Yes, that's Thanos. His entire head fits neatly on a coffee bean carved by Valeriano Fatica.
Fatica lives in Oratino, a small town in central Italy where he was born and raised. He worked in his family restaurant and began exploring art by carving watermelons for the buffet. This led to a food sculpture career that includes cheese, truffles, fruits, and, recently coffee beans. You'll recognize many characters from Fatica's favorite comic books.
-via Born in Space
It's in a bar in Germany, but, having worked a public libraries, I wish that this appliance was more widely available outside of German bars. Andrew Bulkeley, a journalist who has spent a lot of time in Germany, explains that you use a speibecken as a hygienic place to vomit. He learned this while getting drunk at a particular bar in Germany:
“It’s for when you drink too much and you have to puke,” he announced, as if every bar in the world had a Speibecken. The entire bar looked at me with great sympathy, wondering with their eyes if this was the first bar I’d ever been in.
This must happen to every ex-pat every now and then – you stumble into something the natives think is part of the human condition but isn’t. It’s that weird moment where Germany doesn’t know it’s doing something strange and you have to be the one to break the bad news.
The handle on the left side is an excellent feature, given that users may feel unbalanced while using the speibecken.
-via Core 77 | Photo: jingjangjones
#Amsterdam #ijsnietoveralgoed #keizersgracht pic.twitter.com/mhZAuCQ9x6
— Geertje (@ikkomuitdrenthe) February 14, 2021
The Dutch, for whom ice skating is both a tradition and a weapon, know their craft well. This video from Amsterdam shows a man skating over too-thin ice and crashing into the cold water below. He's one of many Dutchmen enjoying perfect urban skating weather right now.
Breaking through the ice is no big deal. I suspect that he actually intended to crash (since he's in a swimsuit) and views crawling out of the wintery waters as, at most, an annoyance rather than a life-threatening emergency. His bow, at the end, shows perfect aplomb.
-via Aaron Starmer
When does the next flight to the park bench leave? When does my friend's flight from the skyscraper arrive? Check out the pigeon schedule from Michael Pederson, the artist who goes by the moniker "Miquel Marquez Outside." Click through all of the photos to know your options.
I'd like to take a flight to "nowhere specific." It might be fun for an airline to offer tickets for a flight in which the destination is never announced even after landing. Your first opportunity to learn where you are is when you enter the terminal after getting off the plane.
Do you have any romantic ideas for what you can do with a pair of handcuffs this Valentine's Day?
The Sheriff of Nash County, North Carolina does. In a Facebook post, the Sheriff's Office suggests that if you have an ex who is currently wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant, give them a call:
This Valentine’s Day Weekend Special starts off with a set of limited-edition platinum bracelets, free transportation with a chauffeur, a one-night minimum stay in our luxurious ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ accommodations, and this special is capped off with a special Valentine’s dinner.
We know this special is so incredible that you may be tempted to provide additional referrals. We don't blame you, this special is too sweet to pass up. Operators are standing by!
-via Dave Barry | Photo: Max Pixel
I went for a walk and ran into a little free art gallery with tiny people! It has a take a tiny painting or leave a tiny painting policy! pic.twitter.com/qHWMerE2Kp
— Siel Ju (@sielju) February 7, 2021
Have you ever seen a little free library? This is a movement to make books available to people. Usually, these libraries are boxes where you can donate or borrow books.
That movement has inspired people to make little free art galleries. Inside these dollhouse-sized boxes are small works of art. Would you like to have a piece of art? Or, even better, would you like to donate your own art? That's what these lending art museums are for.
Stacy Milrany operates one in Seattle. The Seattle Times describes her project:
When Milrany started the gallery at First Avenue North and Garfield Street, she didn’t know it would become such a huge part of her routine. A working artist for five years who makes charmingly mordant paintings and mixed-media pieces, she’d been drawn to small-scale art, like an art-on-a-postcard project she started for her mother during a series of cancer treatments, and postcard-sized paintings she’d make using a small watercolor set while traveling. But as state restrictions settled in to contain the coronavirus outbreak, traditional avenues for showing and seeing art were no longer as accessible as they’d once been. “Museums and galleries were shut so it seemed like a good idea,” says Milrany, who saw an opening to do something different.
This sounds like fun! I'd like to start a little art gallery in my neighborhood.
-via Super Punch
With this loaf, Seattle-based baker Doughy Tribbiani wished his readers a "Happy Challa-ween". It's a beautiful bread that illustrates what amazing sculptures can be made with challah dough. He colored it with activated charcoal.
In some cities, it is customary to mark a street-side parking spot as claimed by a person. To transgress upon a claimed parking spot may result in a duel. Thoughtful and civilized residents of such cities, such as Chicago, know these unwritten rules.
This is why Adam Selzer soaks his pants in water, then shapes them upright and places them in the street. His pants mark his spot. He says that in 20 minutes, the wet pants can be shaped. 20 minutes later, they're frozen solid. UPI says that other Chicagoans may use lawn chairs or traffic cones. Let us hope that Selzer's approach becomes the norm.
Photo: Adam Selzer
-via Dave Barry
It's cold enough in Calgary today that I used a frozen towel as a toboggan 😂 pic.twitter.com/i0itJmXp3U
— Kyle Brittain (@KyleTWN) February 7, 2021
As The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy informs us:
A towel . . . is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
You can also, as Kyle Brittain discovered, make a functional toboggan out of a towel by shaping it, then freezing it with water. It works well as a sled. Just be aware that the towel may not survive the process, so be sure to use someone else's.
-via Super Punch
"I'm here live . . . I'm not a cat." Well, that's what attorney Rod Ponton insisted upon when he logged into the Zoom court of Judge Roy B. Ferguson of Texas. Ponton, like a true professional, was willing proceed despite his feline transformation.
Fox 13 News quotes the Judge's prudent advice to all people working from home from shared computers:
"If a child used your computer, before you join a virtual hearing check the Zoom Video Options to be sure filters are off."
Now for my sitcom pitch: Kitten Attorney tells the tale of a lawyer who, despite a terribly cute accident, continues his legal career with a cat's body. I want Clancy Brown in the lead role.
-via Twisted Sifter
UPDATE 2/9/20: Slate has an interview with cat attorney Rod Ponton:
Are you worried that it made you look unprofessional?
No, no, it’s just one of those little computer snafus that happens in our age where we’re trying to take care of everything by Zoom. It’s now apparently gone viral, so that’s pretty funny.
Yeah, I think a lot of people were pretty amused.
We have a sense of humor out here in West Texas. If I can make everybody smile for a moment, today I’m happy to do it, even at my own expense.
Male Chef is a character played by artist Chris Maggio. Several years ago, he made a Christmas spread for his friends. The results are wonderfully horrifying. The best of them is the sauerkraut snowman, which is an excellent project for those of us who live in snow-free areas.
-via Totally Gourmet
YouTuber Khalid SM Shahin digitally added the voices of Beavis and Butt-Head from the cartoon of the same name to the 1989 Legend of Zelda cartoon. Beavis is obnoxiously eager to develop a deeper relationship with Princess Zelda, daughter of King Butt-Head.
Beavis, an incarnation of the Hero with a Thousand Faces, prevails and acquires his reward. It is, perhaps, not what he expected. Then, in the final two minutes of the cartoon, things get really weird.
-via Geekologie
You can talk to Alexa. You can ask her questions and give her commands. But she doesn't have a physical body--or at least something even vaguely human.
But let's say that Alexa had a human body. Specifically, a hot, sensuously muscular male body that responds to your deepest desires. The advertising firm Lucky Generals tells the funny story of one Alexa owner and her beleaguered husband.
-via Nag on the Lake
Do you need to work from home, but don't have a good home office available? Japan, the nation that perfected the vending machine, has a solution. Sora News 24 tells us about the Telecube, which is a complete, portable office:
A Telecube has everything one person needs to work or study efficiently: a charging station, electrical outlets, a WiFi connection, and soundproof walls so you can get those Zoom meetings done. There’s even a ventilation option so you can change out the air, a much-appreciated option in these hazardous times.
The price is about $2.37 for 15 minutes of access.
Photo: Telecube
How is this a metaphor for love? Well, you've got to have the billiard balls to say how you really feel about someone you care for. And your execution must, sometimes, be perfect.
-via Born in Space
