Weekly Weird April 23rd-29th (Books, Ball Lightning, GIFs and Possible Giants)

April 23rd

Today is World Book Day, and so I decided to poll my Mod team for their favorite books. Personally I love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, but I was curious about everyone else.

Mouse - [Couldn’t decide– too many options!]

David - The Dispossessed (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Cal- Pluto (Naoki Urasawa)

Ariel - Matilda (Roald Dahl)

Kevin - House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski)

Joey- Sam and Max: Surfin' the Highway (Steve Purcell)

Pim- Aesop's Fables (Aesop)

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April 24rd

Today is a Grab-bag day, but I'm taking it for myself.

Last month me and the rest of the rest of the WSTH Mods in my area went to the big city to see They Might Be Giants in concert. Now TMBG is my favorite band, and I've seen them twice before, and once again they delivered a once in a lifetime concert. It was a show where they played all of the band's most popular album, Flood. This made the show perfect for those on the mod team not yet a few thousand songs down the TMBG rabbit hole, but they still had a lot of fun favorites for those of us with IFC cards in our wallets.

Aside from the entirety of Flood, they also played some songs from their new album, Book. Much to my delight, They even played Brontosaurus, my favorite song on the new album. Next to that, I was really glad to hear Authenticity Trip, Man it's So Loud In Here, and Doctor Worm among other songs.

This show was at a new venue then the band usually frequents, and Both Johns made plenty of jokes about it. Linnell in particular stated the venue reminded him of "That movie with the lady and the killing". He later remembered he was thinking of the Hunger Games, a fictional dystopian deathmatch, that Linnell then claimed he survived despite it being more violent in real life than in the books. Other banter highlights include the band trying to figure out which of them was Gilgamesh, them admitting the first time They were booked for the Variety playhouse They initially confused it for the Varsity, and apparently Flansy lived in Atlanta in the 80s and didn't like it.

I will say we left after the first encore so we didn't catch the last two songs on the setlist, but it was getting really close to 11 at that point, and we had 6 people for an hour drive. That being said, Fingertips was the perfect way to end the night in my book. All in all I'm looking forward to the next time they swing around Atlanta, probably for their next album that's already been confirmed to be in production.

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April 25th

Today is the birthday of the fictional superhero Batman. I'm not going to pretend I don't like Batman. I'm most familiar with the characters animated outings, with my top Batman things I'm familiar with being the following: Batman The Animated Series and the DC Animated Universe that popped up around it; Batman The Brave and The Bold, which gets really in depth with the DC superheroes that get featured; and the Lego Batman movie, which is a fun deconstruction of the characters’ concepts.

While Adam West and Christian Bale are considered particularly notable actors to have played the Bat, to be honest my favorite actor to play Batman is the late Kevin Conroy, who voiced Batman in Batman The Animated Series. Even though this article is coming out months after his sudden passing, I am writing this article in November and I don't know how I couldn't mention it in this article. I can't say I met him, but I can say, being familiar with his work, he clearly put a lot of heart into his performances and everything I've heard about him paints him as a remarkably kind and loving individual. Batman was his biggest role and he really made one of the most popular characters in modern pop culture his own. He will be missed dearly, to say the least.

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April 26th

Today I'm going to say screw it! I'm making up a holiday! I declare April 26th Glitter GIF day. A holiday for glitter GIFs. Celebrate it by sending everyone you know a glittery GIF today. The more overly ornate the better. Make some glitter GIFs if you know how.

Part of why I'm going to try to do this is just to see if I can. Could I get other people to join me in my efforts to honor a simple yet sentimental form of art? Because even if they can be a bit kitsch, there's just something nice about a little animation that's supposed to be as pretty as possible wishing you a good day or happy birthday or good night or feel better soon. Or no words, maybe it's a cute animal or flowers or nature. Regardless I want to honor the flashy beauty of animated glittering butterflies wishing me a happy Tuesday.

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April 27th

Today is a grab bag day, take it away Ariel:

Hiiiiii! Welcome to Ariel with the Weather, one of your new grab bag specials!

You may be surprised to learn that I actually know quite a bit about meteorological phenomena. Meteorology, or the study of the atmosphere, allows us to make accurate forecasts of the weather. You’re gonna learn a great deal from me—how clouds evolve, what specific clouds mean, signs of a tornado, types of lightning and other luminous events, why you can’t chase the end of a rainbow, and much more! Your newfound knowledge could save you in the most dire situations, or just give you fun facts for small talk.

Our very first article is a personal request from Tom—ball lightning. Because honestly, what could be better than kicking off with a mysterious, rare anomaly?

Ball lightning is a currently unexplained phenomenon related to lightning, occurring during electrical storms. What differentiates it from your average bolt of lightning is, firstly of course, the fact it is indeed described as spherical, but also that it purportedly lasts seconds to even minutes longer than a bolt. It is said to hover through the air, often mere inches above the ground.

There are many characteristics ascribed to ball lightning, some of which may seem a little contradictory, but that’s just how weird and understudied this lightning is! Ball lightning commonly presents as a luminous orb of light with fuzzy outer edges, making it appear as though it doesn’t quite fit in with its surroundings. The orb can be smaller than your fist or as large as a grapefruit, perhaps even larger. Sometimes these orbs come in through open windows, or materialize right next to windows—even indoors! Stranger still, some witnesses claim they have seen ball lightning phase through solid walls and doors. Ball lightning tends to have erratic, wandering trajectories, making their paths unpredictable—however, they reportedly have been seen actively avoiding objects, as though they have sentience. This could be a trick of electromagnetic fields, but who’s to say? In some cases the lightning actually merges onto a power line or cord and runs down the length before causing a blow-out.

The manner of which ball lightning dissipates varies between accounts. Some claim the orbs will explode violently in a blinding flash of light, which is the most dangerous way to go. This is often how people say they were injured by ball lightning—heck, there are even historical accounts of people getting killed if they got too close, such as the 1753 account of physicist Georg Richmann. Others say the orb quietly shrinks into thin air. If the orb doesn’t dissipate, you can sometimes find it making its way back into the sky, phasing through solids or flying through open passageways. Upon explosion, witnesses have said a nauseating odor was left behind—something between sulfur and overheating electrical devices.

People have mistaken other weather phenomena for ball lightning, such as transient luminous events (TLEs) and St. Elmo’s fire. These are distinctly different occurrences that are officially recorded.

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April 28th

Today in 1996, Cartoon Network got its first Cartoon Cartoon. Dexter's Laboratory was the first full series to come out of Cartoon Network's early animated anthology "What a Cartoon!", which was created with the intent of spawning new classic cartoon characters by giving aspiring animators a high level of creative freedom. Considering that the series contained the pilots of 7 future cartoon network shows, and even an early form of the show Family Guy, it's fair to say they succeeded.

Dexter's Lab was created by the now legendary animation director Genndy Tartakovsky, and is about a boy genius named Dexter, and his secret "la-bor-A-tor-E" (that's how Dexter says it). The thing is his attempts at invention are often thwarted by his older sister Dee Dee, his rival Mandark, or Dexter's own pride. This shows a classic, and it's definitely worth a rewatch. And maybe check out its original shorts while you're at it.

[A Note: I'm surprised you didn't talk about Rude Removal, the actually real and finished episode of Dexter's Lab where Dexter and Dee Dee spend most of the episode swearing like sailors. It never aired on Cartoon Network but it went around conventions for a decade before Adult Swim put it online]

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April 29th

Today is Viral Video Day. Viral videos are funny little videos you send to all your friends. At the tender age of 11 I watched my first viral video, that being Charlie The Unicorn, an odd and violent animated short I haven't thought about in years but I think it got a lot of sequels or something.

I also have to give some shout outs to some of my favorite viral videos from the golden age of YouTube: Trogdor, Rejected, ASDF Movie (I think I've only seen up to five though), that dramatic hamster, keyboard cat, do you like waffles by Parry Gripp (of Nerf Header), daft punk hands, Carameldansen. That's all my favorites off the top of my head.