Weird Universe Archive
October 2009
October 6, 2009
30 Dumb Inventions
This has been making its way around the internet over the past few days, but it is still interesting. The Life website has a photo gallery of 30 dumb inventions. Most of them are just terrible, like an external baby cage for your (high rise) apartment window or a phone answering robot (who just happens to be mute), but this one in particular just strikes me as a great idea: Illuminated tires.
If these were actually available, which doesn't seem likely, I would definitely buy some. They just look so cool, especially on vintage cars like the one pictured above.
Posted By: Salamander Sam - Tue Oct 06, 2009 -
Comments (5)
Category: Technology, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows
What Were They Thinking? #2
I don't know, to me large amounts of DDT and small glass boxes don't seem like a good combination...
(from the May 1963 issue of Popular Science)
Posted By: Salamander Sam - Tue Oct 06, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Products, 1960s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows
Watch for Falling Buildings
I wouldn't want to be the demolition company responsible for this:For a minute I thought the apartment complex next door was going down next!!
Posted By: gdanea - Tue Oct 06, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Goofs and Screw-ups
October 5, 2009
Chirac Surrenders Again, Plus the Joy of Being Whipped and the Slobber Stained Keyboard
News of the Weird / Pro EditionOctober 5, 2009
(ludicrous and/or disquieting news from September 26-October 3)
Love Will Do These Things to You
Before Arthur David Horn met Lynette in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, PhD in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. That was then. He has evolved. With Lynette's guidance (and hand in marriage), he has been learning that humans come from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that still control us via . . the Illuminati. (He lectured in Denver, along with people who say they've been tight with alien races they call, respectively, "Acturians," "Sirians," and "Pleidians." But the panels of speakers were sophisticated, said one in the audience, "not like a couple of yahoos sitting in their van.") Rocky Mountain Collegian
Latest on American-Style Health Care
(1) Under current hospital billing practices, Shands Jacksonville (Fla.) hospital figures it's out $150k because it had to shut down its MRI machine for 24 hrs after a cop forgot to remove her Glock before escorting her mom into the room for a scan. The gun flew into the machine. (2) A Honeybaked Ham manager in North Carolina was shot in the stomach in a holdup in April and can't return to work until December . . so . . Honeybaked fired him (and his health insurance). Honeybaked spun this as a good thing because it frees him up for Social Security disability! WJXT-TV (Jacksonville) /// WRAL-TV (Raleigh)
Latest on Canadian-Style Human Rights
(1) James Cedar, 18, was caught red-handed (well, infrared-handed, on video) peeping into neighbor Patricia Marshall's windows at night (and told police he did it frequently and with happy endings). The prosecutor ultimately dropped the charge (didn't want to ruin the poor kid's life), but James's lawyer doubled down on the good luck, sending Marshall a demand letter to turn off the camera, in that in the background of where it's pointing, Cedar's house is visible, and that violates the Cedars' privacy. (2) In 1984, Parminder Singh Saini, then 21, hijacked a plane in India, fired gunshots, made blood-curdling threats to the 270 on board, and demanded to be flown to Pakistan. Later, he was bluffed down on his threat to explode everything. He was sentenced to hang, then changed to to 10 yrs, then merely kicked out of Pakistan. He went to Canada, where he lied to get in and has been fighting deportation ever since they discovered who he was. He's been killing time by going to school, including law school, and now he repents ("I had no legitimate right to [hijack that plane]. It's not legal."), wants to practice law in Toronto, and this being Canada, he has some backers. CNews.canoe.ca /// The Star (Toronto)
"Freedom of Speech at Its Best"
That was Portsmouth, Ohio, mayor Jim Kalb's coda to his e-mail smackdown of his chief blogging critic, Robert Forrey. Kalb agreed to comply with any lawful requirement but, otherwise, don't even ask, since, Kalb wrote, you are "a worthless piece of [caca] and I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire." You're a "lizard-looking thing" who writes on a "slobber stained keyboard." Columbus Dispatch /// Gawker.com [Kalb's full response]
Some Gods Are Sure Harder to Appease Than Others
(1) Ramveer Singh Baghet, 35, cut off his tongue last weekend and told temple visitors that he was offering it to the Hindu goddess Amba. (At least that's what they think he said; it's hard to talk without a tongue.) They didn't get him to the hospital for several hours because worshipers kept approaching, treating him as a deity because of his sacrifice. (2) The Hindu Dussera is a day of "joy" every year, celebrating Durga's whipping of the demon Mahishasura, but it's never joyful for this village's 2,000 women, teenagers, and girls, who were beaten relentlessly for five hours by priests as kind of a general punishment for having been imperfect during the previous year. Times of India /// NDTV.com (New Delhi)
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More in extended >>
Posted By: Chuck - Mon Oct 05, 2009 -
Comments (6)
Category:
October 4, 2009
Zombie Boot Camp
A few months ago the Saikyō Senritsu Meikyū (Ultimate Horror Maze), at Japan’s Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, was shut down so the zombie employees could go through some new training exercises. Apparently, they just weren't scary anymore.Pink TentacleBelow is a video of what they had to go through.
Posted By: mdb777 - Sun Oct 04, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Horror, Video, Asia
Tennessee Vultures
Okay, I'm used to pigeons and crows scavenging in Providence. But giant carrion birds outside my front door, eating smooshed squirrels--!?! I'm sorry, this is why cities were invented.
Any WU readers have such birds as their immediate neighbors?
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 04, 2009 -
Comments (10)
Category: Animals, Death, Regionalism, North America
Fly The Not So Friendly Skies
The 106 Air India passengers that flew from the United Arab Emirates to Delhi Saturday won't soon forget the in flight 'entertainment'. Apparently the pilots and flight attendants had a fight which started in the cockpit, but spilled out into the galley. Not just an argument, but a fight with fists thrown and bruises incurred by one pilot and one female flight attendant. The cabin crew are claiming sexual harassment by the pilots and the pilots are claiming improper behavior by the cabin crew. All employees involved are grounded till an investigation is completed. They should go to bed without dinner too for scaring the passengers. If two passengers argued and came to blows during a flight I'm guessing THEY would be arrested upon landing.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8289313.stm
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 04, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category:
October 3, 2009
Professor Music’s Weird Links
Weirdest HotelsOldest hotel in the world
It's time to play "Cheese, or Font?"
Meet the yoga dogs
Animals with light-sabers
Tape yourself
Nice Hoax
Much much nicer hoax, superbly crafted, in the most loving artistic detail
Posted By: Professor Music - Sat Oct 03, 2009 -
Comments (4)
Category:
I’m Back!
Hello Weird Universe readers. Some of you may remember back in May when I was posting weird things I found in old magazines, and maybe a few of you were wondering what happened to those posts. Being a college student, I had to go home over the summer, and my parents still don't have an internet connection (technically they have AOL, but that doesn't really count), so I had no way to post anything on Weird Universe for a few months. When I got back to Chicago, it took a while to get settled in, and I finally decided I should start posting again. I will try to post a few things a week from now on.I feel I should start with one of the most bizarre juxtapositions ever to appear, well, anywhere:
(from the April 1953 issue of Popular Science)
Posted By: Salamander Sam - Sat Oct 03, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Exercise and Fitness, War, Advertising, 1950s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
