Alert Reader Mark sent a link to this story: "'Frog from hell' fossil unearthed"

I don't need to tell you that if human beings are unearthing evidence of Hell Frogs that the end can't be far behind. I always suspected that frogs were from hell, in addition to wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and ham loaf. But to actually have fossil evidence of that sort of thing? Creepy.

According to the article, the frog had a length of 40 miles. Scientists have postulated that it ate dinosaurs. No really! Go read the article. What? Okay, baby dinosaurs. But still! I'm not sure how scientists know what a frog fossil from hell ate, but I'm clearly not a scientist.

The frog has been named (no I am not making this up) "Beelzebufo." See. I'm pretty sure there are prophecies about the appearance of a frog named Beelzebufo.

Posted by Carl at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm currently in the midst of a bout of "Seasonal Affective Disorder" or, as we say in State College, "February." February is probably the hardest month of the year around here. Spring, Summer, and even Autumn all have their perks and are enjoyable. Winter, which astronomically falls from December to February is the toughest.

December has Christmas, though, and that gives it a lot of points. January has the unique position of being the month after Christmas, so you're still basking in that glow, there may be good food left over, and your new electronic toys haven't gotten old yet.

But February. Ugh. By now in State College you've had grey day after grey day. Because of Global Warming we can't seem to get a redeeming blizzard, only periods of nuisance snow and ice. By the end of February I'm already conspiring to figure out how I can do Disney World one more time. When I close my eyes and "go to my happy place" I'm sitting in Downtown Disney in the sun and 80 degrees, eating a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae.

Hopefully Spring won't be too far off now. As a person whose livelihood depends on creativity it can be difficult when the grey and the cold seem oppressive. It may be time to see how well I can telecommute from Orlando.

Posted by Carl at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that the writers strike is over I can get back to blogging more regularly. I was on strike with them not only as a show of solidarity, but also because I wanted some sort of cut from all of the DVDs being made of my blog. And...a bigger cut of the movie rights, and book rights, and Blog Hero™ Action Figures*. I can say now with pride that all of my demands have been met. What? No, I suppose there aren't any DVDs, movies, Action Figures** or lunch boxes. But! Just you wait!

Besides sharing the good news about the lunch boxes, I wanted to accomplish two things here. The first is: I'm drowning in spam.

No, not that kind of spam. That would be really gross. I mean the computer spam that comes in to the comments. Some of it is very, very vile stuff. The rest of it is for levitra, viagra and ambien. I've given some thought to eliminating the comments feature, since it's not used extensively. If you are not selling viagra and levitra and you have a strong feeling either way, leave a, ah, comment.

The second thing I wanted to ask is - What is a blogger? I ask this because I had an interesting conversation about this recently and it was postulated (I won't say by who***) that the term is defined too loosely. That is, anyone who posts anything public becomes a "blogger." Is that it? Or do you think you have to rise to some sort of minimal standard of quality and quantity?

Or, do you just have to have a line of lunch boxes?

*With Karate Chop Action

**Also With Karate Chop Action

***or, if you prefer, whom

Posted by Carl at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Well. I have to say that after driving around in my Blog Mobile&trade for almost a week I'm disappointed to report that I haven't been stopped once by anyone. Nor has anyone shouted, "YO! BLG HERO!" not even once. So then I started to wonder, does the plate make the car, or does the car make the plate?

For example, here's a picture of the car I own, a Saturn S series. I won't say what the S stands for but this vehicle wasn't my first choice:

The BLG HERO plate does look very nice on the Saturn. But here was my first choice, a Lamborghini Gallardo:

After I got the plate I tried to explain to Alert Budgeteer Tammy that I needed to get the Gallardo now because that was really the only car that could do it justice. Tammy just gave me The Look. (You know The Look.) I said I would be the envy of all of my friends*. Then she asked THAT question.

"How much does it cost?"

I explained that the $200,000 price tag might sound a tad on the high side, but just imagine the BLG HERO plate on there! She expressed a little skepticism.

"IT COSTS WHAT??"

In the end, we got the Saturn. And I should say I'm extremely grateful for it, be it an S series, P series or whatever series. And who really needs to go 204 mph anyway? (Although I suppose I would have tried that out going to and coming from AccuWeather.) In the end I suppose it is the plate that makes the car, and not the other way around.

Plus, there's always the Superleggera.

*That is, until they turn on me like a pack of ravenous wolves and drive away at 204 mph.

Posted by Carl at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the conclusion of the story of my greatest Christmas present ever, which should be depicted at right if my finely-honed HTML skills haven't failed me. Much to my surprise, Christmas morning I received a very cool print-out of what my Christmas present would look like - a personalized license plate - as the plate was on order and we weren't sure if the department of motor and super-hero vehicles would be able to deliver. They came through just recently, and I think it's fantastic. I've never had a personalized plate before, although I always read with envy things like "BOVINE2" and "IMAGDMN", whatever those mean.

Now, I know there's a vowel missing in the plate above. This is because Pennsylvania only allows 7 characters. This doesn't bother me much, as it actually makes people think a little bit, and Jesse has cleverly suggested I get a custom license plate frame made from Cafe Press. I think I'll do that. Then, no doubt, everyone in town will be coming to the website. (Pause for laughter.)

If you wanted to weigh in on your favorite gifts over the years, be they Christmas or some other event, visit here.

Posted by Carl at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)