I used to really be into the outrageously magnificent sounds of Günther. Then Mark Gormley came along and showed me what real music was all about. His absolute awesomeness can't easily be put into words. Thankfully, it can very easily be put into videos. The sheer, unbridled talent of this amazing singer/songwriter will spoil you for his music forever. And he's Canadian, so he's got that going for him too!

For those people searching for more of Mark Gormley's hard rocking sounds, YouTube's got it all.

I've only linked to the Boston Globe's The Big Picture once before, when they had amazing pictures of Jupiter. Kottke talks about this feature a lot, and for good reason: the pictures in these sets, without exception, are gorgeous and stirring, And as I'm a huge lover of good photography, I should probably link to this more often.

The set that finally gets a second link is The Next President of the United States, on the eve of his inauguration. These are great photos and exciting times.

Here's a catchy classic from the Muppet Show. You'll be singing it in your head all day!

Rusting aluminum? PopSci explains the science.

Australia freestyle motocross champion Robbie Maddison performs a crazy stunt on New Years Eve 2008 in Vegas, jumping his bike 96 feet onto a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, and coming back down safely following a 40 foot drop. He makes it look so easy, but it blows my mind every time I watch it.

I once went to an astronomy display and saw a model of the Big Dipper. The stars aren't all on the same plane, and are, in fact, all different distances from us. By rotating the display you could really get a picture of how these stars might look like the Big Dipper to us, but it's all just an illusion based on perspective.

Side View Generator works along these same lines. By moving parts of letters out of a common plane, one word might become a different word when rotated. A very interesting idea, if a little hard to explain.

G33k Lite has a short slideshow of 16 pictures called Perception. It's in the same vein as those photos your friends took in Italy where they're holding up (or pushing down) the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And after looking through the photos, it makes me wonder why I don't try to take more pictures like that.

Some crows in Japan have found a new way to open hard-shelled nuts. I'm not usually so much about the funny animal videos, but I have a soft spot for birds and this is pretty darn cute.

But this level of creativity shouldn't really come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows birds. I had a flock of "pet" magpies while I was in university who would wait for me to bring them bread on my way to class, and I just recently learned there are a number of birds who've learned how to activate the photo sensors on automatic doors and are living in a local Home Depot for the winter.

Rate your colour sensitivity with this test that asks you to arrange four sets of 22 colour chips in the proper sequence. I got 100% on my first try, but I had to take frequent breaks and it took me more than an hour to finish.

Here is a great video showing a talented cartoonist drawing a number of "dirty" pictures. Very funny and very SFW.

Just Hear It is a very interesting and simple site that asks you to type in the name of any song, which it will then play. It' s currently in a private beta, but users can still enter songs and create playlists. I didn't do extensive testing, but I wasn't able to stump it.

Now, if we only still had access to Pandora in Canada....

Here's a cool video from showing an aluminum block falling inside an MRI.

This is an example of the Lorenz Force. There's some discussion in the comments, but essentially the MRI creates an electric charge in the aluminum block (which is conductive but non-magnetic), which in turn creates a magnetic field, which interacts with the magnetic field in the MRI. I got a magnetic experiment kit from Lee Valley for Christmas last year which demonstrated the same effect using a magnetic sphere and a piece of copper tubing. It's eerie!
(Via Ovablastic)

Mark your calendars: Cult Case lists seven great meteor showers to watch in 2009, including dates, frequency, parent comet, and some pretty pictures. They go into some pretty good detail, too.

If you're looking for blog ideas, Prompt-a-Day will provide you with a daily writing topic and suggested amount of time to spend on it. Vox was doing this for a while, and I thought it was a great idea. Too bad I'm not posting on Vox.

Landscape + Urbanism Blog has a picture of an explosion that took place after someone that didn't check for underground pipelines ruptured a high-pressure gas pipe with an automated post hol digger. The scale of this is amazing!

If you're at all confused about familial relationships, like I am, then you'll appreciate this chart showing how cousins are related. Surprise everyone at your next family reunion!

Here's a map showing just how big Africa really is.

The Eyeballing Game has you trying to construct shapes and bisect angles just by eyeballing it.Great fun, especially for geeks like me who think they have a good eye for this sort of thing.