People have deducted swimming pools, breast implants, and body oil from their income for tax purposes -and the IRS allowed it! You can deduct anything if you can justify it as a legitimate business expense. Eleven people did just that in this article from Kiplinger.

1. Pet food. A couple who owned a junkyard were allowed to write off the cost of cat food they set out to attract wild cats. The feral felines did more than just eat. They also took care of snakes and rats on the property, making the place safer for customers. When the case reached the Tax Court, IRS lawyers conceded that the cost was deductible.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Flickr user play4smee)

Will at A Journey Around My Skull asked readers to create bookplates in the style of the early-20th century magazine Der Orchideengarten (previously at Netaorama) for a contest. They were to include orchids and other flowers, corpses, giant insects, monsters, or diseases. The entries are quite interesting! Memphis artist Michelle Duckworth was the overall winner. Pictured is the bookplate by Ellis Nadler. Link

Newsweek presents a pictorial history of birth control methods. We've come a long way since the Greek philosopher Aristotle recommended olive oil as a spermicide! http://www.newsweek.com/id/220089 -Thanks, Steadyburn!

A Dutch medical magazine asked its readers to send in their stories of strange medical cases. One respondent told the tale of Margaret Daalman, who came in to the hospital 30 years ago complaining of a stomach ache. An x-ray found 78 forks and spoons inside her!

When she went in for her surgery, Ms Daalman, a secretary in a local estate agents, told doctors: 'I don't know why but I felt an urge to eat the silverware - I could not help myself.'

Medics also revealed it was not the first time that she had been treated for eating the cutlery.

They said she had been diagnosed as suffering from a borderline personality disorder that left her with an urge to eat forks and spoons.

She never ate knives, however - and could not explain why not.

The photos and x-rays were not made public until now. Daalman went into therapy after the surgery and is said to be doing well today. Link -via Unique Daily

Remember Dave Carroll of the group Sons of Maxwell who wrote the song United Breaks Guitars after seeing his guitar abused? He flew United Airline again on Sunday on his way to speak to a group of customer service executives. Then he spent an hour at the baggage claim because United lost his luggage!

In an interview, Mr. Carroll said that for more than an hour on Sunday, he was told he could not leave the international baggage claim area at Denver International Airport, where he had flown from Saskatchewan. He said he had been told to stay because his bag was delayed, not lost, and he had to be there to claim it when it came down the conveyor belt.

“I’m the only person pacing around this room,” Mr. Carroll said, recalling how he was caught between an order from United staff members to stay and collect his bag, and a federal customs official telling him he had to leave the baggage claim area. The bag never showed.

Carroll got his bag back on Wednesday. Link -via YesButNoButYes

Natania had already planned to make slime and ectoplasm for Halloween when she came up with an idea for crystal-encrusted Halloween decorations. Get some pipe cleaners and some borax and make your own with her recipe. Link

(College Humor link)

 

What if all our favorite pop culture vampires got together in the same room? Pretty much what you'd expect.

Perfect for Halloween, this dish is a regular meatloaf made into the shape of a hand! Not Martha has the instructions for several different versions, depending on how badly you want to creep out your dinner guests. Link -via reddit

The Haunted Mansion attraction at Walt Disney World features tombstones inscribed with the names of real people. This series of posts called 13 Tombstones tracks down who those people are -mostly Disney employees whose names are now enshrined in the parks for posterity. Link -via Boing Boing

A church group staged a murder mystery dinner theater in Yeovil, England on Saturday night. They spent the evening looking for crime clues, but failed to notice that thieves had taken a large TV, laptop computer and the contents of a safe the night before. Elim Pentecostal Church was the victim of a break-in that went unnoticed until Sunday, despite the crime-solving party. The crime was finally noticed by Reverend Howard Davenport, whose car had been vandalized at the church earlier in the week.

Revd Howard Davenport said: “In situations like this you have to laugh really!

"We were obviously disappointed that the church had been targeted twice in a week, but when I heard that it hadn’t even been noticed I had to smile.

"You’d have thought that eight wannabe detectives might have noticed a real crime a few metres from them only hours earlier!”

Link -via Arbroath

The 7th Annual Asana Yoga Competition was recently held in New York. New York Magazine has a glimpse at the extreme poses competitors used to impress the judges. Link -via Buzzfeed

Why is it called The Hague instead of just Hague? New York City has Manhattan and The Bronx. Why not The Manhattan? Or just Bronx? And when did The Ukraine become plain Ukraine? It turns out that place names with definite articles all have a different story to explain the name, and different languages have their own peculiar rules and exceptions for naming places.

Those who live in The Hague never stopped using an old-fashioned name that described the place according to its medieval use. We get the official name Den Haag from Des Graven Hage, which means "the counts' hedge" and refers to the fact that Dutch noblemen once used the land for hunting.

Link

A reader sent this picture to Curious Expeditions, asking if they knew where it was taken. The biggest clue is the building in the background with its distinctive architecture. Can you identify the building or the setting? Link

The way to get more mileage out of a monster is to make him/her the hero. It's been done quite a few times, sometimes resulting in more confusion than entertainment.

We'd love to say that we can't blame Dell Comics for trying to cash in on the Batmania of the 1960s by turning Dracula into a superhero, but... Well, it's Dracula as a superhero. Even worse, it's a modern-day Count Dracula as a scientist who accidentally swallows some formula that allows him to transform into a bat and then decides to fight crime in a purple jumpsuit. Seriously, in what world is that a good idea?

I thought for sure this list would include Godzilla and The Terminator, but it is limited to classic Halloween-type horror monsters. Link -via Digg

Looks like Boston Dynamics, the robot company that brought us BigDog and RHex, has worked out how to make a robot walk like a man. This is PETMAN, a robot that is supposed to serve humans. Currently it is used to test chemical warfare suits for the military. Link (with embedded YouTube clip)