Friday, September 4, 2009

Viral Report


6x6 is temporarily unavailable this week, so look forward to her final posting next Friday! (Is the suspense killing you yet???) 
Thus, this poor blogger has to think for herself this morning…my life is so hard. Please send your condolences from your respective locations.
 Because my job is awesome/semi-ridiculous, I am responsible for a weekly “Viral Report.” This is a compilation of the most popular/interesting stuff I find online every week. Some of it has some educational value, some is just weird, and some things I include because they are just so freaking popular! (There’s really no accounting for taste…yes World, I am judging you). My motto has become, “Wasting time online, so you don’t have to!”
Here’s this week’s report, with a few greats thrown in from the past. Enjoy!

-       Hundreds of runners dressed as nuns set off from the City of London on a charity 'Nun Run' to raise money for Barnardo's.

- the Tarpan, the Thylacine, some species of tigers, etc. 


- Picture on a Chinese website – pears are grown in molds to come out in bhudda shapes –pretty cool!

- clear pepsi, celery jello, colored ketchup

-       Obligatory sex-testing for international athletics was introduced in 1966
-       It is believed that as many as 10,000 East German athletes were caught up in a state-sponsored attempt to build a race of superhuman communist sports heroes and force-fed cocktails of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

-       Profiles of different people and what they’ve done
-       Building bridges to save forests in Paraguay, Saving street dogs in Bangkok, youth counselor in Ghana, etc.

-       Reacting to swine flu by slaughtering pigs, Cairo upends a key part of its service economy – Christian trash collectors.


Dan Phillips, 64, who has had an astonishingly varied life, working as an intelligence officer in the Army, a college dance instructor, an antiques dealer and a syndicated cryptogram puzzle maker. About 12 years ago, Mr. Phillips began his latest career: building low-income housing out of trash.

- Ben & Jerry's is temporarily renaming popular Chubby Hubby ice cream Hubby Hubby beginning today to celebrate the start of legalized gay marriage in its home state of Vermont.

This is really amazing. This guy is straight up cuddling and snuggling with lions. I'd love to get in touch with him to ask him some questions about it. What? No one has seen him since this? That's weird. I wonder where he went.
Zookeepers introduce a bear cub to different animals in an attempt to re-introduce some of his animal instincts. The only thing he's really learning is to hate humans for scaring the sh*t out of him over and over.

What's more embarrassing, playing World of Warcraft, or throwing an insane tantrum because your Mom canceled your World of Warcraft account and then your brother posting a video of it on the Internet? Definitely the second one, but neither one will help you meet girls.

She makes other beat boxers look like Nickelback. Because she makes them look terrible, get it? Nickelback is a terrible band. Awful, really.

hand clapper, cup stacker, pizza maker, undresser, gun reloader, etc.

Because who doesn’t like watching Fox News embarrass itself?
- Bill O'Reilly did a segment in which he characterized Amsterdam as “a cesspool of corruption.” But Amsterdam was all, “No we're not, check out this video.” Judge for yourself.

Check out the Indonesian River and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.



- The squirrel “photobomber” was in last week’s viral report, and now it’s on the NatGeo insider!!!

On Christmas Eve 1971, in the skies above the desolate, remote jungles of Peru, LANSA Flight 508 was hit by a bolt of lightning that blew the entire fuselage apart.  Juliane Koepcke, a quiet seventeen year-old high school senior on her way to visit her father, fell two miles out of the sky, without a parachute, crunching into the dirt floor of the Amazon Rain Forest.  For eleven days (!) Juliane Koepcke trudged through the Amazon Rain Forest without any gear or food. Of course, Juliane Koepcke wasn't done yet.   She went on to get a PhD in Zoology…

Meet Koda the miniature horse... who was also born a dwarf
- 59cm tall!

Photos of the most tattooed, altered, pierced, etc.

- blog entry examining guys’ facebook pictures –  hilarious and so true!


In the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built - they're grown. The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves. Natives manipulate the roots to grow to form bridges.
- REALLY cool pictures

Icebergs can form stripes when they melt and re-freeze, or if they have a layer of salt water. Amazing picture!


-       Sorry, this is all over the web right now.


- Sandwich sculptures – turning lunch into something creative

- Apparently, this is a viral hit – pictures/descriptions of ridiculous food (e.g. tempura bacon, The Baconcado - An avocado filled with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon.)