I am on a mission to find the best songs that can be played on this Fisher-Price piano:

# 1 - I Miss You by Blink-182 pic.twitter.com/Lfg9krWtgo

— Nathan W Pyle (@nathanwpyle) September 19, 2023

Nathan W. Pyle is the cartoonist responsible for the Strange Planet series about aliens adapting to live on Earth. It's now a television show. So Pyle is a busy man. But he stays focused on his most important job: being a dad. Pyle's Twitter feed is often filled with doting paternal reflections, including a recent research project into popular songs that can be performed on a Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Light Up Piano.

Blink 182's "I Miss You" does well on the mere eight notes that the toy piano offers. The Twitter thread also has performances of songs by The Cure and ABBA.

A guy in my flight apparently plays the bagpipes. He has a little electric bagpipe he plugs his headphones into and only he can hear. He has been silently (to everyone but himself) ripping his bagpipe for 5 straight hours. I have no choice but to respect this. pic.twitter.com/2Vqn2kK0Hv

— DC Unhilist (@Vamos_DCU) September 7, 2023

All music is always improved with the inclusion of bagpipes -- and the louder, the better. The are the ideal instrument for not only playing music but also distinguishing between people of refined tastes and uncultured primitives employed at this Whataburger restaurant.

Ideally, one should play analog bagpipes, but sometimes electronic bagpipes serve a role (warning: electronic bagpipes are vulnerable to EMP attack). Twitter user DC Unhilist recently encountered a man playing a set on an airplane. The musician selfishly kept his earphones plugged in so that only he could hear the music.

Electronic bagpipes are real and have apparently been around for many years. They can include simple chanter and blowstick, as well as one at least one model with an actual bag to squeeze. Verily, we live in an age of wonders.

-via Super Punch

M.S. Rau is an antique store in New Orleans. It sells only the finest, most luxurious, and most unusual art and furnishings available. It collection includes this mechanical marvel: the Hupfeld Phonolist-Violina Model B music cabinet.

Yes, it's a player piano. But it also has three self-playing violins, which was a revolutionary invention when it was developed in the first years of the Twentieth Century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It rose to worldwide fame at the 1910 World's Fair in Belgium and was produced in great quantities. 63 survive to this day, including this example at M.S. Rau, which is in perfect working order. Its purchase comes with 50 rolls of music, which is a small selection of the 900 that were eventually composed during this mechanical marvel's heyday.

Photo: M.S. Rau

BGR reports that scientists in Wuhan, China have invented a toilet bowl that can't be stained. The 3D printed surface is made of a material that repels feces easily. Even after the researchers vigorously applied sandpaper to the surface, it still kept poop-free, or at least free of the simulated fecal matter. Their science-y article in the journal Advanced Engineering Materials describes how the "abrasion-resistant super-slipper flush toilet" works.

It sounds very promising, but field testing is necessary. Give me $20 and access to a Taco Bell, and I'll let you know if this toilet bowl is really up to spec.

-via Dave Barry

Literally beating the competition lying down, seven competitors lying on mats in the Montenegrin village of Brezna continue their battle to become Montenegro's 'Laziest Citizen' https://t.co/WaDmrQrwdN pic.twitter.com/lIa8NkbElf

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 8, 2023

There is a stereotype that Montenegrins are lazy. Far from being offended at this allegation, the people of Brezna, Montenegro are competing to see who among them is the laziest.

The athletes must remain lying down in bed continuously. They are allowed 10 minute breaks every 8 hours to use the toilets. Otherwise, they are locked into a fierce competition to see who can exert as little physical effort as possible.

Brezna has held this annual contest for 12 years. The winner will earn €1,000 ($1,070 USD). As of yesterday, the 7 remaining athletes had kept lying down for 463 hours.

-via Dave Barry

Europe is having one of the most textbook Omega blocks in memory. A heat dome flanked by two strong storms. A true atmospheric stalemate/ traffic jam, dumping Epic rains in Greece. These split flow jet streams & extreme blocks are becoming more common esp in Europe 1/ pic.twitter.com/H5ryHsC1Tn

— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) September 6, 2023

This is not an ideal time to visit the beautiful beaches of Spain and Greece and lounge in the sand in a bikini. The Guardian reports that twin storms are leaving those nations hot and wet, with record temperatures and precipitation as a consequence.

Meteorologists call this type of storm an "Omega block" because the weather system, which features two low pressure systems heaving up a high pressure system between them. The resulting shape resembles the Greek letter omega.

A man with more guts than sense gets a bear to leave the party. pic.twitter.com/WRoJYHFouB

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) September 8, 2023

Some people on the internet are saying that this mysterious gentleman has more courage than good sense. I must admit that if I was hosting a lakeside patio party and a black bear decided to crash it, I would not try to drive it away with just strong words and gestures.

Mike, though, is made of tougher (or crazier) stuff. He insists that the bear leaves. The bear swats at him with a paw as it exits and Mike gets a few scratches. But, notably, Mike is not mauled to death. So I think this is the best possible outcome for him.

Content warning: foul language.

-via Dave Barry

Advertise your account with one animation https://t.co/0cBEI9cPIP pic.twitter.com/jC0tMkimWH

— Lex Sugden 🌈🦇🪡@alexisdraws Insta & Bluesky (@AlexisDraws) September 7, 2023

Alexis Sugden is an artist in Vancouver. I'm using "artist" as a brief summary of her extraordinary body of work across multiple media, some of which you'd never expect to see together. Her Etsy shop includes a lot of embroidery, comic books, laser cuts, and paintings. But it is this piece that grabbed my initial attention.

Yes, it's a dancing bat dressed for business. Sugden created this animation sequence by embroidering each frame, then photographing them in sequence.

Sugden has a fascination with bats. Her profile picture, which shows a bat operating a human-appearing robot, reflects a childhood story about how she identified herself to other kids.

Books for Cooks is a unique bookstore in the Notting Hill neighborhood of London. The two walls are lined with shelves of cookbooks--one half by subject and the other by country. In the back is a small kitchen. Since its founding in 1983, the store has offered professional and amateur chefs the ultimate reference library for recipes, many of which it prepares in the kitchen and serves four days a week to up to forty customers. Each meal costs a mere £7 ($8.84 USD).

The lunch program is a great draw for customers to the shop. It's a way to bring people together over a shared love for food. You might as well join the other customers for lunch because you can't shop online at Books for Cooks; you have to go in-person and smell the kitchen in person.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

Atlas Obscura explains that in Ming and Qing Dynasty China (1368-1911), physicians could not directly examine the bodies of upper class women. Even directly speaking about the bodily conditions was unacceptable, so the women would point to relevant areas on medical dolls, such as the one pictured above. The doctors would diagnose maladies and provide treatments based on this indirectly communicated information.

The author's source is a scholarly journal article published in 1952. I found this sourcing insufficient, so I searched for other, more recently and clearly referenced sources and came across this webpage by Yuewei Yang, a student at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Yang is deeply skeptical of the historical claim and concludes that these dolls were probably for sale to gullible Westerners who had exotic (and erotic) views of Chinese culture. For one thing, most of the dolls are posed in rather . . . sensual ways. The one pictured above isn't even the most suggestive example that I've seen. Yang also points out that most of the surviving dolls are found in the West (the one above is in Kansas), not in China.

Finally, during the Ming Dynasty, elite ladies and physicians weren't allowed to communicate in any form at all. Rather, male relatives would ferry messages back and forth between female patients. Thus a medical doll would be unnecessary.

It's clear that more (hopefully grant-funded) research is necessary in this field.

-via Messy Nessy Chic | Photo: Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum

The saga of Tami Manis of Knoxville, Tennessee and her glorious mullet began in the 1980s, when she encountered the work of the be-mulleted Aimee Mann of the band 'Til Tuesday. The video for "Voices Carry" inspired Manis to cultivate her own mullet. She grew her mullet gradually. Then, on February 9, 1990, stopped cutting it altogether.

Guinness World Records announced that Tami Manis has the "longest competitive mullet (female)" in the entire world.

(I'll assume that the gender designation refers to Manis, not her mullet.)

Her mullet stretches 5 feet and 8 inches long. This exceeds her own height, so Manis often keeps the mullet braided. Maintenance takes a lot of work, but with great mullet comes great responsibility.

-via Dave Barry

When Nature's fury arrives in its swirling, wet majesty, it is our hero, Florida Man, who rises to the occasion. In this instance, though, there were no fewer than two Florida Men who braved the ravages of Hurricane Idalia.

NBC 9 News in Tampa recorded this footage of two sailors who plowed through the torrential seas of Bay Shore Boulevard. Their ship was an inflatable duck wearing camouflage gear. Like wood, bread, apples, cider, lead, and very small rocks, ducks float, thus providing a suitable basis for shipbuilding.

-via Dave Barry

The origins of historic bog snorkeling are shrouded (or muddily immersed) in mystery. Perhaps it was a survival technique necessary in the wild days of early Wales. But the modern sport is more concretely known. The Associated Press reports that, for 35 years, Welshmen have conducted this aquatic sport near the village of Llanwrtyd Wells.

A 60-yard trench is cut into the ground of a peat bog. It soon fills with water, which the competitors must traverse as quickly as possible while remaining submerged. They may use foot flippers, but they may not use swimming strokes. The current record for the journey is 1 minute and 18 seconds.

The competitors have a lot of fun in the process. In recent years, it has become common for the athletes to wear eccentric costumes. You can see a slideshow of these costumes at the AP.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Ethreon

The language is very different from Queen's English, but the tune is instantly recognizable. Hātea Kapa Haka, a Māori cultural organization and performance group, delivers a rousing performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. It's one of many syntheses of the traditional and the modern that Hātea Kapa Haka has composed.

Bob Barker, the famous host of the game show The Price is Right, has departed from us for the great showcase in the sky. He was 99 years old. As the joke circulating the internet goes, he managed to get as close as possible to 100 without going over.

He leaves behind a legacy of thousands of episodes aired over 35 years. Some of those episodes were quite creative. Here's a 1978 scene that is an extended and detailed parody of the first Star Wars film. Announcer Johnny Olson explains that they had a limited production budget, but the set designers, costumers, and actors nonetheless did a fine adaptation of the science fiction classic.

-via Super Punch