Sharnado, bowling balls and drinking straws, Mary Poppins-sampled music video, and neutral clouds in soda

Have i mentioned Sharknado? A cursory review of previous blogposts indicates i have not. By this point, you have undoubtedly encountered trailers for what is surely the mega-blockbuster cinema masterpiece of the summer, entitled 'Sharknado' (for entire plot, including spoilers, please refer to this article). Briefly, it depicts a tornado bearing living sharks which menaces LA. As with many things awesome, there's a semi-relevant XKCD comic, and now shoes. Also, Holly shared this awesome monokini, the sharkini, a garment that i have plans to make and wear some time soon.

A brief discourse regarding childbirth by the excellent humorist Dave Berry. It's from 2000, and i totally remember reading it one Sunday morning sitting at my parents' breakfast table, laughing really hard; " The teacher usually starts with a scientific discussion of childbirth, in which she shows us various diagrams and models to give us an idea of what will be happening when the Big Moment arrives. In my opinion, the most informative way to do this would be to hold up a bowling ball and a drinking straw, and say: "Basically, THIS has to go through THIS" ".

I ADORED Mary Poppins, the first book, as a child. i have incredibly vivid memories of eating licorice on my grandparents' porch swing while reading it, over and over. i don't think i've seen the entire Disney movie ( i cannot sit still, even as a child), but this is a really cool sampled song generated from bits and pieces of the movie (via The MarySue).

In which Wil Wheaton gives advice about being a nerd to someone's infant daughter here (with props to Ryan on the link); "And i want you to work hard, because everything worth doing is hard."

Finally, i was having an early dinner with Holly and Bryan at the Library (no, the one with food) last night, and ordered a ginger beer. These have become a minor obsession, and thus continues the search for the Holy Grail of ginger beer, super spicy without cheating by capsaicin, and not impossible to obtain on a regular basis. The bar featured Barritt's Ginger Beer. In ascertaining whether it it contained capsaicin, Bryan took a look at the ingredients. "Neutral Cloud?!" "Better than an biased cloud." "Or an acidic one." Researching it this morning,

 me:  neutral cloud is apparently an emulsion designed to make your beverage cloudy

 Bryan:  interesting

 me:  'neutral' would indicate taste/color?

not nearly as exciting as i'd hoped

 Bryan:  why do i want a cloudy beverage?

 me:  "Clouding agents are used in soft drink manufacture to give a more natural appearance
to products with a low juice content; they can also mask sedimentation and “ringing” -
where coloring/flavoring oils rise to the surface of the container during storage.
Clouding agents are normally supplied as emulsions similar to flavor emulsions" from here