The English Department at San Jose State University sponsors the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the opening sentence to "the worst of all possible novels." The competition is named for author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a popular producer of purple prose. The 2012 winners have been announced. Cathy Bryant of Manchester, England won the top prize for this entry:
As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting.
Winners in subcategories such as crime and children's literature and other dishonorable mentions, can be found at the contest site. Link -via The Guardian
It sounds like the beginning of a joke: what do you get when you cross a camel with a llama? You get a cama, thanks to the efforts of the Camel Reproduction Center in Dubai. Camas are said to be friendlier than a camel and hardier than a llama. The cama pictured here is named Rama and was born in 1998. Three others have been produced since then, and as a camel and a llama have the same number of chromosomes, it is believed that camas may be able to reproduce. The cama is just one of several animals profiled in the Cracked article The 5 Coolest Pets Humanity Has Bred into Existence. Link
When a student couldn't finish his summer reading assignments, he turned to Yahoo! Answers for help. He asked for someone to summarize the novel The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep And Never Had To for him, as the beginning of school was only ten days away.
The author of the book, DC Pierson, is a comedian, actor, and writer, whom some might know only from an Allstate ad. He responded to the query about his book, not by giving him a summary, but by giving him a reason to read it.
I'm not going to sit here and act like I didn't sometimes not read assigned books for class in high school. Even though it's referenced once in my book, the book you're avoiding reading, I've never actually read "The Scarlet Letter." So I'm sympathetic to your plight. But I think you'll find there's a ton more sex, swearing, and drugs in my book than anything else you have been or will be assigned in high school, and I don't mean in the way your teacher will tell you "You know, Shakespeare has more sex and violence than an R-rated movie!" I mean it's all there, in terms you will readily understand without having to Google them. Plus not once to I refer to anything as a "bare bodkin" or anything like that.
I guess all I'm saying is, of all the books not to read, to beg the Internet to read for you because your library is being remodeled, mine seems like an odd choice.
That's just a small part of his answer, which was rated the "best" of 18 responses. Link | Pierson's post -via Geekosystem
We've been so busy with the new site that Neatorama's seventh anniversary just slipped right past me! Alex is not one to celebrate such things, so I feel the need to point out that Neatorama was born on August 9th, 2005, with this innocuous little post:
It was two years before that post got its first comment. At the time, Neatorama was Alex's hobby, and he made a commitment to post five "neat" items a day, which eventually paid off. Now the site has over 48,000 published posts, a half-dozen authors, sub-blogs and social networking adjuncts, and a shop to support all the rest. And now we have our own blogging platform! It's been a great seven years.
Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always fascinating What Is It? Blog. Do you know what this thing is? Or can you make an amusing wild guess?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Update: the pictured object is the first U.S. patented ice pick, number 15,483. The very first commenter, Galen, knew the answer, and wins a t-shirt! The funniest answer came from pismonque, who guessed it to be the original Shake Weight, quite popular in the 19th century until someone put his eye out (which barely beat out "binary abacus," also from pismonque). So pismonque wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Thanks to everyone who played this week. Find out the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Juila Child gets the auto-tune treatment, courtesy of PBS Digital Studios. August 15th would have been her 100th birthday. PBS has a celebration page up, with information and tributes to the French Chef, as well as recipes, episodes of her show, and even a quiz. Link -via Metafilter
Hartman’s Historical Rock Garden in Springfield, Ohio is one of those roadside attractions you should see if you're in the neighborhood. It began as one man's hobby that over time grew into an amazing creation.
The art project dates from 1932, when Harry George Hartman lost his job during the Great Depression. The molder occupied his time with creating rock sculptures in his back yard, spanning all sorts of themes. Religion, historic buildings, recreations of famous battles and hundreds of thousands of stones.
You can see it, too -the admission is free. Or see lots of photographs at Random Good Stuff. Link
A mother tries her best to deal with a son who is addicted to video games. GLUED is a short film by several third year students at the Bezalel Academy of the Arts in Jerusalem. They documented the process of making the film on their project blog. Link
Learn about these strange creatures that are fish shaped like a horse that gestates its babies in the male's body. And better yet, see lovely pictures of seahorses from all over the world at Environmental Graffiti. Link
Have you been to NeatoBambino lately? Just in the last couple of days, we've posted two new rap songs about dealing with children. Even if you aren't a parent, you'll get a kick out of the clever wordplay.
The Parent Rap involves the whole family, though Mom and Dad are in control. "When it comes to Candyland, I'm a stone cold player."
In Daddy Skills, a young father explains his new life to his old buddy. "Say, dude, look at you, all mature and wise."
Other recent posts show you some neat kid-friendly crafts, like a toy car made from a bottle, a school bus made from a Twinkie, sushi made from recycled plastic, and a flying saucer made out of breakfast! Check them all out at NeatoBambino. Link
Your life changes so much when you become a father. In this music video by Sam D. feat. DJDave, one friend explains how it is to his childless buddy. The song is downloadable; you'll find several links at the YouTube page. -via Laughing Squid
Did you know there are over 400 species of sharks? The dangerous sharks seem to get all the publicity, especially suring Shark Week. Find out how much you know about the different shark species by taking the Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You'll be given six sharks. All you have to do is match the name with the picture. Yes, I got all six right. Link
Cartoonist Rachel Arnow thinks Shark Week is shortchanging the audience. Manatees can be ferocious, too! Check out her comic Man vs. Manatee. Link -via Tastefully Offensive
An entomological adventure tale by Stephen Drew, AIR staff
NEWS ITEM: “An Israeli woman swallowed a cockroach and then a fork she used to try to remove the insect from her throat. The winged cockroach jumped into the 32-year-old woman’s mouth as she was cleaning her home in a village in northern Israel this week… [a] surgeon at the Poria Hospital in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, removed the fork with laparoscopic surgery, a minimally invasive procedure performed through a tiny incision on the patient’s abdomen.” — from a wire service report by the Associated Press, July 10, 2003
There was a young woman who swallowed a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was a young woman who swallowed a fork That wriggled and jiggled when she applied torque. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was an incision into a gal’s tummy Occasioned by something that made her feel crummy. She felt bad because she had swallowed a fork. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was a winged cockroach who had some adventures That started when he flew through some woman’s dentures, And ended with him dissolved in gastric juice — The doctors came too late to set the roach loose. The doctors arrived when the woman felt crummy. They drilled through her tummy to fish out a fork. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
And no one knows what to make of these affairs, And nobody really much cares.
BONUS: The traditional song "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly"
The article above is republished with permission from the July-August 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
Back in 1958, when Hunter S. Thompson was 21 years old and no one called him a gonzo jounrnalist yet, he wrote a letter to Jack Scott of the Vancouver Sun trying to land a job.
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.
Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.
By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.
I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)
Nothing beats having good references.
Oh, there's more to the letter. Read the whole thing, plus context and the article that inspired it, at the Toronto Sun. Link -via Nag on the Lake
