The week would truly not be complete without a that healthy dose of internet radiation that is The Scanner. But in my stead, Christian McNeil has stepped up to the plate to provide the goods.

My name's Christian Neal McNeil. I usually blog at The Vigorous North, a blog about wild nature in cities, and at Rights of Way, a blog concerned with creating better streets and public spaces here in Portland. Justin is away on vacation, and I agreed to fill in for him with a Scanner post.

But where does Justin find his wacky offbeat links for the Scanner?

I recently posited on my own blog that if an idea can be conceived by human consciousness, then it is probably on the Internet, or will be soon. Let's test that theory. Here are some stream-of-consciousness "wouldn't it be neat if this were on the Internet" ideas, followed by links to the closest approximations of the thing that I could actually find:

Video of cats playing Pachinko?

We're off to a bad start if I can't find a particular cat video on the Internet. But here's a video of a cat named Pachniko eating lettuce. And here's a blog post about the S&P 500 kitten conspiracy (because pachinko, like Wall Street, is a form of gambling).

Cats brawling while playing Pachinko?

This is technically a sub-category of "Cats playing pachinko." Since there are no pachinko-playing-cat videos or pictures on the internet, there are also no pachinko-playing cats that are also fighting on the Internet.
However, here is a video of four women fighting in a Vegas casino, which ranks as one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen.

Geez, the internet's been a real letdown so far. Time to get off the cat subject. How about...

What the scaled-down elevation profile of the Earth's equator would sound like if you ran a phonograph needle over it?

No luck here, either, but several documents on the Internet tell us that we can hear solar wind in outer space by listening to "a quantum subatomic stylus riding the grooves of atoms like a phonograph needle on an LP." But when will science answer the more important question - what does our equator sound like?

What dinosaurs might look like if they hadn't gone extinct and had continued evolving?

This turns out to have been the concept behind "The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution," a book by illustrator Dougal Dixon.

Arcady Hizzlestein, professional groundskeeper?

This person does not and has never existed, but now he's on Justin's blog.

Klein bottle coffee mugs?

Here's a Klein Stein instead.

A support group for people who mistakenly believe that they possess super-heroic powers?

Close: here's George Saunders's great idea for a TV show.

In local news, from things that are definitely on the Internet already:

Space Gallery has a blog now!

The previously-mentioned blog tipped us off a few weeks ago, but Design Sponge recently did a profile of Portland artists, designers, and galleries.

Portland Psst! is back in town after a few months' hiatus in reputable journalism. You heard it here first.

And the Wooster Collective recently featured this street art from our hometown.

Let me tip my hat to Justin for his Scanning work, which is much harder than it looks.

The Vigorous North
A field guide to the wilderness areas of American cities.

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