Because it’s Friday, I’ll post the three four best animal videos I’ve received this week from readers. The second and third have gone viral, and I’ve gotten them from multiple people.
First, two-month-old clouded leopard cubs (hand-reared) from the Nashville Zoo:
An otter racing a child. If you think the child is simply running along with the otter, see what happens 35 seconds in:
This video, also viral, is driving everyone nuts at Imperial College Silwood. Warning: the song is a meme that may well embed itself in your brain—exactly as Dawkins’s “Punch in the presence of the passengare.” What songs have driven you mad?
This had only 316 views this morning! Unless you’re made of stone, it will give you an endorphin rush:
SQUEEEEEE!
I actually started crying when the kitteh hugged the kitten to her. What is that response? Why do we sometimes find sweet things at the same time heartbreaking?
Yep: SQUEEEE! The cat hugging a kitten is just ridiculously adorable.
***
“What songs have driven you mad?”
Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. In particular, the nonsense part. Horrible!
Thankfully, I don’t seem susceptible to the baby monkey earworm… Phew.
Check this out if you haven’t seen it. 🙂
Ah, grad school … universal across all fields.
The song and lyrics are not bad at all, and the video has creative production values.
But hey – no eye protection in the labs? That would be a big no-no here.
I totally jumped on that bandwagon a couple of weeks ago. My 8 year old still sings this version.
I don’t know if I should thank you or… 🙂
That’s hilarious! Also, surprisingly good.
Kitten looks uncomfortable.
I don’t think it is possible for a sleeping cat to be uncomfortable.
The song I loathe more than any other is also a near deadly earworm and that is Afternoon Delight. Now please excuse me while I go wash between my ears.
#3 has gone viral too. I saw it twice on Facebook last night, posted it to my own page and watched several friends cross post it after that.
What songs have driven you mad?
How could I have been so remiss as to forget to answer with these:
1. Don’t Stop Believing – Journey
2. I’ll Fly Away (Folk Song, unsure of composer)
3. The elebenty billion covers of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
I could go on… But my choices are less about the annoyance factor and more about the overdone, overplayed, tired, moldy-oldie factor.
I’m late to the party, but here’s a (skeptical) antidote to “Don’t Stop Believing”:
Fun videos.
Got an ear worm yesterday while captive in the dentist’s chair. Are they required by the ADA or something to play bad old pop music?
“You are a magnet and I a-a-a-m steel”
Possibly written by Vogons?
Many many many years ago I went to Disneyland with somebody-or-other who somehow talked me into going on the “It’s a Small World” ride. The train got stuck somewhere in the middle, and the soundtrack kept going on and on and on and on and on and on and on for forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
It’s a miracle I didn’t kill anybody, including said person.
But the good news is that I now realize that I’ve completely totally forgotten everything else about that trip, including who said person actually was.
Cheers,
b&
Went on the Small World thing once. Years ago. I’m talking DECADES ago.
I can still hum the tune. I am particularly skilled at using it to empty a room, quickly.
Any time somebody complains to me that they’ve got an earworm, I tell them I have a cure. I then immediately start sining “It’s a Small World” loudly and slightly out of tune. At most halfway through the second phrase, they’re telling me to shut up.
But it’s true — at that point, nobody in the room has the original song stuck in the head, because everybody now has “It’s a Small World” stuck in the head.
Even more to the point, I never again have to listen to that person complain about an infectious earworm….
Cheers,
b&
P.S. The real cure for an earworm is to segue into something else, and then into something else again. For example, “It’s a Small World” can lead pretty quickly into “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Once on any Beatles tune, you can jump quickly to any other Beatles tune, and before long you’ll be remembering all your other favorite ’60s music, and by then you’ve long since forgotten all about “It’s a Small World.” Oops…You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine Daisy Daisy give me your answer, do; I’m half cra-zy, all for the love of Zarathustra…. b&
Love your cure.
I have an occasional earworm of a harmony exercise I struggled with at Auckland University in 1970. I think the lecturer meant his melody line to be banal. Anyone else have a longstanding one like that?
Kitty cute overload! Awww.
And I just love snow leopards – their paws are so incredibly large and bushy. Apparently, they function like snow shoes.
Those are the kewtest kittehs evah.
Although, I can’t help wondering just a little bit if the baby could breathe with that heffalump on top of it.
Ah, just what I needed today. Love the way the snow leopard cubs chase the camera! So like my own cat & dogs; I’ll have to master filming while running backwards, as the photog in the leopard vid seems to do.
Love the kid & otter; and the kitten with Ma is just too…ineffable. Awwwwwwwwwww.
Answer to Josh @ # 1: in cases like this I think it’s the juxtaposition of a relatively big & powerful being protecting/comforting/caring for a small and helpless being. We realize just how vulnerable the very young (and certain others) can be, and that they only survive, let alone prosper, due to the caring of the older and capable. It’s often a maternal thing, but not uncommonly a different sort of couple, from paternal all the way to inter-species. The phenomenon gets me every time.
Those rambunctious little darlings are clouded (not snow) leopardlets — Or is it leopardkins?
Anyway, most pleased to report I’m not made of stone.
That cat just wanted that kitten to hold still so that she could get on with her nap undisturbed.
:- )
You are SUCH a cynic!
I know. :- )
I’m a cynic too. That cat wasn’t hugging the little one, just stretching and relaxing in its sleep.
OK, it’s really cute, too. And the cuddle certainly happened when one of them was awake.
I couldn’t help comparing that babe to a human one I saw over the weekend. 2 weeks old. Sleep look and movements are so similar between these two. More so because the kitteh is on its back.
(I know I’m late to this game, but I had to comment anyway–probably no one will read.)