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This Japanese site sells happy little cat costumes that are guaranteed to make your kitty sad. Link -via Cynical-C
I had a pillow that says ‘contains textiles of 100% unknown kind’ on that tag that says ‘Do not remove under penalty of law’. Kind of defeats the purpose of the tag, and I’m wondering what is in my pillow. Used underpants? Human hair? It does say ‘all new materials’ but that might just be ‘new to me.’
Last week, there was a peculiar spectacle at New Zealand’s Auckland airport: a race between the A1 Grand Prix Black Beauty (driven by Jonny Reid) and an Air New Zealand Boeing 777 (piloted by Captain Dave Morgan).
"It was just fantastic, a mind blowing experience," an exhilarated Reid said after the unusual match-up of the aircraft’s brawn versus the car’s beauty.
Reid said he was "quite relaxed, enjoying the scenery" as Black Beauty reached 290km/h on the tarmac.
Predictably, environmentalists weren’t amused:
Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the race seemed to be an "unnecessary waste" and questioned how the footage would boost tourism. "How exactly is that going to improve our image as the most sustainable nation in the world? What do we want to be known for internationally?"
Oh, and here are the answers to the two obvious questions: The plane won the first round when it was given a headstart of about 8 seconds, and the car won in the second round when the plane’s headstart was cut in half. And no, they didn’t close the airport down, they just squeezed the race in between take-offs and landings.
Link – Thanks Andrea-Ja McCallum!
Here’s the YouTube clip:
Comic: Bizarro (who by the way has a new blog and an upcoming comic show at the Purple Onion in San Francisco on February 22, 2008)
Remember that ailurophobia is the irrational fear of cat? Well, coulrophobia [wiki] is the irrational fear of clowns. It comes from the Greek word kolobathristes meaning one that goes on stilts and phobos meaning fear (the Greeks didn’t have a word for clown – the closest thing was those on stilts, i.e. circus performers).
Clown phobia is quite common in small children, but in some, the fear persists well into adulthood. I’ve read that up to 1 in every 7 people have it to some degree, though the exact number is very hard to pin down.
It’s easy to make fun of clown phobia (clever pun, eh?) But it can be quite a dramatic and overpowering fear in adults. Like this lady who is scared to death of clowns:
So why are people afraid of clowns? Most phobia started in childhood, but in some, fear of clown is sparked by reading about one (like the sadistic Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s novel It) or watching one in horror movies, even campy ones (Killer Klowns from Outer Space, anyone?). Indeed, the theme of evil clown [wiki] is quite common in American pop culture.
Perhaps some clowns are truly evil. Like serial killer John Wayne Gacy [wiki] aka The Killer Clown. Gacy, who was convicted for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men in the 1970s liked to dress up as "Pogo the clown" in neighborhood block parties to entertain little children. After he was caught and convicted, Gacy spent his days on death row painting – you’ve guessed it – clowns.
John Wayne Gacy’s Pogo and Clown Skull
(Photo: Serial Killer Central, who has more of these kinds of morbid art)
People are apt to overanalyze coulrophobia, though they can come up with interesting reasons. Kathryn Cillick at Phobialist came up with this explanation:
I have a theory about the reason for fearing clowns that I thought I would suggest to you. Because clowns have permanent, exaggerated expressions painted on their faces – usually of joy but not always, it renders the observer impotent in measuring facial expression as a precursor of action and for those who are vigilant about their environment, possibly because of past traumatic events, they are unable to interpret and therefore predict what this creature may do to them. This is heightened when we observe the "happy" clown performing some aggressive behavior – it becomes too much to take – creating intense confusion and fear. I don’t know if this is the reason – simply my first thoughts on a very intriguing subject.
If you’re afraid of clowns, you’re not alone: anti-clown celebrities include rapper P. Diddy, Johnny Depp, Carol Burnett and Anthony Bourdain.
Now I don’t find clowns scary. I find them creepy. How about you?
Los Angeles musician and artist Stephen McSwain makes awesome custom guitars. Tired of seeing the same old guitars, Stephen decided to create a new breed of guitars he called "functional art." The results are fantastic, one of a kind guitars that are truly masterpieces. For example, here’s the Wicked Witch of the West guitar:
After seeing the Frankenstein guitar, Slash [yes, THAT Slash] came … with the idea of a completely original gift for his wife Perla. Being that they are both huge Wizard of Oz fans, we designed the Wicked Witch of the West guitar and castle wall display as a surprise for her for Christmas/Valentine Day (it took 3 months to complete).
… The witch has eyes that are back mounted dowels that I painted a pinkish white that glow in the dark. The teeth are made from a small, carved piece of cow bone with gums made of maple dust, super glue, and a bit of red stain. Once this dried, I rubbed in black fresco powder to make her look as if she needed a trip to the Emerald City dental clinic! She is shrouded in a cloud of "smoke" made of bondo.
… The witch is flanked by two of her flying monkeys. They are carved from mahogany and have dowel eyes. The eyes have small brass rings as irises and glow hot pink in the dark! As you look up the castle and guitar, the monkeys look down on you with their sinister grin.
Plenty more at his website: Link (don’t miss the Frankenstein guitar!) – Thanks Jon!
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Hideaki Matsui, Dong Ho Yun, and Jea Wan Park designed a ring that allows people to exchange their contact information simply by shaking hands. The idea won the 2007 Red Dot Award for Interaction & Communication design concept.
Shaking hands is a customary greeting action. Handshake brings the action one step further by creating an information transfer function. Handshake operates when people first meet and shake hands, and the rings on their fingers gain the proximity to operate. The rings exchange the users’ information and store it while the users are shaking hands. The more people met, the more information transferred. When the users browse through the people they have met, the card displays the basic information that was stored in the ring. The power source originates from the human body temperature, so no plug is required.
Link – via Kontrast Blog, thanks Jon Jason!
Eskobar. From right to left: Robert Birming (drums), Daniel Bellqvist (vocal), and Frederik Zäll (guitar).
Well, I’ll be darned! Turns out that one of Neatorama’s authors, Robert Birming of the fantastic gadget blog GeekAlerts is a rock star! For real. He plays drums on the Swedish indie/pop band Eskobar.
The band just finished recording their 5th album and released their first single "As the World Turns" a few days ago. They’ve uploaded the single up on YouTube (the video was created by guitarist Frederik Zäll):
Not to be missed (all YouTube links)
- Someone New (with Heather Nova)
- Whatever This Town
- You Got Me (with Emma Daumas)
Links: Eskobar official website | Flickr photosets | YouTube channel | Online shop at Klicktrack
Over 500 people (those crazy Minnesotans!) showed up one winter morning in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, to take a plunge into the freezing lake (a hole has been cut in the ice for this specific reason). The Polar Bear Plunge, as the event is called, is an annual event held in many places to benefit the Special Olympics.
Jeff Shaw of City Pages took a plunge over the weekend, and lived to blog about it:
I arrived at the lake early, just as registration was beginning at 9 a.m., so I could photograph the volunteers from local law enforcement cutting a hole in the frozen lake. The quiet registration soon gave way to a throng. There were more than 400 online registrations, and more than 500 people did the plunge overall — a White Bear Lake record.
The outlandish costumes (one man’s top three: the Ghostbusters; Twister; the Wizard of Oz cast) added to the festive atmosphere, and so did some judiciously chosen music playing from outdoor speakers. Strolling down to the jump-off point, I recall thinking "If you’re going to freeze to death, you might as well do so to the tune of Rick James’ ‘Superfreak.’" And then, the water!
Last year, Fiona Carswell made a jacket for polite smokers. The Smoking Jacket, as it is called, has a built-in container with a one-way valve into which the smoker blows smoke (instead of in the faces of the people around her).
The smoke is then channeled through plastic tubings and filters through a set of see-through lungs at the front of the jacket. The lungs are made from air-filter material, which darkens over time, to visually simulate the effects of smokes on real lungs.
Link – via Trend Hunter, Thanks Jon Jason!
In the hit TV series Gilligan‘s Island, Gilligan actually had a first name: Willy.
Gilligan’s first name was used only once, on the never-aired pilot show. Sherwood Schwartz, the series’ creator, got the name Gilligan by opening a phone book to a random page. Oh, the Professor and the Skipper’s real names? Roy Hinkley and Jonas Grumby, respectively.
"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."
- Harlan Ellison, author (b. 1934)
From our pal Adam Koford (apelad) of Hobotopia, here’s his rendition of cartoon sound effects from A to Z! Link [Flickr]
In the unlikely event that France decides to go back and be a monarchy again, the guy next in line to be king is … an Indian lawyer named Balthazar de Bourbon:
A restoration of the monarchy in France is, of course, improbable. But so is the story of how a possible heir to the throne, a dauphin from the royal house of Bourbon, lives in relative obscurity here in this lakeside city in central India, where he practices law, putters around the family farm and nurses hopes that his lineage, if not his birthright, might one day be recognized by his glittering European relations.
"I am born an Indian," De Bourbon says. "But the fact of life is that I belong to the royal family of France."
In 2005, Japanese electronics company Sanyo has built what is probably the world’s coolest solar photovoltaic power generation facility: the Solar Ark. The building is 315 m (1,033 ft) long and 37 m (121 ft) tall and has over 5,000 solar battery panels. It can generate 630 kW of electricity, enough to power 200 homes for a year.
Every time my family and I visit the Santa Barbara Zoo, we always went to see Gemina the crooked-necked giraffe. So it was sad that I found out that Gemina had to be euthanized because her health declined due to old age.
Gemina had just turned 21 (see video clip below), and that was considered quite an old age for a giraffe.
The number one question asked in the Santa Barbara Zoo was what caused Gemina’s crooked neck? No one knew the answer, actually.
Link (Photo: Ian Vorster)
This is a strange one: a 30-year-old woman named Barbora Skrlova passed herself as a 13-year-old boy … and even enrolled herself in school!
Barbora Skrlova fled to Norway from the Czech Republic and posed as a 13-year-old boy for four months to avoid giving testimony in a 2007 child abuse case, Czech police said.
She was deported back to the Czech Republic and detained after months of fooling teachers in Norway by passing herself off as a boy named Adam. She was enrolled at a school near Oslo in September by a woman who introduced the 33-year-old as her son.
Skrlova was eventually arrested after the police received a tip-off.
This is just about the neatest photomosaic/optical illusion I’ve seen all week! Does anyone know who made it? via imbaDev
Update 1/14/08: The artist is Lewis Lavoie – you can see many more examples in his website – Thanks Linda and Susan!
