Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Happy Groundhog Day

I don't know what Stephen has planned for The Colbert Report tonight. I assume he will devote the entire show to Groundhogs, or Woodchucks as they are also known. (Personally, I prefer Woodchuck.)

You may remember that Stephen gave the famous Colbert Bump to Bing a while ago. Since then I typically visit Bing once a day just to see the photo of the day. Today's is so cute. It is, of course, a photo of Groundhogs and you just have to go look at it right now.

Bing - really cute photo of Groundhogs / Woodchucks.

If you are looking at Bing and Groundhog Day has already come and gone, then just use the little arrow in bottom right corner of photo and you can see previous photos. There is also a little copyright "C" that tells us the photo today was taken by Stephen J. Krasemann which should appeal to Stephen Colbert since, well, they share the same first name.

Anyway, the Groundhog has a reputation for being something of a meteorologist and is able to accurately predict when winter will end and spring will begin. Some say the Groundhog is even more accurate that the Dopplest 9000, but there have been no scientific studies done to confirm this. (See previous post about Dopplest 9000.)

As always, when people say Groundhog, and then think Woodchuck, invariably the "If a Woodchuck blah blah blah" Tongue Twister is recited. Funny thing though. Woodchucks rarely, if ever, chuck wood. (Okay, there is a Geico commercial with Woodchucks chucking wood, but that's just Hollywood sensationalism.) The name Woodchuck comes from an Algonquian or possibly Narragansett name for the animal, wuchak. Read all about Groundhogs on Wikipedia.

So everybody, Happy Groundhog Day! Nothing, not even the Super Bowl, can rival the parties that will take place all across the Colbert Nation today.

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