The winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad opening lines for novels were announced a few days ago, but word is slow to get out because "many newspapers have allowed themselves to be distracted by a large athletic contest being staged somewhere in Asia." The winning entry:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

This gem was written by 41-yar-old Garrison Spik of Washington, DC.

Garrison Spik is the 26th grand prize winner of the contest that began at San Jose State University in 1982.

An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

Winners were also named in the categories of adventure, children's literature, detective, fantasy fiction, historical fiction, purple prose, romance, spy fiction, vile puns, and western. See all the winners, runners-up, and dishonorable mentions at the San Jose State University Dept. of English & Comparative Literature site. http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm -via a comment at mental_floss

Director Alfred Hitchcock made a habit of cameo appearances in the opening scene of his films. Is it possible he made more than one appearance in some films? In North by Northwest, he is seen running for a train and missing it. But here's something else later in the movie...

North by Northwest: About 43 minutes into the film Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) has boarded the Chicago-bound Twentieth Century Limited and is hiding in the restroom. Two Pullman conductors make their way through the adjoining Club car checking tickets. In a brief segment, the conductors pause for a moment to examine the ticket of a plump elderly woman in a blue dress. Eventually satisfied, the conductors move on down the train and the portly woman turns toward the camera and gives a slightly bewildered shrug of her shoulders. At that moment the woman’s features become strikingly familiar.

FilmPosters.com has many screenshots, so you can decide for yourself. Link -Thanks, eLzo!

Update: You can see a good copy of the clip in question here. -Thanks, Alex Zavatone!

A Japanese manufacturer is churning out modular homes made of polystyrene foam. The material is easy to assemble, will not rot or attract insects, and acts as its own insulation. The flame-retardant walls can burn, but do not emit toxic fumes if they do. There are many configurations and sizes to select from. Link -via the Presurfer

You always thought that octopuses had eight arms, right? It turns out that they have six arms and two legs!

A study by scientists at Sea Life centres across Europe found that the invertebrates move across the sea bed using their two rearmost limbs, leaving the other six free for the important business of feeding.

Researchers who observed the creatures in action found they push off with the "legs" and then employ the other tentacles to pump themselves along.

The study, the largest of its type carried out, was designed to show if octopuses favoured one side or the other.

But it found that octopuses are ambidextrous, though many seem to favour their third arm from the front to eat with.

Link -via Arbroath

As you watch Olympic diving, you may have wondered how the camera follows the divers every inch of the way from the platform to underwater. The answer is extremely old-fashioned: they drop the camera!

"Ideally," Rob Brear said the other day, "the diver and the camera drop at the same time." Mr. Brear, who is the DiveCam's chief dropper, was in Beijing's colossal "Water Cube," the National Aquatic Center, standing behind a plastic screen on a ledge built just below the diving tower's 10-meter platform. Between him and the platform, the DiveCam's pipe hung suspended by a chain from the roof.

Mr. Brear, a 54-year-old Australian, was warming up -- with the divers -- for the first platform events of the Games on Monday and Tuesday. "After the camera drops," he went on, "what you do is you pull it up again." Ken East, another Australian and Mr. Brear's teammate, sat behind him on a stool with his hand on the pulley's brake. "It's called gravity," he said.

There are some other factors. The camera operator has to drop it at the right time, and a bungee cord is used to keep the camera from smashing against the bottom of the pool. The Wall Street Journal has an interactive graphic that shows how the tracking works. Link -via Geek Like Me

The EcoJohn incinerating toilet uses no water at all!

The EcoJohn Sr. is a waterless, incinerating toilet certified for safety by Underwriters Laboratories, which, for classification purposes, called it a barbecue.

"Toilets haven't really changed for the past 100 years," Stefan Johansson said. "People are always looking for better products, better solutions. The EcoJohns are better, cleaner and good for the environment."

The unit can be installed at a site as a primary toilet or carted via trailers and used as portable toilets.

The toilets, one of several waste disposal products offered by the company, operate pretty much like the units found in homes across America today. But while those toilets use water to carry waste away, the EcoJohn Sr. is equipped with a propane-fueled burner.

After a user does his business, he closes the lid and a large, screw-like auger turns and carries the waste to the burn chamber where the propane burner then bakes urine, feces and paper into ashes.

The EcoJohn is useful for places where it is impractical to install a sewage system, such as vacation cabins, rooftop parties, and construction sites. But the question in everyone's mind is: why does it have to be classified as a barbecue?! Link -Thanks, Julie Anne!

(image credit: Mark Martinez/Orange County Register)

Bubble Tanks is a pleasant shoot-em-up game with soothing music. You are a bubble under the sea. Shoot bubble clusters to collect bubbles and grow, but avoid being shot! Link -via Buzzfeed

Sometimes when I take group pictures, I'll ask the kids to make funny faces for one photo, to loosen them up and give them a natural smile. The funny face pictures are often the best of them all! Dark Roasted Blend has a collection of pictures of funny faces, some intentional, some not, some not even human! Link

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

(YouTube link)
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!