The Cliarnival

Lobster’s Weirdness: Going Unnoticed

dclionsky — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:37:45 +0000

If you were to ask me what the weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten, my first instinct would be to say “calves brains”, which I had a French restaraunt near kenmore square and taste a lot like egg whites. However, in all honestly, the weirdest thing I have ever eaten is probably the most prized food in the US; Lobster.

But Dan, people love lobster, they eat it all the time. Oh really, well then, apparently people love GIANT AQUATIC BUGS WITH HUGE CLAWS . Seriously, if any other animal had that description there is absolutely no way people would touch it, let alone pay premium prices to crush open it’s rigid carapace and dip its flesh in drawn butter. Which reminds me, IT HAS A LAYER OF ARMOR THAT TAKES METAL TOOLS TO GET THROUGH. Can this animal get any more terrifying? If lobsters lived on land the would be universally feared, but luckily they live in the water where almost every animal is really, really scary (I’m talking to you, fish with giant teeth and a light on its head).

I like the way lobster tastes. It’s good. I understand why people eat it. I just don’t understand why the same people who aren’t adventurous enough to eat sushi, or cringe at the concept of chicken liver will tear into a lobster with reckless abandon. It really goes to show how the weirdness of food is all based around what you’re used to, and not what actually is “weird”.

A Young Girl Interacting With A Land Lobster

(also if you cut lobsters into four pieces, they will still wriggle independently. creepy)

The Expendables: Well Played

dclionsky — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:03:04 +0000

I saw a trailer for this movie a couple of weeks ago, and it’s CRAZY. The plot is standard action movie fare (i.e. it takes place in the jungle and there are machine guns and the plot is irrelevant) but what struck me is that it has almost every action hero I’ve ever heard of , even some I’ve completely forgotten (Dolph Longren). Seriously, I can’t even imagine how much they spent to get:

Sylvester Stallone
Jason Statham
Mickey Rourke
Terry Crew
Jet Li
Dolph Longren
Randy Couture
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Arnold Swarzenegger
Bruce Willis

Seriously. I thought “what’s their strategy here”? Then I realized:

The Expendables Strategy

Yeah. This summer if anyone else wanted to make an action movie, they were SOL and had to go with a b-level cast at the best (ahem, The Losers).

jerks.

Ladies, Get This Tattoo

dclionsky — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:22:28 +0000

Lady And The Tramp Stamp

I Rarely Approve of Bow Ties

dclionsky — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:29:16 +0000

I saw a dude in a bow tie on the T, and I thought “There are only a few, specific situations of when I think a bow tie is proper”

I’m really into making charts recently for some reason.

Why Did I Buy These Things?

dclionsky — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:08:45 +0000

Hair Boom Wringer: Worst Job Ever?

dclionsky — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:18:08 +0000

In order to combat the Gulf Of Mexico oil spill, people are using these devices called “hair booms” to suck up the oil out of the water. People are being urged to donate their hair, along with their pets’ hair to be stuffed into pantyhose.

I find this, albeit smart, very “green”, and apparently effective; extremely disgusting, and I can only sympathize for the poor workers whose jobs it is to dump in these booms and then eventually wring them out.

I bet their return home after a long day looks something like this:

Settle Down, They’re Just Hors D’oeuvres

dclionsky — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:31:38 +0000

I’ll probably not be able to communicate the weirdness of this story, but I’ll try anyways. Yesterday, my roommate Elena had some of her photos shown at a restaraunt/bar in downtown boston (check out some of of her work here). The bar was pretty cool and was offering these free bright blue “sangria” drinks, as well as free hors d’oeuvres in the form of these tiny meatballs.

As the waiter walked around with his little plate of meatballs (there were only three left), he stopped in front of myself, my friend Kenny, and my other roommate Andrea casually chatting (probably about something awesome). Being the jerks that we are, Kenny and I immediately grabbed two of the three meatballs. Being the lady she is, Andrea paused to take a napkin from the waiter, so that her meatball did not drip sauce all over her shirt (note: reason for getting the napkin inferred, not varified).

This is where it got weird. In the time it took her to reach for that napkin, a completely insane looking old woman swooped in, and lurched forwards, reaching for the last meatball. We all paused, completely caught off guard. The three of us were standing far away from any other guests, so this woman must have spotted the meatballs across the room, and with the focus of a female lion (the males don’t hunt) ready to pounce, she leapt right in on her prey. What was funny, is she then paused for a second realizing that what she was doing was really weird, and overly intense for an art show (perhaps even overly intense for an MMA fight). Even the waiter looked totally shocked. Eventually Andrea said, “just take it”. The woman did, and we never saw her again.

This probably doesn’t sound that weird, but if you could have seen the speed and ferocity with which the woman acted, and the bizarre look on her face, you would feel the way I do. I made some diagrams to show what happened.

having a great time

crazy old lady ATTACKS

I Would Totally Play This Game

dclionsky — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:39:26 +0000

I’m not a huge video game guy,. I have a PS3, but I rarely use it (mostly to play Blu Rays, ofwhich I have one). I did, however, have an idea for a video game (maybe my most nerdy idea ever other than my glasses/stapler hybrid). I’m also not particularly into sports, but this game would be a combo of a football and sword fighting game, where you not only have to win the game by scoring the most touchdowns (that’s what they’re called, right?) but also have enough players alive at the end to actually have them to play the match. You’d have to pick your teams based on throwing and catching abilities (those are things in football, right?) and also fighting and defending abilities. Dudes like sports, and they also like gore, this new game could totally be the first in the new, what I like to call, “Gorts” category.

Just think how great it would be to have your quarterback slice off an opponent’s head right before he was going to get tackled.

A Potential Screenshot

It’s All Over

dclionsky — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:37:40 +0000

So apparently, the Water Ban is now over. I can’t believe it. I’m starting to regret burning all that American currency. Oh well.

In Hydro We Trust

dclionsky — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:16:11 +0000

The last few days in Boston have been pretty crazy due to a leak into the water supply, which tainted all the fresh water in Boston and most of its suburbs. Our only option now is to buy bottled water or boil water on the stove for a minute to make it drinkable. You might say, “oh Dan, that sounds horrible”. To which i would reply, “horribly AWESOME?”. I think it’s hilarious that people are buying whole shelves of spring water at Shaw’s and 7/11 because they are so panicked about the lack of fresh water. At 7/11, a store employee even asked me in hushed tones “hey, you looking for fresh water?”.

I’ve started to referring to fresh water as “hydro” just as they do in Waterworld (maybe the most underrated movie of all time. No sarcasm, that movie is great). In that movie, non-salt water is so rare that it is used as currency. I think Boston is pretty close to the point where I could buy a car if I had enough bottles of water.

The most amusing part to me is that the water in Cambridge is totally fine. If you just drive (or take the T five minutes) you can have all the water (and more importantly) coffee that you want. I think I’m going to start bringing water over the border like they did with Coors in Smokey and the Bandit.

Overall, people just need to chill out, cook themselves a big glass of hydro and stay off the roads. As anyone who has seen a post-apocalyptic movie knows, that is the most dangerous place to be.

Water Water Bills Y'all

I’m Killing Chivalry

dclionsky — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:29:35 +0000

People say “chivalry is dead”. I say “not yet, it isn’t”. In general, I’m pretty chivalrous. I always give up my seat on the T, and consistently hold the door for people. However, this weekend I made a HUGE door-holding mistake. This normally brief but friendly act turned into a carousel of horrors when I decided to let a family of four (including a baby in a carriage) enter a revolving door that I was already in. I didn’t realize that families could be exceedingly slow, and this meant that I was trapped, trapped I tell you, in a revolving door for almost five minutes. I know, I checked my phone-clock. Five minutes may not seem like a long time, but inside a glass chamber, it is an eternity. I’ve drawn a diagram to show my pain from a birds-eye-view of the incident.

chivalry lives!

five minutes later, chivalry dies. Along with my soul

That’s it. It was awful. So, now I am bent on never ruining my day by being chivalrous again. Next time on the T, I dare you to find a seat; I’ll already be sitting in it.

These Things Are Watching You

dclionsky — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:00:06 +0000

As all of my friends know, I am a huge fan of following eyes technology normally found in old paintings. Here are some things that I think could be improved if their eyes eerily followed you around the room.

A Horse

A Clam

A Potato

Correction

dclionsky — Sat, 01 May 2010 13:26:32 +0000

On the last post I said that these were spy tools I had “invented”. I apologize. I did not invent Totino’s pizza rolls. I assume Totino did.

The Clionsky Spy Kit

dclionsky — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:00:28 +0000

Spies get some pretty cool stuff, but also some pretty stupid stuff. Here’s some things I invented to carry with me if I were a spy.

The Clionsky Spy Kit

1. Binoculars That Make The Wearer Appear Closer
Oh where am I? RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU? Just kidding, I’m further away.

2. Grenade Where The Pin Explodes and The Grenade Is Just A Lime
Classic miss-direction. Pretty self-explanatory.

3. Tontino’s Pizza Rolls
It’s pretty hard to tell agency secrets IF YOUR MOUTH IS MELTED SHUT

No Tiny Bear Pets?

dclionsky — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:00:48 +0000

My apartment is cohabited by two cats named “Che” and “Mishko”. The other day I was sitting on the couch awkwardly next to Mishko, who is the real-life version of Garfield (the cat, not the president), and accidentally (on purpose) nudged him off the edge of the couch (onto a carpet, it’s not a big deal, it’s a foot off the ground and he’s a cat). He glared at me with the exact expression that seemed to say “If I were bigger than you, I would 100% drag you into a tree by your neck and eat you right now”.

That’s when it really hit me that cats are pretty much tiny tigers. I mean, I always knew this but never really thought about it. Then I remembered my mom’s terrier, who is really not so different from a tiny domesticated wolf. At this point I got very sad because I realized that we don’t have any tiny versions of bears! We have tiny wolves, tiny tigers, even tiny pigs, but there are absolutely no tiny bear pets running around being way more adorable than a tiger or a wolf.

Perhaps they are harder to domesticate. I could see how a wolf would be easer. But a TIGER? I just don’t know.

I want this so badly

I just don’t know.