The Original ACME Catalog
Long before internet shopping, Wile E. Coyote got all his products via mail order from the ACME Catalog. ACME sold just about anything you’d ever need! You can take a look at the catalog yourself.
ACME is a worldwide leader of many manufactured goods. From its humble beginnings providing corks and flypaper to bug collectors (”Buddy’s Bug Hunt/1935″) to its heyday in the American Southwest supplying a certain coyote, from Ultimatum Dispatchers to Batman outfits, ACME has set the standard for excellence.
For the first time ever, information and pictures of all ACME products, specialty divisions, and services featured in Warner Bros. cartoons (made by the original studio from 1935 to 1964) are gathered here, in one convenient catalog. For more information about any ACME product, simply click on the thumbnail picture.
Link -via Dump Trumpet
Vote for Cannes Short Films
The National Film Board of Canada, in association with the Cannes Short Film Corner and partner YouTube, presents the fourth annual Short Film Online Competition - Cannes 2008.
Between May 9 and May 19, 2008, filmmakers from 40 countries entered the NFB Online Competition when they registered their films with the Cannes Short Film Corner, the meeting place for short films at Cannes.
These 9 films were selected for our Online Competition by short-film expert Danny Lennon, programmer of this year’s Short Film Corner. They represent the best in the world and were culled from over 650 submissions.
Now it’s your turn to choose. The winning short film will be determined by your ratings on a scale of one to five stars. The name of the winner will be announced in Cannes this coming May 21. The winner will receive a HD MINI-DV camera from the NFB and a laptop with an editing suite.
The site has a link to a YouTube playlist, where you can see each and rate them. Link -via Underwire
Your Brains… er… Movie Recommendations… Needed
I’ve always been a fan of horror movies, but in the past couple of years I’ve really gravitated toward, you know, the living dead. Shaun of the Dead is pretty much my favorite movie of all time. George Romero? Can’t get enough. And lately I’ve been delving into zombie lit, or Z-Lit if you will. Max Brooks (son of Mel) has a tongue-in-cheek book out called The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s all those essential things you need to know when Z-Day finally happens. He followed that up with World War Z, which takes place post-zombie apocalypse and talks to people who survived, documentary-style. It’s not funny like the Survival Guide is; it’s dead serious and pretty fascinating.
Now let me backtrack a little bit. Every Thursday night, my husband and I get together with a group of friends to watch Lost. We call this, appropriately if not unoriginally, Lost Night. Even when Lost ends for the summer (or for their mid-season hiatus), we still get together and do something in its absence. Last summer we watched a new Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) every Thursday. This summer, we’ve decided to watch zombie movies. This all started because I DVRed what is possibly one of the worst zombie movies ever made last week and was crying from laughter trying to explain it to our group.
The movie? Return of the Living Dead.
Now, before you all jump on me, let me preface with this: I love zombies, but I am by no means an expert. I am not purporting to have seen every zombie movie ever made or know the names of the Zed extras in Night of the Living Dead. I don’t even know the Thriller Dance. That being said, I thought Return of the Living Dead was George Romero’s sequel to Night of the Living Dead. I only saw the title on the Independent Film Channel; I was not privvy to that outstanding movie cover or a plot or anything. Wow, was I wrong. Turns out George and John Russo, one of the writers of the original movie, were in disagreement with how to follow up their hit movie. They went their separate ways. George ended up coming out with Dawn of the Dead 10 years later; Return of the Living Dead is what Russo came up with in 1985.
It. Is. Bad. Comically bad. Let me try to sum up for you: High school dude, Freddy, has a new job at a medical supply warehouse. On the job, a co-worker informs Freddy that Night of the Living Dead was a true story – a gas was accidentally released that reanimated the dead. Only a few barrels of the gas are still in existence, and, surprise! They’re at the medical supply warehouse. The co-worker shows Freddy the barrel containing the gas and thumps on it to prove its durability, but the gas leaks and the two men are knocked out. Of course, zombies start running amok. Coincidentally, Freddy’s friends are waiting for him to get off work and decide to kill time in the cemetery across the street. Makes sense. Somehow this results in Trash, one of Freddy’s friends, ripping off her clothes and dancing on top of a grave wearing nothing but leg warmers (I’m proud to say the actress, Linnea Quigley, is from Davenport, Iowa). I know you’re wondering, and yes, she does end up as a “seductive”, dancing, naked zombie wearing leg warmers.
The zombies are smarter than you might think – when paramedics arrive on the scene, they are killed by the zombies who then call dispatch and request that they “send more paramedics.” Seriously. The same thing happens when the cops show up. Also, at some point, a zombie is captured and questioned as to why they are feasting on humans. The zombie replies that it hurts to be dead, and eating live brains is the only thing that relieves the pain.
Oh, and although skeletons are rising out of the cemetery – full skeletons, not skin and muscle or anything like that – they still have tongues and eyeballs.
So, after describing this, my friends and I did a little research and discovered that some truly heinous zombie movies are floating around out here. Some that we will be viewing this summer are Redneck Zombies, Zombies on Broadway, Motocross Zombies from Hell, Hard Rock Zombies and the MST3Ked Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Oh! And also, Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (”Dance til you drop… dead”).
So. The point of this long-winded post is to ask you two things:
1. What’s the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen?
2. Do you have any good (read: bad) zombie movie recommendations?
Anteater Eats from a Spoon
(YouTube link)
Last year, Neatorama introduced you to Pua the Tamandua. Pua’s owner, TamanduaGirl also has Stewie, seen here eating from a spoon. Stewie can also walk on two legs, and he is a professional painter! Both Pua and Stewie performed in the movie Dr. Doolittle 4 (availble on DVD). Link -via Dark Roasted Blend, where you’ll find more irresistable tamandua pictures.
Neatorama’s Guide to 25 of the Strangest Collections on the Web
Some people collect stamps, others collect comic books. The people on this list, however, collect things that are far, far stranger. Behold, Neatorama's guide to the 25 Strangest Collections on the Web:
1. Graham Barker's Navel Fluff Collection
Graham Barker's Navel Fluff Collection
Some people see navel fluff or bellybutton lint as life's little annoyances. Not Graham Barker: he began collecting them since 1984, and now has the world's largest collection of navel fluff according to Guiness Book of World Records:
It was on the 17th of January 1984 that I found myself under-occupied in a youth hostel in Brisbane. The night was steamy and stormy - too wet outside and too hot inside to do very much, and my attention drifted to my belly button. There it was ... fluff! I must have seen it before that night, but this occasion was the first time I ever picked it out and wondered about it. I became curious about how much navel fluff one person could generate (enough to stuff a cushion, maybe?), and the only way to find for sure was to collect it and see. My first piece of navel fluff was stored in an empty film canister, and the collection had begun.
2. Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum
Like its name implies, the Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum is all about vomit bags. Indeed, it catalogs more than 2,000 photos of air sickness bags from all over the world.
In addition to airplane air sickness bags, the website also has a collection of bus sickness, sea sickness, and even space sickness bags!
Though most are underwhelming in terms of design, some are actually quite artistic. Virgin Atlantic airlines even held a "Design for Chunks" project in 2004, where artists submit their designs to be put as a limited edition barf bags!
Before you check out the website, I'll leave you with a few of the more unusual bags from the Visitor's Favorite section:
From left to right: Brooklyn Artist Sarah Nicole Phillip's Little Brown
Barf Bag, a parody of Bloomingdale's Little Brown Bag; The Space Shuttle
Sickness ("Emesis") Bag; Barf Bag One, unfortunately only a
gag gift and not the real thing.
3. Joseph W. Lauher's Handcuffs
If
you want to collect handcuffs, then Joseph W. Lauher is your man, and
handcuffs.org is the website to see. Indeed, Joseph has the largest collection
of handcuffs (with focus on vintage ones), leg irons, nippers, and thumbcuffs
on the Web: Link
What's a nipper and a thumbcuff? Well, a nipper is a handcuff that locks only one hand, but has a handle for keeping the cuffed person under control (Photo to the left is a 1888 nipper made by Thomas & Smith).
A thumbcuff, like its name implies, cuffs both of the person's thumbs.
4. Bob Toelle's Fish Posters
Bob Toelle collects posters - but not any poster, just the ones about fish - and he's got a lot of it. Currently, Bob has more than 700 fish posters from around the world: Link
5. Medical Antiques by Douglas Arbittier, M.D.
Amputation set by Ferris & Co., Bristol (c. 1885)
Dr. Douglas Arbittier collects old medical equipments, and specializes in cased surgical sets. His collection includes a lot of amputation saws, and bloodletting artifacts (leech jar, anyone?).
When you visit his website, keep what Dr. Arbittier said in mind: "be thankful you live in today's medical world ...": Link
6. Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art
Texan artist Barney Smith has an unusual choice of art medium: toilet seats! For the past 30 years, Barney had created over 700 artistically decorated toilet seat lids. Check it out here: Link
7. Sergei Frolov's Soviet Calculators
W.T. Odhner Arithmometer (1890)
Sergei Frolov has a fantastic collection of over 150 Soviet-made calculators, as well as vintage computers, watches and slide rules. I'm particularly fond of the old mechanical arithmometers, as shown above: Link
8. Phil Miller's Sugar Packets
Phil Miller is a sucrologist - meaning that he collects sugar packets and sugar cube wrappers. Indeed, Phil has been collecting since 1978 when he started with the Presidents of the United States sugar packets, and he hasn't looked back since. Life must be sweet if you collect sugar packets ... Link
9. The Asphalt Museum
The
Asphalt Museum is actually a real museum in a real building in Sacramento,
California, but it's weird enough that we'll just have to include it on
this list. It has a large collection of (you guessed it) everything asphalt.
The museum was founded by Scott Gordon and Marie Vans in 1991, while both attended Colorado State University.
In addition to asphalt "samples" from famous (like Route 66, Highway I, and the ancient Roman road Appian Way) and not-so-famous roads, the museum also has a recipe on how to make your own asphalt: Link
10. Gideon Weiss' Back Scratchers
Gideon Weiss must've had one really itchy back when he started collecting back scratchers. His online collection has grown to include 236 of the strangest back scratchers I've ever seen: Link
11. Michael Lewis' Moist Towelettes
Michael
Lewis welcomes visitors to his website with these warm words: "Welcome
to the exciting world of Moist Towelette Collecting."
Though I'm not sure just how wet naps would rank in the excitement scale, Michael's collection sure is something: Link
Don't miss the "Awards" section!
12. Nancy Alford's Mangles
What
is a mangle? You'll be forgiven if you don't know what it is: a mangle
is a cast iron contraption with two wooden rollers, a spring, and a side
wheel with handle. Its function is to wring clothes dry after you wash
them, so obviously it's now obsolete with the invention dryers and all
...
A few years ago, Nancy Alford was in a local department store when she saw, and fell in love with, a mangle. For her sixteenth wedding anniversary, Nancy wanted (and got) - you guessed it, a mangle. Her husband thought she was mad.
Since then, she has collected so many of them that they had to build a new house (which she aptly named Mangleten) to fit all her mangles. Link
13. Victor Paul Taylor's Scratchcard Collection
Victor Taylor is a lotologist (yes, a made up word meaning someone who collects lottery tickets). He has a particular interest in "Instants" Scratchcards, produced by Camelot for the UK National Lottery. As far as I can tell, none of the scratchcards have been scratched, so he's sitting on a potential goldmine worth bazillions!
Check out his incredibly detailed collection, which starts with the 1995 issues: Link
14. Lydia's AOL CDs
Younger Neatorama readers may not be familiar with AOL CDs, but the rest of us surely remember getting spammed with tons of these discs from America Online.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, AOL produced over a billion CDs (with over 1,000 distinct designs) for its direct mail campaign. The strategy was a huge success: AOL became the largest dial-up Internet Service Provider in the world (for a while anyway). After its fateful merger with Time Warner and the decline of dial-up as a mean of accessing the web, the company stopped producing the discs in 2006.
But fear not. Lydia of Lydia's AOL Disks shares with us her collection of over 2,500 unique AOL diskettes and CDs. Check it out here: Link
15. Museum of Burnt Food
The
Museum of Burnt Food is dedicated to accidentally burnt food, er ... carbonized
culinary masterpieces (no intentionally burned artwork there!). The museum
was founded by harpist Deborah Henson Conant, who recounted this tale:
The museum was founded in the late 1980's one night when Deborah put on a small pot of Hot Apple Cider to heat, then received an unexpected . . . fascinating . . . and very long phone call. By the time Deborah returned to the kitchen, the Cider had become a "Cinder" and thus the first, and perhaps still the most impressive, exhibit: "Free Standing Hot Apple Cider" was born.
SINCE THEN, countless other works have entered the museum, such as "Thrice Baked Potato," "Why Sure, You Can Bake Quiche in the Microwave," the indestructible "Mmmm……Soy Pups," and the lovely matching set of Pizza Toast.
Deborah has a tip on kitchen decorating, which I think everyone should heed: "Never scrimp on fire extinguishers and smoke alarms." She would know now: Link
16. Steve Salcedo's Street Sign and Traffic Light Collection
From left to right: Auto Club of Southern California Stop Sign (c. 1940);
Children "Wanted Alive" sign, the equivalent of "Slow -
Children at Play" sign (c. 1950); "T" Intersection with
Marble Reflector (c. 1940); Eagle 4-way 12" Beacons (c. 1930)
Steve Salcedo's fascination with street signs and traffic lights began when he received a bulletin board about traffic signs when he was just a small boy. Two years later, his collection was well under way.
Currently, Steve has over 350 street signs in his collection - all legal (rescued from street departments before they were scrapped, purchased from antique stores, flea markets, etc.): Link
17. The Chocolate Wrappers Museum
In 1996, Martin Mihál's began collecting empty chocolate wrappers from around the world with a sizeable collection of 674 wrappers. A decade later, his collection grew to an astounding 38,579 wrappers! Martin has over 8,700 wrappers from Germany alone and even a few wrappers from far-flung countries like Oman and Uzbekistan.
So, the next time you eat a chocolate, think of Martin before you throw away the wrapper! Link
18. Becky Martz's Banana Labels
In 1991, Becky Martz first noticed banana labels when she put two bunches of bananas in the fruit bowl together. She noticed that the "Dole" labels actually weren't quite the same: one said Guatemala and the other said Honduras. Later that year, she noticed a particularly festive Chiquita label and decided that she wanted to collect banana labels.
Today, Becky has more than 7,000 different banana labels and even branched out to collect asparagus and broccoli bands.
If you think that this is a strange hobby, well, ... it is. But Becky isn't alone: there are others like her in the world, and they even have their own Banana Sticker Collector Convention. Check out Becky's collection here: Link
19. Museum of Talking Boards
The
Museum of Talking Boards is all about collecting Ouija boards. The site
is quite neat: it explains the history
of the board, theory
as to how it works, as well as things
you should never do or ask.
And, of course, it has a fantastic gallery of over 80 antique talking boards.
The board above is the original Ouija board, created by Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard and produced in 1891 by Kennard Novelty Company.
Visit the Museum of Talking Boards here: Link
20. Scott Weed's Date Nails
Date
Nail is exactly that: a marked nail hammered into poles and bridge timbers
to identify or date them.
Scott Weed of Nailhunter, who has a huge collection of these nails, wrote that "unlike most collectibles, Date Nails can still be found in the wild. With a couple of tools, some spare time and transportation, the world of Date Nail is open to everyone."
Indeed, but for now, I presume all of you will just satisfy yourself with visiting his website: Link
21. Dr. Val Kolpakov's Toothpaste Collection
Dr. Val Kolpakov is a practicing dentist in Saginaw, Michigan, so it's only natural that he has an unnatural affinity to toothpaste.
Starting in 2002, Dr. Val began collecting toothpaste from around the world. His website, Toothpaste World, categorizes toothpastes according to location, brand name, and year of production. Right now, he has over 1,400 items: Link
I'd be remiss if I didn't share with you a toothpaste trivia from Dr. Val's website. Here's the world's oldest known formula for toothpaste:
The world's oldest-known formula for toothpaste, used more than 1,500 years before Colgate began marketing the first commercial brand in 1873, has been discovered on a piece of dusty papyrus in the basement of a Viennese museum.
In faded black ink made of soot and gum arabic mixed with water, an ancient Egyptian scribe has carefully described what he calls a "powder for white and perfect teeth".
When mixed with saliva in the mouth, it forms a "clean tooth paste".
According to the document, written in the fourth century AD, the ingredients needed for the perfect smile are one drachma of rock salt - a measure equal to one hundredth of an ounce - two drachmas of mint, one drachma of dried iris flower and 20 grains of pepper, all of them crushed and mixed together.
The result is a pungent paste which one Austrian dentist who tried it said made his gums bleed but was a "big improvement" on some toothpaste formulae used as recently as a century ago.
22. Weird Fortune Cookie Collection
Ever got a strange fortune from a fortune cookie? Well, it belongs in the ever-growing collection at Weird Fortune Cookie Collection. Seriously, head on over there and browse their gallery (preferably after a nice little Kung Pao Chicken meal): Link
23. British Lawnmower Museum
British Anzani Lawnrider (c. 1960)
The tireless curators of the British Lawnmower Museum, Brian and Sue Radam, dedicate their lives to preserving the best example of British engineering prowess: the lawnmower!
The lawnmower was invented in 1827 by English engineer Edwin Beard Budding, who wanted a superior alternative to the scythe. He took a machine designed to cut the knap off cloth and used it to cut grass instead. At the time, people thought that he was mad, so he tested his invention in the middle of the night so no one could see him!
The British Lawnmower Museum's now has over 200 vintage lawnmowers and part of 400 others: Link
24. Helena Vnouckova's Napkins
Napkins: you use and throw them away, but Helena Vnouckova collects them. A lot of them - in fact, she has over 16,000 napkins from around the world (with sets of Christmas themed napkins, company napkins, and even airline napkins): Link
25. Museum of Hoaxes
I'm
going to end this long list with Neatorama pal Alex Boese's excellent
website: Museum of Hoaxes.
Alex Boese probably has the strangest collection of them all: he collects stories about and examples of scams and hoaxes! In 1997, Alex created the Museum of Hoaxes as research notes for his doctoral dissertation, and the website quickly became popular. So much so that Alex the "hoaxpert" wrote three books which we have featured on Neatorama before: The Museum of Hoaxes, Hippo Eats Dwarf, and Elephants on Acid And Other Bizarre Experiments.
If you haven't seen it before (perhaps you've been living under a rock), then definitely check out the Museum of Hoaxes: Link - you won't be disappointed!
I'll be the first to acknowledge that this is but a short list of unusual collections you can find on the Web. For more weird things people collect, check out MuseumStuff's Unusual Museums and Strange Collections, and Unusual Museums of the Internet at RingSurf.
If you or someone you know has an unusual collection we should list here, please let me know in the comment section!
Wingsuit BASE Jumping
We’ve posted about Loic Jean Albert skydiving with a wingsuit a while ago, but this YouTube clip still took my breath away.
Behold Loic and a couple of his colleagues BASE jumping with the wingsuit - they got so close to the side of the mountain they could practically touch it!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Tyler Henderson!
Caption Monkey 29: Oreo Bunny!
Photo: Pancake Blog - via Cute Overload
That’s Mr. Pancakes aka Cakes or Baby Cakes, a cute little bunny with his own blog.
Your task for today’s Neatorama and Hobotopia’s Caption Monkey, gentle readers, is to caption the photo. Funniest caption will win a free copy of Adam "Ape Lad" Koford’s book Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cat (also available at Lulu). Adam’s book is a nifty compilation of 250 comic panels of the adventures of Kitteh and Pip. If you like Adam’s old0timey cartoons, this is the book for you!
Contest rules are simple: place your caption in the comment section - one caption per comment, please, but you can submit as many funny ones as you’d like. (Congrats to Aby who won the last Caption Monkey game - maybe today is YOUR lucky day!)
Hop to it! Good luck!
Pilot Made Man Sit on Airplane Toilet for 3 Hours
Gokhan Mutlu of Manhattan is suing JetBlue Airways for $2 million because a pilot made him sit on the toilet for 3 hours!
Mutlu was traveling on a a "buddy pass," a standby travel voucher that JetBlue employees give to friends, from New York to San Diego on Feb. 16, and returned to New York on Feb. 23, the lawsuit said.
Initially, Mutlu was told a flight attendant had taken the last seat on the plane, but then he was advised she would sit in the employee "jump seat," meaning he could have the last seat, the lawsuit said.
The pilot told him 1½ hours into the five-hour flight that he would have to relinquish the seat to the flight attendant, court papers say. But the pilot said that Mutlu could not sit in the jump seat because only JetBlue employees were permitted to sit there, the lawsuit said.
When Mutlu expressed reluctance to go sit in the bathroom, the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board," the lawsuit said.
When the aircraft hit turbulence and passengers were directed to return to their seats, but "the plaintiff had no seat to return to, sitting on a toilet stool with no seat belts," court papers say.
Narcisse by Mathieu Lehanneur
Photo: Véronique Huyghe
Narcisse is an art project by French artist and designer Mathieu Lehanneur. It’s a giant bowl with mirrored surface filled with water - as soon as someone comes close to see his/her own reflection (just like Narcissus [wiki]), a promiximity sensor will trigger the interior basin to rotate and deform the reflection.
Link [Flash, it's no. 25 on the tabs below]
Sir Lube of Can-O-Lot Robot
Paul Loughridge of Lockwasher Design makes awesome robots, ray guns, and rockets out of vintage cans and other found objects (read: junk).
We’ve actually featured Paul before on Neatorama a while ago, but this one sculpture, the Sir Lube of Can-O-Lot, is so awesome we just have to post about it. The robot is made from an old hydraulic pump oiler, and comes complete with with a custom made helmet with hinged face guard!
Link | Paul’s robot set at Flickr
Fractal Furniture by Takeshi Miyakawa
That’s fractal 23, a chest of drawers by Japanese furniture designer Takeshi Miyakawa. I’m guessing from the name that it has 23 drawers (indeed, if you count them, it makes sense) but to make use of them all,
you’d have to put it in the center of the room!
Link - via Boing Boing
Mother Love
This photograph, originally from Cute Otters, shows an otter mom proudly displaying her offspring. It was one of many incredibly cute images of different kinds of animal mothers posted at The Pet Blog. Link -via the Presurfer
(image credit: SY Dration/Cute Otters)
Underwater Graveyard Welcomes Divers, Living or Not
Neptune Memorial Reef, three miles off Key Biscayne, Florida offers a final resting place for those who love the sea. Earthly remains are cremated then mixed with cement and laid on the ocean floor, with a memorial plaque.
Artist Kim Brandell, who designed the reef, said he was given no parameters in the reef’s designs, which grew as they waited three years for permits. The structures are 90% cement. Some of the sculptural elements are in bronze and steel. It is the same pH balance as the sea, Brandell said.
“I designed it to be a divers’ location. I am hoping and planning it be to the most dived location on the planet. I didn’t want it to look like Roman or Greek architecture. I wanted it to be contemporary or modern in design.”
As a diver swims down the pathways of the reef there will be themed areas, like dancing or sports. “If it’s music I might have concrete or metal musical instruments,” Brandell said. “Nothing is going to be in words to describe these features. It will be sculptural elements.”
The cemetery lies 14 meters below the surface. Link to story. Link to website. -via Arbroath
(image credit: Wilfredo Lee/AP)
20 Places Threatened By Global Warming
Some parts of the earth are more vulnerable to devastation by global warming than others. Tropical (and biologically diverse) regions like the Great Barrier Reef, the Galapagos Islands, and the Virgin Islands may be the first to go, but highly populated areas such as New York, Tokyo, and London are in danger as well. This list details what could happen to sensitive areas if sea levels rise. Pictured is endangered New Orleans after Katrina. Link
Neil Young Gets His Own Spider
62-year-old rocker Neil Young has been honored with his own species, a trapdoor spider named Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.
An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.
“There are rather strict rules about how you name new species,” Bond said in a statement.
“As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice.”
The new species was found in Alabama in 2007. Link -via Geek Like Me
(image credit: Reuters)
Cheese Racing
The sport of cheese racing began in 1997 when a group of friends put individually-wrapped cheese slices onto a barbecue grill to see what would happen. To their surprise, the plastic did not melt or burn. But the cheese expanded, turning the objects into inflated pillows! The object of cheese racing is to see whose slice reaches full inflation first. Full details are at the “official homepage of the exciting cutting edge sport known as Cheese Racing.” Link -via the Presurfer
The Worst Cities in America
The following is an article
from Uncle
John's Triumphant 20th
Every city has something to be proud of, but some cities, despite their beauty, charm, or cultural importance, also have features of which they might be a little less proud. Here are a few cities with dubious distinctions.
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader. Proving that some things do get better with age, the latest Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with 600 pages of fascinating trivia, forgotten history, strange lawsuits and other neat articles. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
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Trivia: The Bastard Verdict
Under Scots law, there are three potential outcomes of a criminal trial: "proven" (guilty), "not guilty", and "not proven."
The "not proven" [wiki] verdict, also called the Scottish Verdict or the "bastard verdict," is where although the juries don’t think that the case has been proven against the defendant, they also not convinced of his innocence.
Why do Thousands of Toads Cross the Road?
Photo: Yangtse
There was a sight to be seen at a bridge in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, China a couple of days ago: the migration of thousands of toads!
Thousands of toads were spotted at a bridge in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, China, on May 9. According to local expert, the toads were enduring a mass migration because of the depleting oxygen resource in a nearby river.
From the pic it seems like the chance of survival for the toads are not looking good on the road too…
Link - Thanks Jee!
The Phantom Message Optical Illusion
Look closely. Or not too closely … and you’ll see an optical illusion on the album sleeves of the band Soulwax. (Need a hint? Don’t look directly at your monitor - view the picture above at an angle).
The Monkey Buddha has one more example: Link | Another Phantom Message - Thanks Paul Micarelli!
Holy Cow! Bull is the Size of a Small Elephant
Chilli loves to munch on grass and do other things regular cattle do. He’s just like one of the guys, with one big difference: the black and white Friesian bullock is the size of a small elephant!
Despite his grand stature, Chilli only grazes on grass during the day and enjoys the occasional swede as a treat.
The heifer, who is almost as high as he is long, lives at the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard, Somerset, after he was left on their doorstep aged just six-days-old.
Nine years on, Chilli has kept on growing, and staff believe the giant will smash a record for Britain’s tallest ever cow.
Link - Thanks cuimhne!
Combine Demolition Derby
Forget your run-of-the-mill demolition derby (where junker cars smash into each other). In Lind, Washington, they have demolition derby competition with … combines!
Each June the small town of Lind, with it’s one restaurant and one bank, celebrate Lind’s weekend complete with BBQs, car races, grain truck races, and the Combine Demolition Derby!!!! Hell, a normal demolition derby is great, let alone massive harvesters crashing into each other at what I can only imagine is high speed.
Link (with embedded Revver video) - Thanks Scott!
Beverage Logo Design Cleverly Uses Emoticon
The folks at the Swedish brewery Krönleins Bryggeri created this line of Cider "Smile" drinks with a clever and playful logo. What? You can’t see the little emoticon of the guy winking his eyes at you?
Link - via Comunicadores, thanks Haendel Dantas!
Compare that with
Raku Ray Guns
West Magoon of Muddy Mountain Pottery created some awesome looking ray guns out of ceramics, with a technique called raku firing:
All of the Ray Guns are glazed and fired using the low-fire raku firing technique. The sculptures are pulled from the kiln while the glaze is red-hot and molten and placed into a metal barrel filled with newspaper which is then covered. This smothers the fire, which creates a reduction atmosphere, giving the glazes their metallic look.
West named each guns after a sci-fi author or character. This one above is the Rotwang Retrovivifier (+10 points if you know who Rotwang is - no Googling!)
Link - Thanks Tana Libolt!
The Epic Journey of the KATRIN Main Spectrometer
Photo: KATRIN Main Spectrometer
In November 2006, the people of Leopoldshafen, Germany, saw the spectacle of their lives:
It looked like an alien spaceship, but it was actually the main spectrometer of the KATRIN experiment, a project that will try to to measure the mass of the electron neutrino in 2009.
The spectrometer was built 400 km (250 mi.) away in Deggendorf, but when they wanted to transport it, they found out that it was too big for the roads and the canals, so the spectrometer had to travel the nearly 9,000 km (5,600 mi.) journey through Austria, Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Netherlands and finally back to Germany!
Fogonazos has more pics and a couple of YouTube clip about the epic journey of the 200-ton spectrometer: Link - Thanks aberron!
56 Houses Left, a Blog about a Neighborhood Destruction
Talkin’ about depressing places to live, Neatorama reader Michael submitted his wife Desy’s blog, 56 Houses Left, about what remains of Carrollton subdivision in Bridgeton, Missouri. The place where she and thousands of other people grew up.
The subdivision was bought out by Lambert Airport for a runway expansion. Nearly 1,900 homes were bought out and since then crushed by bulldozers and trucked away. As of October 9, 2007, only 56 houses remained:
This is where I grew up… and over the past decade, a little bit is erased away each day. It used to not have much significance in my life. After all, I knew this would come… ‘they’ have been talking about it ever since the early 90s. Even then, even when they took my friends’ houses, or the house where my cousins
lived, or my teacher’s house… I was still too young to grasp it… too young to sit up and pay attention…. to care. It wasn’t until I saw the wrecking crew blow through my old bedroom on October 24th, 2006 when finally it all came slamming into my face- this place, this land was all I ever really known. My house, my friends’ and my families’ homes, my sidewalks, pools, parks, churches, schools, businesses… everything… gone. Soon, I will never be able to come back to this place again. If I have kids, I will never be able to show them where I came from. They will never know the place where I once played… the place where I once dreamed of one day leaving… This place that now I come back to wonder what exactly happened… and why. (Link to this Post)
Just a couple of week ago, Desy wrote something ironically poignant:
The article today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch puts Lambert International, and with it the fate of Carrollton, into startling perspective.
It is true, and now there is even more evidence- the destruction of our homes was, officially, for no reason. According to the article, the airport has been classified as simply a ‘mid-sized’ airport since 2003. In 2003, the new runway was barely started and many houses on the south still remained. Aside from hardship cases, my mom’s side of Carrollton was not approached for buy-out in 2003. She was not approached until 2006. Nearly all of my friend’s houses were still standing in 2003. All of the destruction could have been stopped when the officials realized that Lambert will NEVER fill the numbers of flights they had in the 1990s. Even those flights were executed without the shiny new runway that now sits uselessly in Bridgeton.
Its a brutal shock to me that they could take everything away, without doing their homework, without doing the research or checking their facts, but take it all for landlust and false pretenses. All that had existed from my childhood has been bulldozed down to dirt and busted roads, all for absolutely nothing. (Link to this Post)
Link - Thanks Michael! (Photo: radio_inactive [Flickr])
Quote: Ayn Rand on the Root of All Evil
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"
- Ayn Rand, American novelist and philosopher