If you think reading all of Neatorama is a big task (that quite a few of you have actually accomplished - yay, go you!) then take a look at this: Ammon Shea, 37, has just read the entire Oxford English Dictionary!

Ammon Shea, 37, who has been dissecting dictionaries since the age of 10, spent a year absorbing 59 million words, from A to Zyxt - the equivalent of reading a John Grisham novel every day.

Cooped up in the basement of his local library, the removal man from New York would devote up to 10 hours a day painstakingly making his way through all 20 volumes of the OED - helped by cup after cup of very strong coffee. [...]

By the time he reached the 400 pages devoted to words beginning with "un", he said he was "near catatonic, bored out of my mind, and so listless I can't remember why I wanted to read any of this in the first place.

"At this point, telling myself, 'You only have 351 pages of un-words to go', does not seem helpful. I don't quite feel as though I have lost my mind, but it often seems as though it is on vacation somewhere else, just east of sanity."

Link

It started as what is probably the most embarrassing moment of their lives, but something good came out of it. When a flight attendant approached Jan Coupe and her husband, she thought that the stewardess was going to check on their seatbelt. Instead, she told them that they were too heavy for the plane to take off!

That spurred the couple to go on a diet - between them, they have since lost 172 lb (78 kg):

Following the plane ordeal, and also to help with her MS, Mrs Coupe joined a Slimming World club. She persuaded her husband to attend and in the first week Mrs Coupe lost 8lb and Mr Coupe lost 9lb.

Instead of takeaways at night, the couple had pasta, vegetable curries or steak salads.

Now Mrs Coupe has lost 6st 5lb and her 54-year-old husband 5st 13lb. Mrs Coupe, who has also dropped six dress sizes to a 14, said: 'I don't feel embarrassed about getting on a plane anymore - we all feel so great we could fly around the world now without a hitch.'

Link

Good grief! Bill Teer lost something from his front yard. Something large. Very, very large: his prized 450 lb. pumpkin!

Teer thinks a group of three teenagers drove up on Halsey Road and managed to roll the pumpkin into the back of their pickup truck. The reward is now up to $200.

"I think they absolutely planned it," said neighbor Don Simons. Simons pitched in half the reward money. "We hope we catch these people," he said. "There was a prior attack on the pumpkin a year or two ago. Somebody jumped out with a hammer and punched some holes in one of them."

Meanwhile, police are baffled. "Who knows what they want with it or what they did with it," Simons said.

Maybe it's for a really, really big pumpkin pie! http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=6428242

The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded last night, and Steve Nadis of the science journal Nature was there to blog about it. Here's his report on some of the most dubious achievements in science:

7:55 p.m. At last, the first 2008 Ig Nobel Prize is handed out, recognizing the field of nutrition. The award goes to a pair of researchers who showed that manipulating the sound made by eating Pringles crisps can fool people into thinking a stale crisp is perfectly fresh.

8:21 p.m. Dan Ariely of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, accepts the Medicine Prize for research showing that expensive fake medicine works better than cheap fake medicine. Which makes a lot of sense, in a warped way. Twelve years ago, Ariely vowed "to be on this stage". Now that he's reached "this peak", he says, he's not sure where to go next — thereby summing up the dilemma of many an Ig Nobel prizewinner.

8:30 p.m. Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, tells aspiring young male scientists exactly what they've always wanted to hear: "Research scientists can learn a lot from lap dancers." Jordan knows what he's talking about, as the co-author of a paper exploring how a lap dancer's ovulatory cycle affects her tip earnings — work deemed good enough to earn him a share of this year's Economics Prize. One of his co-authors, Geoffrey Miller, dashes the hopes of some enthusiasts by saying he's not taking on any more research assistants in his lab.

Other winners include the findings that Coke explodes sperms, dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas, and the mathematical proof that hair or a ball of string will inevitably tangle itself in knots.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081003/full/news.2008.1150.html | Ig Nobels official website

Joanne Smith bought an abandoned house in Saginaw, Michigan, on eBay. Her winning bid? $1.75!

"I am going to try and sell it," she told the newspaper. "I don't have any plans to move to Saginaw."

Smith said she hasn't seen the property or visited Saginaw, which has been hard-hit by economic troubles in recent years.

There's a notice on the door of the home saying a foreclosure hearing is pending, the newspaper said. She must pay about $850 in back taxes and yard cleanup costs.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: Foreclosed Home For Sale for Just $1

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For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.

I know that we have a lot of regular daily readers here on the blog, but I've always wondered how many of you actually have read all of Neatorama. You know, click on the "Next Page" link on the end of the page until you've reached the blog's very first post.

It's a daunting task - we have over 16,370 posts as of the time I wrote this entry. At Neatorama's long page of 30 posts, that's nearly 550 pages full of goodness!

Well, it turned out that at least one of you did. Here's an email sent to us by Neatorama reader Mitch Wilson of Hungry Hollow Art (That's Mitch and the missus on there yonder photo):

My name is mitch and stumbled upon your site by accident while reading a story on my yahoo home page, I think it was about hoaxes. Anyhoo, I found your archives on the web and worked my way through all 546 pages. It has taken me a little over 2 months in my spare time to complete, sometimes as much as five or six hours in a sitting. A very addicting site indeed! I am now registered and get updates when you post them, just to see what you dig up next. An awesome site that my two sons and myself have really enjoyed, well except for my sore backside from hours of scanning hypnotizing post in my chair.

Thanks for letting us know and sorry about the backside, Mitch!

PS. What should we call such a schlep anyways? Neatoramaddiction? NeatoramAtoZ?

Have you always wanted to star in your own bodice-ripper romance novel?

Now you can: simply enter some details like heroine and hero's names and characteristics (like eye color, hair color, etc) at Romance By You, pay your 40 bucks and voilà - your very own romance novel!

For example, here's Pirates of Desire:

Our heroine is a stunning aristocrat who yearns to be a swashbuckling pirate buccaneer. Until, that is, she and her best friend find themselves captured by our hero, a scoundrel and handsome pirate rogue, with a price on his head.

Our leading lady becomes his willing prisoner of passion... or is it the lure of the sea that holds her heart captive?

My wife actually found this website while looking for children's book that can be personalized - Link, Thanks sweetpea!

What happened when Homer Simpson tried to vote for Obama in the 2008 US Presidential Election? Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

(Go away trolls, it's just a funny clip, mmkay?)

Many kids throw a fit or temper tantrum when they're upset, but this one went over the line. Waaaay over:

A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.

The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.

The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo's beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to "Terry," an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, said Neindorf.

The boy also fed several live animals to Terry by throwing them over the two fences surrounding the crocodile's enclosure, at one point climbing over the outer fence to get closer to the giant reptile.

In the footage, the boy's face remains largely blank, Neindorf said, adding: "It was like he was playing a game."

That is one angry kid who needs professional help, pronto: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/03/australia.zoo.carnage.ap/index.html - Thanks Tiffany!

Do jewelries move you to the point of tears? Well, thanks to Dutch designer Erik Klarenbeek, now even your eyes can "wear" jewelry:

The bizarre range features a number of adornments which hang on wire from contact lenses.

Users attach a range of accessories, such as crystals and flowers, to the new prescription or dummy lenses and wear them throughout the day.

The jewellery, which measures up to 14mmx33mm, is attached to the contact using medical wire and hangs below the eye.

The crystal accessories glimmer in sunlight and look as if the wearer is crying.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: Eyeball Tattoo

Chef Ljubomir Erovic of Serbia has published the world's first cookbook on cooking with balls.

No, he didn't mean that figuratively (like how to cook boldly or anything like that). He meant cooking testicles!

The Testicle Cookbook - Cooking With Balls includes author Ljubomir Erovic's favourite dishes, like testicle pizza and battered testicles.

The e-book, available for download, comes with handy video guides showing the Serb peeling the skin off testicles and slicing them up into bite-size chunks.

The ingredients for his testicle pizza recipe include cheese, onion, pepper, bacon and bull's testicles. "It's Italian pizza with Serbian balls", explains Erovic. The book also contains more cordon bleu recipes, such as calf testicles in wine and testicles with bourgignon sauce.

"The tastiest testicles in my opinion probably come from bulls, stallions or ostriches, although other people have their own favourites," he said. "All testicles can be eaten - except human, of course."

Link | The e-book at Yudu | Sample pages, with embedded video clips

Here's the free sample (with video clips): Link

Reviving an ancient organism is a story worthy of a science fiction epic. But in this case, forget Jurassic Park. Instead, think Jurassic Brewery.

Here's the story of California Polytechnic State University scientist Raul Cano who extracted yeast that has laid dormant for 45 million years, trapped inside a Lebanese weevil covered in ancient Burmese amber:

A decade ago Raul Cano, now a scientist at the California Polytechnic State University, drilled a tiny hole into the amber and extracted more than 2,000 different kinds of microscopic creatures.

Activating the ancient yeast, Cano now brews barrels (not bottles) of pale ale and German wheat beer through the Fossil Fuels Brewing Company.

So, how does the beer taste? Suprisingly good:

The beer has received good reviews at the Russian River Beer Festival and from other reviewers. The Oakland Tribune beer critic, William Brand, says the beer has "a wierd spiciness at the finish," and The Washington Post said the beer was "smooth and spicy."

Part of that taste comes from the yeast's unique metabolism. "The ancient yeast is restricted to a narrow band of carbohydrates, unlike more modern yeasts, which can consume just about any kind of sugar," said Cano.

Link | Fossil Fuels Brewing Company

(Photo from Microbe World)

What should people who lost their cushy jobs on Wall Street do? According to this one guy who's been through it before, the answer is pretty simple: become a monk!

Hristo Mishkov had a successful career as a broker on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York until he decided to give it all up to return to his native Bulgaria. His radical change of circumstances may start to look appealing to the tens of thousands of finance sector employees who face the bleak prospect of losing their jobs.

Exchanging tailored suits and expensive shoes for a cassock and sandals, Brother Nikanor, as he is now known, believes Wall Street and the City deserve all they get as the credit crunch bites deeper and the global financial system goes into meltdown. [...]

His colleagues were stunned when he decided to become a monk, but he had made up his mind to seek spiritual well-being rather than material wealth.

"Everybody can be a good broker but this does not bring much benefit for the world," he said.

"We always search for happiness in the outside world, in material things, which makes us constantly unsatisfied, angry with ourselves and the world."

Link

Photo: Brian Skerry/National Geographic

National Geographic has a neat article about how the Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis), the "good, or true, whale of ice" is making a comeback. Ironically, the Right Whale's name was given by whalers who thought that their habit of swimming slowly in the shallow coastal waters make them the "right" whales to kill!

"Omigod. That one right there is the fattest young whale I have ever seen." (When judging the condition of northern rights, the scientists pay special attention to the area just behind the blowhole, where the chubbier animals develop a bulge of blubber. Its size has proved to be an accurate predictor of survival.) "We don't even have a category for a whale with a fat roll that big."

Here's the article by Douglas Chadwick: Link - Thanks Marilyn Terrell!

Note: Glynnis McPhee interviewed National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry about his adventure with the Right Whale:

Q: It must have been pretty nerve-racking having such a large animal swim up to you.

A: It was amazing. I mean, I have to tell you there were days when I was at the bottom at 70 feet, and here comes this bus swimming down. I’m standing on the bottom, and as it comes down, I get on my knees, lean over backwards—my scuba tank is now digging into the sand. And of course their eyes are on the side of their heads, so it had to turn and look at me. It came within inches. Here’s this softball-size whale eye looking at me. But then it stops—stops on a dime. It’s just hovering there, and literally one flick of its tail, and it would have crushed me like a bug. But it doesn’t. It was just highly curious. (Source)

The whole thing reminds me of Chris Moore's book "Fluke: or I know Why the Winged Whale Sings" - I'm half waiting for the whale to ask for a pastrami on rye with mustard!