May 7th
Today is the debut of the new May 2023 thumbnail. It's a lovely little floral illustration I'm pretty proud of. I'm trying new stuff with my art.
One thing I'm honestly kinda divided about is keeping old thumbnails on the site. On one hand it's nice to have the individual art, but the old thumbnails were really repetitive. Plus there's the issue of Tooby's site. I think some of the thumbnail placements hold some sort of significance. I don't think it's a code or anything but it's definitely not random.
I haven't talked about it a ton since it happened, but In late February I had a blast from my past take over my account and made bizarre webpages. It took some warped clipart and pictures from my computer I never intended to put on WSTH on the site, alongside all my thumbnails, and went wild. I honestly haven't looked at the tape's "contributions" to my site much since it happened, but Cal definitely has.
They said a lot of it gives them a better idea of what it is and what to expect if and when it comes back. Cal has Tooby in an involuntary hibernation, but it won't stay asleep forever. I don't count the days like I used to but sometimes I feel them catching up to me. I don't know what to do with myself except for what I was doing before. I do have hope I'll be able to figure this out before it wakes back up, but if not, I'm sure it will let you all know before I get a chance to.
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May 8th
Today is the anniversary of the first Mr. Driller game coming out on the PlayStation. While the game had existed in arcades beforehand, there's no date that I could find for those releases and I need to talk about this game's oddly specific lore. Anyway, this series was created by Hideo Yoshizawa, who's best known for creating the Ninja Gaiden series, as a spin off of the Dig-Dug arcade game.
Okay so here's where it gets juicy. Mr. Driller, in the game's lore, is Dig-Dug's biological son. Mr. Driller's mom is Masuyo "Kissy" Toby from Baraduke, a different Namco arcade game. The thing is that, after having three kids, Dig-Dug and Kissy got divorced. So Dig-Dug, the little arcade guy who blows up tiny underground monsters, is a divorced father. After this and the Ms. Pac-Man stuff, I guess Namco just likes taking away their little arcade guys' marriages.
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May 9th
Today is Tear The Tags off the Mattress Day. A day to tear away that "do not tear off this tag" tag off your mattress. A lot of people, mostly kids, but ya know, think this is illegal. This is a common misconception. The tag is only illegal to remove if the mattress hasn't been sold yet. The tag contains a list of what the mattress is made of and if the information is incorrect or missing the mattress vendor can be charged. That being said it does void any warranties on the mattress if you remove it so that's as useful to you as a mattress warranty would be.
It's a very mundane piece of information, but I've heard it discussed in person and in various media time and time again. The king of general topic wikis for massive nerds, TV Tropes, lists any instance of these tags being discussed as a "Mattress-Tag Gag", and I recommend you keep an eye out for fictional convicts who are doing time or on the lam over those tags. And be thankful that's not actually something you can be arrested for yourself, unless you are a mattress seller. If you are a mattress seller you now know better if you bizarrely didn't before.
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May 10th
Today is a grab bag article, today goes to Ariel and her lovely weather facts:
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 cantaloupe, 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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May 11th
Today is the anniversary of a beautiful animated art film. Fantastic Planet is a French-Czech adult (Read: there's artistic nudity and some violence) animated science feature film based on the French novel "Oms en série" (English: Oms Linked Together). It tells the story of a fantastic planet where humans, called Oms, are considered semi-domestic animals by Traags, a giant blue humanoid race with piercing red eyes and fins on their heads.
This is a beautiful art film, and it's considered by some to be one of the best movies ever made, animated or otherwise. It has a strong message and stronger visuals, lots of surreal aliens, astral projecting and everything that comes with it. If you want to watch a film that's truly a work of art, Fantastic Planet is a strong choice.
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May 12th
Today is the anniversary of another strange and weird toy. Made by Pollymeriz in 1982, Lunchbox Zoo were a series of animal food toys. Coming in actual lunchboxes, each would contain a set of 4 fantical food animal figurines, and a monocolor playset printed inside the lunchbox. The mascot figure of the line was the descriptively named "Apple Dog", who in particular was paired with "Sandwich Bird" , "Orange Juice Anteater", and "Pretzel Chameleon".
The toys were only on the market for 6 months, before the lunch box manufacturer Pollymeriz were partnered with got bought out by a rival company. They tried to sell the figures themselves under the name Lunch Zoo, but after two more months and a trademark issue the toy line was retired.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Any of these characters would make excellent usernames.]
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May 13th
Today is National Miniature Golf Day, and I honestly feel like with golf, smaller is better. I don't get the point of regular golf, but I'm big on the far more compact, fast, and fun spot of put-put. I know it's fun seeing how far you can make the ball go, but should that really take 18 different fields that can't be used for anything else you need a dedicated mini-car for. And it's the worst spot to watch.
Honestly I feel like most of my problems with golf are solved by minigolf, and if you put the money that goes Into a golf course into a minigolf course you would have a nice minigolf course. Also the fact that minigolf courses can have different themes and gimmicks, the biggest gimmick golf has is sand and the only themes are Scotland because that's where golf is from, sports or "I have money" beige. I'd take Aliens and or Cowboys to that any day.
Ball lighting is an incredible phenomenon
Man, golf sucks in so many ways. There's a reason I love speed golf so much honestly. Just imagine: Golf Speedrun. Look it up if you want, everything about it is great, fixes one of my biggest gripes with golf: IT'S SUPER SLOW! Also I found a new board game about mini golf, it's called carom mini golf, it's not out yet since last I checked (Kickstarter campaign, ugh), but it looks pretty cool!
wow you just keep bringing back memories about things i had for like a week as a kid before losing! i remember the lunchbox i had had absolutely none of the figurines left, and i think i lost it when i threw it into a river for....reasons i dont remember. im sure they were good ones though!
as for what you wrote about at the top... im always really impressed by just how much cal knows about things like this! like with that symbol they put all over the place... i wonder where i could learn things like that, or at least what book to read about it!!