April 2010
1 post
SOME LIKE IT HOT
Being blown to bits on a column of fire isn’t the first worry that enters our pretty little heads at night. After all, only about 10 percent of the earth’s population lives within fire-spitting distance of its approximately 1,500 active volcanoes. But for those brave, some might say foolhardy few, it’s a good idea to sleep light and keep the running shoes by the bed. Volcanoes, simply put, are...
February 2010
1 post
ON THE ROCKS
So, how did the climatologist spot the world’s smallest glacier? Good ice sight! We hear the groans and we don’t blame you a bit. Just a little ice-breaker… every pun intended.
Small is not what first comes to mind when considering glaciers, but whether they are a few hundred meters across, or as is the case with the Lambert Glacier in Antarctica which, at 250 miles long and 60...
December 2009
1 post
LADIES, PLEASE!
Some see it as a positive result of third-wave feminism, while others think it is just another example of the seemingly unquenchable thirst we have for public displays of brutish manners and train-wreck spectacle. WHATEVAH!, as the bad girls say. There is no doubt that the four-wheeled, all-female, rough-and-tumble sport known as Roller Derby is back.
Grassroots-organized regional teams are...
October 2009
1 post
THINK INK
We humans seem to be the only species with an overwhelming desire to decorate our skin. Since Adam and Eve donned those fig leaves, we have come up with increasingly strange ways to alter, if not improve upon, nature’s offerings.
Ink, work, tats - or for those of us less lingo-hip… tattooing. It is an ancient practice. Otzi the Iceman, a fellow who lived about 7,000 years ago, emerged from a...
July 2009
1 post
PUCKER UP, BUTTERCUP!
Kissing, as any pre-adolescent human will tell you with one “yuck,” appears to be one of the oddest of all the odd behaviors in which our species indulges. What would make two sane, healthy people expose themselves to each other’s germs so willingly? Turns out, there is a kiss for just about any emotion, including hate, envy, deceit and greed. Google Judas Iscariot. There was a fellow from...
May 2009
1 post
HEAD 'EM UP, MOVE 'EM OUT
Slouched in the saddle, squinting into the sunset. Nothing evokes the spirit of the West like the slow-talking, bowlegged, courtly cowboy. He has become, along with the Bald Eagle and that green lady in New York Harbor, an icon of American independence and courage. Fact is, our most American of occupations owes its fashions and customs to the Spanish Conquistadors. The very name itself is an...
March 2009
1 post
FEED 'EM, DON'T EAT 'EM
It’s what you might call the “awwww factor” – that irresistible urge to go all mushy and start cooing at any tiny, defenseless creature. We all know the advantages of being cute. It keeps you safer on the playground, and, in the case of bear cubs and puppy dogs, might make your mother love you enough to forbid your father from having you for a cocktail snack. Cute is as effective...
February 2009
1 post
GET FRESH!
Remember how when you used to drop a tomato on the kitchen floor it went splat instead of bounced? Or consider that indefinable difference in taste of the chicken factory bird as opposed to the cluckers who strutted freely and dined on fat worms and beetles on Grandpa’s lower 40. If you, like Oliver Douglas, yearn for the fresh air of Green Acres and the grow-your-own experience, then...
December 2008
1 post
HEAD 'EM UP
In a fast-paced modern environment, a little verbal shorthand is a good thing. Suffixes like “ish,” “esque” and “wise” are used to describe what could take a whole paragraph otherwise. And consider the double-click generation, with their OMGs and LOLs making text messaging and IMing much easier on weary fingers. Then there’s that word “head,”...
October 2008
1 post
LITTLE OLE NEW YORK
The Biggest! The Most! The Best! Try bragging on your own hometown to a New Yorker, and see how far you get. Well, there must be something to all that swaggering civic pride or what are 40 million tourists per year gawking at?
Manhattan Island, the heart of New York City, is just 13 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, but there are about 1,600,000 people bustling about. That works out to be...
September 2008
1 post
HOT TIME ON THE OLD GLOBE
Imagine palm trees draped with pythons in Central Park. Picture yourself being rowed down Hollywood Boulveard by a gondolier from a country that no longer exists. The time may come when summer vacation is taken in Antarctica, where tall pines whisper and cool breezes blow. Of course you’ll have to make your reservations about 20 years in advance. It’s the new hot destination and,...
July 2008
1 post
HEY, YOU LOOKIN' AT ME?!
Did you ever croon “Feelings” into one of those little cameras on an elevator and later wonder if the security guy had his wife in stitches over dinner at your expense? Between homeland security, spyware and the nosy next-door neighbor, it is a good bet that for part of your day you are being closely watched by means as varied as peeking over the fence, wiretapping or computer...
April 2008
1 post
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME
Having your teeth drilled can seem to take an eternity, while 60 minutes on a massage table passes by so quickly you wonder if you should be charged for the whole hour. Albert Einstein explained it this way, “Two events taking place at the points A and B of a system K are simultaneous if they appear at the same instant when observed from the middle point M, of the interval AB.” Get it? Few...
March 2008
1 post
SHOW AND TELL
From the ancient masterpieces of art crowding the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to the painstaking recreation of Britney Spears’ childhood bedroom in Louisiana’s aptly-named Britney Spears Museum, one might be left wondering how we got from point A to B.
Exhibiting the accomplishments (and sometimes plunder) of society began with the so-called “wonder room,” where wealthy collectors would offer...
November 2007
1 post
DA-DUM, DA-DUM...
Made famous by the movie Jaws, the great white shark has become the source of nightmares. With close to 3,000 flesh-ripping teeth, the great white can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh as much as 7,000 pounds. Statistics tell us that one is more likely to be killed by lightning or an infected Chihuahua bite than by a shark. Still, is there anyone who wouldn’t prefer either of these untimely ends...
September 2007
1 post
ARCHING ALONG
Although we tend to take these ancient curved structures for granted, arches are marvels of design that carry a lot of weight. Often employed to support heavy architecture or represent equally heavy ideals, the arch has also been used for everything from selling hamburgers to saving souls. Among the most recognizable logos on the planet is the infamous set of “Golden Arches,” first introduced...
July 2007
1 post
Z IS FOR ZEBRA
Concerning zebras, there exists a fundamental question… Why the stripes? This obvious inquiry reveals a head-scratching conundrum. As it turns out, the stripes are camouflage. Huh? Bold black and white stripes on something that wants to keep a low profile? Well, it doesn’t matter that the lines of tall grass in which the zebra seeks refuge are yellow, brown or green. You see, the...
May 2007
1 post
UP IN LIGHTS!
Your name in lights! Come on, admit it. You’ve fantasized about it at least once. Remember that teacher who doubted you’d ever amount to much? Didn’t your revenge wish include a scene in which she gazes awestruck at a big billboard upon which just your first name (you’ve become that famous) flashes red-hot against a star-lit sky? Nothing heals a wounded ego like your name spelled out in...
April 2007
1 post
BATS IN THE BELFRY
In a world where big, burly men screech like schoolgirls in the night, where elegant ladies are driven mad by leathery-winged creatures in their expensively-coiffed hairdos… There is no escaping the horror! CHIROPTOPHOBIA: The Movie!
No, it’s not a thriller about vampire chiropractors loosed on the unaligned spines of the public… it’s about rabid, blood-sucking, flying...
March 2007
1 post
IT'S MONUMENTAL!
Pigeon droppings aside, most of us would jump at the chance to have a statue erected in our honor. True, having one’s self perpetuated in stone or bronze does not necessarily ensure eternal veneration. Times and heroes change. Statues of Lenin in the former Soviet Union are as scarce as, well, statues of Lenin in the former Soviet Union. And we all remember the soldiers wrapping Old Glory...
February 2007
1 post
DOWN TO EARTH
We all live under gravity’s power with varying degrees of acceptance. If you don’t believe it, dust off your high school yearbook, then take a long look at yourself in the mirror. Chances are you’ll find proof positive of gravity’s relentless pull.
Rocket scientists, mystics and cosmetic surgeons have one common goal. Whether off to the moon, levitating or nipping and tucking, success...
January 2007
1 post
MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS
A dry subject, you might think, and literally you would be right. While the Inuit people have hundreds of words for snow, the North Africans have one word for all that sand - Sahara, which means desert in Arabic. The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert and second largest desert after Antarctica. It is 2.5 million years old and covers an area in North Africa almost as large as the United...
December 2006
1 post
WHY YOU BUGGIN'?
Why do otherwise peaceful people go on a killing spree at the first sign of anything creeping and crawling? While it may be that primitive man screeched and ran at the sight of a roach, psychologists tell us that fear of bugs came about as human hygiene improved. Granted no one likes to be stung, whether by a wasp or an overly critical relative, but it seems that as we got cleaner we became...
November 2006
1 post
CUBA, CARS & CIGARS
Sure, there are frequent blackouts, and public restrooms aren’t stocked with toilet paper, but where else might one see newlyweds swanning the streets in a Ford Edsel convertible with the bride’s train fanned out over the trunk? Who says Marxists aren’t stylish?
Roughly the size of Pennsylvania, Cuba’s main island is the 16th largest in the world. Originally named Cubanascan by natives, the...
September 2006
1 post
RISKY BUSINESS
Sure, a mongoose will take on a cobra, but it is doubtful that either creature is having any fun. People, however, get a kick out of being scared. All over the world, otherwise sensible individuals pay hard-earned money to engage in death-defying acts of seeming folly just to fight that old ennui of Cole Porter fame.
BASE jumping, heli-skiing and big wave surfing are a few of the extreme...
August 2006
1 post
IF YOU SCRATCH MY BACK...
Symbiosis may sound like an incurable disease, but our trusty dictionary defines the word as “the consorting together, usually in mutually advantageous partnership, of dissimilar organisms.” Now, the organisms we are considering here are not congressmen and lobbyists. It is natural symbiosis that we at FootageBank HD document.
The oxpecker bird perches on large mammals, such as buffalos and...
July 2006
1 post
SEEING RED
Red was the first color we humans evolved to recognize. After all, it is the color of blood and fire. Any mistake about either would have had unhappy consequences as our ancestors went about the precarious business of surviving. Our response to red is hard-wired.
Every red-blooded Romeo knows the association of red with romance. The male ruby-throated hummingbird entices a mate by dangling...
June 2006
1 post
HOLY COW!
You’ve heard it said that nothing is sacred? We at FootageBank HD disagree. In fact, our library brims over with evidence to the contrary.
Sacred status is often found in the eye of the beholder. Witness the move in Congress to ban flag-burning. For some pagans, the earth is a sacred place. The Bible, the Veda and the Koran – each text is sacred to Christians, Hindus and Muslims,...
April 2006
1 post
A FETISH FOR FEET
Whether we’re walking over a bed of hot coals or teetering on the red carpet in a pair of Manolos, our feet are fundamental. Evidence for human feet dates back 3.5 million years to the tracks of three upright ancestors who hotfooted it through volcanic ash. 70 million years before that, as primates took to the trees, feet became touch-sensitive and skilled for climbing and grasping. We...
March 2006
1 post
AN EMBARRASSED BEAST
Forget the pleasingly-plump-but-graceful, tutu-wearing hippo of Disney fame. An African legend relates that the creator fashioned the hippo from leftover parts at the end of the day. Embarrassed by its appearance the hippo asked to live hidden underwater. The creator refused, afraid that the giant would consume all the fish in the rivers. As a compromise, the hippo agreed to spread its dung...