Interval

All the life hides in the rocks, but sometimes I like to swim out away from the liminal colonies into the heart of the bay, where what lies beneath that barrier between above and below is sparse and empty. Above that open land I float, surrounded by a shifting jade which has no depth, no perspective, simply colour that surrounds me. Below, the sand is pale and whorled with the fingerprint of the waves, the same waves that lift me up and away from this, suddenly, and drop me back down to watch plumes of sand take flight, dance, settle in pattern anew. Untethered and orphaned seaweed waltz languidly across these little valleys and mountains, and amongst them too are carried comb jellies, their grand ball gowns torn apart by the waves and trailing in tattered skirts behind them. Although lifeless, the water still ruffles the tiny cilia of the hems, and when the sun, bent by the shape of the water, falls upon them, they throw rainbows like secrets. To touch them is to wonder if this, perhaps, it what it is to touch a ghost. A school of tiny silver fish dart away from me, but I am motionless, without hunger, and they come back to circle within my shadow. They light up, bright, pure, when skeins of sunlight catch them, and it is like watching lightning, small and sweet.

Feeling sharky. Feeling shitty.

Some days you're the Great White Muthafuckin' Shark, and some days you're a weeny little diver trapped in a tinfoil cage getting shat upon.

(This week I have not been the shark.)

(Nor the diver.)

(I am shit, and et by fishes.)

Undoing One of Many Mistakes; Triptych

"Well, this is the end. There isn't anymore. Now what do we do?"

"The only thing we can do: evolve."

"I think you mean 'devolve'."

"That is a matter of perspective. Anyway. Onward?"

"Onward."



"................Okay so the siphonophore thing didn't really work out."

"I won't say I told you so."

"Well if you're so clever why haven't I seen you in the sea? What did you devolve into?"



"A Golden Ray of course."

THIS IS NOT AN HONOURABLE DEATH

You may be aware that a holiday resort area in Egypt has been following the script of Jaws, with the beaches terrorised by massive man-eating shark who injured four and killed one.

The climax and defeat of the shark did not, as it were, continue to follow the script.

I'm not even going to post an excerpt, I'm copying the whole article and picture and dumping it right here, because, because...by Neptune I'm embarrassed for that poor shark. It's facing its ancestors right now.

Sharks Wary of Drunk Serbs

Thursday, 16 December 2010

Dragan Stevic of Serbia is the new Egyptian hero who killed a large shark which had previously terrorized numerous tourists (injured 4 and killed 1) at the famous Egyptian resort Sarm El Sheikh.

The Serbian hero was too drunk to remember what had happened, though one of his friends who witnessed the incident explained it all for the Belgrade based media.
Dragan Stevic was dubbed by the Egyptian media as "Shark El Sheikh" and thanked him for saving their tourist season.

Milovan Ubirapa, one of Stevic’s friend who witnessed the incident explained that Dragan had decided to go to the beach for a swim after a long night of drinking. As Dragan and his friends approached the beach, he saw a fairly high positioned jumping board utilized earlier in the day by divers.

“Dragan climbed on the jumping board, told me to hold his beer and simply ran to jump. There was no time for me to react or to try to stop him, he just went for it” says Milovan.
“Dragan jumped high and plunged down to the sea, but didn’t make as much splash as we thought he would”, explained Milovan.

The reason could be because Dragan Stevic ended up jumping straight on the shark which was lurking near the beach, probably looking for its next victim. Dragan had nailed it right in the head, killing it instantly. The Egyptian police found the shark washed out on the beach that morning (pictured above).

Dragan was able to swim to the shore and told his friends he had twisted his ankle, telling them the water was not that soft.
The water is soft buddy, you just landed on a shark. At the moment, the fearless hero is in a hospital recovering from alcohol poisoning. After Dragan gets well, he will get a chance to have some more drinks as the resort had awarded the Serb tourist with a free vacation for his heroic deed. // Pero Stamatovski

Possibly the best postcard I've ever received.

On the back here is an upside-down doodle of someone giving a heart a bear hug. Or shaken baby syndrome. They look quite similar.

At first glance, though, I thought it was a penis squid.




(Which, let us be honest, would be entirely in keeping with the senders.)

(Much love at you, you beastly wretches.)

The Apocalyptic Gulf

This has been linked widely in my reading circles.

There is nothing to say.

More Advice For Writers

Writing a story is like being a scientific explorer. The early stages of gestation, world-building, plot-noodling and then navigating your first draft are the heady days of discovery. You get to go new places, see new things, and generally, you'll be surprised at what is out there to be found.

And then you have to come out of the wilds, sit down, analyse, and present all your findings in the proper manner for peer review in an academic journal. You're still sifting through and surrounded by the treasures you've brought back, but it isn't the same. You're not out there.

There is a vast difference in the mindframes required to make the most of being an intrepid explorer (first draft), and being an analyst (revisions). They're very different hats.

When wearing the exploration hat, I look like this;



Slack-jawed, vacant-eyed, inert, and lost in the roiling miasma of my inspiration flatulence. I love brainstorming. World-building is a terrible crutch of mine. I get carried away with the shiny, with making things bigger and more ridiculous and fun, because the bigger, more ridiculous and fun the world is, the more interesting it will be to break, and then fix.

I'm supposed to be wearing the analyst hat.

Today, I put the explorer hat on. Not just once, but twice, on two stories that aren't even mine. My head just exploded and I had to thinkthinkthink, and I knew I shouldn't have started that way because I know that's like crack to me, but I did it, and now I'm screwed. I don't want to revise, I want to create! I want to go somewhere new!

But no. I am not bushbashing today. I am treading a known path. With a big stick. And I will not insert any dinosaurs into this short story. No. No I will not. Even if the mental strain required to refrain from doing so will squeeze my brain out through my sinuses. This story requires only a tweaking of balance. Dinosaurs are not tweaking.

Writers, beware. Never lose control of what hat you wear.

It's just that sort of a day.

Presents!Dénouement

You three are hilarious, heh. Best competition evah? Goodness yes. Sunken Russian nuclear submarines make the world a fabulous place to live in.

After much deliberating, the Committee of Me, Myself and I have reached a decision, and in this particular battle we name Aanimal as victor. The squid, shrimp and whales were excellent plans, but using the TSA to open the safe is a stroke of pure raw genius. It still makes me guffaw.

Aanimal, a postal address if you please!

But, such valiant and BLOODY OARSUM efforts should not go unrewarded. Mr Miller, Mr Moles, I do have in my possession copies of the previous issue of Weird Tales. If you wish it, give me a postal address and they're totally and utterly yours.

Now, you three need to go into business together, 'cause I see great potential for 'problem solving' here, and when your powers combine you are CAPTAIN PLANET you could rock the kazbah six ways from sunday. Would you like a project to start you off?



As found on the other 95%, this octopus uses both camouflage and imitation, which makes it a SEA NINJA. I'd like to order an army of these such beasties.

In red. I like red. Ooh, and purple. Yeah.

(Do you take credit?)

While this isn't NSFW, I don't think it's entirely SFW.

Gakked from Deep Sea News; a video of flat worms mating.

It's known as penis fencing, and the worms are the swordsmen. From the midsection of each flat worm, double daggers protrude. Each dagger is actually a penis.

Dude. Dude. I totally lol'd. Probably because I don't see a lot of difference between flat worm and human sex. The only difference being, half the population is unarmed.

Gakked from Zooillogix; seed beetles have the scariest penis in the world.

A new study of C. maculatus seed beetles has proven the worst case scenario for most men: size and in this case the number of painful, injuring spikes on their penises do in fact matter. The C. maculatus have a series of spikes and barbs on their members that, during sex, become embedded in their mates, acting as anchors of sorts.

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa...No comment. I don't need to comment. It speaks for itself.

Penis. Funny stuff.

Shall we talk about something else? I'm going to talk about my vagina. I HAVE MY PERIOD. A real, honest to goodness tides of blood period! I'm a real boy ovary storage cupboard!

This is my first proper period since going off the pill in September. Six months, if you're counting. Prior to this, I've had two other half periods, which weren't really periods, wimpy little messes they were, barely worth the effort. Bah. They came with no other symptoms either, just a mess.

This period I class as 'real' precisely because its coming was heralded by the Harbinger Headache, which wasted no time turning into a Muthafucking Migraine. Had another mild headache today.

Bugger. Was seriously hoping going off the pill would get solve the migraine issue. Oh well.

Have also been cramping, which is an entirely new and exciting experience. And by exciting, I mean uncomfortable. I am hoping these do not get worse with time.

Other than lacking the whole monthly bleeding from the vagina thing, going of the pill was a simply super move. Depressive traits have lessened. Somewhat. That they have lessened, but that I have not suddenly become a little ray of sunshine, indicates that I'm just stuck with this lousy personality. Oh well. It's worth it. Every little bit helps. Never ever ever ever ever ever going back on the pill. Which means condoms for the rest of my life. Oh well. It's worth it. It's so worth it. I bounce back faster. I let go quicker. I don't sink so fast. These things still happen, but it's worth it.

Tomorrow is a great day for a hangover.

and then the tide came in

Sleep didn't acknowledge me till 5am last night, and the hours were long and nothing on my iPod was what I wanted to listen to. I suspect that will be making itself felt shortly. At least, I hope so. It'd be nice to sleep at a reasonable (ie, before 3am) hour tonight.

Ah, Melbourne. It's a chilly night, the rain has been lashing against my window, and my fingers are too cold to type properly. A good night for sitting at home with multiple cups of tea and a movie. Or doing tax. Meh.

Before I disappear into that dungeon of bizarre financial questions I do not understand I will share with you some things.

First; the Red Paper Lantern Medusa (for which I can find no wikipedia page).



The above link is to a Pink Tentacle article, which includes a video of raw footage shot by JAMSTEC, starting with a medusa and including a UFO at 6:11 and a poor jelly with its tentacles snared in the sub.

The JAMSTEC videos suggest that a variety of sea creatures regard the red paper lantern medusa as a safe place to establish temporary residence. In the video, the developing larvae of shrimp and sea spiders can be seen hitching extended rides on the jellyfish.

“We didn’t expect to find such a variety of organisms attached to the jellyfish,” said Dr. Dhugal Lindsay. “Humans apparently are not the only ones attracted to red paper lanterns.”

So, apparently hitch-hiking on a jellyfish is the done thing these days.

And at Zooillogix: Piglet Squid. Looong at that picture, I have the irrational urge to squeeze the little tyke till it pops.

ETA: Estimated tax return of $6. It didn't take long though, so I am thankful.

Doom. Doom. And also? Doom.

Here we see the Jules Verne burning up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. I would like to think that I would be just as spectacular to behold, should I ever make it back to Earth.

And should I ever make it back to Earth, I would find empty oceans;



As pointed out by deep sea news, this is already true. Tuna is already near extinct, catfish are discovering the joys of human flesh, beautiful platinum arowana are held in small tanks and sold for £200,000, and oarfish get themselves caught out of deep water.

If I'm lucky, I'll burn up in the sky and never see this.

But it is already true.

Cheese. Pie.

Kirsten made me giggle, comparing this place to a candy shop, because of course I immediately thought of that godawful arrogant piece of shit song by that rap guy whose name I don't know, going on about candy shops and letting you lick the lollypop, which isn't even a metaphour. He's not even trying there. And seriously, it is not a privilege to give someone a head job.

Anyway, this isn't that sort of candy shop. You don't have to lick anything you don't want to.

Especially considering today's topic is worms. A new species discovered in the Caribbean, and here I'll quote Ugly Overload as I can't say it any better;

Nemerteans are primitive even for worms. They are hunters, and kill by shooting their proboscis into their prey like a stun gun. And, AND, they produce more slime than the infamous hagfish. Morgan has witnessed firsthand a nemertean worm being placed in a petrie dish, the worm then filling the dish with slime, and thereby sealing itself in. How's that for ugly?

I mean, you can lick that if you really want to...actually I wouldn't blame you if you're mistaken at first, because these worms are so pretty! They're bright little raver worms, high on snot.

I'm pretty sure I've exclamation pointed about sun fish before, so I'll just stick to sharing this photo;

Yeah. That sun fish fills a whole freaking carpark. It was hoisted into the Australian Museum through a window. Photo found here long with general info on the sun fish, and if you like dead squid dead whales dead fishy things, the flickr stream the photo came from is worth checking out too.

You could lick that, if you like, but there've been reports that sun fish float up on the surface so that seabirds can land on them and pick parasites off them. More than 40 species of parasites. I better stop reading up on them now, or I'll be regurgitating useless information all night. I love them, they're so bizarre and dumb and adorable. They eat jelly fish, you know, by sucking them in and spitting them out so they get all ripped and easy to swallow.

Speaking of eating, I attempted to eat a piece of cheese pie for dinner. The deli advertised it as home made, and it looked good. For future reference, don't eat cheese pie. You will not win.

Argh3ammustgotobedrightnow.

knit me to the bottom of the sea

Steve's morning trawl pulled up a knitted nudibranch, and in his infinite wisdom he passed it on to me, and my head exploded. It was very messy.

Further investigations revealed the existence of not just patterns for a knitted nudibranch, but for an angler fish and hermit crab also.





Which caused more head explosions.

Further patterns are available at hansigurumi's etsy shop, including and not limited to, puffer fish, cuttlefish, squid, octopus, praying mantis and the Loch Ness Monster.

(I love the idea of having a making a whole bunch of cuttlefish and then hanging them from the ceiling. Or covering the couch entirely with hermit crabs.)

If you'll excuse me, I must go make puppy-dog eyes at my dear darling knitastic mother.

THE WORLD IS JUST OARSUM

Gakked from good ol' Deep Sea News, this amazing totally giddifying video of a special night time dive on offer in Maui, Hawaii, where they stick you on a rope and drop you 60ft down with one small flashlight.



I think I just creamed my pants. There's a colony jelly in there! And those mad little underwater blowflies hopped up on eccy! And flashing lights! And see through beasties! And space ships! And he's asking whether or not he should go.

I R ded.

And I need to go to Hawaii. And learn to dive.

"I'm not foreign; I'm exotic."

The wonderful awesome amazing spectacular Jaime pointed this at me, and you must on love on her for it. This video concerns racism in Australia, and is hilarious and true. Especially about the tooth pick thing (except we keep ours in the kitchen drawer). I've watched it four times and counting, think I'm about to make it five.

Also, optus has been playing up in terms of email delivery; most messages get through, albeit hours late, and some are bouncing. If you require me to save the world, please use the bat tessa signal.

ETA: filched from deep sea news--



GIANT FLYING 100 YEAR OLD LOBSTER! Further details and move here.

filched from boingboing--



96 tentacled octopus! Which is...whoa. Every hentai-lover's dream come true. But imagine trying to do anything when you have 96 tentacles? "Still...cannot...grip...tweezers...!"

Spanish Dancers (the nudibranch kind)

picture from here

I was all set to dig up fascinating and weird truths about this most graceful of sea slugs, but the internet offers no such treasures. They can swim, and they're big for sea slugs, which is a succinct summary of what the internet hivemind knows.

I'm forming the opinion that they get away with this by being gorgeous and entirely hypnotic. Who needs to be able to hold a conversation when you do this all day?



(Just ignore the dumbtard diver poking the poor thing, and the further dumbtard diver dancing, and the random apperance of a lion fish. Actual spanish dancing is at the 1 minute mark - it's the best footage I found on YouTube.)

ETA: I stumbled across this page in my GISing. It's a competition gallery of underwater photography that is well worth eyeballing. See?

prettier than thou

It was posted on boingboing so you've already all seen this absolutely stunning collection of sea slug glamour photos up on the NG site. They're most <3 worthy.

To be honest, they made my self-esteem wilt a little. I mean, yes, we've done quite a bit of the evolution thang, and we have brains, big brains, bigger than a whole sea slug, brains that render us capable of picking the fluff from our belly button and wondering whether milk two days past the use by is still okay at the same time, and I'm not even all that ugly even by human standards, but we are-





-never going to be all that.

Have yourself a gander, make yourself feel ugly and cumbersome. I swear the second last slug is the inspiration for Pikachu.

Even more damaging, I noticed the "buy print" button on the bottom left. And I clicked it. And found the whoooole NG print store. May Inari take my soul and keep it in a sardine tin. I want all those sea slugs on my walls. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, it's the entirely wrong time of a very small and bill consumed pay. BUT I SHALL REMEMBER.

PS:



If you desire you may purchase a print of zombie bear here.

driftwood

Matt Staggs, over at Enter The Octopus, gathered together a lovely collection of pictures of coconut crabs-



-which you can view here.

Coconut crabs fall into a sort of "uncanny valley" when it comes to oversized animals. There is a point at which making an animal bigger than normal does not make it scarier than normal, and that is about the size of a small to medium dog. Seriously, if you can drop kick it, it isn't scary. If you can stop it with a golf club, it is not scary.

Still, I wouldn't want to drop kick a coconut crab. I imagine it'd hurt. Incidently, if you happen to be pinched by a coconut crab, the best way to make them let go is tickle their belly. With a feather. Plying them with red wine doesn't hurt either.

Now, I'm sure you've all heard about the defrosting of the Colossal Squid, that which is the MOST BADASS creature of the world. Seriously? BAD. ASS. Bigger than the Giant Squid, and a damn sight grumpier too. Did you know it has HOOKS?



HOOKS.

I'd also like to draw your attention to this sentence, contained in the above linked article:

The Colossal Squid can cloak itself similar to a Klingon Bird of Prey.

Which, actually, a lot of sea beasties can do, but such a trait can only ever add to the BADASSNESS of such a magnificent beastie.

STOP EATING CALAMARI.


(gakked from artbroken, Ironman and Batman do not play together well.)


(gakked from some guy at work: hip-hop about the superiority and delight known as tea. WORD UP.)

And I know you've all seen this article about the sexually frustrated seal;

The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.
After 45 minutes the seal gave up, swam into the water and then completely ignored the bird it had just assaulted, the scientists report.

But I believe it needs repeating.

45 minutes! XD

"Kind of like Thor."

I was reading this, and was having a gay old time with it, but alas, could not finish the article. For some reason the cut feature is crashing both Safari and Seamonkey. Bummer. Stalked barnacles sound gnarly.

"What is so cool about barnacles anyways? They are the John Holmes of the invertebrate kingdom with penis lengths exceeding 8 times their body length...Imagine your self glued head first to a rock, kicking your legs out your front door to draw in a current, hopefully with food - that is the barnacle."

Being so thwarted, I clicked through to this article about mantis shrimp and how they see, and, like, WHOA. They possess the kewlest eyes in the animal kingdom, they see the difference when light is turning clockwise and anti-clockwise. I didn't even know light turned, my eyes are so dumb.

They also fuck your shit up.

"Mantis shrimps are no stranger to world records. They are famous for their powerful forearms, which can throw the fastest punch on the planet. The arm can accelerate through water at up to 10,000 times the force of gravity, creating a pressure wave that boils the water in front of it, and eventually hits its prey with the force of a rifle bullet."

Like, WHOA. The wiki article linked up there goes into further detail, stating that they're so fast, the energy from their punches creates light and heat, and the wake of their punches has enough pressure to act as a second punch. Holy smokes. Well, with a face like that, you can't really blame them. They break aquarium glass too. I want one. To go with my flamboyant cuttlefish.

There's a video at the bottom of that article showing a mantis shrimp wailing on a crab, but here's a different one.



It's also wailing on a crab, but this video has some great shots of how they move. There's something delightfully centipede-y about them. At the very end, it snatches the crab and drags it off into its lair in a very Alien-esque manner. Fucking OARSUM.

Mantis shrimp. Not a mantis. Not a shrimp.

Also, more unknown beasties found in the Antarctic depths, including these:



Nooooow, am I wrong in remembering that Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness was set in Antarctica? And the beasties were starfishy? ZOMG. THEY ARE BABY ELDER THINGS. WE HAVE STOLEN THEIR BEBEES. WE ARE SO BONED. FHTAGN.

(I always thought the Elder Things were pretty silly looking, myself.)

Phew. I'm rather flustered now. That's far too much radical awesomitude for one day.