Manila Earthquake Creates Waterfall From Skyscraper Rooftop Pool

Water cascades off the side of a Manila skyscraper as an earthquake
sloshed water out of a rooftop swimming pool. 

Two strong earthquakes in the Philippines this week unfortunately killed at least 16 people and caused quite a bit of damage.

The stronger of the two quakes on Monday was centered just 50 miles from the Philippines capital of Manila. High rises swayed and panicked workers fled from buildings.

One big highrise has a rooftop pool. In an earthquake the swaying from side to side on top of a skyscraper is bigger than at the base.

So the quake sent pool water cascading over the side of the building like a waterfall.

The video, below, is pretty dramatic.

Watch:

Baby Elephant Makes Me Want This Man's Job

Dan Daeng was trying to paint a fence.
Khunsuk the baby elephant would have
none of it. It was time to play!

At the Mae-Sa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand, keeper Dan Daeng, 20, was trying to be productive. He was hard at work trying to get a fence painted.

Khunsuk would have none of it. Khunsuk is a one year old baby elephant who thinks all work and no play makes Dan a dull boy.   

So, Khunsuk tried to put a stop to Dan's work. He tried slapping Dan with his trunk to get him to play. He tried tapping on his leg. Dan ignored Khunsuk. There was work to do! But Khunsuk said, no, and ruffled Dan's hair.

It was all over. Fence painting was done. Time to play. The resulting video, below, makes me really wish I had Dan Daeng's job.

Or, at least I could hav Khunsuk the baby elephant over to my house for awhile so we could play in the yard.

Watch:

This Casually Dressed Dad Will End Up On America's Got Talent, Or Something

A rather buff dad in a football shirt and shorts looks like he wanted to entertain his smiling young daughter at Disney World.

Justin Gigliello belts out "Ave Maria" during a visit to Disney
World with his young daughter. 

The dad, named Justin Gigliello was at Disney World with his young daughter.

He posted the video on Twitter, and wrote: "I just wanted to share this video for a Disney experience! We just went to Disney World ast week and my daughter asked the pianist at the Grand Floridian if I could sing while he played."

The pianist agreed and began playing the Franz Schubert masterpiece Ave Maria and Gigliello began singing it. Beautifully.

The best part besides the singing is the proud look on the face of the young daughter as her father performed.

Naturally, the clip has gone viral. I'm also sure that producers from shows like "America's Got Talent" are beating down Gigliello's door trying to get him on these shows.

Here's the video:

Awesome, Odd Fosse Choreography And 1960s Cool On Video Fascinates Me

A scene from Bob Fosse's choreography of "Rich Man's Frug 

There's extra attention these days on the legendary choreographer Bob Fosse given that televised series on FX called Fosse/Verdon.

The show involves the life of Fosse and his romantic and creative partner, the dancer Gwen Verdon.

As my mind tends to wander into unexpected corners, I recently heard a snippet of the song "Rich Man's Frug" from Sweet Charity, the 1966 musical by Neil Simon and choreographed by Fosse. (It was later made into a movie released in 1969.

I was very young in the mid and late 1960s, and I always admired what to my mind were the sophisticated adults in the room. Or more accurately, not in the room, but out there in the world, somewhere. In some alluring city that was not West Rutland, Vermont, where I was.

I'd see glimpses of televised variety show performances from shows like "Sweet Charity" and others during the rapidly changing 1960s. Even as a five or seven or eight year old, I could feel the fever of that era, even if I didn't fully understand it.

These were exotic people doing exotic things in exotic times. There was precious little of that in the small Vermont town where I grew up. As an adult, I love the little town of West Rutland. Back then, not so much.

All those feelings about the worldly matters I craved came back to me when I looked up Rich Man's Frug and found this 1960s, very awesome Fosse choreography to that song from Sweet Charity. The video is simultaneously dated and so modern cool and wonderful that I can't resist.

It might be the best Fosse number I've seen. I love the odd physical movements, the fake air of snootiness on the faces of those dancers, the humor in all that athleticism.

Here's the video.  Totally worth the watch:

Throwback To 1971: Elton John Explains How "Tiny Dancer" Came To Be

A still from the music video for "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. The song
was released in 1971, but didn't get an official music video until 2017.

One of my very favorite Elton John songs is among his very first hits: "Tiny Dancer."

The blog Laughing Squid found a YouTube video in which Elton John, in 1971, then roughly 23 years old, explains the musical mechanics of the song,and why he chose the music the way he did for the lyrics, penned by his longtime co-writer Bernie Taupin.

The song is about Taupin's girlfriend and eventual wife Maxine Feibelman.  The tune has a rather gentle musical score. Elton John said that decision was based on the lyric, "Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand."

Hard, driving rock does not fit well with ballerinas, John explained.

"Tiny Dancer" was never a huge hit on the Billboard charts, but man, has it had staying power! It has become a classic in every sense of the word.

This song never had an official music video until 2017, when Elton John participated in "The Cut" a video contest for up and coming videographers.  Filmmakers made music videos for three of Elton John's early classics, including Tiny Dancer.  I do think the California breeziness of the song is captured well in that 2017 video.

But you be the judge. First video is the throwback to 1971, when Elton John explains the song's construction, and the second video by Max Weiland, which uses a wide range of Los Angeles characters to demonstrate how much this song has kind of united us.

Another Sign Of The Apocalypse: Super-Crazy QAnon Conspiracy Book Selling Like Hotcakes

The idiots of Qanon prove that there are zillions of suckers
born every minute. 

These are the kinds of stories that just make me want to give up.

A book called, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" was a big boffo seller on Amazon, at least earlier in March.  

QAnon, for those who mercifully haven't heard about it yet, is probably the most bonkers conspiracy theory in history.

The basics of the conspiracy are that the world is run by a Satanic cabal headed by Hillary Clinton. She and other prominent Democrats also supposedly run a child sex ring in the nonexistent basement of a Washington DC pizzeria.

Moreover, according to this wild and stupid conspiracy, Donald Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are secretly working together to destroy this evil cabal.

As NBC reported in March , the book was at No. 9 in all books about politics and No. 1 in all books about "Censorship."

Apparently, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" is full of garbage that comes at you willy-nilly.

NBC describes it thusly:

"On one page, the book baselessly claims that the United States created AIDS, polio, Lyme disease, some natural disasters, two Indiana Jones movies and the Pixar movie Monsters Inc."

Wow, that's some busy government we have doing all that! I wonder why this secret cabal took the time to make these movies?

NBC's report goes on helpfully:

"The book posits that Monsters Inc shows off a government plan to collect children's blood 'that gives (government figures) some form of high or youthful look."

Oh. But then why doesn't Hillary Clinton not exactly look like a spring chicken? Oh, sorry, we're not supposed to question the logic of these insane conspiracies, are we?

The reason that this weirdness is doing well on Amazon has to do with the old, sad fact in America: There is a sucker born every minute.

Social media has been playing wack-a-mole with these whackadoodle conspiracies. NBC quotes conspiracy theory research Mike Rothschild saying YouTube recently changed its algoritms to make it more difficult for the grifters pushing Qanon to make monetize their video creations.

So, Rothschild said, these grifters are no dummies: "They absolutely exploited flaws in Amazon's algorithms." The book, Rothschild said is "a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q."

In an earlier article from last August NBC tried to explain why people fall for conspiracy nonsense that is batshit crazy.

People have always thought that many things don't happen by chance. There's an underlying reason. That's how conspiracy theories are born.

I get the NBC story on why people believe conspiracy theories, but I'm still struggling with how people get to that state of mind.  According to this article, people who are generally anxious and feel like their life is not fully in their control anymore, gravitate to conspiracy theories.

Alright, so I get it how people believe in things like a conspiracy over the assassination of JFK, even if the theories are pretty off. But how do people get to insane things like Qanon?

What's really dangerous is the people like Alex Jones who peddle conspiracy theories to the masses.  I'm sure he doesn't believe the crap he spouts. He knows he can make money off it because of all the gullible people out there.

As thoughtcatalog.com points out, these gullible people are willing to believe the global elite are planning to murder 80% of the world's population, that children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre were just crisis actors that were part of a "false flag." Jones had a guy on his show and demonstrated support for the dude who was claiming that the 2,000 children that go missing everyday are being sold to Mars as sex slaves.

There we go again. The strangest conspiracy theories involve sexual crimes against children. I'm glad people are fighting back. Jones is being sued for his terribly harmful antics, and it's not going well for Jones at all. 

The best explanation for Qanan and its popularity that I've seen came from columnist Clarence Page.

He writes:

"The Qanon theory, whatever its origins, sounds tailor-made for core Trump supporters who need supporting arguments for the alternative scenarios spun by the White House, conservative media and other Trump allies.

Qanon is scary partly because its promoters want it to be. 'Triggering the libs' or 'owning the libs' - i.e doing things specifically to upset liberals - is its own reward to many on the right. But paranoid politics can pop up on all political sides - and often does."

Unfortunately, the game of "owning" the other side, the enemy, has become more important than facts in this world. The most dangerous part of all this is that when we ignore facts for fun and profit, those facts always come back to bite us on the ass. Often with tragic results.

A New Low In Obnoxious Advertising

One of those obnoxious ads in the waters off lower Manhattan

As anybody who knows me realizes, I have no patience for the desperate, loud, constant barrage of advertising.

It's possible to make advertising that is engaging, entertaining and makes you want to buy their products. That concept is rare, though, as most advertisers seem more intent on insulting us, rathern than engaging us.

Most advertisers seem to think the more you annoy us, the more likely we are to buy their wares. I have not gotten anyone to explain how that works, if it does.

A new low in advertising has come on the waters of the Hudson and East rivers surrounding the big lights of Manhattan.  Barges now ply those waters with obnoxious LED billboards. As the New York Daily News reports:

"The city filed a lawsuit Wednesday aimed at sinking the billboard-carrying barges that float on New York waterways.

City attorneys write that the company behind the LED advertisements, Ballyhoo Media, has brazenly disregarded requests to dock the barges because they are a public nuisance, distract drivers and violate zoning regulations."

I can see why New York City officials are exasperated with these barges. As New York City Councilman Justin Brannon said in the Daily News:  "At a time when every square inch of our world feels like it's covered in advertisements, visual pollution is a real thing, and our waterways should be off-limits. Drivers along the water don't need more distractions and when kids in Bay Ridge go to Shore Road Park, they don't need to be barraged by flashing lights advertising the latest video game."

True, a big city like New York has plenty of bright lights and advertising. It's turned Times Square into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.

But the advertising like that doesn't have to be everywhere. That's why Manhattan has both the dazzling advertising lights of Times Square, and the relative quiet and trees and lawns of Central Park.

However, plenty of advertisers and ad agencies think they must blind and deafen us constantly, because that way we'll buy, buy.  Ballyhoo Media, the company behind these obnoxious floating barge billboards is one of those.

The website for Ballyhoo Media was interestingly down for maintenance Wednesday and Thursday, which is interesting.

Infuriatingly, Ballyhoo Media might still get away this. The company pulled the same stunt in Miami Beach. The Florida city tried banning the advertising barges, but Ballyhoo successfully argued that Miami Beach doesn't have jurisdiction over the water, so their awful visual pollution remains.

Ballyhoo is likely to make the same argument in New York.

The Miami New Times said Adam Shapiro, owner of Ballyhoo, gave this spin on how supposedly great these floating advertising barges are. Shapiro said the barges are a quicker way to reach customers and make announcements. He pointed out there have always been advertisements at the beach.

Well, yeah. You can go up to the boardwalk and look at all the advertisements you want, or you could turn around and have an uncluttered view of the water. You have a choice. Ballyhoo Media wants to take away that choice.

Shapiro made the same argument, that his company is just wonderful, in response to the New York lawsuit. Talk about gall and gaslighting with this statement!

"We love the waterways and have developed this platform to be an asset to the community.....Ballyhoo has proven to provide unique, one-of-a-kind experiences that has been received with overwhelmingly positive community support. We are confident that New York City will see the value and excitement we bring to the waterfront."

I hate to break it to him, but the yelling and screaming Shapiro is hearing is not "positive community support," it's community rage.  But enjoy your delusions, sir.

Unfortunately, this will only get worse. We've probably been sentenced to dozens of these companies clogging beautiful waterways, along with lake and ocean front tourist spots with these outrageous LED ads.

Want to give up on the beaches because of this and stargaze instead? Looks like you're going to be out of luck there, too.

As Astronomy.com and other media outlets have reported, a Russian startup called StartRocket wants to put billboard advertising in space, because apparently, stars and planets are ugly but advertisements  in the sky for chicken wings and cola are majestic.

Astronomy.com describes this hellish idea: "Imagine this: you've just fled from the city to your nearest national park to gaze deeply into the infinite abysss of space and contemplate how your own existence fits into the curtain of the universe. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see brigh white letters spelling "KFC" spring across the horizon in a long arch."

Yeah, lovely.

It seems that advertising company executives are so full of themselves that they will believe any branding about themselves that they imagine. It can't even enter their mind that almost all of the rest of us think they're obnoxious. The guy with the ads in space idea, Valadilen Sitnikov says this: "It's human nature to advertise everything... Brands are a beautiful part of humankind."

Really?

I once read a short story where everybody in the nation was forced to view advertising every waking hour through some sort of hologram that everybody was required to operate.

It doesn't seem like we're that far from that horrible dystopian life.