The Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery is at the southern end of Big Sur, along Highway 1 on California’s coast. Elephant seals starting showing up there in the fall of 1990. There were fewer than two dozen of them at the time. The following spring brought about 400 seals to the area for molting. Now, the rookery is home to more than 16 thousand elephant seals throughout the year.

I was there in mid-February, while the new pups were weaning, and took some photos.

Use the arrows or thumbnails to navigate the images. Mouse over a photo to hear audio.

photos | 2 Comments »

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, founded in 1999, makes all their instruments out of — you guessed it — vegetables. The music they make is truly impressive, ranging from Jazz to Electronica to Dub, all played with hollowed out carrots, cucumberphones and leek violins.

Check out their website for photos of their instruments and audio samples.

art, music | No Comments »

Thank God for CNN. How else would we ever come across a story with two of the most compelling narrative aspects ever to be combined: weiner poopie and a ransomed Jesus?

(Thanks to a local news follow-up, it was revealed that the 80 lb. Jesus was taken - and returned - by a family member.)

funny | No Comments »