Off the coast of Nova Scotia, there's a humpback whale that specializes in joy and today was the perfect day for me to meet him (or her, I don't know much about whales).

[Discovery via The Awl]

If you weren't at Sky Bar on Wednesday for the summer solstice party, you missed out on a good time. There was a comedic juggling act, daring acrobatic routines, hula-hooping like you've never seen before and fire dancing. The Bennu, a local jazz-funk band, and other musicians also celebrated the longest day of the year by rocking out at the astronomy-themed bar on Fourth Avenue.

More photos from the event, below the cut.

Camilo Lara is both a fan of Tucson and a sometimes-employer of some of our city's musicians, so it seems notable that his "group," Mexican Institute of Sound has a new video from their forthcoming album, "Político". Enjoy.

The main design element inside the new Firehouse Subs up at 3844 W. River Road, in Marana, is a hand-painted scene of the blaze that engulfed Old Tucson Studios some years back. Special attention has been paid to the details, with fire engines from both Tucson Fire Department and Northwest Fire Department in the painting.

But, hey, that's how Firehouse Subs rolls: Always giving it up for the firefighters. They've also integrated memorabilia from several local fire departments into the design of this new store to give it an "authentic firehouse setting," according to the press release announcing the opening.

Apparently there's a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine in the house. Those things crank out like 120 different flavors of carbonated beverages, and, if memory serves me correctly, were designed by the same people who design sports cars.

There's more on the restaurant over here.

Yes, it's a giant ad for a toy and yes, the X Games are sort of ridiculous, but as far as televised events go, two cars racing each other while driving upside down briefly is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy:

The “Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare” is set to take place at this month’s Summer X-Games in Los Angeles. Drivers Tanner Foust and Greg Tracy will attempt to race through a 60-foot vertical loop modeled after the new Double Dare Snare Hot Wheels toy, in what would be the first time in history two cars mounted a vertical loop at once...

It’s a race and a stunt in one, with the drivers racing two purpose-built cars at 52 mph down separate tracks that merge into one big loop, where they will face a a gravitational force of 7 G’s (that’s what a fighter pilot feels), before being spit out on the other side to complete a jump. First one through wins....

Plans and preparation have been underway since last fall, where former NASA lab experts, roller coaster engineers and stuntmen came together to concoct the life-sized track. In the end, and after what Foust calls a “mind boggling amount of physics,” the 700-foot long (about two football fields) track and 125 tons of steel loop were complete.

If you're easily grossed out, you might want to skip this post. If you want to hear a story about a Texas family that made the mistake of making their own sushi, keep going, but you've been warned.

The Pham family is trying to forget what happened at their large Father's Day celebration Saturday in Central Texas.

They prepared their own sushi with raw salmon purchased the same day at the H-E-B in Round Rock at State Highway 45 and Greenlawn Boulevard.

"My niece came in here, and she was eating one of the few pieces of sushi we had left on the plate and said, 'Ew, something feels funny,'" said Nichol Pham. "She pulled something out of her mouth, and it looked like a string."

When they looked closer, the string was moving. When they looked at the rest of the salmon, they could see more tiny worms covering the fish.

Pham said 23 people ate the salmon and felt sick the next day. Half of them were children, all cousins, ages 2 to 12.

"We've vomited, have diarrhea, stomach aching," said Pham. "My stomach is still aching today."

She said they went back to H-E-B that night to talk to a manager who offered a refund.

"We explained to him: 'We don't want a refund. We've already ingested this into our bodies,'" said Pham.

Phoenix rapper Mega Ran used to be a middle school teacher before devoting himself full time to music, had a viral hit with a track about Jeremy Lin this February, and raps extensively about video games. Certainly not the sort of artist you see everyday, so why not check him out - for free, even! - at 5 pm tonight at Heroes and Villains?

If you'd like a preview, there are some clips of his last appearance at the store on YouTube.

The movie looks amazing, and Anna Karenina is my favorite novel ever, so I'm pretty much in the tank for this movie already, but:

1. The "screenplay by Tom Stoppard" bit scares me. While he did write a number of great plays and the screenplay for Brazil, he was also responsible for Shakespeare in Love.

2. Aaron Johnson, at age 22, seems a bit young to play Vronsky, who I always thought was at least in his thirties. I might be totally wrong about this, however. Either way, his mustache creeps me out.

3. I don't know, do we need another adaption of Anna Karenina? I think I might have been the only person to see the 1997 version, which opened in five theaters, including the Scottsdale Camelview, for some reason, but it was quite good. Also, there was a BBC miniseries a few years ago, and British television producers do opulence and misery better than anyone.

Mostly, I'm just bothered by the mustache, but I guess I should be glad Baz Luhrmann's not involved and that Kitty Shcherbatskaya isn't singing a song by The Police in the trailer.

We interviewed Tucson author Adam Rex, earlier this year ahead of Free Comic Book Day, and now his book The True Meaning of Smekday is going to be the source material for a major motion picture coming out in 2014. This cannot be a coincidence.

DreamWorks Animation today announced that Emmy and Golden Globe winner Jim Parsons ("Harvey on Broadway" and "The Big Bang Theory") and international superstar Rihanna (Battleship) will star in the leading roles in Happy Smekday!, a feature film based on the critically acclaimed book "The True Meaning of Smekday" by Adam Rex. The studio plans to release Happy Smekday! during the fourth quarter of 2014.

Tim Johnson (Over the Hedge, Antz) will serve as the film's director. Chris Jenkins (Rio, Surf's Up) and Suzanne Buirgy (Kung Fu Panda 2) are serving as producers and DreamWorks Animation's Head of Development Gregg Taylor is overseeing the project. Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart) are currently writing the screenplay.

"Adam's hilarious book is the perfect recipe for a compelling animated feature and we are ecstatic that Jim Parsons and Rihanna will contribute their immense talents to the production," said Bill Damaschke, DreamWorks Animation's Chief Creative Officer. "We're also thrilled that Tim Johnson is back to direct another DreamWorks Animation feature film and show the world just how fun an alien invasion can be!"

Of the varying degrees of a student’s dedication to their education, none compare to 71-year-old Michael Nicholson, who’s dedicated over 50 years to furthering his education and thus receiving 29 degrees.

And no, that is not a typo. This Michigan resident is one degree short of 30. What a feat right? The article, which is linked at the bottom, astonished me. I’ve always joked that if I could, I’d stay in school forever and get all the degrees I could until the day I died. Well, Nicholson is doing just that and I can’t help but commend the guy for such an accomplishment and for putting into reality what I’ve said in jest about my own education.

And he’s not done either; Nicholson’s goal is to make it to 33 maybe 34 degrees before he calls it a day. He’s also inspired his wife to continue her education, and now she has seven degrees under her belt. I bet their pillow talk is pretty interesting.