Is it a worm, a snake, a lizard, or something out of a movie? No special effects here; this is a ajolote, a reptile found in Mexico that has only two legs. It lives underground, where front legs for digging are more valuable than hind legs that would only be dragged along. Link

The new X Files film is coming out this Friday. To get you ready, YesButNoButYes take a look at some of the weird monsters, aliens, and supernatural beings from the television series.

The X-Files stands as not only a definitive pop culture milestone of the 90's, it contains some of the best storytelling in television history.

The show was suspenseful, scary and well crafted. There was a savvy blend of modern story devices and old school monster-movie magic.

And man, were there some beautiful monsters.

Link -Thanks, Johnny!

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We posted about Australian blogger Olive Riley last year. She was 107 years old when she started her blog, The Life of Riley. Olive was 108 when she died Saturday in a nursing home. Link to story. http://www.allaboutolive.com.au to blog. -via Geek Like Me

Olive Returns to Broken Hill

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In this excerpt from the film All About Olive, a documentary by Mike Rubbo about the life of Olive Riley, she recounts a childhood fight and shows us she can still dance at age 104.

If you've read Neatorama for a long time, you've heard of the Wife Carrying Contest and the World Beard and Moustache Championships, but did you know about the Gumboot Throwing Festival? And who knew there was a thing called competitive sauna? Listverse has a rundown of 8 Crazy Championships. Who knows, you might want to enter one someday! Link -via the Presurfer

The pattern of recent disasters in China has had many superstitious people concerned about the Olympic Mascots (the Fuwa) - claiming that each of the five reflects/predicts a particular disaster.

The five mascots of the Beijing Oympics are each blamed for a recent natural or man-made disaster in China. Blogadilla has details. Link -via Dump Trumpet

The cola wars of the late 20th century were waged with as much strategy, secrecy, and technology as many conventional wars. When Coke was threatened by the Pepsi Challenge, they responded ten years later with Merchandise 7X-100, which we came to know as New Coke. It was the first major formula change since 1903, when cocaine was taken out of the recipe. Although tests showed that people liked the taste of New Coke, the product fell flat on its face. The original Coke formula, new relabeled Coke Classic, returned to the shelves only 79 days after New Coke was introduced.

Coca-Cola then became, and has since remained, the most profitable soft drink in the world. The "marketing blunder of the century" was so successful, in fact, that some people are convinced that New Coke Was an Inside Job– a delicately engineered gambit to revitalize the brand. As Coca-Cola president Donald Keough put it, "Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will say we planned the whole thing. The truth is we are not that dumb and we are not that smart." Coca-Cola truthers have also suggested that New Coke was a disposable facade intended to mask the transition from sugar to HFCS.

There are several psychological explanations for the failure of New Coke, which are explored in this article at Damn Interesting. Link

Maybe the owner of these shoes should consider some charcoal insoles. Found at Omg OWNED. Link -via Digg

JobMob has the 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever! The best argument for proofreading I’ve seen anywhere, although obviously some of these people really don’t want a job. Here’s a taste:

Application: How large was the department you worked in with your last company? “A: 3 stories.” (Resumania)

A resume listed a skill as “being bi-lingual in three languages” (Ask Annie’s)
Background: “28 dog years of experience in sales (four human).” (Resumania)

In the section that read “Emergency Contact Number” she wrote “911.” (Ask Annie’s)

Candidate drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said it was the hiring manager’s gift. (Careerbuilder.com)

Languages: “Fluent in English. Also I have been heard muttering Gibberish in my sleep.” (Resumania)

“Directed $25 million anal shipping and receiving operations.” (ResumePower.com)

Link -via Digg

You name it, and somewhere there’s a place where you can buy it right out of a machine! Let’s take a look at some of the weirder vending machines you can stick your money into.

Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana can be purchased from a vending machine in California. Yes, you have to have a prescription. In order to use the machines, you have to have an ID card, and you’ll be fingerprinted and photographed by a security guard at the machine site. See a video report here.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs

Nathan's Famous hot dogs in Coney Island is the site of the annual July 4th hot dog eating contest. Soon, New Yorkers will be able to get the famous dogs from a vending machine! They’ll be kosher, as the machines are run by Kosher Vending Industries, which already makes kosher pizza and other items available by machine. Only selected Nathan’s locations currently sell dogs with rabbinical oversight.

iPods

The Atlanta airport is home to a Zoom Shop machine that sells iPod Minis and Shuffles, along with batteries and digital cameras. There are similar machines at other airports. Have your credit card ready, this probably doesn’t take quarters! (image credit: sbisson)

Pet Supplies

The Hey Buddy! company makes vending machines that sell dog supplies, such as dog food, leashes, flea collars, chew toys, treats, waste bag holders and refills, and purified water. Check for a location near you.

Live Bait

Fishermen get up and go earlier than bait shop owners prefer, so the idea of a live bait vending machine makes sense, even if it seems weird. In 1993, fisherman Joe Meyer converted an old sandwich machine to a bait machine and sold it to a shop owner, who now has 30 machines and sells 10,000 night crawlers every week! Bait machines are refrigerated, and the bait is sealed in plastic bags with an oxygen tablet added.

Crow Food

They don’t expect you to buy food for crows; this machine is for the crows to use! The point of the experiment is to create a device that will train crows to pick up change dropped on the ground and exchange it for peanuts, using this specially-designed vending machine. See a video here.

Pornography, Beer, and Eggs

Japan is vending machine heaven. You can get pretty much anything you like from vending machines. Sometimes a row of vending machines will replace an entire store! There are vending machines that sell pornography, bread in a can, and even fresh eggs. There are reports of fetish items still for sale in Japanese vending machines, if you know where to look.

Cigarette for Adults Only

Cigarette machines are only seen in antique stores in America these days, but they are still used in Japan, where the legal age to buy tobacco is twenty. New technology is being developed to keep underage smokers from using the machines. New machines require a “taspo” (tobacco passport) card, an ID issued by the Tobacco Institute of Japan. Manufacturer Fujitaka has another machine in development that uses face-recognition software to “see” how old the buyer is. The face recognition is around 90% accurate in judging a person’s age. It has yet to be approved for public use.

Toilet Paper

No, you don’t get to go for free everywhere. Some places still have coin-operated toilets. In Japan, you can use the facilities, but you’ll have to pay for the paper, at least in some public areas. But you might get lucky: Japanese businesses often hand out free samples as part of their advertising budget, since the individual packets have advertising printed on them.

Live Lobster Claw Game

This machine in Osaka is not exactly a vending machine -it’s a claw game! You pay your money and test your skills at catching a live lobster, which is also the prize. Have fun carrying it home!

Coke

Vending machines are so popular in Japan that they’ve been made into a popular toy, which in turn was the inspiration for these life size Coke Bots!

This photograph, originally from Cute Otters, shows an otter mom proudly displaying her offspring. It was one of many incredibly cute images of different kinds of animal mothers posted at The Pet Blog. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: SY Dration/Cute Otters)

Have you ever considered planning your vacation around the places that made nuclear history?

The Traveler's Guide to Nuclear Weapons illustrates 160 important homes, offices, laboratories, factories, mills, and bomb detonation sites in the United States. Scaled maps, photos, tour schedules, and site telephone numbers provide atomic tourists with all they need to visit these historic locations, vicariously or in person.

Link -via Everlasting Blort

(image: National Archives)

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In response to a recent story about the deaths of two bloggers, Barely Political did an undercover expose of the seamy underworld of the blogging business. Bloggers are subjected to horrific conditions and inhuman treatment, which must be immediately remedied. -via Bits and Pieces

German inventor Dieter ‘Didi’ Senft unveiled his latest creation Tuesday in Storkow, Germany. It’s a 39-foot guitar, driven by a bicycle chain underneath! http://www.absolutegadget.com/200804091276/news/automotive/my-other-bike-is-a-stradivarius.html -via Arbroath, who has a video of the contraption.

They say you can find anything on the internet, including specialized niche dating services. Cracked takes a look at five you should avoid, and the reasons why (if they aren’t obvious to you). Link

Don’t you just hate it when you spend millions of dollars for a large construction, only to find out there is something fundamentally wrong underneath? Oh yeah, especially when the failure becomes apparent during a big public grand opening. It happens, and mental_floss has a look at four cases of embarrassing (and expensive) mistakes in huge projects. Link