Judging by the artwork from Mexican Novelas, pulp novels that Latin America eats up like literary junk food, these stories are as terrifying as they are hilarious. Full of masked wrestlers, shadowy demonic forces, Frankenbirds and Yetis, these stories would make a person suffering from paranoid schizophrenia feel sane in comparison.

The only thing you’re missing out on by not being able to read these stories for yourself is the story behind each panel, so head to the i09 link below and read the clever descriptions Cyriaque Lamar has come up for them all, or make some up for yourself and write your own SuperNovela.

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The public artworks in this gallery make one wonder what the artists had to go through for these pieces to see the light of day. Some are silly, others are tasteless, and a few are downright genius, and they all add a sense of whimsy and wonder to an otherwise sterile urban cityscape.

Take your eyes on a stroll through the gallery of images at the link below, then tell me what you would think about having crazy artworks like these on display in your town.

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BuzzFeed brings us this silly little gallery full of chuckle-worthy images of bizarre things on leashes. Some of them are questionable in terms of strangeness (people leash their kids all the time, right?) while others are truly weird, and really make you wonder what we humans will be leashing up next?

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This, friends, is a shrimp. Yes, it’s called a harlequin shrimp, for good reason because it doesn’t look like any shrimp you’ve ever been served. They’re too small to eat, but are deadly predators to starfish. The harlequin shrimp is one of 6 strange-looking species you’ll find in this list at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr user MoToTo)

(YouTube Link)

If you think your life is strange, watch this animated short and thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to deal with the strangeness this guy deals with every day. Made by Santiago Grasso, this short yet insightful cartoon has lots to say and plenty of style to keep your eyes satisfied. This is animation for the lost, with a stark style that matches the dark subject matter, and an overall feeling that some people will identify with from frame one. Watch it while you’re at work and you just might end up with a better appreciation of what you do for a living!

2. “How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?”

6. “How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room”

12. “An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?”

20. “You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.”

The list at Glassdoor has links to possible answers from readers. I think the correct answer to many of these might be, “I don’t know, but I know how to find the answer.” Link -via Austin Business Journal

(Image credit: Flickr user Tiffany Trewin)

This mounted Hello Kitty trophy is for sale from Etsy artist datamafia. It is one of 12 Bizarre Hello Kitty Products That Sign The Coming Apocalypse collected by our own Jill Harness at Inventor’s Spot. Link

The gem castle was made in Italy and contains over 2000 semi precious stones including jade, agate, rose quartz, tiger’s eye, and malachite. The castle was once owned by the founder of Ethan Allen, Nat Ancell. It had been lost for years until it turned up in an old Ethan Allen warehouse in 1994.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.

Here are six of the most peculiar mysteries  that no one can find a good explanation for. One is the underwater formation known as the Bimini Road.

This road, sometimes also called the Bimini Wall, is an underwater structure that stretches for half a mile near Bimini Island in the Bahamas. The whole structure is formed of rectangular limestone blocks which look very much like an ancient road or a wall. The official explanation for the strange structure is that it was caused over the years by concentrations of shells and sand. In other words, the whole thing could potentially be created over millions of years by a natural occurring phenomenon of hard shells gathering in straight angles.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by milos87.

Coal the bulldog had cancer which led to the amputation of his paw. But his owner shelled out £10,000 for a titanium leg for the disabled dog! The benefit is not only his. Coal is also a research subject for new limb prosthetic techniques that will benefit injured humans.

Vet Noel Fitzpatrick told the Enfield Independent: ‘This is unique in that its the world’s only implant into which skin and bone grow. It is the holy grail of research.

‘If you have an accident and your bone sticks out through your shin, skin will try to grow round it. People have been trying for this for years and years -because with this we get an umbrella of skin attached to the metal.’

Link – via dogcentral

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

(YouTube Link)

Run Wrake made this very strange, yet very intriguing short called “Rabbit.”  Like the Dick and Jane books of yesteryear as seen through the eyes of a madman, the style is unique, and the moral of the story is poignant.  (Warning: animated animal slaughter.)

Imagine the horror of the little children of Santa Catarina, Brzil when a giant Santa Claus went up in flames!

At 50 feet, this is probably the largest Santa you have ever seen. It’s a pity it got burnt down at the end. A lot of people traveled far to get a picture with it but it went up in flames covering the surrounding area in thick black smoke. This happened in Brazil on December 2, 2009 and it is assumed to be because of some mechanical error although some people speculate foul play. The pictures do make you feel sad about all the efforts going up in flames.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

EVA Airways launched the Hello Kitty Jet in 2005, with the blessing of Sanrio. Take a look at the biggest Hello Kitty tribute yet, and see the amenities inside the Airbus A330 in this set of photographs.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Ssquared22.

The most aggressive breeds of dogs may surprise you, because they are all so cute!

A lot of people have misconceptions when it comes to which dog breeds are most aggressive and which ones aren’t. Aggressive dog breeds generally exhibit behavior that’s meant to scare or intimidate other animals or people. You can tell if a particular breed has aggression issues by the way it acts. You should especially pay attention when you are selecting a puppy. Is it the bully of the group, or quite shy and timid? Either case can lead to uncontrolled aggression, whether out of dominance or out of fear. Uncontrolled, regular growling, snarling, biting and lunging are dead giveaways that something’s up with the dog.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

Could this 43,000 year old bone of a cave bear be a musical instrument? If so, it could be evidence that Neanderthals were musically-inclined!

The Divje Babe flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was found at the Divje Babe archeological park located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. It has been suggested that it is the world’s oldest known musical instrument, but this is in dispute. The continuing dispute notwithstanding, the artifact remains on prominent public display as a flute in the National Museum of Slovenia (Narodni Muzej Slovenije) in Ljubljana. The museum’s visitor leaflet maintains that manufacture by Neanderthals “is reliably proven”.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

The Airbus A380 is the ultimate in airline luxury, and here are lots of photos to prove it!

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. The largest passenger airliner in the world, the A380 made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname Superjumbo has since become associated with it.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

Photo at PictureIsUnrelated

To see the cream of the croppings, the best in WTF photo and video, head on over to Picture is Unrelated, a blog (a Cheezburger Network concoction) dedicated to the absurd.  From their About:

This website is about pictures that DO NOT make sense!  I love images
that don’t make sense and YOU SHOULD TOO!  Can you even understand
how awesome it is when you see a yeti serving in the armed forces?  Can
you grasp the concept of someone creating SCIENCE in a field of daisies on
a beautiful summer day?  I totally can, and that’s why I started Picture is Unrelated.

Link (some pics NSFW).

It seems you can make a bag out of (or to look like) anything! An armadillo? Ground beef? Skunk fur? What I really can’t get my head around is why there’s a stall somewhere in the world selling hollowed out toads as handbags. Despite the zippable reptilian skin, golden chain strap, and dead toad eyes to keep an eye on your belongings, this bag is only for witches, wizards and Marilyn Manson. See these and a total of 50 of the most unusual bags seen anywhere.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by andybreene.

Seeing-eye dogs, police dogs, and cutting horses: they have nothing on these unexpected employable animals. Some animals have very dangerous jobs. Well, certainly more dangerous than mine!

Since the late 1950s the U.S. military’s Marine Mammal Program has been working with dolphins and sea lions to see if they could be employed for the purpose of national security.

The dolphin’s echolocation and high intelligence make them ideal in detecting mines, patrolling harbours, guarding boats against unwanted underwater incursions and aid in the retrieval of lost equipment.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Nightcrawlerx.

8. Condiments and Cutlery

Probably from bachelor types who forgot it was Halloween – answered the door because they thought it was the pizza guy – and then mined their condiment stash so as not to disappoint. Though little containers of peanut butter and jam are passable, plastic packs of soya sauce, ketchup, relish, mustard, and plastic fork and knife sets really don’t do the trick for a treat!

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Peachi.

When a celebrity gives up something that he or she gets paid millions to do, in order to pursue what they feel could be their “true” calling, music, most of the population cringes. Digging through these videos was like sitting through a horror movie that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. Joe Pesci? Kevin Costner? Guaranteed to drop jaws, here are 24 of the celebrities-gone-musicians that are awkwardly amazing in their own right, with video evidence.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Peachi.

It will be the second offense for Portland’s Gary Moody who was caught hiding inside the pit of a campsite latrine, once again. The creature of the black latrine claimed that he was not leering at the backsides of bathroom goers. His excuse was that he dropped his shirt down the hole; the previous time he stressed that he had dropped his wedding ring (which was never found). Moody entered a plea of no contest to trespassing for which he will serve two years of probation. He is also required to pay a fine of $1,000 and $700 to the Forest Service for the cost of pumping out the toilet tank and screening the contents.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by mrmunchies.

The Spanish ribbed newt has a pretty bizarre defense mechanism – when attacked, it secretes poison and pushes out its ribs until they pierce its skin, creating a row of sharp bones that act like barbs:

The newt has to force its bones through its skin every time it is attacked, say scientists, who have described the form and function of the barbs in detail. [...]

When the newt becomes agitated or perceives a threat, it swings its ribs forward, increasing their angle to the spine by up to 50 degrees.

As it does this, the newt keeps the rest of its body still.

“The forward movement of the ribs increases the body size and stretches the skin to the point of piercing it,” says zoologist Egon Heiss of the University of Vienna in Austria.

The tips of the newt’s ribs then stick outside its body, like exposed spines.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by dangana.

Ever wanted to swim in a lake full of chemicals, toxic algae, and junky electronic equipment? Sounds like good times for sure.

If you’d rather not risk disgusting infections and other diseases, leave the sludge swimming to Christopher Swain, who’s spent years of his life swimming through some of America’s most disgusting waters to raise awareness of environmental pollution. He’s currently swimming from Boston to the noxious harbor waters of Washington, DC, stopping in at hundreds of schools along the way to help kids learn about recycling.

Environmental hero, or just an idiot? You be the judge.

Swain has been focused on his mission for quite some time. In 2003 and 2004, he swam the length of four of America’s polluted waterways: the Charles River, Lake Champlain, the Hudson River, and the Columbia River, typically swimming about seven miles every day. Each day, Swain took photographs of the dirty waterscapes, and jotted extensive notes in a journal about each of the trips. “The water boasts the bouquet of a pond life smoothie: notes of mud, plants, tannin, poop, and gasoline, are all in evidence,” he wrote of his journey down Lake Champlain.

Swimming in this sort of pollution sounds like it could be hazardous to your health, and Swain knows for a fact that it is: despite taking frequent breaks to gargle with hydrogen peroxide, he’s gotten countless ear, respiratory, and lymph node infections. But, as he told ABC News in 2004, “I realized that if somebody doesn’t put themselves on the line, nothing changes.”

Link (Photo by Carrie Branovan)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gatsbyhawk.

Holding a person for ransom makes big headlines, but years later or in another placec, you may not be familiar with these stories that gripped the public in their time.

The kidnapping and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., son of aviator Charles Lindbergh occurred in 1932 and was one of the most horrific crimes of its time, prompting the “Lindbergh Law”, which made kidnapping a federal crime. (Prior to, it was classified as a local crime.)

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by smellslikepurple.

According to Wikipedia a Palindrome is: a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction…

Or, in this case a palindromic video where Dan and naD filmed themselves speaking normally and backwards and doing activities such as eating cake or having a drink forwards and backwards. Totally bizarre and trippy!

More info on palindromes here – Link

People buy the craziest things, especially when they come from a machine. Pictured is the Dog-o-matic, which will wash your dog while you wait.

Vending machines have been around since the first century AD. By today’s accounts, even the first vending machine, which dispensed holy water to temple visitors, was weird.

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Previously at Neatorama: Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by greeneagle.

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Children held hands so that 50,000 volts could pass through their fingers. Other children were exposed to tear gas.

A total of 43 children were directly and indirectly shocked by electric stun guns during simultaneous Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day events gone wrong at three state prisons last month. One was a warden’s daughter.

None of the children required medical attention or were notably harmed, McNeil said. He said the victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 17, were all children of prison officials. In nearly every case, the guards who administered the “electronic immobilization devices” had permission from parents or grandparents.

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Most people have a hard time envisioning a number as big as a billion, much less a trillion. How much money is a trillion dollars? Some examples may help to put that amount in perspective.

The G-20 summit committed to $1.2 trillion in new funds, with the aim of boosting the world economy, cleaning up banks, and increasing trade, among many other things. The stimulus plan is worth more than $800 billion and the second half of the bank bailout package is at $350 billion, which make up the $1.2 trillion, but the very idea of a trillion dollars exceeds what most of our minds, let alone a standard calculator, have the capacity to understand. What does a trillion dollars look like and what else could a trillion dollars buy?

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by smellslikepurple.

The Maleo bird of Sulawesi has a unique way of looking after its young – if looking after is how it could be described.  It buries its eggs and abandons them, having nothing more to do with their rearing.  The chicks, however, have a trick up their sleeve.  As soon as they hatch and emerge in to the sunlight they are, amazingly, able to fly.

Beneath the red hot sand of an Indonesian island’s beach something stirs. A large egg is hatching and soon the newborn creature will dig its way out to the surface and take its first gulps of fresh air. This sounds as if it should be a young turtle, thrusting its flippers sideways as it makes its desperate lurch towards the ocean. It is not, however. This is a bird. More remarkable still is that when it emerges the chick will already be able to fly.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Remember Daito Manabe from his painful looking face dance video? Well, he’s back with what in my honest opinion will replace all those god awful gold/silver/platinum/tin foil grills you see the young kids flashing about with a toothy grin these days. So, the next time you’re in a club or at a fancy soiree and the music picks up…keep an eye out for the hip kids to be flashing their multi-colored grills all up in your face.

Really, do we need this? It seems they are still patent-pending and looking for investors but it shouldn’t be long before wide-eyed male venturists begin pouring their dollars into what could be an ill-fated rather than revolutionary home gadget.

The BraDryer is a patent pending technology dedicated to answering bra drying glitches with intensive care. It aims at drying bras via a female torso-shaped device while ensuring that fabric, wiring and padding remain intact.

Link – via gizmowatch

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.

One small step for birds, one scary pre-Planet-of-the-Apes warning sign for human beings. Watch the bird snag some bread being tossed to its less-intelligent cousins and then use it to attract some fish to snack on.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.

Melting chocolate bunnies has never been as disturbing or creepy. And don’t get me started on the music used for this video! The creepiest one is the hairdryer scene. Brrrrrrr! Created by the Danish Dutch filmmaker Sander Plug.

Sander Plug’s website – Link

*Correction – Sander Plug is Dutch not Danish! Thank you tripleX!

How we treat death says much about who we are as a people – or in this case as an individual. What is the proper response? Do we mourn and move on or keep the memory alive in strage personal ways? Is this hilarious or vastly inappropriate? You decide:

The warning label on the jar of Grandma’s ashes has a very different effect from the “Super-Fun Mystery Drawer.” Instead of making Grandma’s less-than-savory remains more desirable, it seems to be more of a reminder–possibly to someone who is absent-minded or twisted to the point that it’s not obvious that eating Granny just ain’t kosher. There is a subtle “leftover” pun, which conveys a disrespect for the dead, contrasting with society’s usual reverence for the dead and elders. The disrespect and reverence are balanced out by the half-hearted care expressed by the Sharpie-scrawled wish to not have the loved-one devoured in a bleary-eyed midnight fridge-raid.

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Everyone talks about alternative energy these days but mostly in terms of water, wind and solar. What about cars, cows and tornados?

To meet our future energy requirements, we need to rely on a huge range of alternative sources. Let’s not forget the whimsical beginnings of our efforts to harness electricity (I’m referring to the kite of Benjamin Franklin). It’s only fitting that electricity generation technologies come from left field.

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Someone … clearly had too much time on their hands. Sick of the mainstream media only covering the most popular sports? Take a look at these guinea pigs performing in their very own and very special olympics.

The cute critters are digitally manipulated by
Steve Bicknell of Icarus Arts Publishing. You can buy the 2009 Calendar featuring the guinea pigs at Maverick Arts Club.

Life in the Fast Lanes has a funny account of the guinea pigs:

The Guinea Pig Games (GPG) Olympics have started with an amazing opening as rascally rodents display their dedication to their chosen sports. In the struggle for survival, only the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals with their stamina, prowess, and incredible feats to win gold, silver, and bronze medals.

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Who hasn’t wanted their very own private island? And what if you could build it with some friends and free recycled objects. Sound too good to be true? This guy has built not one but two!

The original Spiral Island was (as its successor will be) built upon a floating collection used plastic bottles, all netted together to support a bamboo and plywood structure above. Located in Mexico, the original was 66 by 54 feet and was able to support full-sized mangroves to provide shade and privacy, yet also able to be moved from place to place by its creator as need with a simple motorized system.

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DarkRoastedBlend has what is indesputably the most comprehensive and impressive collection of dangerous roads around the world – and part six to the ongoing series is no exception.

Want to feel happy and safe? Then gaze on this picture for a while, because the rest of this page is only going to unnerve and distress you.

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