(Photo: McDonalds McRib Sandwich, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from io_burn’s photostream)

Let me first say that I haven’t eaten a McDonald’s sandwich since high school — and not single fast-food burger of any kind for at least a decade. I’m not sure if that makes me more or less credible on the issue of the McRib, but don’t worry, I’m not going to offer any opinions of my own.

Rather, I’m just going to point you in the direction of a fascinating new conspiracy theory: that the McDonald’s McRib is a way for the restaurant chain to profit from times of low pork prices:

Looking … back into pork price history, we can see some interesting trends that corroborate with some McRib history. When McDonald’s first introduced the product, they kept it nationwide until 1985, citing poor sales numbers as the reason for removing it from the menu. Between 1982 and 1985 pork prices were significantly lower than prices in 1981 and 1986, when pork would reach highs of $17 per pound; during the product’s first run, pork prices were fluctuating between roughly $9 and $13 per pound—until they spiked around when McDonald’s got rid of it. Take a look at 30 years of pork prices here and see for yourself. Also note that sharp dip in 1994—McDonald’s reintroduced the sandwich that year, too. Though notably, they didn’t do so in 1998.

There’s even a chart of more recent pork prices, correlated with the introduction of the McRib (black lines):

Sure, correlation is not causation, and the conspiracy theory delves deeper in to the economics of price arbitrage than I’m really comfortable vetting, but the essential point is clear:

McDonald’s is so huge that it moves markets, and it would be wise to both realize that, and profit from it.

After all, the McRib was born when McDonald’s ran out of chickens for chicken nuggets.

(via Boing Boing)

What if you built a glass house, as designed by M.C. Escher, and forgot to include furniture?

Oh, they did that? In Japan?

Huh.

I do kind of like the multi-level playfullness of it — almost like a treehouse. But I’m guessing they don’t have any friends who wear skirts over.

(Via Gizmodo: The Weirdest Home I’ve Ever Seen Is an Exhibitionist Wet Dream.)

And by extreme, I obviously mean “suspended from the balloon, 10,000 feet off the ground, with hooks embedded in the skin of your back.”

And if you like this 30 second clip (no sound, apparently?) you’ll be thrilled to learn that it’s just part of a documentary called Feet Off The Ground that is being filmed.

News station KATU has the story:

34-year-old Zane Whitmore of Seattle (he used to live in Portland). He was pierced four times across his shoulder blades and the balloon was released over California’s Long Valley Caldera. The flight, which was on Saturday, lasted about 75 minutes.

“I felt like I was flying,” Whitmore said in the press release. “It was amazing to have a perspective on a landscape that no one has had before. As I drifted down low I was struck by the movement I saw on the ground, by how much life exists in the desert. It was actually a very peaceful experience.”

(here, via Boing Boing)

Cadbury comes up with some interesting ads to sell their candy, especially the creme eggs. You might remember the ones where the rabbit lays a chocolate egg. That one is kind of weird, for obvious reasons, but also kind of cute.

In the last couple of years, though, Cadbury has come out with a series of ads for the creme eggs where the eggs are apparently committing suicide in order to “release the goo.” Yes, I just said commit suicide. Watch!

That is just creepy! Or there’s this one:

The eggs are straight up suicidal! This does not make me want a creme egg, when all I can think of is the poor suicidal eggs. Kind of like the Excel commercial using the adorable little mascots, making me feel sorry for them. It’s not very good advertising when I feel compassion towards inanimate objects like creme eggs, or concepts like bad breath!

I am currently accepting submissions to help sway my belief one way or the other: Is this a heart-warming tale of inter-species friendship? I cruel primate-over-porcine morality tale of subjugation, a la “Animal Farm”? A sign of the apocalypse? Further proof that being the most intelligent species doesn’t make us the wisest?

Or is it just hilarious? Especially with that soundtrack.

(thanks(?), Colin!)

I think it’s from Russia? I’m not even sure what Викам is, but I think I want some?

(via this forum post, which I had up as a tab forever, and don’t remember where the link’s from)

The short answer is, “nobody knows,” at least according to this NPR video it is. But, as Boing Boing points out, what a wonderful piece of animation to explore this history of straight-line-walking experimentation.

A few years ago, as part of a fitness test, I was blindfolded and put into a racquetball court, where I was told to march in place, bringing my knees up as high as I could, for 10 or 15 minutes, while trying not to move forward, back, sideways or to rotate at all.

I felt a little shaky, but overall confident in my ability to stay immobile despite the marching in place. But when my blindfold was removed, I wasn’t anywhere near where I had started from, and I was facing in a completely different direction.

Not only was the disorientation pretty cool, but it was an interesting lesson in listening to my body.

There is more about it in the NPR story.

 Was it reasonable for us to expect that the end of the world would just happen without any warning signs?  I don’t think so.  Obviously there is going to be a dramatic lead-up.  Do you not watch movies?  There is always a dramatic lead in to the disaster.

In the past week, we have seen the beginning of the end:  Animals dropping dead in large numbers.  As discussed at Gizmodo: 

 Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings fell from the sky within a one-mile area over the town of Beebe, Arkansas. The last few days have also seen a mass fish kill, in which an estimated 100,000 drum fish washed up on a twenty-mile stretch near the town of Ozark, Arkansas, which is about 125 miles away from Beebe.And then, around 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings, and grackles fell to their deaths over a quarter-mile stretch of highway near Labarre, Louisiana, which is 360 miles from Beebe and 450 from Ozark. And then last night, hundreds of what were most likely jackdaws fell to the ground all over Falköping, Sweden.

Crazy, right?  Sure, the article goes on to say that ”there are perfectly rational explanations for all of this,” then proceeds to give explanations that may be possible, but are certainly not rational.

No, I don’t really believe that these are portents of the end of the world.  What I do believe is that some things occur in this world that we do not yet have knowledge of or explanations for.

One of my favorite books is a brick of a hardcover called “The Complete Books of Charles Fort.”  Fort, about a hundred years ago, spent almost every day for 30 years in the library combing through newspapers, pulling out stories of unexplained phenomena.  Among these are accounts very similar to what has been experienced recently in Arkansas and Sweden, so these strange occurences are nothing new.  Yet, we are no closer to having good, viable explanations for them.

Is it the end of the world?  Probably not.  Is it worth investigation?  Absolutely.

I reserve the right to change my mind, though, if rivers suddenly turn to blood.

Brings to mind this classic “Deep Thoughts,” by Jack Handy:

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier as to cut them all down? Well, maybe if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”

Astonishing. The puppeteer behind Alf (Paul Fusco) stays in character through the bloopers and is generally pretty funny and quick-witted.

Then, he drops the N-bomb.

Like, a bunch.

Some commenters on BadTVBlog say that he is probably riffing on a contemporary episode of L.A. Law, but it’s still pretty startling thing to hear.

Ah, Alf, I’ll never look at you the same way again. Also, you cannot eat my cat.

(via BadTVBlog)

I’m not sure if this is a real improvement over the traditional way of doing multiplication by hand — you’re just counting up line intersections instead of adding up columns of numbers — but it sure is pretty!

(via Gizmodo)

You know, I think in the Japanese translation of the Bible, Jesus enters a coal-fired power plant and overturns the generators.

Which would explain the negative connotations of coal in your stocking.

(via @buzzsawbravado)

I think the top of the frame starts out slower than the bottom of the frame, and then catches up, causing the model’s body to get all warped, but then eventually to come back together.

Trippy!

Also, if you want people to watch your weirdo tech-art project, put the girl in panties. This video has over a million views!

This was surprisingly compelling.

It is apparently “disconcerting.”

Really?

Anyway, you can read more about it at swns.com, but I also urge you to check out the YouTube page, where someone else has made a claim as the inventor of the world’s first glass-bottomed hot air balloon — in 1980.

(via tdw and gizmodo)