How big is too big? Apparently that question has never been asked in cruise ship design. Next year, Royal Caribbean cruise line is scheduled to launch two Oasis Class ships, which would be the largest cruise ships ever.
So, how big is the Oasis class cruise ship? The first one, Oasis of the Seas, will be 118 feet (36 m) longer than the Eiffel Tower. It's so large that it has its own "Central Park" in the middle of the ship that is open to the sky and filled with lush tropical gardens, restaurants, and (of course) shops.
This ad from Capital Airlines (which merged with United Airlines in 1961) touted flying as a pleasant experience:
Just a Meal and a Magazine Away You forget old fashioned ideas about distance when you fly Capital. You relax in cushioned comfort amid congenial, club-like informality.
Flying Now:
Jennifer Castellano of Winchendon, Massachusetts, was sitting for a minute on an Air Tran flight from West Palm Beach, Florida to Boston when she noticed that her pants were soaked:
Castellano said she went to the lavatory to check her jeans and long sweater.
"I then realized I was saturated in urine from the smell," she said.
Castellano said a flight attendant told her someone had gone to the bathroom in the seat during the previous flight.
"A flight attendant told me that on the previous flight a man had urinated on himself in that particular seat. And I said, 'I'm not sitting on a three hours flight soaked in someone else's urine. That is absolutely disgusting,'" Castellano said.
Hooray! It's time for our collaboration with the What is it? blog - can you guess what this strange contraption is for?
Place your guess in the comment section - no prize this week, so you're playing for fame and glory only. For more clues (and more guessing fun), check out the What is it? blog.
Update 7/25/08 - the answer:
A trap for taking live animals, the top and bottom both collapse, making the height just a couple of inches. It's placed in a shallow stream, when it's tripped the animal's leg is caught, after the top expands the leg is released and the elevation apparatus is activated, raising the trap several inches above the water. It's called a Gibbs Armadillo trap because of how it looks, but it was used for catching live muskrats so they could be transported to another area, patent number 1,765,144.
Check out this mating dance of a male jumping spider (Salticidae) Apparently, if you were a jumping spider, impressing your mate requires tapping, flailing your legs and moaning! Be sure to turn up your speaker, the sound is part of the fun (and watch your cubicle mates pop in to see what's goin' on!)
Kenneth Anderson is one lucky guy: he was sitting in a booth by the window in a North Carolina diner when a car ploughed through the window, sending him about 10 feet into the restaurant counter. Kenneth escaped with only minor injuries.
BBC has the astonishing CCTV footage: Link - Thanks Geekazoid!
Okay, okay - so I did ask whether we should kill the ORLY meme ... but perhaps the answer to that is "NEVAR!"
Neatorama reader Molly Clark and her husband spotted this street sign somewhere on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on their way to a Christmas dinner (they actually turned around and pulled over to take this photo) - Thanks Molly!
Another ORLY spotting: the ORLY Meeting Place in Amsterdam - Thanks Lucia!
Photo: Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales, Cardiff University
Meet the ghost slug, earthworms' worst nightmare:
The nocturnal predator is armed with blade-like teeth (see inset) for slicing through animal flesh and can measure up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) long when stalking its prey, Rowson said.
"They engulf the worms piece by piece," the biologist noted. "One end of the worm will still be alive while the other is being gradually ratcheted into the slug by the teeth."
The slug has been officially named Selenochlamys ysbryda ("ysbryd" is Welsh for "ghost."): Link - Thanks Ratz!
Well, with the new Batman movie out and all, I thought this cute photo of Baby Batman would be perfect for Neatorama and Hobotopia's Caption Monkey game!
The funniest caption will win an original comic by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford from the recent archive of the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats. All you have to do is come up with some funny captions: please put your caption in the comment section (one caption per comment, please, but you can submit as many as you can think of). Good luck!
PS Check out this super cool sculpture of Pip of the Laugh-Out-Loud hobo cat!
Update 7/23/08 - Adam has picked the winner! Congratulations to madhen who won with this gem of a caption: "Quick, to the Bat Bjorn !" (Don't know what that's all about? Here's a BabyBjorn)
Why settle for a boring toilet seat? Musicians Marvin Maxwell and David Boone decided to bring their love of music to the toilet ... by making handcrafted guitar and keyboard toilet seats (their motto is "music to your rear")!
You make reservations for restaurants and hotels, so why not heaven? Space is limited and Nate Davis and Edgar Kim of Seattle are selling reservations for the ever after on their website Reserve A Spot In Heaven:
"Why go to church when you can go to our Web site," Davis said. "Click, click, $12 and you're going up (to heaven)," he said.
And those reservations come with a money back guarantee. "We're men of our word," Davis said. "If you don't get there, you're going to get your money back," Kim added.
And just in case their website will cause them eternal damnation, Nate and Edgar got Reserve a Spot in Hell too.
KOMO News has the story: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/16067567.html - Thanks Mason!
Add this one to the O RLY thing we've been kicking around on the blog. Neatorama reader Tim Windsor sent us this photo of his daughter posing outside a suspiciously-named-moving-and-shipping-company - Thanks Tim!
I can imagine the conversation right now:
- We are the best moving and shipping company EVAR! - O RLY?
- YA RLY! - NO WAI!
Erhm. And who could forget the ORLY airport in France? (Thanks Catherine Savage!) Should this meme die a quiet death?
If there's one thing that scares and fascinates me at the same time, it's a snake. I can't help it - snakes just give me the heebie-jeebies.
Take for instance, the black mamba snake:
Know Thine Enemy: The black mamba is the largest and most deadly snake in Africa. It also happens to be the fastest moving snake in the world. In short, this snake is a killing machine. The Black Mamba gets its name not from the fact that it has black skin, but because it is black on the inside of its mouth. The skin of a black mamba is actually gray to olive green. [...]
How mean are they? Black Mambas are mean mothers. They will readily attack when threatened. They’ll make multiple attacks, aiming at the head and body. With each bite, they inject their super deadly venom. One bite from a black mamba has enough venom to kill 120-140 men. The venom paralyzes the muscles used for breathing and the victim consequently dies from suffocation.
How could you not be scared? I'd pee in my pants if I saw that snake crawling around near me.
Deborah of Life in the Fast Lane wrote a neat mega-post about 45 of the world's most amazing artificial islands (both real islands and those in planning stages). Take for example, the Federation Island modeled above:
Federation Island is an artificial island archipelago that will be located off the coast of Sochi in the Black Sea — a complex that will be built in the shape of Russia. Russian developers outlined plans for the $6.2 billion 350-hectare artificial island to be built near the future 2014 Winter Olympic venue in Sochi, to be completed in time for the events.
The floating ‘mini-Russia’ will boast artificial rivers made to mimic the continent’s real waterways, part of a larger effort by the Russian state to revamp the area’s Soviet-era infrastructure before the big event.
The island is expected to house around 25,000 people in apartments and villas, hotels, restaurants, malls, year-round yacht parking, various sea attractions - aquarium, oceanarium, and many other features.
When Scott Van Den Plas noticed a wall fell over near his work, he and a friend quickly went to work on a poster to help apprehend the usual suspect: the Kool-Aid Man! (Doesn't make sense to you? See here)
