Weird Universe Archive
April 2012
April 12, 2012
Loser Liquor Dispenser
Classic home-bar kitsch from the 1970s. If you're desperate to add it to your collection, there's one on sale at eBay for $70. View the thing in action at myspace vids (myspace doesn't seem to allow video embedding). (via box vox)
Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 12, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Kitsch and Collectibles
April 11, 2012
Gabriel Over the White House
One of the weirder Hollywood offerings, this film depicts an American President gone wild in office--and it turns out to be a good thing! I'm surprised the film hasn't figured in this year's politics.
More info here.
Long unavailable, it's recently been reissued. Follow the Amazon link.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 11, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Movies, Politics, Strange Candidates, Propaganda, Thought Control and Brainwashing, 1930s
Moving A Dinosaur
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a brontosaurus?
(via pour15minutesdamour)
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 11, 2012 -
Comments (13)
Category: Photography and Photographers
April 10, 2012
Kali Bahlu
We haven't had any music in a while. so let's try this period piece as a test of your inner hippie.
More info here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 10, 2012 -
Comments (8)
Category: Annoying Things, Music, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1960s
The Overly Sexual Easter Bunny
Maybe they were trying to appeal to the furry-fetish segment of the Easter candy market.
(via Sociological Images)
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 10, 2012 -
Comments (9)
Category: Candy, Easter
April 9, 2012
Good News/Bad News
The good news is there will soon be a a male contraceptive on the market that, after one dose, is effective for 10 years. No condoms necessary for birth control reasons and it is also easily reversible in the event of a change of heart about fathering a child. The bad news? It must be administered by injection directly into the penis and its not a barrier to STDs. Possibly coming out by 2015.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 09, 2012 -
Comments (13)
Category:
News of the Weird en español
My normally fabulous newspaper syndicate, Andrews McMeel Universal ("Doonesbury," "Garfield," "Dear Abby," etc.), was taken over yesterday by Colombian drug lords, and "News of the Weird" appeared in Spanish-only at NewsoftheWeird.com, or at least that's the story I'm going with.They're working on getting it back in English (and working out a few other problems with it).
In the meantime, and actually, for all time, "News of the Weird" fans can see the new column, hand-posted by me and Mr. Google every Sunday at
http://groups.google.com/group/newsoftheweird?hl=en
If you have a Google account, you can also join the group NewsoftheWeird on that page, and my hand-posted column will be e-mailed to you every Sunday.
Or, you can wait until we fight off the Colombians and recover our website. Venceremos!
Posted By: Chuck - Mon Apr 09, 2012 -
Comments (2)
Category:
Johnson Smith Catalog Item #21
I knew there was another reason to lament the passing of the custom of men wearing formal hats everywhere!
From the 1930s catalog.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 09, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Johnson Smith Catalog, Signage, Headgear, 1930s
The Benefits of Placentophagy
In a recent article in the journal Ecology of Food and Nutrition, Mark Kristal argues that placentophagia (that is, the eating of afterbirth or placenta) could offer significant benefits for humans — especially considering that all other mammals (including non-human primates) do it. (link: ScienceDaily.com). These benefits might include increasing mother-infant interaction, increasing the effects of pregnancy-mediated analgesia in the delivering mother, and potentiating opioid circuits in the maternal brain that facilitate the onset of caretaking behavior. He acknowledges that these possible benefits don't warrant "the wholesale ingestion of afterbirth," but he does think the issue deserves further study.The strange thing is that although all other mammals practice placentophagy, no human cultures do (according to Dr. Kristal) — except for Hollywood celebrities.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 09, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Babies, Food, Nutrition, Health
Chuck’s Weekly Cite-Seeing (April 9, 2012)
Chuck's Weekly Cite-Seeing TourThe Crème de la Crème, Every Monday
Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
April 9, 2012
(datelines from March 30 or later) (links correct as of April 9)
Dehrazi, Afghanistan: "Like it or not," said a United Nations official, "there was better rule of law under the Taliban." He was referring not to Afghan farmers' supplying the world with heroin but to the quaint custom of horny men to bypass burqa-sheathed gals and instead go for pretty little boys for display, companionship, and sex (bacha bazi) (until the boys are old enough to grow a beard, at which time they're history). The Karzai government is maybe against it, maybe not, hard to tell. Washington Post
Tokyo: Japan is deregulating . . fugu chefs! Diners have sure-enough died from eating improperly-fileted poisonous blowfish, which is why those chefs are trained and licensed (and why you can't get a decent fugu meal for under the equivalent of about $120). Until now. The pro-competition Tokyo Metro Gov't is doing away with licensing. Reuters
Boston: Just because you're an applied physicist at MIT and so smart that none of us WU-vies can comprehend the first thing about your job doesn't mean you don't also have needs. For Yaron Segal, 30, apparently, one need was to line up a mom offering her daughters, 12 and 16, for sex. (And guess what he's not smart enough to do. Spot a police sting.) The Smoking Gun
Seattle: The Masters golf tournament is a really meaningful experience for many people, um, white male people, anyway, including Russ Berkman, whose dog ate his tickets just as he was ready to leave for Augusta. Immediately, he induced big Sierra to vomit them out. Then he worked through the puke to reconstruct them (and photo them off to Masters officials to beg for do-overs, which they granted). Yahoo Sports
The F State: (1) No squirt guns, sticks, poles, slingshots,
More in extended >>
Posted By: Chuck - Mon Apr 09, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category:
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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 |
