Can you guess what this is?

In 1940, a fourth grade teacher held this object up for her students to see and asked them to identify what it was.

Answers included a skate key, screen door hook, key ring, something dentists use, part of a sewing machine, part of a puzzle, part of a band uniform, and a milk top opener. None of these answers were correct. [Milwaukee Journal - Dec 7, 1940]

Can you guess what it is? The answer is in extended.

More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Wed Oct 09, 2013 - Comments (12)
Category: Quizzes

Snowflake Collector

Vincent Schaefer had a rather unusual hobby. He collected snowflakes. In order to do so, he invented (around 1941) a way of making plastic casts of snowflakes, by sitting outside on winter nights while it was snowing, and then dropping the flakes onto a thin film of formvar, which was a kind of plastic resin.

Schaefer also later invented the technique of cloud seeding. And he did all this with hardly any formal education, never having graduated from high school. Definitely an interesting character.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 08, 2013 - Comments (5)
Category: Collectors

Skunk Haven

Skunk Haven is the name Deborah Cirpriani chose for her home where she takes care of 50 domesticated skunks. These animals are well loved pets and Deborah devotes much time and effort to their care. She even hosts Skunk Fest every September which is widely attended by other skunk owners from around the country. Apparently the animals can be affectionate and personable little creatures.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 08, 2013 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals

“I Can’t Take a Boy with THAT Many Pimples!”

My question: if this happened to Jack in 2013, could he launch a successful discrimination lawsuit?

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 08, 2013 - Comments (5)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Body, Work and Vocational Training, Advertising, 1930s

News of the Weird 2.0 (October 7, 2013)

News of the Weird 2.0
Angst, Confusion, Cynicism, Ridicule

Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
October 7, 2013
(datelines September 24-October 5) (links correct as of October 6)

Taunting the Eighth Amendment: San Diego Superior Court judge Patricia Cookson sentenced Danne Desbrow to 53 yrs in prison for murder . . and then brought out cake from her chambers to serve while she officiated at the marriage of Desbrow and his girlfriend. KOVR-TV (Sacramento)

Yr Editor is pretty sure they’re trying too hard, but here goes. Science writer John Bohannon of Cambridge, Mass., posited that (1) Ph.D dissertations are boring, (2) Some are important enough to deserve a wider audience, and (3) Thus, doctoral candidates should compete internationally to artistically express their dissertations in “Dance Your Ph.D.” One entrant, Sarah Wilk, produced “Odd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including the Discovery of Bh [that’s Bh with superscript 260 in front of it].” Wall Street Journal

Fine Point of the Law; A school in Virginia Beach can discipline kids if they shoot each other with “airsoft” guns . . not only before school starts . . but before they’ve even left home to go to the bus stop. And by “discipline,” I mean suspended for the rest of the school year until June. WAVY-TV (Portsmouth, Va.)

Update: Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Iraqi civilians have died in Baghdad because police have relied on the ADE-651 dowsing rod-cum-bomb-detector, sold at fantastic profit by a Brit who was sent to jail for fraud. Trouble is, though, Iraqi commanders (1) don’t understand this science-y thing and (2) anyway are so corrupt that they keep using the ADE-651s, allowing continuing, periodic IED street massacres, because there's not enough kickback swag in buying trained dogs. The Independent (London)

A genetic testing company in California was awarded a patent for a computer program that lets parents figure out, by running probabilities through all the known variables, how to design their “perfect” baby (but of course hopes no parent will ever use it for that because that would freak people out). OpposingViews.com

Parents, and ultimately the principal, told Mesa, Ariz., cop Scott Urkov they were glad he was in full uniform (with gun) when he dropped his daughter off in the morning because it helped make the kids feel safer. Wait. No, they didn’t. They complained about it because, I guess, everybody knows that guns are icky. (Bonus: One squeamish parent was quoted as acknowledging that, generously, she “thinks” that it’s Urkov’s “right” to “wear that [gun] in public.”) KSAZ-TV (Phoenix)

Walter Dixon has to go back to prison in Joliet, Ill. They had mistakenly released him after misreading his paperwork, even though Dixon tried to help them. (How do they reward helpful inmates in Illinois: “STFU!”) That was in December 2012. They finally got around to knocking on his door last week, and he went quietly, even though he’ll have to drop out of those service/repair classes he was taking. (They knew where to find him because, as a “free” man, Dixon still made all of his parole appointments.) Chicago Sun-Times

Sounds Like a Joke: (1) Some people say they’ll do anything to avoid going back to lockup, but, still . . thinking you’ve got a chance fleeing by paddle boat? (2) Looks Like a Joke: Franco Scaramuzza samaritaned it up in a Nashville shopping center parking lot when he came across two muggers mugging a pair of muggees. Franco is a fencing coach (like “En garde!” fencing, not “how to install a gate” fencing). He grabbed his fencing “sword,” assumed the position, and charged at the perps, screaming incomprehensible fencing slurs. Basically, the perps thought WTF, dropped the loot, and ran away. Problem solved. Detroit Free Press /// WSMV-TV (Nashville) via KIDK-TV (Idaho Falls)

Can’t Possibly Be True: Three men from Philadelphia, dining at 6:30 a.m. at an Atlanta restaurant, were robbed by two other customers, who made off with two iPhones, a gold chain, and two Rolex watches valued at $32,000 combined. (Money Fact: It was a Waffle House.) Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Chinese hornets (Vespa mandarinia) aren’t like ours. The human death toll is 19 so far. And here’s a turbo-extreme closeup of what the little darlings look like. CNN

“Tree of Life”: It’s placenta, placed on acid-free paper. “With a little advance planning,” wrote Time, “parents can have a lifelong memento of their child’s birth (aside from the child, of course).” Time magazine

Suspicions Confirmed: When Danish couples have sex, they care a lot less than Americans do about whether it’s with the person who walked in the door with them that night. Daily Telegraph (London)

Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]

Frank Harrison, 46, Lawrence, Mass., either got what he deserved or was unluckily way-way in the wrong place at the wrong time and thus took a beating in place of the real attempted rapist. Boston Globe [mug shot underneath video]

Either Gregory Clark is guilty of several misdemeanors related to urinating in front of diners on the patio of Hot Head Burritos, or, you accept his explanation. (Update: Never mind. His explanation was that he intended to “get high, get a buzz, and play with myself.”) Dayton Daily News

Newsrangers: Thanks to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Bob McCabe, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Peter Smagorinsky, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

Posted By: Chuck - Mon Oct 07, 2013 - Comments (2)
Category:

Cooking with Poo

Her name is Poo, and she likes to cook. Would you like to cook with her? Or maybe just buy her book on Amazon. [via Asia Obscura]

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 07, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Food, Cookbooks

Follies of the Madmen #212

Could you bring yourself to eat a sentient, talking cheese? With a Rasta accent?

Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 07, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Business, Advertising, Products, Food

Mystery Animal

What animal features this distinctive ear? And why?

Answer is here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 06, 2013 - Comments (11)
Category: Animals

Mystery Painting

Hampshire resident Keith Webb received an oil painting of a "horrid old crone" in the mail. Webb has no idea who sent it to him. There was no return address on the package. But an auctioneer tells him the painting is at least 200 years old, and could be worth around £200 or £300. Meanwhile the painting is sitting in his garage because his wife refuses to have it in their house. [BBC News]

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 06, 2013 - Comments (7)
Category: Art

News of the Weird (October 6, 2013)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M339, October 6, 2013
Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: American Exceptionalism: Which is more characteristically American--that a Texas company could invent an ordinary rifle that mimics a machine gun or that America’s incomparable legal minds could find a loophole in existing anti-machine-gun laws to permit it to be manufactured and sold? The Slide Fire company’s weapon can spray bullets “like a fire hose” from a legal, semiautomatic gun by simple application of muscle, yet an official opinion of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives acknowledges that the agency is powerless to regulate it because of the wording in 1934 and 1986 legislation that otherwise restricts private ownership of machine guns. One gun shop owner told London’s Daily Mail in September that the Slide Fire rifle is “not as easy” to use as a machine gun, but still, “t’s fairly idiot-proof.” [Daily Mail, 9-13-2013]

Fine Points of the Law

(1) In July, a New York City judge tossed out Joseph Lozito’s lawsuit against the police--even though two officers had stood by in February 2011, out of harm’s way, while a man attacked Lozito as part of a four-murder crime spree. The judge ruled that it was not clear enough that Lozito was in danger when the officers began to ignore him (while they were inside a subway motorman’s booth). PREVIOUSLY: (2) In September, a federal jury in New York City upheld an employment agency worker’s claim that she (an African-American) was racially harassed by her boss. The supervisor, Rob Carmona, had insisted that he could not be liable for race-based harassment because, he, too, is African-American and thus entitled to use the “n-word.” [New York Daily News, 7-26-2013] [New York Post, 9-3-2013]

The Continuing Crisis

Busy Being Superheroes: In separate incidents on successive September days, people dressed as Batman and Captain America rescued a cat from a burning house in Milton, W.Va., and Superman came to the aid of Wonder Woman in Hollywood, Calif. (The West Virginia pair were performing at a function when they noticed nearby smoke, and Superman and Wonder Woman were posing for tourists’ tips when a passerby got belligerent.) In July, another Superman tackled a shoplifter on the streets of Sheffield, England, where he was appearing at a fundraiser. (However, less elegantly, two Captain Americas and a Spider Man brawled briefly in May over access to a contested, lucrative Hollywood street corner.) [WCHS-TV (Charleston, 9-8-2013] [KABC-TV (Los Angeles), 9-6-2013] [Daily Telegraph (London), 7-4-2013] [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 5-30-2013]

Our Freedom to Doze Off, Now in Danger: The training technology company Mindflash recently revealed a feature for iPads that prevents student inattentiveness during an online course. Facial recognition software notices a user looking away (or, worse, falling asleep) and thus pauses the course at that point until the eager learner re-engages the screen. (Mindflash assured that the program has more serious uses, such as treatment of autism and Alzheimer’s disease.) [Bloomberg Business Week, 8-15-2013]

For people who believe that “rave” parties’ music is too faint, an August event at England’s Liverpool International Music Festival offered a solution: The DaDaFest program featured an ear-crushing sound level especially staged for deaf people’s dancing--since they can only “hear” by the vibrations saturating their bodies. The non-deaf should bring earplugs, said deaf Deejay Troi “Chinaman” Lee, who claims he easily feels distinctions in his mix of hip hop, R&B, reggae, dance, and electro swing. [BBC News, 8-23-2013]

In an epic failure, according to Madrid’s El Pais newspaper, a 20-story condominium building (“In Tempo,” likely the tallest residential edifice in the European Union) in the resort town of Benidorm, Spain, was hastily upsized to a planned 47 stories, but a series of architectural mistakes and developer bankruptcies has left it limping, still 65 percent unsold. Most notably, El Pais discovered in 2012 that the then-current design made it impossible to build an elevator shaft to go past the 23rd floor because of space limitation. (The architects resigned, and unconfident developers were forced to turn to financing from one of the shakier banks in the country’s feeble economy.) [El Pais, 7-26-2013] [New York Daily News, 8-9-2013]

Oh, Dear!

In a YouTube video, reported by the political website RawStory.com in August, well-known “tea party” activist Jerome Corsi elaborates on the Biblical importance of child-bearing and implores followers to “[hold] the line” on the principle that “[s]ex is about the procreation of children.” “[S]ex is not about fun,” he says. “If you want to have fun, read a book, go to a movie.” [RawStory.com, 8-28-2013]

Evidently, Surgery Is Kinda Boring: A 36-year-old patient is suing California’s Torrance Memorial Medical Center, claiming that anesthesiologist Patrick Yang decorated her face with stickers while she was unconscious and that an aide took photos for laughs, later allegedly uploading them to Facebook. Dr. Yang and the aide were later disciplined but remained in good standing. Some hospitals (not Torrance Memorial yet) prohibit cellphones in operating rooms at all times. [Los Angeles Times, 9-4-2013]

Bright Ideas

According to his road manager, pioneer 1970s musician Sly Stone (of Sly and the Family Stone) has a lot of “real interesting ideas,” including once trying to hire “ninja chicks and clowns” for his security entourage. Stone’s latest brainstorm, reported London’s The Guardian in August: form a musical group of albinos, which Stone says “could neutralize all the racial problems” that plague society. “To me,” he said, “albinos are the most legitimate minority group of all.” [The Guardian, 8-29-2013]

PREVIOUSLY: In the concluding race in September of the Rally de Misiones in Campo Viera, Argentina, it would be important for drivers to complete the laps even if they had no chance of winning, but near the end, driver Sebastian Llamosas experienced a throttle malfunction and began coasting, still about a half-mile from the finish line. However, in a move reminiscent of actor Slim Pickens jumping on the atomic bomb in “Dr. Strangelove,” Llamosas’s quick-thinking partner Mauricio Sainz jumped onto the open engine and accelerated the car by hand while Llamosas steered the final distance. [La Voz (Cordoba, Argentina), 9-3-2013]

Oops!

(1) PREVIOUSLY: Klaus Eder, a 25-year veteran team trainer for Germany working its World Cup soccer qualifier match with Austria on September 8th, had a rough time despite the players’ 3-0 win. Rushing onto the pitch during the game to treat player Marcel Schmelzer, Eder first tore a muscle in his left leg and then, as he fell to the ground, broke a finger. (Schmelzer’s injury was comparatively minor.) (2) Dallas, Tex., police officer Antonio Quintanilla was the victim in an August incident, but handled it by the book--even though what the perp had done was urinate off a balcony at 3 a.m., onto Quintanilla’s head. (Because the bladder-reliever did not know that Quintanilla was a cop, he was given a non-arrest citation.) Quintanilla also calmly helped a colleague investigate the crime scene--locating the “wet and humid areas where the urine had fallen,” according to the police report. [Press Association (London) via The Guardian, 9-8-2013; Bundesliga.com, 9-7-2013] [Dallas Observer, 8-5-2013]

Perverts on Parade

PREVIOUSLY: A 35-year-old man was charged with sexual assault in Solvesborg, Sweden, in July, for allegedly following a 50-year-old woman home, apparently intending to flash her. After she made it safely inside before he could expose himself, she noticed some noise at the front door and found that the man had stuck his penis through the door’s mail slot. [The Local (Stockholm), 9-11-2013]

A News of the Weird Classic (December 2008)

One of the world's best-known strategists on the game of checkers passed away in November [2008]. Richard Fortman was Illinois state champion six times and in the 1970s and 1980s published a seven-volume handbook on rules and tactics. Many people now considering the game would be astonished to know that, as in chess, there are masters and grandmasters, and international rankings, that experts actually study historical opening moves and endgames, and that some play, move-by-move, via the U.S. Mail. A New York Times obituary noted that Fortman played as many as 100 games simultaneously, and won games blindfolded. Until the end, according to his daughter, Fortman spent "hours each day" playing checkers online. [New York Times, 11-30-2008]

Thanks This Week to Kirsi Hannonen and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Posted By: Chuck - Sun Oct 06, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: