Sensible Erection | Weird creature measured 6ft long

Monday, 8 February 2010

quote [ A mysterious creature horrified holidaymakers after it washed up on a beach on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. The writhing mass of tentacles, which measured at least 6ft from end to end. ]

That was beautiful...sad if they were left to die!

[by JOECAM@2:21pmGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

CapnSilver said @ 2:26pm GMT on 8th Feb
If those are barnacles then they're not tentacles. They're penises. Or penes. I'm never quite sure which is correct

Krutz said @ 2:30pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]

sensibleb said @ 2:41pm GMT on 8th Feb
Aw, nobody likes cheese on their penne.

ishmail said @ 3:45pm GMT on 8th Feb
the hell you say!

azazel said @ 3:54pm GMT on 8th Feb
Penises and Penes are both correct, actually.

Vibrating @ the Speed of Light said @ 10:37pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Funny]

fuckb4ll said @ 12:28am GMT on 9th Feb
sharks are dicks.

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:56am GMT on 9th Feb
Nothing but a glorified purse snatcher IMHO.

ComposerNate said @ 2:28pm GMT on 8th Feb

Dioxin said @ 3:02pm GMT on 8th Feb
zalgo?

psychotim said @ 8:45pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:3]
P̵̠̥̻̖̿̒͊͌̎̑͒͑́͠ḩ͖͌͛̅͡'̵̜̭͙̰ͦͧ̌̒ͣ͆n̛̬̲̭̝̩̞͇͍̎̿͌͑̌̋ͤ͡g͎͍ͫ̅ͪͬ̑ͥ͝ͅl̟͓̙̹̘̻̤̏ͥͬ͛ͨ̀̊ͫ̿͠͠͝u̢̼̖̥̠ͮ͆i̧̬͉̺͉̬̖̳ͥ̅̐̈ͥ ̝̓ḿ̢̧͎͑͂͂ͫͣͯ̐̕g̷̣̻̗̉ͨͦ́͘͞l̴̓̾̌̐̐ͨ̂͗ͣ͢҉̗̜͍̹ẁ̰͗ͫͫ͆̃̑͐̿͢'̲̬͉̞͈̘̗͖ͣͧͯͩ͂̆͂̕n̷͖͈͒̔aͮ͐̈͏̰̭̜̘̠f̠͓͔͙̙̰̖͉̐̅͋ͬͩ͟ḧ́̿̓̽͏̱̜̹͎̥̼ ̗̦̖̯̫͙͕̺̉̑̏ͫ͆̃ͥͦ̀͞C̪̘̮̺̼̥͂ͪ͒̏̓̎̐́̚ͅt͖̺̮͓̍͞ḣ̗̺̹̂ͯ̊ͬͪͤ͡u͙̜̗̗͇̓̾ͩ͊̋ͪ̚l̷ͤ̆̄̽́҉̼̝ͅh̨̡͍̲̭͎̼̼̙̖̖ͩ̑̆̏̔̍͐̅ŭ͈̹ͧ̍̏ͨ̒ͪ̕ ͉̺͙̙̲̫̄̌̍̉̈́͆ͧ̌R̖̭̼͍̼͕̞͔͗͌ͩ̌̀́'̥̼͍̰̜̦̦͔̌̅́̓͒ͭ̍ͪ͡l̸̝̳̖͍̺̰͙͉̲͛͠ÿ̡̲̤͎̯̗͕͉̀̉̂ͥ̓ͭͬͅȩ̱̯̟̺̄ͮ͊ͮͦ͜h͆̊͛ͫ̊ͬ̃̉͒҉̬̬̼̮ͅ ͒ͪ̍̚͏͕̮̳̤̺̖͓͇w̋͌͋̓ͤ̚͟͠͏̬̦͉͙g͔̩̥ͦ͋̈ͮ̈́͒̇̈͡a̷̹̱̯̹̦͉͗̔̂͡h̞͎͍͉̥͉͈̓̅͗̊̔͞'ͩ̔̒̃͏͔͍̞̮̙ņ̡͙͉̱͉̃ͨͥa͌ͮ̏̓͋̔҉̢̠̦̲̖̲̹̫g̴̦̤͔͇̘͑͢l̟̼̼͍̭͕̜͉͐͝ ̬̺̮̩̪̰͌̿̑ͦ̂͗̇f̲̠̲̯̻̤̊h̷̝̫̉̔̊͑͛̾͛͗̚͟tͭ͒̎̾̈ͥ҉͕̫͍͖̦̙̘͓a̶̮ͫ̀́ͅg͈͖̑ͮ̈́͝ṉ̵͈̯͔̞̝̑͒̍̓ͪͧͫ̉͠!͉̬͇͔̳̣͓͕͙͐͗̂̊̑ͨ̃̚͜͞

nFiend said @ 6:52pm GMT on 8th Feb
LSD?

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:24pm GMT on 8th Feb
No, LDS.

maryyugo said @ 10:26pm GMT on 8th Feb
Not really different.

granitewitch said @ 2:49pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Funny]
What's the big deal? Cthlulhu took a dump.

the belt said @ 3:02pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:5 Underrated]
YEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!

ComposerNate said @ 3:06pm GMT on 8th Feb
Fallout is out this Fall.

aardvark said @ 4:43pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
+1 despite the fact that I felt my age when it took me a second to realize that "Fall 2010" is not the beginning of an sci-fi story intro, but in fact the release date of the game.

wottan said @ 8:44pm GMT on 8th Feb
I first had this kind of realization after watching the original transformers movie, which opens with "In the year 2005.." Then 2005 came and went, with nary a giant robot to be seen. WHAT THE HELL OPTIMUS, WHAT THE HELL.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:07pm GMT on 8th Feb
Anyone here play Uplink?

Have you noticed that the events that take place in that game are supposed to take place this year?

Have fun with the Revelation virus, guys.

Chop-Logik said @ 11:29pm GMT on 8th Feb
I wish Uplink ran well, it gets all glitchy when you click around too fast, about to be traced. Freakin' love that game.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:18am GMT on 9th Feb
Really fun to play, but seemed way too short. It almost felt more like a proof-of-concept than a complete game. Amazing idea but so much more could be done with it.

Chop-Logik said @ 3:51am GMT on 9th Feb
There's talk of a slow-going rewrite.

Narrenschiff said @ 8:18pm GMT on 8th Feb
Oh shit it's developed by obsidian

Spaceloaf said @ 8:52pm GMT on 8th Feb
According to the wiki, Obsidian has many Fallout 2 team members. If anything, I'd say Obsidian has the best chance of making a good Fallout game of any company currently in business.

Fallout: New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, a company founded by Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone, two of the makers of Fallout 2 (originally at Black Isle Studios). The project is led by J.E. Sawyer, one of the lead designers of Van Buren, the canceled Fallout 3 project by Black Isle Studios. John R. Gonzalez is the lead creative designer, while Obsidian founder Chris Avellone, who worked on Fallout 2 and Van Buren is a senior designer. Joe Sanabria is the lead artist.

Narrenschiff said @ 12:40am GMT on 9th Feb
that's a good "oh shit"

DarkShadowRavenDragonGrrl69 said @ 6:58am GMT on 9th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
Except for the fact that it WILL be buggy as hell.

Krutz said @ 8:57pm GMT on 8th Feb
Those who are able to put aside a desire for the isometric view from Fallout 1 & 2 might see this as the "true" Fallout 3, since it takes place on the West Coast, like the original games.

scabble said @ 9:52pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
Meh, most of us old curmudgeons (who may or may not fixate on the isometric) are just glad to see Bethesda taking the backseat.

The isometric view was just a component- albeit one built in by design. But the Fallout world's strengths were the spirit, humor, writing and moral subjectivity. Those old school Fallout games were well conceived and well executed, if you can excuse the bazillion bugs. There were real choices, and most had dire consequences. Your actions changed the events and the story in ways that were more than superficial.

Bethesda's games lack soul, wit and originality. They slapped a Fallout skin on Oblivion and people call them visionary. The best ideas they used in Fallout 3 (like Megaton and the president) were lifted straight from the older games.

Small wonder their games enjoy long lifespans because of the mod communities. The vanilla installs are mediocrity incarnate, and proof positive that quantity beats quality for a metacritic rating.

/rant

Krutz said @ 11:44pm GMT on 8th Feb
It's also easier to have a more complicated game if you don't have to have voice work for every NPC and every possible event combination. That said, I would have liked more dead end choices beyond Megaton (though there were a few, but mostly they involve just killing someone off).

I, too, liked the richer "endings" to Fallout 1 and 2 that gave you some sense of what you accomplished as well as hints of what you didn't, but I still found F3 a very fun game. I think the humor and spirit were decently preserved, bringing that 50's uber-USA vibe along (see the dialogue of Liberty Prime).

That said, have you seen the "Fallout Restoration Project?" If you have your copy of F2 lying around, it greatly expands the game.

scabble said @ 12:11am GMT on 9th Feb
Yeah, I've checked out the restoration project. I've played the old games into the ground. I'm the worst sort of old school fan.

I had very little fun with F3, and found faults with almost every part of it. I think Bethesda missed the boat on the humor, missing anything resembling "clever" but nailing the middle-of-the-road sort of American sitcom fart joke sort of niche. The characters and the writing were just dumb. And they totally missed the boat on the vibe. "Retro-futurism" isn't supposed to be a literal yanking of items from the past mixed with futuristic things. The vibe was meant to be the "future" as envisioned by the people of the past. Vacuum tubes, fins on atomic cars and clunky robots fit- virtual reality, cyber ninjas and portable mini-nukes do not. I felt that Bethesda's art direction was waaaay off the mark. The bombs fell in 2077- why would the only surviving music be from the 1950's? I submit it is because Bethesda had no idea what the fuck they were trying to do with the art direction.

LOTS of people loved Fallout 3. And that's fine. But I could probably fill a book with all the reasons I think Bethesda is the most overrated developer in the business, especially in regards to how badly they fucked up the Fallout property.

Although to be fair, Interplay was already doing a pretty good job with that before Bethesda bought them out.

I still want my Van Buren, dammit. And not the crappy pre-beta demo that leaked, either. I want the impossibly perfect version my imagination has convinced me could have been the final release- the one that is better than anything that ever could have been produced by mortal hands. I want that one.

Krutz said @ 12:38am GMT on 9th Feb
The music, I'm presuming, apes off of the original Fallout's use of "classic" music in the Stephen King vein (take an innocent song and make it creepy).

I'm also presuming that the rights were pretty cheap.

As for the 50's in 2077, I look at Fallout as an Alt-U game, the same way I see Star Trek (especially the reboot) as an Alt-U, where it's the future for a world that diverged from ours several decades ago. Plus, we know our tech wouldn't survive a nuclear holocaust, and we don't have energy weapons anyway (which kind of sucks). So I see the world of Fallout as "the future as envisioned by Popular Mechanics, circa 1955." Everything was going to have fins, chrome, and be run on nuclear power.

The thing with all of the Fallout games are the holes in the writing, and I mean all of them. I'm just a sucker for post-apoc "magic radiation" games and stories, which lets me overlook a lot of the flaws in the plots so long as I'm given a decently clear direction for my missions. My biggest F3 gripe was Tenpenny Tower: Tenpenny was a poorly motivated villain (blow up a town just because it's an eyesore?), and the subsequent mission with the ghouls was just a huge mess (no matter what you did, the ghouls kill everyone, one way or another).

I'd also like to see a Karma system more like the one in "Mass Effect": You can get points towards being a saint or a dick, but they don't necessarily contradict each other or make you Mother Theresa or Hitler.

For the record, I also played the original "Wasteland" on the C-64. :)

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:37am GMT on 9th Feb
Frankly I'd just be happy to see Arcanum come out for the Macintosh.

scabble said @ 2:17am GMT on 9th Feb
I'm sure the rights were cheap, but the vintage music used in the previous games was only for the intros. There was no in-game music other than the ambient tunes created for the game. And why would there be? It doesn't make any sense, especially if the music was 200+ years old. I could see music created in a 50's style as fitting the game. But lifting existing tunes and plopping them in? That's just missing the point, unless they're trying to elevate Bob Crosby to be the equivalent of classical music, and I think that's a move too ballsy intellectually to have been an intentional Bethesda strategy.

So I see the world of Fallout as "the future as envisioned by Popular Mechanics, circa 1955." Everything was going to have fins, chrome, and be run on nuclear power.

I see that, too- but we'll have to agree to disagree on how well Bethesda's interpretation fits the bill. Thematically, Fallout 2 is where this all started to slide, but it still felt more consistent to me than 3. I think Bethesda was going for a mashup of Leave It To Beaver and Road Warrior but instead they got too much 80's sci-fi and too much literal 50's elements. Nothing blended. It was all parts, no sum- and derivative as hell. Even the Tenpenny Tower was lifted from (homage, I'm sure) Fiddler's Green in "Land of the Dead."

It needed more Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and less Blade Runner and Modern Warfare. And it needed a reboot, not a wholesale transplant. (BoS and Enclave AND supermutants AND radscorpions AND deathclaws on the East coast? Really? That's just lazy and cowardly.)

I'd also like to see a Karma system more like the one in "Mass Effect": You can get points towards being a saint or a dick, but they don't necessarily contradict each other or make you Mother Theresa or Hitler.

I love Mass Effect, but that system only works in anticipation of the sequel where there's an established narrative with many minor choices throughout. As a friend described it "you can save the baby, or you can save the baby with a sneer." There is no real consequence. Why can't you kill and eat the baby and be branded a REAL bad guy and play the game out that way?

That being said, it's FAR preferable to Bethesda's "do whatever you want and leave town for a couple days so everyone resets and no one remembers you" way of avoiding consequence. Bethesda is lauded for giving players choices- but they are all meaningless without consequence. They only offer the illusion of choice.

Krutz said @ 4:05am GMT on 9th Feb
Is that how aggro works in F3? I admit that I always took the good karma path (mostly because it got you goodies easier than killing everyone for them or I already had enough money, guns and ammo that all I wanted was the XP), but I was under the impression that once you made someplace hostile to you, that was it for the rest of the game.

scabble said @ 5:10am GMT on 9th Feb
There are specifics- nuking megaton will... well, nuke the town, and it will cause a couple specific lines of dialogue to occur. "Good" and "bad" affects which set of mercs come after you.

But walk into town, shoot somebody's wife, or rob somebody and then lay low for (I think) 3 in-game days and the next time you see them it will be as if for the first time. There are very few actions with real, lasting consequence in the whole game, and most of those are tied to specific characters, especially your companions. They won't rejoin your party if your karma is wrong. But if they don't get dismissed they'll stick around regardless of your actions.

A 2nd differing playthrough will quickly reveal how much of what you did was a choice, and how much was just the illusion of choice.

mwoody said @ 4:46am GMT on 10th Feb
As for the music: I always assumed a world blanketed by EMPs would see much of its tech - including computers and, though not optical media, all the devices that could play them - destroyed, leaving phonographs as a major medium.

You could argue that there would still be SOME people around able to fix CD players, and though that's true, keep in mind that the apocalypse in the Fallout series happens in several stages over a period of years. It's possible that in a world prone to frequent device-crippling bursts of radiation, the only hardware worth building and buying would be rugged and radiation-proof (also explaining the overall simplistic but very tough style of any device in the Fallout series not specifically designed for war).

This would also explain the 1950s aesthetic: in the face of nuclear annihilation, I could definitely see a resurgence of cold war style as a sort of societal gallows humor.

hackiavelli said @ 2:38am GMT on 9th Feb
"I'm the worst sort of old school fan."

That's an understatement. Though I do appreciate you hating F3 for being too derivative of but not enough like the preceding games.

theolypse said @ 3:53am GMT on 9th Feb
Your ability to mistake the map for the territory is equally impressive.

scabble said @ 5:24am GMT on 9th Feb
I've got a great pitch for you- it's a movie called "Blade Runner 2."

It's got this guy named Rick Deckard. He's sort of a cop who chases down these android people called "replicants." One of them is named "Roy Batty." Another is named "Leon." But there's a twist- one of them doesn't know she's a replicant! Her name is Rachel.

It takes place in Cleveland, Ohio and is written and directed by Michael Bay.

hackiavelli said @ 6:55am GMT on 9th Feb
No take backs!

ring riot said @ 3:06pm GMT on 8th Feb
I'm not sure I'm reading the article correctly - are they saying that these are many different mollusks wrapped around a log - not a single "creature" as the title of the article puts it?

Asscheeks Akimbo said @ 3:38pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]
I'm not sure you can read this article correctly.

ring riot said @ 6:34pm GMT on 9th Feb
Just mean that I was disappointed as at first I thought this thing was some new species, but it's just barnacles on a log.

symmetrian said @ 5:40pm GMT on 8th Feb
Barnacles on a log.

sensibleb said @ 5:49pm GMT on 8th Feb
"I have had it with these motherfucking barnacles on this motherfucking log!"

Caffeine said @ 3:14pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:5 Underrated]
+1 Ood

happyman said @ 5:42am GMT on 9th Feb
+1 (g)Ood

sensibleb said @ 3:28pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:3 Insightful]
"Slammed by boiling sea waves, laved in saline by constant saltwater surf, the percebe thrives clinging to wave-lashed crags of the sea, to coastal rocks in narrow inlets called ‘surge channels’ up which the ocean thrusts oxygen-rich waves tumbling and roiling to wash over the barnacle colonies, thus providing tiny planktonic food to be caught by the winnowing fan-like legs poking out and up from the barnacle."

That sentence is more horrifying than anything that has ever washed up on a beach.

cb361 said @ 6:59pm GMT on 8th Feb
With all these eldritch happenings, the author is clearly channelling Lovecraft.

sanepride said @ 3:53pm GMT on 8th Feb
Whoever writes this blog should stick to their native language.

ckfahrenheit said @ 4:13pm GMT on 8th Feb
I didn't know you could eat those things

China said @ 4:24pm GMT on 8th Feb
Everything is edible.

maryyugo said @ 10:27pm GMT on 8th Feb
Except China.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:38am GMT on 9th Feb
Don't be so sure. Ever read Emperor Joker?

shiney things said @ 4:21pm GMT on 8th Feb
Poorly written, inaccurate description or not, that is still a pretty disgusting sight.

JOECAM said @ 4:25pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Underrated]

JOECAM said @ 5:21am GMT on 9th Feb
HD

leezurd said @ 7:15am GMT on 9th Feb
o_O

...ok.

fap, fap, fap, fap, fap...

Jewbacchus said @ 5:13pm GMT on 8th Feb
Those look like bivalves, not barnacles.

arnonymous said @ 5:41pm GMT on 8th Feb
i'm pretty sure that i ate something like that in portugal once. the plate was full of these tentacles, we refered to them jokingly as "alien fingers".

you eat it by taking a tentacle, twisting the hard part (looks like a big fingernail) and thereby pulling the attached flesh out from the tentacle. tastes like saltwater, no texture at all.

crappiest starter ever.

Speed said @ 6:08pm GMT on 8th Feb
Yep, those are called "percebes" here in Portugal. I think they're delicious. Looking at those pics made me hungry. You probably tried them at some crappy tourist restaurant because when they're fresh it's the best starter for seafood.

CommanderSpoon said @ 5:42pm GMT on 8th Feb
It looks like a log wrapped in kelp with some clams stuck to it.

Krutz said @ 6:28pm GMT on 8th Feb
Or as they call it in some parts of the world, "foreplay."

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 6:01pm GMT on 8th Feb
I tasted this little seafood for the first time at the Fornas do Guincho restaurant on Portugal’s Estoril Coast. It’s eaten plain as a first course. Unique to Portugal, goose barnacles are fished at Cabo da Roca, where they cling to the rocks. They look like a cluster of stones. In fact, goose barnacles are a very unstable crustaceans that depend on the movement of water; though they’re sometimes found on the coast, they generally prefer to cling to rocks in the ocean depths.

Preparing

Wash the goose barnacles very well.

http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/products/shellfish/goose-barnacle/

Any sea monster that comes with cooking instructions ain't very scarey...

Krutz said @ 6:29pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:1 Insightful]

maryyugo said @ 6:39pm GMT on 8th Feb
When they picked a log, the barnacles... chose badly.

Chop-Logik said @ 6:44pm GMT on 8th Feb
timelyjones found one of these this summer. Got some real nasty photos. Kind of a sensationalist title, though.

timelyjones said @ 1:41am GMT on 9th Feb
Gooseneck barnacles is what I was told they were. They were pretty creepy looking, but the dog loved to chomp them.

damnit said @ 6:45pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:-1 Repost]
Side note:

This is what was written on Palin's palm:

Enhanced images confirm that Palin indeed had the words “Energy”, “Tax cuts” and “Lift American Spirits” scribbled on her palm.

cb361 said @ 7:02pm GMT on 8th Feb
I'm not trying to be sexist, but if she wants to Life American Spirits then why isn't she naked yet?

EPT said @ 8:00pm GMT on 8th Feb
Those are her notes? That's crap. I also like how 'budget' was scrubbed out.

Naruki said @ 12:07am GMT on 9th Feb
I get the feeling she was looking at her hand going "What the fuck is this stuff? Who put that there?"

conga said @ 8:24pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:3 Funny]
Doesn't she know that stealing cigarettes is illegal?

maryyugo said @ 8:28pm GMT on 8th Feb
why not add chop chop?

f00m@nB@r said @ 7:16pm GMT on 8th Feb [Score:5 Funny]

herra turpa said @ 8:09pm GMT on 8th Feb
that picture sums up pretty much my feelings towards american "football"

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:24pm GMT on 8th Feb
I'd find American football a lot more interesting if it were combined with chess somehow.

herra turpa said @ 10:00am GMT on 9th Feb
yeah, yeah, "they" say it´s a "chess on a playing field". to make it sound intellect, thay said same about cricket too.

lilmookieesquire said @ 12:51pm GMT on 9th Feb
That picture pretty much sums up what I think about professional sports.

psychotim said @ 8:33pm GMT on 8th Feb

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:08pm GMT on 8th Feb
Audience: "HE'S BEHIND YOU!"

Adventurer: "Oh no he isn't!"

Audience: "OH YES HE IS!"

(from the pantomime The Clown of Cthulhu)