Friday, May 3, 2019

Manta rays

7 comments:

edutcher said...

When The Blonde and I were staying at Puerto Vallarta, we went on a snorkeling excursion by catamaran.

We saw the whales migrating and a manta so big, its wingspan was wider than the boat (the California Current is very cold).

AllenS said...

Nonsense, that's Batman!

ndspinelli said...

Very cool.

Amartel said...

Mating mantas - so joyful!
Why are all the nature shows narrated by British accents?

Chip Ahoy said...

Amartel, it's a thing.

I've given this a lot of thought. Why does that little island dominate this sort of thing? Why don't more Americans do these sorts of things?

Well, first, they were a global empire. So their national interests, their national attention really is vast.

Second, life on that damp foggy socialist island is boring compared to everything else out there. Their attention is drawn away from their own island.

Third, they do very well at this sort of thing. This, like music, is their art. Credit where it is due. They put a lot of good work into these things. And they are state supported along these lines.

I noticed this same thing with Egyptian history and Egyptian hieroglyphics. All the videos on YouTube, and I've seen all that there is, are in British accent. Why? Because they are the ones studying the subject and they are the ones producing the videos. And Americans are not.

We're doing other things.

We're more practical. Generally speaking. We're devoted to making money. And these artsy-fartsy chasing nature for 20 years just to get a few good shots, and studying Egyptian hieroglyphs simply doesn't pay off.

And when we do such things, we goof it all the fuck up. Our programs on Egyptian history are stretched out over several videos, locked up in within a University program, where viewers must sign up and report back and forth, be tested, be graded, be on mailing lists, join the University program etc, etc, etc. We take twenty videos to present material that could be shown in 5 minutes. And we're all wrapped up with crap the viewers don't want. Frankly, we're terrible.

Chip Ahoy said...

To the contrary, we're utterly fantastic at producing home videos of young people doing outrageous things and recording on their own home equipment. Extreme sports. Americans are fantastic at starting new trends that literally sweep the world. In every area imaginable. And that comes mostly from American youth just being extreme freaks right here at home. And young people across the world copy American youth. The whole world wants to be American youth and do the things Americans do. In everything form skate boarding, rapping, bouncing on stretched woven cable, dancing in various forms, trampoline, skiing, cycling, skydiving, hang gliding, ocean diving, bungie jumping, Evel Knievel stunts, monster trucks, swinging on backhoes, jumping canyons and all the new insane extreme sports that you can think of. All that comes from America, because America itself is so interesting, American youth have the cash and opportunities and imagination and boredom to keep trying new things. They blow my f'k'n mind. And they blow everyone else's mind. And everyone else copies them. The world copies American youth.

Proof: TBD tv.
Proof: YouTube: Fail Army
Proof: YouTube: Best of the Week.

I've become extremely prejudicial on Netflix. British accent *click* I'm out But not before voting it down. I don't want any more goddamn British accents on my goddamn television.

And that especially goes for Australian accents, a straight up effrontery to English language.

And that goes for South African accent as well.

Having said that, "Lunatics" on Netflix had me cracking up laughing. OMG, that Australian comedian is insane.

It took me awhile to realize the comedian is playing several parts and that's why all the women look like transexuals. The things that look unreal really are unreal. No girl is that tall. No tall girl is that ugly. No boy swears that much. No Australian family of male real estate agents have that large of asses. No South African animal ESP communicator is that whacked. No junk collector is that insane. The Australian comedian inhabits lunatic psychology so thoroughly, so completely, so uniquely that it really is insane. And American reviewers just flat don't think it's funny. And that makes it doubly funny. I was laughing my ass off last night, at the insane degree of inhabiting insanity and at Americans finding it not funny.

I wish it was real. But alas it is not.

The Dude said...

I saw a 6' 6" tall young woman not long ago - she is on the local university's sports team. I spent some time talking to her, well, because why not. She was very pleasant to talk to.

But back to the video - I have never seen mantas in the water, but once while body surfing off of Cabo San Lucas I swam with a school of flying fish. That was fun. They were so cute, little bitty fish pretending to fly - aw. Then one that was two feet long with an equal wing span burst through the surface of the water right in front of me - I'll tell you what - if I could have I would have run back to the beach. I was done right then and right there.