Emily Spivack began the blog Sentimental Value to preserve some of the more interesting stories that accompany clothing for sale on eBay. For example:

I just loved this dress. But the size that was on clearance was a small. Did I mention I’m not a small? Yeah, so I figured I’d just lose some weight and be a small, right? Ladies? Sound familiar? Can I get an Amen from the choir? Yeah, so I never wore it.

Some stories are funny, some are heartbreaking, and some make you doubt their truth. Link -Thanks, Jan!

Today's lunchtime quiz at mental_floss asks you to identify a quote: Did it come from The Wizard of Oz, the HBO series Oz, musician Ozzy Osbourne, or baseball manager Ozzie Guillen? I scored 50%, since I don't have HBO and don't follow baseball that closely -but I knew all my Wizard of Oz quotes! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/17449

This seems to be more of an art project than a telecommunications aid. Dial the published number, and an answering machine will relay your message to Telemegaphone Dale, which will amplify it and broadcast it over the hills of Norway.

Telemegaphone Dale stands seven metres tall on top of the Bergskletten mountain overlooking the idyllic Dalsfjord in Western Norway.

When you dial the Telemegaphone’s phone number the sound of your voice is projected out across the fjord, the valley and the village of Dale below.

There are no worries about an electrical outage, since the device is powered by wind. Only time will tell if the residents of Dale and the surrounding valley will put up with calls coming in from all time zones. http://www.unsworn.org/telemegaphone/ -Thanks, Sid Morrison!

(image credit: Magnus Torstensson)

Photoshop enthusiasts make existing Olympic events more exciting for the spectator at Worth1000. http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=20627&display=photoshop#entries -via Geek Like Me

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For the first time ever, a woman has won the hog calling title at the Illinois State Fair. Doris Probst of Effingham, Illinois entered both contests at the 2008 Husband and Hog Calling Contest, but didn't place in the husband calling event. She beat out two previous winners to take the hog calling honor. Link

Japanese police say 20-year-old Masayuki Ishikawa was on a Tokyo street corner after midnight when he objected to strangers who stared at him. They were staring at him because he was wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh costume, accompanied by two other people dressed as a panther and a mouse.

Ishikawa and his friends beat up the two victims and stole $160 (84 pounds) from them, the spokesman said, adding the group had apparently donned the unusual garb because they had run out of clean clothes.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Disney)

You think groceries are expensive where you are? In Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, a bunch of grapes sold for 100,000 yen Monday. That's $920! The new variety Ruby Roman grapes are the size of ping pong balls and sell for an average of $248 a bunch. Link -Thanks, Jee!

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"Relativity" is an art project by Drzach & Suchy in which pictures are created using raised tabs. The art is revealed by the shadows of the tabs, and the picture changes depending on the direction of the light. This particular piece is called "Marilyn". Link -Thanks, Drzach & Suchy!

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This ad for United Airlines features lovely animated sea creatures performing Rhapsody in Blue. It was produced by the Barrie D'Rozario Murphy agency. Do yourself a favor and see the high-definition version here. -via Metafilter

Where is Bob? is a blog about one person, one subject.

We have a manager - Bob. Bob is incompetent, overweight, unattractive, uncouth, socially awkward, and generally, not a very nice person at all.

For a while, we were convinced that Bob had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But then, something happened - Bob stopped showing up for work on a regular basis. Several times a week Bob would take a vacation day, a personal day, a sick day. Sometimes he wouldn’t even bother explaining his absence, acting as if spontaneous five-day weekends were simply the norm. And that is how everyone came to wonder - where is Bob? The question became perpetual in the office and among the other people at BPU with whom we work. And that is when I took up my current hobby - keeping chronicles of Bob’s strangeness at the office, and away from it. What is lacking in facts has been more than made up for with an overactive imagination.

This blog is about us, Bob, and the bizarre things that he does instead of coming to work.

It only took reading one post for me to be completely hooked. Whether Bob is real or not is beside the point; the stories are a hoot! And quite believable, because all of us have had a "Bob" in our past. Or maybe several. You might even have one in your present. Link -via reddit

When a person tastes victory, such as Michael Phelps winning the gold at the Olympics, he will raise his hands and puff out his chest. Apes and monkeys do this, too. And you don't even have to learn how to do it!

Scientists from the University of British Columbia and San Francisco State University looked at thousands of photographs of judo matches taken during the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games in Athens, for such classic in-your-face victory moves as clenched fists, thrown-back heads and outstretched arms.

The images of the 140 blind and sighted athletes from 37 countries revealed that Paralympic athletes blind from birth struck the same triumphant stance as sighted Olympic athletes. Since the blind athletes could not have learned the victory dance by watching others, the scientists concluded that the behavior was innate.

They found that the dance was the same for all, regardless of what culture or country they came from.

The converse gestures of slumping shoulders and downcast face when experiencing a defeat is also innate.

Blind athletes across all cultures slumped their shoulders and narrowed their chests, a posture that signals shame in humans and submission in other primates. Sighted athletes from most parts of the world did the same.

However, athletes from some countries tend to hide their feelings of shame in defeat by putting on a brave or nonchalant front. Researchers speculate this is a learned response. Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!

(image credit: Mark J. Rebilas/U.S. Presswire)

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Tom's Clancy's Ghost Recon is a video game released in 2001 with an eerie premise:

Ghost Recon begins in April 2008, with civil unrest in Russia. Ultra-nationalists have seized power in Russia, with plans to rebuild the government. Their first step is clandestine support of rebel factions in Georgia and the Baltic States. This is where the Ghosts come in: to silence the invasion. Armed with some of the most advanced weaponry in the world, the soldiers of the Ghost Recon force are covertly inserted into area of operations and given specific missions to curtail the rebel actions and overthrow their benefactors.

Precient? Let's hope not: the further games in the series have the game characters fighting in Ethiopia in 2009, Cuba in 2010, Mexico in 2014, and in other grim scenarios. Link -Thanks, eLzo!

In a recreation of the movie Amelie, a garden gnome was kidnapped and photographed traveling around the world. But he is has been returned! Eve Stuart-Kelso of Gloucestershire found her gnome "Murphy" outside her home seven months after he disappeared. She also found a photo album showing the places he had been.

The album shows Murphy abseiling down a mountain, standing in a shark's mouth and riding a motorbike.

Some of the pictures show a group of mysterious young men, who could be the ones responsible for the globetrotting stunt.

Also with Murphy were immigration stamps for all the shores he had been taken to visit - South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and Laos.

Link -Thanks, Jeffs!

This isn't the first time this has happened.

Are you really as familiar with Shakespeare's play as you think you are? Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to match characters with the play they are in. I scored 57%, which surprised me because I only know the tragedies. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/17376

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NYC Educator teaches English as a Second Language, and is impressed with the way some of his students can twirl a pen. I've never seen anyone do this, but then I don't get out much. Link