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When Anadel Carrizales pulled over to help a blonde in a black miniskirt whose car appeared to have broken down on a Mexican highway, he thought that he was his lucky day … but all he got was a super sticky situation:
Once he had stopped, the woman walked up and told him an accomplice was pointing a gun at him, said David Perales, a spokesman for state investigators.
She then tied him up with packing tape, super-glued his hands to the steering wheel of his truck and demanded money. Carrizales didn’t have any cash, but the woman took his credit cards and fled.
"He probably thought it was his lucky day when he saw the woman in the miniskirt, but was surprised when she tied him up," Perales said.
With his motor still running and his hands still glued to the wheel, Carrizales managed to drive a few miles (kilometers) down the road until he found a police officer to help him.
Robert Ballard, the explorer who found the wreckage of the Titanic, has just revealed that the expedition was actually a cover story for the US Navy about two lost nuclear submarines:
The Navy was not interested in the Titanic. … I mean, they funded the technology because it had so many military applications. And I was a naval intelligence officer for 30 years, and so I did a lot of missions for the Navy. Many remain classified, my best stuff. Rats …
Yes, the Titanic was a cover for a series of military operations. The Titanic was here, and over here was the Scorpion and over here was the Thresher (as he says this, he arranges three objects on a tabletop, roughly in a line, the center one depicting the Titanic).
And had that not occurred, I probably would not have found the Titanic because they wouldn’t have funded me. I mean, if the Titanic was in the Indian Ocean, it’d probably still be in the Indian Ocean. But … it was straddled by two very interesting subs that we had lost — and the Scorpion was lost on war patrol … and it was carrying nuclear weapons. So it was a very hot sub to the Navy …
Meet Sal Giangrande, the self-styled "Couch Doctor" of New York. Sal has a pretty unique business niche: he saws and re-assembles couches for people who couldn’t fit their old couch into their new apartments but don’t want to give up either one:
‘I can’t watch," said Andrew Clarke, shutting his eyes.
"You shouldn’t," the doctor said calmly.
The doctor’s assistant pulled out an electric saw. He started slicing. The ground was already strewn with staples that had been yanked out. After one, two, three . . . seven incisions, Clarke’s $4,000, perfectly worn-in, brown leather couch lay in pieces with the 88-inch-long back surgically separated from the arms and bottom. Clarke’s cherished couch looked like a dissected moose.
"Gosh," he mumbled, his eyes wide, "whatever it takes."
Sal Giangrande calls himself the New York Couch Doctor, but in fact he’s New York’s Doctor Whatever It Takes for desperate people like Clarke, who couldn’t shimmy his old couch into his new apartment and wasn’t willing to give up either one.
The young real estate executive was moving from one apartment to another in the same brick building in the heart of west Greenwich Village. The new place was bigger and had a spectacular view of the Hudson River but was situated in the middle of a narrow hallway.
"The movers tried several times, several angles, but they couldn’t get the couch around the turn from the hallway into the new place," Clarke said. He was ready to dump it when his doorman told him about the Couch Doctor — aka Sal Giangrande.
Geraldine Baum of the Los Angeles Times has more on this fascinating story about New Yorkers and their sofabsessions: Link
(Photo: Carolyn Cole/LA Times)
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Wouldn't It Be Cool if US CEOs Were Like
This? When JAL sliced jobs and asked older employees to retire early, Nishimatsu cut every single one of his corporate perks and for three years running slashed his own pay. In 2007, he made US$ 90,000, less than what his pilots earned. Kyung Lah of CNN reports: Link |
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This Reptile is Pimpin' |
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Don't Try to Rob Beauticians! The suspect was trying to get out of the business. And as he was trying to get out, they kept on pulling him [in] and beating him ... |
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Woman vs. Cow Here's a funny clip (well, funny to some anyhow) of a cow trying to get into an otherwise occupied bathroom. |
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How to Unflip and Lose Your Caterpillar in 30 Seconds Here's a 30-second clip on how to make a bad situation worse (yes, ironically also set to a bad techno music) : Link |
For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
Congratulations to John Dawkins and Penny Cooper, who got married last week and therefore set a new UK record for oldest newlyweds!
Three months ago 90-year-old Penny Cooper made a leap-year proposal to 89-year-old John Dawkins, who she met at a charity event.
The couple, who have a combined aged of 179, tied the knot at a register office in Devon on Tuesday.
Here’s one gruesome way of avoiding a tribal warfare adopted by two villages in Papua New Guinea: kill every male babies born!
By virtually wiping out the ‘male stock’, tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future.
‘Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,’ said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special ‘peace and reconciliation’ meeting in the mountain village of Goroka.
‘It’s because of the terrible fights that have brought death and destruction to our villages for the past 20 years that all the womenfolk have agreed to have all new-born male babies killed,’ said Mrs Luke.
‘The women have had enough of men engaging in tribal conflicts and bringing misery to them.’
Here’s a tip for all you graffiti "artists": when tagging public buildings, do not – I repeat – do not sign it with your online identity!
Here’s a story of one Melanie Brockway, who used her MySpace profile in her graffiti:
The 23-year old single mother was tracked down by police through stickers mentioning her online identity – Devient Art – which she left by the side of her pieces.
Melanie Brockway’s page on the social networking website details her age, location and what school she attended, allowing officers to piece together her identity. [...]
Since her arrest the unemployed mother-of-two’s MySpace page has been accessed, and now bears the banner heading: "Devient Art does not promote illegal graffiti in anyway. It is illegal you will get arrested, and its wrong… i again do do not promote illegal graffiti in anyway."
Her mood has also been set to “p—– off”.
Rickrolling was taken to the largest audience yet Thursday at the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City.
Instead of a performance by the characters of “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,” onlookers were treated to a rendition of “Never Gonna Give You Up” by singer Rick Astley.
The switch happened on Thursday morning, during the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The puppets on the float featuring the Cartoon Network show began to sing 1970s hit and TV theme song “Best Friend,” but stopped abruptly, revealing Astley, himself, dancing and singing to his signature tune.
Link to story. Link to video. -Thanks, Billy Ting!
No one really knows what dark energy is, but it fills the universe. We wouldn’t even have the concept if it weren’t for the men who hunted sperm whales in the 19th century. If that’s not intriguing enough, the story also involves candles, Einstein, cannibalism, shrinking space men, ether, whale attacks, and exploding stars.
Whales live an exceedingly long time. Some, like the Bowhead Whale, can live for more than 200 years. A whale that could have been a baby swimming in the Artic Ocean in 1820 when the Essex was sunk and Owen Coffin drew the black dot, a teenager when Moby Dick was published, a young adult in 1887 when Michelson and Morley disproved ether and Einstein presented the theory of special relativity in 1905, and reaching old age when we humans discovered that the universe was flying to pieces in 1996— that whale, that aged and magnificent creature, may yet still live to see yet another revolution in physics.
I learned a lot about physics in this weird tale of science history. Link -Thanks, boaz sender!
Zoo keepers at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo in Hokkaido, Japan were puzzled as to why their two polar bears didn’t show any interest in breeding. The two had been together since June, when the zoo brought in Tsuyoshi to mate with their resident female bear Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter. That’s when they made their discovery: Tsuyoshi is a female.
Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he — or rather, she — has become immensely popular with visitors.
“I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro,” Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
Since the discovery was made, Tsuyoshi’s “brother” was also found to be female. Link
(image credit: Kushiro Zoo)
Photographers, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on an image stabilizer -just use a chicken’s head!
According to the video, motion processors use an inertial measurement unit, which senses motion (rate, type and direction) and compensates for it. Chickens have a pretty advanced version.
It’s funny, too! Link (embedded YouTube video) -Thanks, bactac!
In a recent Jello mold competition, some of the entries were mighty interesting. This one won third place over all, it is a pumpkin pie and twinkie turkey. Can you say yummy?
Link Via BoingBoing
Forget the turducken, here’s the turgooduccochiqua by Wil Shipley of Call Me Fishmeal blog. It’s a quail inside a cornish game hen inside a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey inside a goose. Oh, and with bacon between the layers.
Photo: wjsdelicous [Flickr]
Can you identify which bird is which by looking at the fowl strata?
Photo: wjsdelicious [Flickr]
The entire Flickr photoset: Link | CNN video calling it a "hoax" (Oops!) – via reddit.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Photo: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York (c. 1932) via Swapatorium
design:related blog has a neat post about some fabulous vintage photos of past Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades. For photos of the very first balloons that appear in the parade (back in 1927), go here: Link – via BuzzFeed
The most luxurious dog kennel ever is in the planning stages.
A dog lover has turned half of her £1.4 million home into a luxury “kennel” for her Great Danes – complete with their own plasma screen TV, lounge and spa, it was revealed today.
The surgeon, who wants to remain anonymous, told her architect the hi-tech bungalow on the Lower Mill Estate in Gloucestershire must include separate deluxe living quarters for her two pets.
The plush kennel, estimated to cost more than £250,000, will be the latest eccentric build on the Cotswold Water Park, already famous for its futuristic, sustainable designs and its population of beavers.
The doghouse features two bedrooms and a living room, a 52-inch plasma screen TV with surround sound stereo, sheepskin-lined beds, retina-controlled “dogflap” doors, a temperature-regulated dog spa, security cameras, and internet-controlled heat. Link -via Arbroath
With the approval of the city council, Soap Lake, Washington is planning to build a giant lava lamp in the center of town in order to draw tourists. The lava lamp, proponents argue, stands for Soap Lake’s unique geologic history. Also, it would be totally cool.
A black-and-white French art film about the existential angst experienced by a house cat. By Will Braden. Run time: 2.5 minutes.
Via Popped Culture
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Today’s collaboration with the What is it? blog brings us this strange contraption (no – it’s not a gun). Can you guess what it is?
Place your guess in the comment section – no prize this week, so you’re playing for fame and glory only. For more clues and guessing fun, check out the What is it? blog. Good luck!
Update 11/28/08 – The answer is: “The American Bull Dog Boot Jack”, used for removing boots, patent number 329,576.
That was too easy (the answer was in the photo itself)!
The luxury world of the couture is an interesting place. People are always on the search for the newest, most shocking art or fashion to impress their other rich friends. The culinary world is no exception. While there are still people who love their lobster and fillet mignon, many modern chefs like to experiment with the newest and craziest ingredients, while others like to reach back deep into the past -say, the middle ages- for inspiration. As a result, there are some gourmet foods that are just too out there for the average man and woman to even begin to comprehend. I invite you, my friends, to travel this weird world with me, the strange land of the couture gourmets.
Eating a roasted bird isn't really that crazy, but the process leading up to the roasting of Ortolan birds has actually caused France to declare it illegal for humane reasons. Ortolan birds are nocturnal, sparrow-like birds. To prepare them for cooking, the live birds are trapped in a dark box. The darkness messes with their eating schedule and causes them to continually eat until they are about two to three times their original size. After a proper level of obesity has occurred, the birds are drowned in brandy or other liquor and then, finally, roasted.
Funny how a country that defends fois gras even finds this practice too barbaric. If tortured animals make yummier meals, than this little guy must be quite a treat.
Have
you ever ate a duck and thought, “I could get so much more out of those
bones and guts?” If so, Canard à la Rouennaise is right up your alley.
Basically, the recipe takes a nice roast duck, then places the carcass
in a press and crushes the juice out of everything left over. The result
is a very bloody, very rich “sauce” that can cost around $1000 a plate.
While the presentation may be quite interesting, as they crush the duck right at your table, I just can't understand paying that much for some blood. I know a lot of people love marrow, but isn't this just too crazy?
Corn
smut is a fungus that destroys corn crops. Like many indigenous people,
early villagers decided to make the most out of a bad situation and ate
the fungus that took over their crop. Nowadays, the smut is considered
to be quite a delicacy and sometimes costs more than corn itself.
This is the only thing on this list I have actually ate, of course, that's probably because I don't have the money to be a real gourmet foodie. Surprisingly, it's very delicious if you get it from a good restaurant -preferably one actually in Mexico. It's similar to mushrooms and quite has a nice aroma.
Source (Photo: Zampano [Flickr])
Many
people claim durian is quite good. The smell however, is one of the worst
things on Earth. It is said that you can smell the durian fruit stands
from all the way down the street. Some hotels and airports refuse to let
people bring the fruit inside for fear that it will chase away their customers.
While many people hate the fruit -smell is closely associated with taste after all, many people are quite passionate about their love of durian. The fruit is said to be strongly flavored and savory, with a custard-like texture. Anthony Bordain may have described it the best when he said, "its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."
Source (Photo: Sama Sama - Massa [Flickr])
Here's a food that wouldn't be so strange if it was served in any other manner. Even other foods eaten alive, like shrimp aren't that strange, the main thing here is the whole life-threatening thing. Live octopi can choke you with their moving tentacles. It's a real-life kill or be killed situation.
Dipping your dinner in alcohol is said to help knock them out momentarily and make them less deadly, but that is to be debated. Truly skilled baby octopi eaters will barely chew their meals before gulping them down, but amateurs generally choose to chew them thoroughly -which can take up to 15 minutes. As you can see in the video, eating the treat can be quite a challenge for a novice.
French
foodies flip over a lot of things, but two things they hold close to heart
are caviar and escargot. So a pair of snail farmers thought, “why not
combine them?” The flavor is said to be delicate and quite nice, but from
what I hear, most people still prefer caviar.
The process to making snail caviar is a carefully guarded secret by the couple who invented it. We do know it involves very happy snails getting freaky in a huge barn and a hand review all of the eggs to make sure they are up to par. Between there being only one supplier and requiring quite tedious harvesting, all done by hand, the price of the snail caviar is quite high -about $82 an ounce to be more specific.
Source (Photo: Fr Antunes [Flickr])
Bird
nest soup, as the name suggests, is created using nests created by the
nests of cave swifts. These specific birds create their nest from their
own saliva, which hardens into a sort of shell. When boiled, the nest
creates a unique flavor and jelly-like consistency that is quite popular
in many parts of Asia -at least, amongst those who can afford it. The
nests are one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans.
Just one bowl of the soup costs between $30 and $100 American dollars.
Of the multiple species of cave swifts that create these nests, the most expensive nests come from in a red shaded and are said to have additional medicinal qualities. These health benefits range from curing asthma to boosting the immune system to aiding digestion. Like many medicinal meals from the East though, this has not been scientifically proven as of yet.
Photo: Chadedwardxxx
[Flickr]
Surely you've heard the urban legend that someone bought a carton of eggs, cracked one open and found a chicken fetus inside? Well, this is sort of the same thing, except it's not an urban legend and it's a duck instead of a chicken. Oh yeah, and it's on purpose.
Basically, you take your fertilized egg, boil it and there's your meal. Most people seem to eat the egg around the fetus and then snack down the baby duckling bones and all. The “ripeness” of the egg varies from country to country, but it can be eaten any time from being boneless and tiny to pretty much being baby ducks with tender bones and beaks.
I
must admit, it was hard to choose the ranking positions for this list.
It's hard to compare duck fetus to corn fungus to killer octopi, but I
have to say that coffee beans that have been partially digested definitely
deserve a place in the top three. If the title or photo of this one hasn't
given it away already, let me be clear. Kopi Luwak is a very popular coffee
blend right now, despite the fact that the beans get their special flavor
by being eaten and then pooped out by a civet -a cute mammal from South-east
Asia.
The coffee is one of the most expensive brews in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 a pound. Because the digestive enzymes of the civets break down the proteins in the beans that ordinarily make coffee bitter, the blend is naturally sweeter.
Casu Marzu is a sheep's milk cheese loaded with writhing, live fly larva. It is illegal in many countries for its obvious health dangers, but for some reason, foodies still actively seek it out. Even worse, the cheese can become toxic after the maggots die, so it has to be eaten while they are still very alive. The texture is rather creamy and it is generally served on Sardinian flat bread. Dinners are expected to keep their hands over the cheese as they place it in their mouth because these larva can jump up to 15 cm -potentially right into dinner's eyes.
This is one of the only things on this list that makes me want to throw up just by looking at it. I mean, this is one food that almost makes Gordon Ramsay puke -that alone says how disgusting this specialty is. Flies are filthy and eating the living bodies and excrement of their larva is just not right, regardless of where you're from.
Have any of you ever experienced these foods? What did you think of them? If not, what was the weirdest thing you ever ate?
You may have seen Alex’s crocheted bunny body suit, but I’ll see that handiwork and raise you Urban Knitting. Trees, street signs, statues and gas stations, nothing is safe from these rebels of the wool.
Here’s why you can never trust gay penguins …
Keepers have segregated the couple after they caught them trying to trick straight birds into parting with their offspring by placing round stones at their feet and then running off with an egg.
Experts at the Polarland Park in Harbin, north east China, say that despite being gay the three year old male birds are still driven by an urge to be dads.
Previously on Neatorama: Gay Penguins Say No Thanks to Females
Christophe Szpajdel isn’t just any ol’ logo designer – he’s the self-proclaimed dark lord of black-metal logos. The Belgian designer has drawn over 7,000 black- and death-metal bands from all over the world.
Strangely, Christophe is also a forestry engineer and works in retail to support his artistry: Link
Photo: Chang W. Lee for The New York Times
I saw that "chalk shadow art" is making the round on the Net, without attribution or explanation (sigh). So, with a little Googling, I found the back story to the phenomenon:
Earlier this year, Mr. Gallagher was mugged on his way home from a shift at Bar Tabac on Smith Street, where he worked as a waiter. "I turn around and this guy’s got a two-foot machete in my face," he said.
Mr. Gallagher was unhurt and the mugger was later caught by the police, but one night soon after the mugging, with the image of his attacker’s dark silhouette still burned into his memory, Mr. Gallagher was mesmerized by a shadow on the sidewalk. He reached into his pocket and felt the chalk he had used to write the outdoor menu at Bar Tabac, and he dropped to his knees to outline it.
Shadow art was born.
Now Mr. Gallagher heads out on foot or on his bike with a backpack full of chalk, looking for shadows to trace. When he tells you that "everything is fair game," he means it. He has traced everything from hydrants to whole city blocks.
Conrad Mulcahy of The New York Times has the story: Link
I see Jill Harness’ crocheted pie hats post and raise her this crocheted body suit by Chinese artist Ming Yi Sung. Believe it or not, the white bunny suit above isn’t actually the weirdest thing she has ever crocheted and knitted … Be prepared to be amazed: Link
Photo: Curious Expedition [Flickr]
Curious Expeditions visited Castelul Peles (Peles Castle) in Sinaia, Romania. The castle was built by a multi-cultural "labor force" (forced labor?) and has an interesting history:
Castelul Peles rises out of the ancient Romanian forest like an fairy tale . Located in Sinaia, Transylvania it is arguably the most beautiful castle in Romania and possibly all of Eastern Europe. [...] As in its design, so too was its construction a mishmash of Europe, as Queen Elisabeth of Romania described the merry scene in her journal, “Italians were masons, Romanians were building terraces, the Gypsies were coolies. Albanians and Greeks worked in stone, Germans and Hungarians were carpenters. Turks were burning brick. Engineers were Polish and the stone carvers were Czech. The Frenchmen were drawing, the Englishmen were measuring, and so was then when you could see hundreds of national costumes and fourteen languages in which they spoke, sang, cursed and quarreled on all dialects and tones, a joyful mix of men, horses, cart oxen and domestic buffaloes.”
I’m quite fond of this photo above. It’s of the Grand Armory, or The Arsenal where 1,600 of the castle’s weaponry and armor from the 14th to 16th century are displayed.
Link | Don’t miss the Flickr set – it’s wonderful!
Yes, we’ve all been subjected to Star Wars vs. Star Trek videos before, but this one is really, really good. Run time: 5 minutes, 36 seconds.
Via Topless Robot
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