Weird Universe Blog — January 17, 2025

Malicious Enticement

Nov 1971: The mayor of Evansdale, Iowa left his wife to be with a city clerk. This prompted the mayor's wife to sue the clerk for "maliciously enticing" him away from his wife. The husband of the clerk simultaneously sued the mayor on the same grounds. Therefore the mayor and the clerk were potentially guilty of maliciously enticing each other.

I hadn't been aware of 'malicious enticement' as a legal category. A search for the term mostly turns up uses in the business world, where a business could be held liable for maliciously enticing employees away from another business.

The Hollywood ad men missed an opportunity by not crowning a young woman 'Miss Maliciously Enticing'.

Davenport Quad-City Times - Nov 5, 1971

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 17, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Lawsuits | Divorce | 1970s

Follies of the Madmen #614

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 17, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Food | Robots | Television | Advertising | Australia

January 16, 2025

AI-powered spice dispenser

Not all things benefit from being AI-powered.

Now if this were part of a robot that could cook the meal, serve it, and then also spice it for you, that would be cool. But as a stand-alone gadget, it seems kinda useless.

More info: https://spicerr.com

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 16, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Food | Inventions | AI, Robots and Other Automatons

Orange-Pimiento Drink

Yum! I don't think that adulterating your OJ with mashed pimiento is too large a price to pay for shelf stability. It's a lot of work to keep taking your container of OJ in and out of the fridge every time you want a drink!

Original patent here.





Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 16, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Inventions | Patents | Crossovers and Mashups | Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages | 1950s

January 15, 2025

How many green beans would you eat for $1.50

A question for the ages.

Detroit Free Press - May 2, 1971



This raises the question of how many green beans would someone eat just to claim the world record for eating them? According to the site MajorLeagueEating.com, Crazy Legs Conti holds the record for eating the most: 2.71 pounds of them in six minutes.

That doesn't seem like that much to me. And in the video below "tannermancan" eats 5.125 lbs of green beans in less than 5 minutes. He doesn't acknowledge setting a new record. But it seems to me like he must have.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 15, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: World Records | Advertising | Vegetables | 1970s

January 14, 2025

Frigid Fluid Cosmetic Kit

Frigid Fluid is both the name of a company and of the product it primarily sells: embalming fluid.

The company also recently came out with a line of "Frigid Cosmetics" (makeup for dead people). Its full kit will set you back $785, but the company promises that the cosmetics are "designed to accentuate the natural features and accurate color hues, tones and complexions of decedents."

This makes me curious about how funeral-home cosmetics differ from regular cosmetics for the living. Do funeral-home cosmetics perhaps contain substances that would be banned in cosmetics for the living?



Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 14, 2025 - Comments (2)
Category: Cosmetics | Death

Automan

As Wikipedia tells us:

Automan is an American superhero television series produced by Glen A. Larson. It aired for 12 episodes (although 13 were made) on ABC between 1983 and 1984. It consciously emulates the visual stylistics of the Walt Disney Pictures live-action film Tron, in the context of a superhero TV series.




Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 14, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art | Motor Vehicles | Police and Other Law Enforcement | Technology | Computers | Television | 1980s

January 13, 2025

Miss Uranium

During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of women were given the title of "Miss Uranium."

I don't think there was one organization awarding the title. Instead, I think various local entrepreneurs held separate 'Miss Uranium' pageants. Or they didn't even bother with a pageant and just declared a model to be 'Miss Uranium'.

Toronto Star - June 11, 1968



Cleveland Plain Dealer - Aug 26, 1951



Toronto Star - Nov 4, 1953

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 13, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests | Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters

Amazon Puppy Delivery

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 13, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: War | Air Travel and Airlines | Dogs | 1930s

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All original content in posts is Copyright © 2016 by the author of the post, which is usually either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.

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