This is so not comics, except for the fact that it has captured the imagination of Twitterers over the last week or so! Today at 5 EDT on the National Geographic channel, perhaps the most riveting TV show of all times is airing: The Whale that Exploded . The story is so Apollonian in its purity and wonder that scarcely more than a bare, expository sentence is needed to hint at its marvels:
In January 2004, the carcass of a 50-ton sperm whale explodes in a Taiwanese city center. NGC examines the physics and the biology of this 100,000-pound animal whose body was destroyed by its own internal forces.
Our first guess was that the whale stopped to eat at Waffle House prior to the incident, but apparently that was not the cause of these internal forces. Or, as the caption to the above photo puts it:
Car with whale innards splashed on it post-explosion. On the way to Tainan University for research, the whale exploded due to volatile gas build up in the abdomen.
Look, how often do you see the terms “Sperm whale,” “innards” and “volatile gas build up” in ONE SINGLE STORY????? You owe it to yourself to watch. You’ve earned it.
Yes! I saw this earlier this year and — let me tell you — it’s pretty cool.
Unfortunately, they try to build a mystery out of what may have caused the EXPLOSION during the first half. I think anyone with remedial biological knowledge knows that when you plop a whale that’s been dead for a while on the back of a flatbed semi and cart it through traffic during the heat of the day, BAD THINGS HAPPEN.
Let me be the first to say, “OH THE HUMANITY!”
WMD: Whale of Mass Destruction?
Must have been the wafer-thin mint.
Any show that suggests exposure of a whale’s five-foot penis could mean imminent detonation is just too much for this Brummie to resist.
“I think anyone with remedial biological knowledge knows that when you plop a whale that’s been dead for a while on the back of a flatbed semi and cart it through traffic during the heat of the day, BAD THINGS HAPPEN.”
Ray, not more truth could be worded for this topic! So…my guess is the Taiwanese don’t have much experience with whales, except for probably eating them.
I think this was actually Adrian Veidt’s beta-test.
I shudder to think of the smell emanating from that city during the summer …
OH NO, NOT AGAIN!
Did anyone find the remains of a bowl of petunias nearby?
Our first guess was that the whale stopped to eat at Waffle House prior to the incident, but apparently that was not the cause of these internal forces.
That made me laugh so hard the cat looked at me funny.
i too exploded in wokingham, england when a truck carried my corpse through the town centre