans–other than to inspect oil and natural gas pipelines that are deep underwater. The robofish will go places that submarines can’t, and look totally normal to other fish.

Wait a minute, maybe this is a way at spying on fish. Maybe MIT is planning to make these into fish terminators!

(Courtesy of Toni A.)

Terror from above

As if we needed to remind you, animals can attack at any time or place. They can even organize coordinated airstrikes, as one Ohio woman found out.

She was driving down a road near Lake Eerie when a fish hit her windshield on purpose, smashing it. The woman said it was like someone had thrown a brick. In reality, an eagle dropped the fish from an estimated 40 feet in the air.

As it turns out, this is not the first time animals have come after her on the road. Before the fish attack, a truck ahead of her hit a small bird which then hit her passenger window.

You mean you’re canceling the cod feast?

A sunny day, a crowd, some alcohol and a greased up cod is usually a recipe for fun, but in Milbridge, Maine, it turned into danger.

In Milbridge, the town has a tradition of celebrating its birthday the way most towns do, by forming teams dressed in firemen’s turnout gear and seeing who can carry a greased up, 20-pound cod fish 90 feet the fastest. But it got ugly over the weekend–ugly big time.

Fisticuffs broke out over a minor driving infraction that happened earlier in the day. Two people ended up being sent to the hospital after a brawl involving 50 to 60 people was put down local and state police.

In related news, guys, I’m not supposed to be up there until next week, you were supposed to save the drunken fights until then!