Tag: Random

  • Boss Hogg: Linguist

    Random fun fact for the day: Sorrell Booke, the actor who played Boss Hogg in the Dukes of Hazzard television show, was fluent in five(!) languages and served in the Korean War as a counterintelligence officer. Who would’ve guessed? All I could dig up for what languages he was fluent in were English (obviously) and Japanese; I’m curious as to what the others are.

    Sources: IMDB, Wikipedia.

  • Central Oregon’s biggest baby?

    According to this article in the Bulletin, a woman in Prineville gave birth to a 14 pound, 1 ounce baby. Holy c-section, Batman! Still, as big as that is, it doesn’t quite beat the 16.7 pound baby born last month. And then for some bogglers check out these Guinness World Record entries for heaviest births.

  • Cartoon skeletons

    This is cool yet random and kind of freaky at the same time: Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters.

    Animation was the format of choice for children’s television in the 1960s, a decade in which children’s programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.

     

    I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

    I like Charlie Brown’s skeleton a lot, but nothing there is quite as alien and disturbing as Buttercup’s (the Powerpuff Girl) skeleton. And this is cool: “Twenty-two of these are currently on show at Stumptown Coffee/Belmont in Portland, Oregon the month of December 2004.” I wish I had time to see them since we’re in Portland right now, but oh well.

    Via Boing Boing.

  • The Jones Soda Holiday Pack

    When I was reviewing the server logs, I kept wondering why there were occasional searches for “green bean casserole soda” leading here, which seemed totally random. I figured it out today; it’s part of the new Jones Soda Holiday Pack, which is related to the Turkey Soda post I made last year around this time.

    Holidays can be busy and down right stressful. How can you squeeze in eating when you have much more important tasks like shopping, decorating, and partying? Well the makers of last year’s popular Turkey & Gravy Soda have come up with a solution: the complete holiday meal replacement set equipped with a square meal, a straw, and a toothpick.

     

    Introducing 5 new, flavor filled, tasty holiday sodas:

    • Turkey & Gravy Soda
    • Cranberry Soda
    • Mashed Potato & Butter
    • Green Bean Casserole
    • Fruitcake Soda

    It’s only $15.95 per case! I think I know what I want for Christmas…

  • Spite

    Some people just have too much anger:

    A woman has been arrested for digging up her dead boyfriend’s ashes from a cemetery more than 10 years ago and drinking the beer that was buried with him, possibly out of spite for his family, authorities say….

     

    Detective Jay Yerges said Stolzmann and Hendrickson were living together in the early 1990s, while they were both married to other people. The relationship was stormy, with a pattern of alcohol and domestic abuse, he said.

     

    Stolzmann was present when Hendrickson shot himself in January 1992. Yerges said Hendrickson’s family blamed her for his death and she was not invited to his services.

    “I feel that her motive was spite,” Yerges said.

    No kidding.

    Although, I have to wonder: why was he buried with beer in the first place, and what kind was it?

    Via A Good Beer Blog.

  • Not so PC

    Just a braindump of some ideas I have that wouldn’t really be considered very politically correct…

    Like a series of books like the “For Dummies” books, only these would be “For Tards.” They would be much more simplistic; with titles like “Keyboards for Tards” and “Books for Tards” I think they could really be successful…

    Then there was this idea for a sitcom that I had—a homophobic ex-Marine, a flamboyantly gay man and the ex-Marine’s mentally retarded brother are roommates sharing an apartment in a big city somewhere (maybe San Francisco). Man, that would write itself.

  • Private Solar System?

    I saw this headline from Reuters in Bloglines today: “FedEx to Build 2nd-Largest U.S. Private Solar System” and of course I immediately wondered if they were building a model of the Solar System and why that would matter to FedEx (and why would it be private?), before realizing what was meant was Solar Powerered System. Very odd alleys the mind wanders into some days.

  • Flesh Jacket

    Okay, this article on a living tissue jacket is just disturbing and yet darkly funny. Basically, some guys are literally growing a jacket from living tissue…

    Grown using a combination of mouse and human cells, the jacket is currently quite tiny (about 2 inches high and 1.4 inches wide) and would just fit a mouse….

     

    “One of the most common and somewhat surprising comments we heard was that people were disturbed by our ethics of using living cells to grow living fabric,” said Zurr, “while the use of leather obtained from animals seems to be accepted without any concern for the well-being of the animals from which the skin has been removed.”

    Hey, I’ll concede they have somewhat noble reasons for doing this, but hello? We’re talking about wearing jackets made from living human flesh. Um… Hannibal Lecter? Skinsuits? This guy? Ringing any bells?

  • Ewwww

    How’s this for disturbing?

    I was just at the Evergreen Village (Bellevue) Safeway this morning, doing my little shopping thing. I was late — I usually do it on the weekend. While wandering around getting my goods, I noticed that the shelves in the produce aisle were looking a bit empty. I didn’t think much of it. I never come in on Mondays. Maybe this is what things look like after a weekend rush. Maybe they’re expecting a delivery soon. Maybe they had taken all the little fruits and vegetables on a field trip (AHAHAHA).

     

    Well, just heard on the news, the reason the shelves were empty was because they found (and I quote) “a pile of fecal matter was discovered on top of some produce” (from NWCN channel) on Sunday night between 7:30 and 10:30PM. Safeway immediately shut down the produce section, turfed out the produce, disinfected the shelves, and brought new produce in. They’re also offering refunds on produce purchased last night.

    Via Metroblogging Seattle.

  • Life lessons…

    I don’t remember where I originally read this, but it was awhile ago, from a list of “life lessons” that someone had compiled. The only one that stuck out in my head is insanely funny to me:

    Never lick a steak knife.