Is this a fish?

Belfast, I'm in you (AM)

Appleheart and I landed in Belfast yesterday. I have to confess that all I know about Belfast,  I learnt from movies about 'the troubles' in the 80s and 90s, which is a narrow view to say the least. I'm sure Belfast has lots more going on than just being the site of sectarian violence borne of political struggle, but what that is I couldn't tell you, that's why "Belfast, I'm in you!" is all I could think of to say after Appleheart and I alighted at George Best airport on Saturday.
It's quite a nice position to be in, not knowing anything about a city apart from who its favourite sons are.

Yep. This guy. And also this guy, who I only know is from Belfast because the airport is named after him:  

It's soccer champion George Best! I remember the news coverage of his death included an amusing quote he made at some point, about how he'd earned piles and piles of money through soccer but had little to show for it. "Most I spent on booze and women", he said, "and the rest I wasted." Or something like that. Ha!

Anyway, Belfast. Because I know so little about it, and because several people had recommended it to us, against our better judgement we took one of those city sightseeing bus tours around the city. You know, the ones on the double decker buses. 

I really should have trusted my instincts on this one. Now I know this about Belfast: they built the Titanic here, and as far as Belfast is concerned, it was fine when it left so they've got nothing to do with what happened.  

I can also tell you where Belfast's smallest house is, where Belfast's oldest dual carriageway is and what it feels like to drive along it on top of an open double decker bus in the rain (shit), and the location of the public sculpture known as the Salmon of Knowledge. Ha!

But it's only my first day. I am sure I will come to know and love it. 

But if anyone knows of fun things to do here, please tell me. I am very very open to your suggestions, friends. 

Amazing Animals (AM)

Anyone who knows us knows that we are total beach babes. Hell, you don't even have to know us to know that. If you just saw us walking down the street you would think oh man, where's the surf ladies? because our whole look and feel screams beach babe.

HAHAHAHA.That is a total lie. We do not look like beach babes at all. We look like this:  

Thor Friendship is coming.

But J is in love with a beach babe and I'm pretty sure Baby is a beach babe waiting to happen. But that's beside the point.

What is the point? Oh that's right.

Yesterday, I was tinkering about in the internet and I found a picture of an underwater creature that totally blew my mind, even more than the fathead sculpin fish. 

Readers: behold the Spirobranchus giganteus, also known as the red and white Christmas tree worm.

WHAT THE EFF YOU GUYS?!?!?

Does that thing just totally blow your minds, or what?

It blows my mind so much that I just invented that whole fake beach babe introduction thing so I could get you all thinking about marine environs and then post about it, even though the introduction has nothing really to do with this worm. 

Who even know worms lived under the sea? Not me! And who even knew worms could look like that? Again, not me!

I've seen it all. 

That's all, readers. Have a lovely day. 

Something for everyone (AM)

Today I thought I was all ready to tell you all these thoughts I have been having about Prince. Not just Prince, but music in general. But then it got kind of confronting. Like, am I really ready to talk to you about the visceral response to music, my ideas about how live music is so awesome because it makes some imagined world created by music somehow almost tangible, but also tantalisingly less tangible, and how the first time I heard 'Gett Off' my mind was totally blown. No. No way. I am totally not ready to go there. Sorry guys. (But go and watch the clip for 'Gett Off'. It's so awesome but I can't embed it.)

'But', I thought to myself, 'What am I going to write about?' So I looked around for inspiration. And found it in one of my favourite places. The Internet! Actually, I found it right here in the back end of Miss Soft Crab, specifically in the keyword search traffic sources. Firstly, you may be interested to know that not a single Ewan McGregor-related phrase was in the top ten search terms bringing people here. 'Jedward' was (thanks Eurovision) and so was 'Seal's face' (thanks The Voice). And so was 'fish that looks like a man'. I mean, geez, you talk about a fathead sculpun one time and suddenly 'fish that looks like a man' is bringing in the audience. So I thought I would see what happened when I asked Google for a 'fish that looks like a man'. I'll tell you what happened, as I started writing the Google predictive text told me that the second most searched for fish look alike, after 'fish that looks like a dog' is 'fish that looks like hitler'. No wonder. Turns out there are a heap of those little bastards out there:

Then I decided to see what other animals look like people. There are dogs that look like Snoop Dogg. Of course.

 
I also tried for pigs that look like people. But apparently people only ever ask Google to find images of 'pigs that look like sheep' and 'pigs that look like a willy'. WTF, people?!? WTF?

Finally it became quite clear that I had to see if there were any dogs that look like Ewan McGreggor. Apparently there aren't, so Google offered up this instead.