May 16, 2008
Were toads an omen of China’s earthquake?
My friend read on the Chinese internet wire: Days before China’s massive earthquake, hundreds of thousands of toads swarmed through a town near the epicentre, leading to a storm of speculation on whether there was a connection
Also this strange weather phenomena was seen in the sky before the quake
A Huge Depository of Unlikely News Stories Here
May 16, 2008 in Current News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cow Juice
120 Beer Bottles on flickr
We now sell Milk Juice
Unrelated: The Revenge Of The Tuba Player (video)
(No time to blog tonight. Sorry)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Drinks Including Unusual Beer Links Here
May 16, 2008 in Beverages | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 15, 2008
Sand sofa
The world's biggest sofa made from sand
Each Grain of Sand a Tiny Work of Art
Unrelated: Leonidas sings Pink Floyd (YTMND)
A Huge Depository of Sand Sculptures Galleries and Ice Sculptures Galleries Here
May 15, 2008 in Sand Sculptures | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Mineral Moon
The Mineral Moon. A mosaic of 53 images that was recorded by the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft as it passed near the moon in 1992. The pictures were recorded through three spectral filters and combined in an exaggerated false-color scheme to explore the composition of the lunar surface as changes in mineral content produce subtle color differences in reflected light. (Click twice on pix to biggify)
Landing Sites On The moon
A Huge Depository of Unusual Space Links Here
May 15, 2008 in Space | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2008
Avoid the middleman
Hat Tip from Eclectic Pudit: “Read Grow A Brain Directly and Keep Me Out Of It. Avoid the middleman”
...How to get to the front page of Digg...
This site goes on forever, from Sally and Sam
“Hanan Levin is the world’s greatest at doing what he does”… From The In-Town Insider
Awarded the Excellent Blog Award Meme by “Nag on the Lake”
…“growabrain - This site will keep you busy all day! Click on anything for cool stuff”…
Mark Shaw's list of Cool Websites To Check Out
….Lots of interesting stuff...
Here is what Люди говорят о вырасту А головного мозга Since February 2003
May 14, 2008 in People are Talking about Grow-a-Brain | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Once I built a tower
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum
Tom Waits sings Brother, Can You Spare a Dime
A Growing Depository of Unusual Links About Tom Waites Here
May 14, 2008 in Music - Tom Waits_ | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One Hundred Ways I’ve Failed to Boil Water
The Chanel bowler by Joel-Peter Witkin, one in the series “The History of Hats in Art”
One Hundred Ways I’ve Failed to Boil Water
Software that creates water and fire effects, by Scanline, a Visual FX house in Germany
Drawing all The Simpsons on YouTube
Wesley Clark, before being retouched by Glenn Feron
The Canadians have French, Celine Dion, and hockey. They also have the best screwdriver you've never heard of. The Robertson Screwdriver
Dog, Cat, and Rat (YouTube. Thank you, Dafna)
Dialing 911 Worldwide - International Emergency Phone Numbers. (From gCaptain)
Who Calls From (800) 807-4106? Maybe terrorists....
A Huge Depository of Unusual Oddities and Crazy linkage Here
May 14, 2008 in Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2008
Historic homes in Redlands
Historic homes in Redlands (Some nice Victorians shown) and the Sunny-Cal Mill there, by David Estes
More: From The Library of Congress' photostream on flickr: Co-op orange packing plant March 1943
A Message from The Coachella Valley Unified School District, Mr. Foch "Tut" Pensis, Superintendent
Union Pacific passenger station in Riverside. one of many Abandoned Railroads of the US
Colossal Castle or Humble Home? Same Price – Your Choice
(Santa Fe station in downtown Redlands pix above from The Train Stations Collection by flickr user kla4067. Click to biggify)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Links From Riverside And San Bernardino and from Orange County Here
May 13, 2008 in Riverside & Corona - California | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tired of high gas prices?
Convert Your Car to Run on Water and gas to save over 40% on fuel costs.
Another one from Ozzie Freedom, Water for Gas conversion kits. (It’s probably a multi-level deal. Thank you, Dean E.)
“Even if this car engine does run on water, where do you fill it up?”
Now-and-then photos of Italians who’s been driving the same cars for long periods of time
A Huge Depository of Unusual Car Links Here
May 13, 2008 in Cars | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Playground Politics
They Said He Was Unprepared
Imagine
What We Can Draw From Obama
It Could Happen To You
Spell Change
All 15 Obama In 30 Seconds finalists on Move On Dot Com
A new Grow-a-Brain category of unusual links about Barack Obama Here
May 13, 2008 in Americana - Barack Obama | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The James J. Kriegsmann collection
Discarded Photographs Found in a Venice Alleyway by a friend of Jennifer Sharpe. An NPR story. (From Plep in NYC)
Oh! Dr. Kinsey! A Photographic Reaction to the Kinsey Report, by Lawrence Lariar, 1953. (From Hugo Strikes Back)
I’m with stupid, I lie down on the road and other photos of people doing the same thing at People Collector. Similar collections at Specific Things and by Benoît Santiard
A Huge Depository of Unusual Photography Links Here
May 13, 2008 in Photography | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 12, 2008
Nietzsche 'Last Days'
Whether these clips are authentic has been debated, but, they a remarkable look at Nietzsche's 'last days' in Weimar in the summer of 1899 (the photo stills by Hans Olde are common) ... Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900 from pneumonia, eleven years after his well-chronicled mental breakdown in Turin
(From Daily Llama)
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Declaring laundry bankruptcy: How to use the laundromat to get your laundry routine under control
A Huge Depository of Intelligent Links and Brainier Links Here
May 12, 2008 in Brainier | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Personal submarines
A Russian man from St. Petersburg got his personal submarine. He built it himself and it is the smallest submarine in Russia, officially registered as a boat by Russian boat registry and has got its own personal name and number. (From Crooked brains)
Other personal submarines:
U-Boat Worx, the first commercially available 1 ATM personal submarine for under 100,000
How to Build Your Own Submarine without repeating my mistakes. by Doug Jackson
The Hyper-Sub Submersible Powerboat
Personal Submersibles Organization a professional guild dedicated to promote and encourage ownership and use of Personal Submersibles
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Google, Microsoft & Yahoo on the high seas, by Brandon Bird
“…I wanted to write about financial engineering, instead I decided to post this: 1…2…3…Lift-off!”…
More from the Motherland: The world’s largest military hovercraft
A Huge Depository of Boating and Sailing Links Here
May 12, 2008 in Boating | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Pride and Sensibility…
The Republic of Pemberley is the largest Jane Austen site on the web. The Jane Austen Information Page has everything you ever wanted to know about the girl
My favorite part is this page, The Jane Austen top ten song list, listing songs like "Material Girl" for Lucy Steele.
For the seriously demented fans, it also includes answering machine messages from an assortment of characters:
Mary Musgrove: "I am very ill today and quite unable to answer the phone. If I had a visitor, I suppose that person could have spoken with you, but it does not suit the Miss Musgroves to visit the ill, and I dare not rise from my bed for fear that I may be seized in some dreadful way!"
How have we lived this long without a Captain Wentworth or Edward paper doll? Gallery of Paper Dolls has them, plus Heathcliff
I Want My Jane Austen at “Emphasis Mine”
Longbourn, a Jane Austen fan site featuring screencaps from Pride and Prejudice (both the 1995 and 2005 adaptations), Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion. The caps are large, unaltered, and high quality. They're available for download in zip files. (With links!)
Sense & Sensibility (Ang Lee 1995 version) on YouTube. Jane Austen on Film
To continue the age-old debate, Colin Firth or Matthew MacFayden, which is the real (better) Mr. Darcy? The Jane Austen Movie Club provides the answer
Daily wit and inspiration at Jane Austen Quote of the Day
Pride and Prejudice, The Musical (2007) Music and Lyrics by Rita Abrams. Book by Josie Brown
Jane Austen, the font. An Austen blog
Photo above is the table where Jane Austen wrote all of her books. No Mac, no spell check or Dictionary.com, just this table and her imagination…
This is another “co-blogged” post, this time with local Irvine writer Suzanne Broughton, who blogs at Emphasis Mine, and at the Orange County Register's Mommy's Mind is Not a Toy and Alive in Wonderland. Thank you, Suzanne! (All previous co-bloggers archived here.) If other creative types are interested to share the forum here on any other topic, please contact me for details.
May 12, 2008 in Books & Literature, Co-blogged with | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 11, 2008
Franco!
Once upon a time it was considered good manners for a host to offer his guests a smoke. This custom extended to the President of the United States. Each President, from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, gave his guests a very special pack of cigarettes. Presidential cigarettes. From Jim Shaw’s Burnt Offerings
Clarence Hailey Long, the inspiration for The Marlboro Man
Franco had always had an eye for fashion. (From the very funny Fengtastic)
Gallery of vintage graphic design featuring Camel cigarettes. (From The Gallery of Graphic Design)
For six decades we, the American people, have been victimized by deliberate, knowing scientific fraud, perpetrated by the American Cancer Society and its accomplices, and funded by their corrupt lackeys in Congress, whose goal is totalitarian dictatorship over every detail of our personal lives! Worthless Congresspussies Still Bend Over for the Anti-Smokers! The History of the Conspiracy Against Tobacco
Philip Morris now publishes a list of some of the 599 additives in its cigarettes
A Huge Depository of Things to do before you die Here
May 11, 2008 in Things to do before you die | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Go fly a kite
...Last Sunday was beautiful, here in Seattle. So I purchased a cheap kite at the local drugstore and went to a nearby field to fly it.
It was the first time I'd done so since childhood, and had forgotten the intensity and purity of emotions a $5 kite can evoke. Foremost amongst them: FRUSTRATION and RAGE...
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Tetes a cliques un petit jeu viral. (From Surfez Avec Moi)
The making of StarSlide, a children’s slide that is also a work of art
Everything You Do is a Balloon Canadian bike safety rules from the 60's
220 flash games for a rainy day
A Huge Depository of Unusual Games and Toys Here
May 11, 2008 in Games | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Playing with Wine Glasses
The glass harmonica’s ghostly notes will cause insanity in its musicians and listeners! At least this is what was thought to be true in the 18th century. People were frightened by the harmonica’s sound due to it’s strange interactions with the human brain and ears. Benjamin Franklin invented the glass harmonica in 1761 after being profoundly moved by the sounds of the glass harp
Mark Garufi plays the theme for The Pink Panther On 27 Wine Glasses
Many more unusual tools at the new Oddstrument
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Deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music is about much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrum - How to listen to music with your whole body
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In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in tryin'
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
Oh yes I know it
(Yeah!) He's been workin' so hard
(Yeah!) I've been workin' too, baby
(Yeah!) Every night and day
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'cause girl, there's a better life for me and you...
One of the long list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks. (Probably a re-post)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Musicians and their Music Here
May 11, 2008 in Music_ | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 10, 2008
Jailbait
A guy struck up a conversation with a young lady in a bar. After a half dozen drinks, he suggested they get their own bottle and retire to his motel room, and she readily agreed. "Say, how old are you, anyway?" the guy asked.
"Thirteen," she replied with a shy smile.
"Thirteen? Thirteen!? My God, Girl! Get your clothes back on at once and get the hell out of here! Are you crazy?" he thundered.
Pausing at the door as she left, the girl smiled. "Superstitious, huh?"
Re-post: Fiona Apple 1997 MTV Video Awards as interpreted by Janeane Garofalo and lip synched by Chris Glass
Smoke cow feet at the Engrish Menu
Creepy International Thumbs Up Guy. (From ‘Indulging Our Winking-Chef Obsession’)
Programming Jokes. (From Presurfer)
A Huge Depository of Jokes and other Funny Stuffs Here
May 10, 2008 in Jokes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Voyeurs
Nino Rota's theme from Fellini’s 8½ (YT)
Creating the title sequence for the movie Juno. More from ShadowPlay Studio, the stills from the main title sequence for Thank You For Smoking. (Incidentally, I saw both of those films last week. 'Not Smoking' was blah)...
HBO voyeur à la Rear Window
Re-post: Mon Oncle at Tativille
Anton Chigurh’s coin toss scene - re-tooled
The Films of Woody Allen: The 1970s (YT). Other YouTube compilations by the same barringer82
A Huge Depository of Unusual Film Directors and other Other Movie Links Here
May 10, 2008 in Cinema | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 09, 2008
Inventive Bongs
Fingerprints for ID demanded from a woman without arms
Two Houston men and a juvenile are accused of digging up a corpse, decapitating the body and using the head to smoke marijuana, according to court documents
Many more Bizarre and Inventive Bongs (for Tobacco Use Only. Thank you, Chau)
Foreclosure Heat Maps on Hot Pads
Un-related: Watching a garter snake birth
A Huge Depository of Unlikely News Stories Here
May 9, 2008 in Current News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Irezumi
Crosswalk at Osaka station. Also by jtabn99, Samples - many restaurants are exhibiting the sample of a meal in Japan
Irezumi is the art of Japanese tattoos (Music warning)
Funny Shaped Japanese Watermelons
I don’t think I linked to it the first time - Japanese bug fights
Luggage Label of Japan. At The Art of the Luggage Label
A Huge Depository of Unusual Japanese Links Here
May 9, 2008 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Sunny side of the street
The Sunny Side of Nazi Occupation, Les Parisiens sous l'Occupation, a new controversial photography exhibit. (From Frog Smoke)
Hebrew Press in 1932: Hitler makes better impression than expected
“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party”. (One of 50 Funniest Movie Scenes Ever)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Links About The Holocaust Here
May 9, 2008 in The Holocaust | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2008
Party with the homeless
For his 29th birthday, Taj Chahal decided to do something a bit different: He hosted a surprise party for 300 total strangers - complete with birthday cake and party favors for everyone - at Martha's Kitchen, a San Jose charity that serves meals to the homeless and working poor.
…So on Tuesday, when the regulars arrived, they found the dining room decorated with red tablecloths, balloons and festive place mats. Dinner included ravioli and meat balls, salad, garlic bread and, of course, birthday cake
…On the way out, everyone received a box lunch and a bright colored bag containing a towel, toothbrush and other useful things. The kids each got a toy and some treats…
Many Other Stories of Heroes and Sheroes Here
May 8, 2008 in Heroes | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Guernica
An extensive cover gallery of the French ”Saint” novels
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A 3D Exploration of Picasso's Guernica. Background music is the song Nana, part of Manuel de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas, arranged by Ana Ruth Bermúdez and Rene Izquierdo for cello and guitar
Previously posted: CG Guernica (YT) by Marcelo Ricardo Ortiz
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The dictator novel (novela del dictador) is a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society. The theme of caudillismo—the charismatic authoritarian "strongman"—is addressed by examining the relationship between power, dictatorship, and writing, and is used as an allegory for the role of the Latin American writer in society
A fan site dedicated to the notorious rascal Frank Harris (1856-1931), author of that most lascivious and lying autobiography My Life and Loves
A newly-discovered document that might be of interest to other fans of Israeli author Pinhas sadeh. It’s from June 1955, when Sadeh (then 26) helped his mother fill out 29 forms at the Yad Vashem museum. In this one, they declare the last known address of her mother who perished at the Lwów Ghetto in Poland in 1942
A Huge Depository of Unusual Literary Links Here
May 8, 2008 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2008
Nobody tells the truth
Mighty Sparrow, Jamaican calypso king from Trinidad endorses Obama. (Click to listen) Previously posted: Cocoa Tea’s reggae tribute. Many more (92 as of now) songs written for, or about, Obama from all over the world
The ObamaCorn
Vote for Nobody - Nobody tells the truth!
Hillary Clinton: The Psycho Ex-Girlfriend of the Democratic Party
...I just realized something significant about the historic timing of the Democratic convention. The Democratic nominee will give his acceptance speech on August 28, 2008 ... 45 years to the day of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech
Update: Ooops, I’ve never seen this I Got a Crush video before
Update 2: …In March 2007, the Obama campaign posted a question on Yahoo! Answers, entitled: How can we engage more people in the democratic process? which ultimately drew in over 17,000 responses...
Update 3: A long list of Obama presidential campaign endorsements
A new Grow-a-Brain category of unusual links about Barack Obama Here
May 7, 2008 in Americana - Barack Obama | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Never gonna give you up
The things that Rick Astley would never do to you
Middle Dog Gets Angry by George Gendi
Román Cortés' Homer Simpson in CSS, animated
The Candy Cane Project - "Youngna and I traded candy canes to strangers for their portraits"...
A Huge Depository Of Unusual Comics and Cartoons Here
May 7, 2008 in Comics & Cartoons | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 06, 2008
PEHDSTCKJMBA
Tom Waits announces his summer “Gitter and Doom Tour” across the US with a surreal press conference and the cryptic acronym PEHDSTCKJMBA
A Growing Depository of Unusual Links About Tom Waites Here
May 6, 2008 in Music - Tom Waits_ | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Indian thriller
"Lucifer's Lexicon" (updated)
Bollywood stars Radha and Chiranjeevi present: idhi oka idi le (YT)
Top word that was voted hardest to translate: ilunga - Tshiluba word for a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time
Engrish contest on Worth1000
Homemade Semicolon dress. Also, Elisabeth Lecourt’s Map Dresses
A Huge Depository of Unusual Language Links Here
May 6, 2008 in Languages | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Borat Map
A map showing the (rough) locations where Borat - the 7th most famous person in Kazakhstan - is alleged to have made some of his rather unusual remarks about his home country
Mini Moscow. And another
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Ithaa, which means pearl in Dhivehi, is an undersea restaurant, secured five meters below sea level, at the Hilton Maldives Hotel. The five-by-nine meter restaurant has a capacity of 14 people and is encased in R-Cast acrylic, offering 270° panoramic view to its customers. The restaurant was designed and constructed by M.J. Murphy Ltd. - a design consultancy based in New Zealand - and was opened on April 15, 2005. Meals range in cost from $120 (lunch) to $250 (dinner)
Ithaa's entrance is a spiral staircase in a thatched pavilion at the end of a jetty. The 2004 tsunami topped just below the staircase entrance, and caused no damage to the restaurant
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"Half a mile down to Morgan Creek, Leaning heavy on the end of the week, Hercules (the family dog) and a hog-nosed snake, Down on Copperline, We were down on Copperline." The James Taylor Bridge in Chapel Hill . Also, James Taylor's drumming machine
WOW! TV DX Photos by Channel seen from Macomb, IL Since 1983
A Huge Depository of Unusual Travel Destinations Here