Cats are made of liquid

 I don't know; Corsa seems to be falling apart:

She's missing one leg, too.

Should I call her family? Or a chiropractor? Or is this just a new cat yoga position?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Algo le pasa a Corsa. Está toda retorcida, y le falta una pata. ¿Qué debo hacer? ¿Llamar a su familia? ¿O a un quiropráctico? ¿O es que esto nada más es una postura nueva de yoga para gatos?

Oddities

Seen on a day trip to Gold River:

In the centre of the river a short way out of town, there's a bridge support. There's no sign of construction on either bank; there's no road heading that way; there's no sign to identify it.

At the dock parking lot; a two-wheeled truck stands, apparently unsupported.

Scree makes good rock-piling material; it has sharp corners and flat edges.

I think I posted another photo of this corner a couple of years ago. No left turn; plow straight into the rock face. Not photographed: heading the opposite way, a couple of turns later, a left turn sign where the road curves right. Going left would take you over the bank into the river far below. What were they thinking?

The earth is a hollow sphere

... with us on the inside. Or so I've heard. From people who think they know*.

Now I have positive proof. See:

See that horizon? It's bending upwards, like a bowl. Not downwards, as it would be if we were on the outside of a sphere**.

That was looking north from near Kwomais Point. Here's the view looking south:

Hmmm... It looks as though it were slightly raised in the center.

Maybe the hypothesis needs a little work.

More weirdness:

Why do eagles so often sit on the most uncomfortable and treacherous part of a snag?

Yellowlegs in deep water (for him). Can't wait for the tide to go down to catch a worm.

A normal view of Crescent Beach, with gulls and the North Shore mountains. Just because I always love this scene.

* Filed under Crackpottery.
** Or near-sphere.

Woah! What is this all about?

This is weird ...

We were visiting with a neighbour this afternoon in his back garden, when I saw, on a toolbox, an ant. Nothing unusual about that; there were ants all over his place. But this one was behaving oddly, running around and around in a circle a couple of inches in diameter, always clockwise. I took a few photos, blurry ones because it was running fast.


We came home and I made tea. While we were drinking it, Laurie suggested that I could videotape the ant. Good idea: I finished my tea and walked back to the neighbour's place. (All that rigamarole to define the time span; 15 minutes to half an hour.)

The ant was not on the toolbox any more, but my neighbour thought it had gone down the crack. I moved the toolbox a few inches, and sure enough, there it was, going around in circles.

Here's the video (27 seconds).

.

.

Note how the ant responds to the fuschia petal when it blows into its pathway; it deals with the obstacle, then returns to the circling behaviour.

I checked out some of the other ants in the vicinity; they were all behaving normally.

What is going on? Some sort of parasite in its brain? Poisoning?

Anybody know?
.

Someone likes orange!

I've been looking at this house by the White Rock waterfront for a few years. We finally walked over to get a closer look.


They keep it freshly painted, always. And always the same colours.


The objects in the windows change with the seasons, but the colour scheme remains.

We didn't get a decent photo of the chimney up top; it is made of brick, and each brick is painted yellow, orange, or green. It looks like life-sized Lego, but the wrong colours.

Alternate Universe photos

Among my favourite photos are some real oddballs; indefinable, indescribable. Photos from odd angles, weird reflections, optical illusions, unforseen accidents and the effects of the general contrariness of things. Back when I kept them all in hard copy, I put them in an album that I called "Alternate Universes".

And they are just too good, sometimes, to keep to myself. So I'll post them here, periodically, under that same title: Alternate Universe Photos.

This first one was taken from the balcony during a snowstorm. Branches of a tree, sky, and distant evergreens, with snowflakes in front. The camera is on automatic focus, but the falling snow in the foreground threw it off, so it produced an impressionist painting instead, reminding me of a snippet of some half-forgotten painting, Monet perhaps, or Renoir.

It puzzles me, though. First off, I always thought snowflakes were supposed to look like snowflakes; separate hexagonal stars or clusters arranged loosely in a flattish formation, like the large ones I often see falling slowly in a heavy snowstorm. Not snowballs. But that's what showed up on the film. Round, heavy-looking balls.

Look at the second photo, taken in a previous snowfall. Same thing: snowballs.

Second; what I see in this top photo is the neck and shoulders of a woman in a brown dress and wearing a white necklace, seen through an etched glass jar with white polka dots on the top section.

Laurie doesn't see that at all. How about you? What do you see?