A Terrib(ly Perplexing) Experience: Museum of Jurassic Technology

In early May, I found a dead bird on my back porch.

Naturally, I Googled the circumstance to see if it portended terrible things to come. All interweb forums pointed to "yes." And if the subsequent three months of my life were submitted as evidence they, too, would support this verdict.

But fear not, dear readers. I think I've found a way to reverse my ill fortune:

All I need to do is find a baby. And spit on it.

This, according to the superstitions exhibit at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a place full of dioramas, optical illusions and broken Rube Goldberg contraptions. Where I also learned:

• Mouse pie will cure stammering.
• A baby's caul (you know, the fetal membrane covering the head at birth) will give you second sight. Especially if it's your own, and you carry it with you in a small box til the day you die.
• If one of the groom's shoes is untied at the wedding ceremony, he will have the power to loosen the "virgin zone."

Imagine yourself among all this and then add a soundtrack of elegiac classical music, operatic singing, thunder, lightning, and tortured screams, wafting from various exhibits and mingling together into a sonic cocktail of foreboding and unease. It's like a children's museum commissioned by the Dharma Initiative.

Other intriguing, if unsettling exhibits include:

• Painted portraits of all of the dogs that have died in space.
  
• Failed dice.
  
• Cat's Cradle how-to holograms (Accompanied by recordings of women speaking in tongues.)
  

And, of great personal interest:

• Dioramas of history's most notable Trailer Homes (complete with the requisite car-on-blocks)

Thankfully, the staff is humane enough to offer complimentary tea and cookies on the top floor. All of that befuddlement will wreak havoc on your blood sugar.

You are in for a Terrible Experience. Sorry.

Los Angeles is a lot more tolerable now that I have a backyard. I love the great outdoors, and now I've got them. The only downside to all of this is the yardwork, which occasionally leads to a startling encounter with wildlife. Like the squirrel who lives under the bamboo leaves. Or the moth that flew out of the bougainvillea and onto my face. Or the bird that died on my porch steps.

Oh yes -- today, I found an ant-covered dead bird on my back porch steps.

Several questions immediately came to mind: How did it die? Where did it come from? What does this mean for me? Is this an omen, portending terrible things to come?

I asked Google. And I found someone faced with more or less the same situation, who had posted his concerns to Yahoo! answers and gotten the following response:

"You are in for a terrible experience. Sorry."

Thanks, T-Luv. You fucking asshole.

Human. Animal. HumanAnimal.

You might want to be sitting down for this.

Researchers at Newcastle University in England claim to have created human-animal hybrid embryos.

The embryos were created by injecting DNA from human skin cells into cow eggs.

Yup.

Rest assured, they only lasted three days. And Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority mandates that all surviving embryos be destroyed after 14 days.

What if these embryos matured? Would they be hunted, caged, kept as pets? Would they be endowed certain inalienable rights? Would we declare a human-animal hybrid history month, honoring history's most prolific human-animal hybrids? Possible candidates:

The Centaur

The Cowardly Lion

Bush/Chimpanzee

By Faith, not by Reason: Cabazon Dinosaurs

If you've ever driven to Palm Springs during daylight hours, chances are you've seen the World's Biggest Dinosaurs at a little truck stop called Cabazon.

But have you been recently? You know, since it was appropriated in 2005 by the Institute for Creation Research and turned into an intelligent design propoganda farm?


[Reggie in the mouth of a creationist T Rex]

It sneaks up on you. First, there's a suspicious sign outside asking "is evolution true?" Then, you walk into the gift shop, and notice the Jesus books among the dino lit. Then, you realize all the children's t-shirts bear the motto "By Design, Not by Chance." *Shudder*

Further investigation reveals that the gift shop is constructed around the following ideological framework:

1. Dinosaurs are simply too fucking awesome to have been generated by some chance event like natural selection; thus, they must have been designed by God

2. This one fossil of a so-called "early human" was made up; thus, all fossils of so-called "early humans" might also be made up

3. The ever-popular "God said he created every living thing in the Bible, duh, and the Bible is true because God wrote it."

Yes, and you can read it all on their website. I present, for your consideration, a passage from their online reading materials:

"The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs “ruled the Earth” for 140 million years, died out 65 million years ago, and therefore weren’t around when Noah and company set sail on the Ark around 4,300 years ago.

However, the Bible gives a completely different view of Earth (and therefore, dinosaur) history. As God’s written Word to us, we can trust it to tell the truth about the past. (For more information about the reliability of Scripture, see Q&A: Bible.)

The Bible records the genealogies from Adam to Christ. From the ages given in these lists (and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth around 2,000 years ago), we can conclude that the universe is only a few thousand years old (perhaps just 6,000), and not millions of years old (see also The earth: how old does it look? especially under Jesus and the age of the world). Thus, dinosaurs lived within the past few thousand years."

Good God in Heaven!

If only the processes of natural selection hadn't been documented. (Finches, anyone? Antibiotic-resistant bacteria?)

To conclude: The mailing address listed on the website is a P.O. Box. Creepy.

When Ostriches Attack

During a road trip through Texas in 2005, my traveling companion and I stopped at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, a drive-through safari just north of San Antonio, seven miles west of I-35. For the price of $15.50, visitors receive a bag of feed and the go-ahead to drive through a few hundred acres of wild animals with the car windows rolled down.

It was here that I learned an invaluable rule; a rule I am socially obligated to pass on to my fellow Americans in the event they find themselves on an "African Safari - Texas Style:"

Never let an ostrich approach your car while the windows are open and your passenger has a bag of feed sitting on his lap.

Because that ostrich will stick its ugly head right through that open window and nip at that bag, wherever it may lie.

Luckily, we escaped unscathed, thanks to the swift acceleration of my Ford Focus. Perhaps I would have been more cautious if I had read this Wiki first -- How to Survive an Encounter with an Ostrich.

Read. Take note.

UFO Sighting: Can a Few Dozen Texans Be Wrong?

A few dozen people claim to have spotted a UFO in Stephenville, Texas.

Residents say a giant, low-flying object zoomed silently across their night sky on several different occasions in the past few weeks.

The object was reported to be a mile long and a half mile wide. Some say it was followed by fighter jets.

Can a few dozen people be wrong? Or could it just be a case of (God-fearing) mass hysteria?

The Science behind Spirit Boards

Now that the worst of the wildfires are over (we hope), let's get back to
science and the supernatural.

Maybe carbon monoxide poisoning, infrasounds and paranoia aren't enough to explain the sights and sounds that accompany hauntings. Maybe you, like 33 percent of Americans, believe these are, in fact, caused by the spirits of the dead. How might one reach out and communicate with these spirits?

Through Ouija Boards, of course.

Ouija boards -- also known as "talking boards" or "spirit boards" -- are flat boards bearing letters, numbers and symbols. These boards often come with message indicators, or planchettes; when people rest their fingers lightly on a message indicator, it moves around the Ouija board and spells out messages that some say come from the dead.

Although some believe that spirits control the planchette, others say there is a simple scientific explanation for this movement: the ideomotor effect. The ideomotor effect is the body's involuntary and unconscious response to psychological stimuli. (Crying, for example, is attributed to the ideomotor effect). Scientists say that Ouija board users may be moving the planchette even though they think they're not exerting any pressure on it. This movement would be more pronounced if more than one person had their fingers on the planchette.

For some interesting history on the Ouija board, check out the Museum of Talking Boards.

If you're interested in hearing some Ouija board stories, check out graveaddiction.com



The word "Ouija" is now copyrighted by Parker Brothers. If you're interested in buying your own gateway to Hell, you can find it here.

Is Carbon Monoxide Making us Mental?

Everyone seems tense here at the Annenberg School, and at first I thought it had something to do with an impending lecture from She Who Must Not Be Named (yes, the Young Republicans have arranged for her to speak here in an hour, and the Los Angeles Police Department has already combed the building for bombs), but then I wondered if the fires are to blame for everyone's headaches, fatigue and general malaise.

Then I remembered that while researching the science behind ghostly phenomena, I ran into an interesting fact about carbon monoxide -- that "Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause powerful auditory and visual hallucinations, depression, and a generalized sensation of illness and dread, was recognized as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921."

Sure enough, one of the gases released by mass quantities of burning homes is carbon monoxide.


Could we all be suffering from a case of mild carbon monoxide poisoning?

***

Which one of these puts you most ill at ease?

A.



B.




C. All of the above

Smells Like Burning

We're surrounded by fire.



The sky was pale orange yesterday morning and heavy with carcinogens by the time I got out of class last night. The air smelled like ground beef roasted on a tire fire.

As I drove home with watering eyes and the occasional hacking cough, I wondered, how are these wildfires affecting my health?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoke from wildfires contains gases and fine particles that can "hurt your eyes, irritate your respiratory system, and worsen chronic heart and lung diseases."

Fabulous.

Once I got home, I visited the SignOnSanDiego fire blog to check the fate of Rancho Bernardo, a small community northeast of San Diego where my aunt and uncle live. They had to evacuate on Monday, when the Witch Fire tore through the area. Last night, city officials released a list of the homes destroyed in Rancho Bernardo.

Can you imagine finding your address on this list?

Luckily, none of the homes on Pacato Circle South were mentioned.

But the fire did raze an entire neighborhood about a mile north of where she lives, and about 200,000 acres of adjacent land.

As an arborphile, I have to admit that what bothers me most about wildfires is not the loss of homes, but the loss of vegetation. Earlier this year, 800 acres of Griffith Park went up in flames. I hoped that my favorite spot in the park (and one of my favorite spots in Los Angeles), a grove of tall squirrel-filled evergreens, had been spared. But, when I returned to the park to visit the Griffith Observatory last month, I learned that, indeed, it hadn't.

Now that large swaths of San Diego county have been destroyed, I wonder, how long will it take to grow back?

So far, I haven't found a conclusive answer.

But I did learn that fire can help foster biodiversity in some ecosystems, and that fire actually assists in the reproduction in certain plants, such as the lodgepole pine, whose cones "are sealed with resin until fire melts it away and releases the seeds."

Hmm.

Ghosts . . . or Pareidolia?

All right, so we've determined what happens to your body once you die, so let's move on to more mysterious matters:

Ghosts.

Some say that if you die a particularly traumatic death then you might emit enough electromagnetic energy to imprint a lasting image at the location of your departure, which may pop up at certain instances in the future often enough to constitute a haunting...

...or not.

Possible scientific explanations for ghostly phenomena:

• Sound -- Frequencies lower than 20 hertz are inaudible, but they can cause people to feel a "presence" in the room, or "unexplained feelings of anxiety or dread"


• Carbon Monoxide -- carbon monoxide poisoning can cause auditory and visual halluncinations and general malaise.


• Air pressure changes -- can cause doors to slam, or houses to creak.


• Pareidolia -- "a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant."

Well. Whatever you think it is, consider this:

My friend's father claims that this picture was taken with a digital camera he locked in a safe while he was out of the country.

Fake? Real?

You tell me.

FIRE!

We interrupt GBD's Month of the Dead to bring you . . .

WILDFIRES!



Severe drought + Santa Ana winds/ Downed power lines = Apocalypse

Back to Basics (or not): Body Decomposition and Soap Mummies

Before we get into ghosties and ghoulies and the walking dead, let's start with the basics:

Death.

(This is not a real corpse)

According to Webster's, death is a permanent cessation of all vital functions, the end of life, the state of being dead, the destroyer of life represented usually as a skeleton with a scythe (when capitalized).

Our body's cells die when they stop receiving oxygen. This happens one of two ways - our hearts stop beating and circulating oxygen through our blood stream, or we stop breathing and bringing new oxygen into our lungs.

The first cells to go are the ones that need the most oxygen: the ganglionic cells of the central nervous system (including the retinal ganglion cells, the cells in the eye that transmit visual information to the brain. Perhaps this is why we "see the light" in our final moments?). Once the cells of the brain stem die, any respiratory or circulatory function that remains will cease.

Once our cells are dead, they no longer produce the energy that warms our bodies, so our temperature drops (algor mortis). Our blood, no longer propelled by our hearts, succumbs to the force of gravity and pools in the areas closest to the ground (livor mortis). Our muscle tissue, without oxygen, stiffens (rigor mortis). Every now and then, biochemical reactions can cause our dead arms and legs to twitch. And, according to the BBC, "On the odd occasion, when these gases reverberate against the vocal cords, noises may even be produced."

AHHHH!

Then the real fun begins: decomposition.


Once our white blood cells are dead, they can no longer combat the bacteria that live in our bodies. So, these bacteria grow and begin to break down internal tissues. This biochemical process releases gases that bloat the body and produce that lovely rotten corpse smell. Eventually, the bacteria will break all of the tissue down until only a skeleton remains.

Unless, a lot of water is involved and the corpse becomes too acidic for bacteria to feed. If that happens, "the body fat remains as adipocere, a yellowish-white, greasy, waxy substance which smells of cheese, earth and ammonia. This substance floats on water, dissolves in hot alcohol and ether, and when burned produces a faint yellow flame."

Whoa!

The transformation of body fat into soap-like adipocere is called saponification, and it is especially common in corpses with a lot of fat (obsese corpses, infant corpses) or any and all corpses that have been laid to rest in air-tight caskets in moist ground.

Translation:

"Many - and perhaps most- dead bodies interred within USA and Canadian cemeteries during the past century are still largely intact, 'down there' - and it's all due to adipocere formation. The grisly image of millions of buried and entombed soap mummies might not be serene, but it is apparently a shocking reality."

I won't force the evidence upon you, but if you're interested in knowing what these look like, click here.

I, personally, do not want to be a soap mummy. I want to be left out to rot on the open acres of the University of Northern Iowa's Body Farm in Tennessee.

Don't you?

Shadowlands: Ghosts on the Internets

Back in my Tarot card-reading quasi-Goth years, my favorite site on the Internets was Shadowlands, the web's finest collection of *true* ghost stories (some interesting, some incoherent).

There's also ample information about ghost hunting.

This was one of my favorite sites when I first got the 'net in '95. As you can see, it's still very Web 1.0.



Specter. . . or Photoshop?

Month of the Dead

Ahhh, October. The temperatures are cooler. The days are shorter. I can finally move the Halloween decorations out of my bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. And my roommates can't say one damn thing about it.

I love this month.

Ever wonder where Halloween came from? Well, according to the History Channel, our modern day Halloween descended from the Celtic celebration of Samhain, which fell on October 31st, the last day of the Celtic new year:

"This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes."

So the transition of October 31st from November 1st is so spiritually significant the worlds of the LIVING and the DEAD are permeable! Fitting, then, that at this moment, I came into the world! Mwahaha ahaha! aAH! ahAHAH!

(I was born at 5 a.m. on November 1st)

In honor of this (un)holy moment, Go Be Delighted will feature fun facts about specters and corpses and other terrifying horribleness through the remainder of October. Scurrred yet?

The Most Dangerous Roads in the World

Over the weekend, I read Paul Theroux's account of driving through Tibet and was reminded of an interesting post on darkroastedblend.com about the Most Dangerous Roads in the World.

Check 'em out.

The Day After Tomorrow

What does global warming have in store for the US?

Massive storms in the Midwest!
Hail the size of baseballs!
More lightning in the West . . . and more fires!

This forecast is brought to you by NASA.

Countdown: Halloween

My favorite holiday, Halloween, is only two months away!

I wanted to apply to be a Knott's Halloween Haunt Monster, but I have class on Wednesday nights. Oh well - maybe next year.

As for the costume, I'm going to attempt to pull off Trixie from Deadwood. If anyone knows where I can find 19th century whore garb, let me know.

Vivo el waterpark abandonado fuera de Las Vegas.

GoBeDelighted will be on hiatus for a few days while Christine and I travel to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

Yes, I'm looking forward bronzing my skin in the 108 degree F air and stealing more old science textbooks from the Tropicana, but I'm also looking forward to showing Christy the abandoned waterpark that sits on 1-15, halfway to Vegas.



The former Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark was opened near man-made Lake Dolores in Newberry, California in 1962. According to this long-winded Wikipedia entry, it was one of the earliest waterparks in the United States, and its adjacent resort was popular with the motocross and water sports crowd. The park closed in the late 1980s after bad management, and what's left of it is scheduled to be torn down and replaced by homes in the very near future.

Apparently, if you actually get off I-15 to check out the park, you will be greeted by a cranky old man in a truck and/or a pack of dogs who will shoo you away from the "private property." As one survivor reports:"it was like a horror movie - or at least an episode of Scooby-Doo."

Cat Predicts When Patients Will Die

From the AP:

Twenty-five recently deceased patients at a Rhode Island nursing home spent their last moments with Oscar the cat, who only curls up next to people who are within four hours of death.

Gah!

Scene: Our Childless Future

(A Jewish son is test-driving a Prius. His non-Jewish GF is in the passenger seat. His Jewish Mom and a Toyota Dealer are in the back seats. The son is deciding between a Toytoa Corolla and a Prius.)



Dealer: "One thing you should consider, if you're single, is if you're planning on getting married or having kids in the next three to five years."

GF: *shakes head vehemently* "that won't be happening."

Mom: "No Kids?"

GF: "No kids."

Mom: "Wait . . . ever?"

GF: *silence*

Mom: "Wait, (Son), I thought we discussed this. You'd have kids and raise them Jewish" *nervous laughter*

GF: (Repeats) "No kids."

Mom (to GF): "I don't like you anymore. Where's the eject button?"*silence fills the car*

Mom (to GF): I was just kidding. I still like you. I don't want my son to call me later and tell me I hurt your feelings."

GF: "It's okay."

Mom: "Really, I'm just kidding."

GF: "I'm not."

Mom: "No kids?"

GF: "No kids."

Dealer: "Well, anyway, it's just one thing to think about . . ."

~End scene~