Oh, Wait.

HOPEY will save us!


Myspace Glitter Graphics

EVERYTHING IS STILL FAILING

Including this blog. But don't worry, baby, you know I still love you, right?. Life's just been rough, you know?

Today's hugeawesome (awesome in an 'awesome power'--like the violent deaths of the Egyptians at the hand of God sorta-way) thing is the Stock Market! No no, not the market itself, but its massive never-ending COLLAPSE.

Dow Jones 777 (Lucky!!) point drop threatens your parents' and grandparents' retirement funds and ensures that YOU will NEVER be the seasonal migratory high-rollers that they aspire to be.

Hugeawesome things will be back. We promise. But we're sad and confused right now. It's hard to concentrate on massive bucket excavators or men straddling Space Shuttle engines like horses (ooh dear, I can't wait to bring that one to you) when the very foundation of such industrial excellence and hubris is threatened with utter ruin!

Perhaps we shall deal with the pain by taking a more measured approach to the problem: we will begin the healing process by spending the foreseeable future focusing on cosmic, otherworldly and altogether non-human hugeawesomethings so as to supplant our temporal anxieties with astronomic, existential anxieties.

And then maybe--just maybe--we'll slowly build the courage again to share things like Cluster Ballooning, the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C.

Oh, and TRUCKNUTZ

Or, "Yournutz." Whatever. Is that really what your balls look like?

WE ARE SUSPENDING HUGE AWESOME THINGS

BECAUSE OF THE ECONOMY.

THIS IS SERIOUS. NOTHING IS HUGE & AWESOME ANYMORE.

THE ONLY THING THAT IS HUGE IS HOW GIGANTIC OUR DEBT IS ABOUT TO BE. AND THAT IS NOT AWESOME.

Oh wait! Let's do a New Feature! Huge Awesome Things AND Investment tips!

TODAY'S TIP:
Put all your money in booze, guns, and porn. Also, corrugated aluminum, for our new hoovervilles.


Hooray!

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

We woke up this morning to news that the government is going to spend all of our money and China's to bail out everything ever that's ever gone wrong with the economy. Remember that pair of sneakers you bought from Landsend that came in the mail but didn't fit and you were too lazy to return? Don't worry, becasue the Fed is so freaked out that those sneakers will destroy the the very foundation of capitalism in America that they will buy them back on a line of credit from China for ten times more than they're worth.

It's that bad.

Sarah is downstairs in her cubicle, playing taps on a bugle that she stole from a homeless/jobless street musician, becasue even they're too depressed to serenade/harass us anymore. But don't worry, friends, it's not all bad--just pop another Xanax and drown your sorrow in today's hugeawesomething (brought to you by Sarah):

On March 19th, 2008, something got really really big and really really bright in our night sky. That something is known affectionately by its friends and family as GRB 080319B.

According to reputable source of high repute SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING DOT COM, "March 19th was an exciting day for NASA. We know “why” it was special, but we don’t know “why why” it was special." Well, friends, it was so special simply for the following reason:

"The optical afterglow was 2.5 million times more luminous than the most luminous supernova ever recorded, making it the most intrinsically bright object ever observed by humans in the universe."

Oh shit Nathan, grab your glaucoma glasses! In other words, brighter than the beacons of hope shining from Barack "Barry" Hussein "Hopey" Obama's hope-eyes.

ANYWAY, the universe said, "Thou shalt be PWNED" (because the universe thought of internet l33t speak before the rest of you jerks). You see, not only was this a cosmic ray burst of epic fucking proportions, it was also pointed directly at Earth. From SEVEN POINT FIVE BILLION YEARS AGO. Where is your loving God now? He tried to destroy the Earth from before its creation 4.6 billion/6000 years ago/the Dinosaur Past, bitches. That's even before his only begotten son was wrangling velociraptors for mounts, that's what.

Here is one of the finest sci-fi renderings of this space-thing-occurrence that we can think about in our heads but not see with our faces (have you taken that Xanax yet?):

That happened, and we narrowly escaped certain cosmic obliteration. Next time - not so lucky. This all the universe's way of telling you to do lines of coke and Oxycontin now, while you still can.

What Post?

FRIENDS: OMG Nathan, you must post a Hugeawesomething today or we will be displeased and undersatisfied.

NATHAN: Silence! I have a JOB and a cubicle and actual RESPONSIBILITIES. I'm not a "community organizer," afterall. Er, I mean, I kind of....

FRIENDS: Uh, aren't you though, I mean, don't you do that thing where you help people to....

NATHAN: Silence! 

Here, take this cop-out fodder. I have no idea what this is--I Googleed it on the internets.

FRIENDS: That's nice, we have some of those back at the apartment.

Say, what's with the HIDEOUS new addition(s) to the site today? WTF?!

NATHAN: I don't know what you're talking about. Go play with your tank nutznballz.

Not Phallic At All: Taipei 101 & Its Tuned Mass Damper

I like it when massive construction projects quite literally take on the shape of Mankind's Engorged Hubris. Oh, how it makes the jokes easier. See if you can count the penis references in this post!

Let's begin by meeting the Taipei 101 skyscraper:



From its completion in 2004 until July 2007, the Taipai 101 was the world's tallest building. It was only recently surpassed in height by the Glass Cock of the Middle East, the Burj Dubai, last year. Despite this, the Taipei 101 is still a firm 1,670 ft tall at its spire - certainly nothing to scoff at. And as all world leaders know, the height of one's national skyscrapers is of utmost importance when posturing on the global stage. Eliminating the need to whip out one's skyscrapers for comparison during, say, an important international meeting, there is a handy chart available:



"Great," you say. "It's a really tall building. But there are lots of those, especially as evidenced by that handy chart above! Is there anything else the Taipei 101 can offer me, in terms of huge awesome things?" Luckily for you, reader, there is!

Nestled between the building's 87th and 89th floor lies the world's biggest tuned mass damper: a 730 ton concrete ball designed to "stabilize against violent motion caused by harmonic vibration" by "moving in opposition to the resonance frequency oscillations of the structure." Here are some sexy pictures:



You may think that a giant ball would be a liability, not a boon, and most definitely not attractive to other skyscraper-stabilizing mechanisms like those those sassy I-beams. Alas, you would be wrong. Watch the drama below! This tuned mass damper prevents the Taipei 101 from collapsing into a pile of broken, flaccid and incredibly expensive dreams:



Also, it's in a huge dick-shaped building. Penises!

Giant Isopods!

So, remember way back in elementary school when the nice/mean lady came to your class and told everyone to get in a line and then poked your head with a tongue depresser and it felt kind of good/creppy? That good hearted/terrifying lady was looking for head lice: Thankfully, she was not looking for their cousins from the sea floor, GIANT ISOPODS!

These suckers mature to a size of between 19 and 37 cm and can weigh up to three pounds. Really, other than that, I don't have words. Oh, except for this: "In Northern Taiwan and other areas, they are not uncommon at seaside restaurants, served boiled and bisected with a clean lateral slice."

"EAT ME!"

Speaking of eating, here's a creppy time-lapse video of a bunch of these guys eating a whale.