Category: huh

Siberian Chicken Counting, Pre-Hatching

In July of 1580, the Russian Tsar, feeling his backyard wasn’t large enough, decided to conquer Siberia. At the time, the territory was largely populated by a number of loosely-connected tribes under the taxation of Küçüm Khan. To retaliate at the intrusion, the Khan decided to force Islamic rule upon his people, and raised armies of Tartars to beat back the invasion.
[From Wikipedia] Laminar armour from hardened leather enforced by wood and bones worn by native siberians and Eskimo
The problem, however, was a fellow named Yermak. Nominally an explorer, he was much of the Spanish school of discovery which required any freshly encountered people to be hit with something heavy or sharp. His journeys went well, for him, and his expeditionary force of Cossacks and slaves quickly subdued everyone they happened upon.

The Tsar was quite pleased, and sent more men to help put down anyone who wasn’t fond of the new map. Everyone but the Khan was sure that Yermak had sealed Siberia’s fate, and it was just a matter of time before the last bits of resistance were stamped out. To reward the “explorer”, the Russian leader also gifted him a fine set of chain mail armour, an item that would make Yermak practically invincible to the weapons of the remaining Tartars.
Yushman Amour
It may have been the ease of his success, and the knowledge of his relative invincibility, that lead Yermak to folly.

From the wikipedia:

Küçüm Khan retreated into the steppes and over the next few years regrouped his forces. He suddenly attacked Yermak on August 6, 1584 in the dead of night and killed most of his army.

Now, to be fair, the army referenced in this snippet was just a portion of the total force that Yermak had spread over the Siberian countryside, and if he’d managed to survive the confrontation, he would have likely been able to rebound.

Unfortunately, for him, he did not.

Again, from the wikipedia

[…] Yermak was wounded and tried to escape by swimming across the Wagay river […] but drowned under the weight of his own chainmail.

Shrinkage

Drink Me
Have you ever heard of the syndrome known as Koro? I hadn’t until just recently:

The word is also used in Makassarese language, meaning “to shrink”; the full dialect for it is garring koro. In Malay, keruk is the probable linguistic link of koro which means “to shrink”. The term shuk yang, adapted from Chinese, means “the shrinkage of penis” – wikipedia

Apparently there’s a pretty common bit of human wiring that leaves us concerned that our assets are disappearing – this can lead to some pretty unpleasant self-conducted “medical treatment”.

Extremely anxious sufferers and their family members may resort to physical methods to prevent the believed retraction of the penis. A man may perform manual or mechanical penile traction, or “anchoring” by a loop of string or some clamping device. Similarly, a woman may be seen grabbing her own breast, pulling her nipple, or even having iron pins inserted into the nipple. Physical injury is inevitable, which can be considered as a complication of the syndrome. – wikipedia

Apparently its a very culturally bound problem – like spotting UFOs or attending Nickelback concerts – but, fortunately, proper treatment is pretty rational:

In historical culture-bound cases, reassurance and talks on sexual anatomy are given. Patients are treated with psychotherapy distributed according to symptoms and to etiologically significant points in the past. Prognosis appears to be better in cases with a previously functional personality, a short history and low frequency of attacks, and a relatively uncomplicated sexual life.

So, if anything, this seems like a great argument for health classes in public schools.

Childhood Spider Songs (And Santa Too)

Yukon Cornelius

Like many, I have a long-time fascination with the music from the 1960s Spider-man cartoon.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tmMn6wFmt8]

While on the prowl for a source at which I might obtain the swinging soundtrack for my own personal use, I came across this post from WFMU’s Beware Of the Blog.

While it does answer some of my questions, it also brought some interesting details to my attention:

Toronto had a large pool of actors in the nineteen fifties that were nourished by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, one of only two major players in Canadian television, and the only major player in Canadian radio drama. This pool came in very handy when voice acting needed to be employed by American producers looking to cut costs. Rankin-Bass was the first American outfit to exploit the Canadian acting community, at a time when its soon-to-be-prolific animation outfit was still nothing in America. The now legendary 1964 stop motion animation special Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer employed an enmormous stable of Canadian voice actors that all went on to provide voices on Spider-man (What? You didn’t know Burl Ives played Doc Oc!?). Hemrie the Misfit Elf was done by Paul Soles, the future Spider-man and Peter Parker himself. Billie Richards, Rudolph, often played Paperboys or other anonymous children in the show. Paul Kligman who played both Donner the Reindeer and the Reindeer Coach in the classic holiday special became the cantankerous J. Jonah Jameson.

X-mas Spidey
Interesting, but unmentioned in the WFMU post, is that one of the co-writers of the famous Spider-man theme song was actually Paul Francis Webster, Best Song Academy Award winner for Best Original Song, and sixteen-time nominee.

That is to say, one of the fellows involved in writing the Spider-man theme also wrote:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XClu_oqkE]

(Try and cover that, the Ramones!)

Mobile

Pedal PowerSaw this yesterday while taking a walk with the wee goblins. It was entirely pedal powered, in case it isn’t obvious. The proud owner told me he found the plans on the internet.

(Yes, the steering wheel is also made of tubing. Click for a larger version.)