The content below is from Episode 108 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast
RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT
- 1883 is some of the best writing to come out of the Western Genre in a long time.
- This 10 episode series is technically a prequel to the Yellowstone show starring Kevin Costner, but because it is set about 140 years in the past you really don’t need to see Yellowstone in order to understand what is happening.
- 1883 follows the story of a wagon party on their journey across the Oregon Trail.
- Some of the main characters are
- the Captain (played by Sam Elliot) is in charge of keeping all the German immigrants alive along the way
- The Farmer (played by Tim McGraw) who agrees to help the wagon party in hopes it will keep his own family safe
- And the farmer’s wife is played by Tim McGraw’s real-life wife Faith Hill.
- His daughter Isabel Dutton is the main character of the show. Her character is heard narrating throughout the series and the audience experience most of the show through her eyes.
- The show is amazingly written and I binged it within like 5 days.
- oh, and guest stars include actors like Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Hanks…
NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT
LAVA SHARKS!
- This week I will be covering topics that were sent to me by fans, two topics to be precise: Lava Sharks and a Demon Rock.
- Back in 2005, when I was just 11 years old a terrible movie came out called The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D.
- Here is the premise: Bullied by classmates, young Max (Cayden Boyd) escapes into a fantasy, conjuring up the action-packed lives of Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) and Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner). But one day, Lavagirl and Sharkboy suddenly come to life — and their world, Planet Drool, needs a hero named Max. As Max escapes to Planet Drool, he battles aliens and tries to save his new friends’ planet from destruction. He also battles his bullies, who have become villains like the Ice Princess (Sasha Pieterse).
- With terrible CGI and even worse acting it was a nightmare of a movie, but it was also iconic and was talked about a lot.
- Why do I bring this up? Well, sharks and lava apparently go together like peanut butter and jelly in the wild.
- Marine biologists and geologists are stunned by a recent discovery off the coast of the Solomon Islands.
- The waters there hide a short-tempered volcano known as Kavachi and also sharks apparently.
- These orange murky waters are bombarded by Kavachi’s frequent underwater eruptions. The concussive force of the blasts alone was enough to make biologists think larger marine life would steer clear of the area, not to mention the toxicity levels from lava-hot rock jutting out from the earth, or the boiling hot water. But the biologists were wrong. What the team of scientists saw with their underwater cameras were schools of reef sharks, hammerheads, and scalloped hammerheads.
- The sharks seem to be thriving in this underwater hellscape and though we aren’t exactly sure yet, some biologists think it is due to a specialized nose.
- You see these sharks have pores on their snouts called ampullae of Lorenzini. They think these pores allow them to sense changes in Earth’s magnetic field. Sharks use the information for homing and migration, and may also use them to avoid dangerous situations.
- While this is a big discovery in the abilities of sharks, it isn’t entirely outside the realm of belief. Recent studies have shown that sharks are able to avoid hurricanes and cyclones. Now biologists are thinking this is linked to the ability to avoid volcanic eruptions.
- Right now the total mystery is why. Why do these apex predators of the ocean prefer to gather in large numbers near volcanoes?
- The initial theories are the 2 MAJOR reasons for almost everything in the wild: food or fornication.
- Biologist think there might be a food source near volcanoes that we haven’t discovered yet or perhaps they prefer to reproduce there.
- Michael Heithaus, a scientist and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University even said “who doesn’t like a hot tub?”
- Why is this newsworthy?
- Well, it is behavior in wild animals we weren’t aware of before and it is the behavior we humans didn’t predict because we thought volcanos were dangerous.
- It also involves sharks which are pretty neat and also involves volcanos which are also pretty darn neat.
THE DEMON ROCK!
- I like Japanese stuff which apparently makes me a weeb.
- WEEB: “Weeaboo is a mostly derogatory slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime, often regarding it as superior to all other cultures.” – dictionary.com
- It also means people who know me will send me all sorts of articles and memes that pertain to Japanese culture. The other day my fiance Shannon sent me an article about this Demon Rock that split open and release all sorts of bad JuuJuu upon the world.
- This rock is said to kill anyone who comes into contact with it and just within the last couple of months it split open like a cantaloupe.
- The story goes that a beautiful young maiden named Tamamo-no-Mae was part of a conspiracy to kill Emperor Toba who ruled over Japan from 1107 to 1123. This murderous plot was created by a feudal lord and he used Tamamo-no-Mae as a means to his end. When she died her dead body transformed into the Sessho-seki (killing stone).
- But the legend goes deeper… It is believed that the maiden’s true self was the evil nine-tailed fox demon. Ninetails’ spirit is said to be trapped and encased in lava somewhere in the Tochigi prefecture near Tokyo. This area is famous for its hot springs and sulfur.
- Many today still believe the stone is deadly and may even spew poisonous gas. So when it was recently discovered that the stone broke into 2 nearly equal parts it made headlines.
- A lot of people online (mostly Twitter) are saying how this is just another messed up thing to add to the pile of horrible things to happen in the 2020s. But the stone most likely has been cracking for years now and things have just taken their natural course. Rain and wind slowly widened the cracks until the rock split.
- Since the so-called demon rock has been a major tourist attraction in the area, there is talk about restoring it.
- My question: are they going to get a Buddhist monk to seal the demon back inside before they seal it up with cement? Or are they going to use Elmer’s glue?
THANKS FOR LISTENING WHO’D A THUNKERS!
CREDIT
- LAVA SHARKS
- DEMON ROCK
The Journal of A_C_Unit 