Category: Contributions to the World

Noses Revisited

I have rowses and rowses of noses and noses
And why they all growses I really can’t guess.
No lilies or roses, just cold-catching noses,
And when they all blowses, it’s really a mess.

They runs and they glowses, these sneezity noses,
They drips and they flowses, they blooms and they dies.
But you can’t bring no noses to fine flower showses
And really expect them to give you a prize.

But each mornin’ I goeses to water with hoses
These rowses of noses that I cannot sell,
These red sniffly noses that cause all my woeses,
Why even the crowses complain that they smell.

Why noses, not roses? Well, nobody knowses.
Why do you supposes they growses this thick?
But since there’s no roses come gather some noses —
I guarantee each one’s a good nose to pick.

–Shel Silverstein (1932-1999)

If you have a child and you’ve not purchased any of Shel Silverstein’s illustrated tomes, I hope your chili always burns, and that it always be cold. [Image found here.]

Swiss Army Crapper

“Honey, it locked up again and I’ve gotta go, real bad.”

There’s something about designers who insist on taking a concept that works and trying to fix it. Just because it’s different, doesn’t necessarily make it better, and this is a great example.

Yeah, it looks cool, and it takes up less space than a regular bathroom with a toilet and a shower, but look closer at what it takes away.

  • The floor and all walls of the room need to be waterproofed, and it has to have a floor drain.
  • All electrical fixtures, switches and outlets need to be waterproof, too.
  • The floor is always cold. And wet.
  • Forget mildew problems. Now you have water deposits to clean.
  • To clean it, you need a ladder… and machine oil.
  • No grooming mirror in front of the lavatory so you might as well do it in a dark closet.
  • The toilet seat will always be wet. No furry seat cover cozies for you!
  • Forget about a toilet paper dispenser. You better remember to fish it out of the linen cabinet every time.
  • Women have no countertop space to display all 31 beauty enhancement products and accouterments.
  • Men have no place to set their beer while they pee into the floor drain.

Now, if it had a single button that springs everything into a usable configuration, that might be cool, except when the power goes out. In other words, it’s another great example of pure efficient genius.

[Found here, crossposted here, with a Tip o’ the Tarboosh to Snork.]

Don’t do this. Really. Don’t.

Occasionally while sniffing around the internest I’ll run across an image that jumps up and bites me right in the crackerbockles, and this is one of them. It’s a patent drawing for an invention technically referred to as a WTF, and is apparently designed with meth addicts in mind. That’s meth as in methane.

Of course there may be other explanations for this new addition to the wonderful world of plumbing abuse, but I’m not about to go all scatological here.

[Found somewhere in here, crossposted here.]

[Update 29 July 2010 – Here are the patent  papers. Tip o’ the Tarboosh to Lemur King.]

Colonel-San

There are waaaaay too many things wrong here. The polkadot yukata for example. Did the Colonel ever serve watermelon in the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises? Not in my memory. But to tell the truth, I’m ticked that KFC doesn’t deliver their buckets o’ artery-clogging flavor to my house anymore. I can only take so much pizza.

[Found here.]

Happy Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Cephalopod Gas Passing

There’s a happy patient. One squeeze and she’s happy; two squeezes  and she’s dancing on the table; three squeezes and she’s prepared to serve in congress.

[Found here. Nice one, McGoo.]

Bertha Dlugi’s Contribution to the World

Bertha Dlugi’s invention, patented in 1959, was intended for parakeets and other birds that are allowed to fly freely about the house. “It is … a general object of the present invention to provide a garment to be worn by birds for receiving their excremental discharge to prevent it from being deposited on household furnishings when the bird is at liberty in the home and thereby avoid the consequent unsanitary condition.”

[Image and description from here. Crossposted here.]

Necessity is a mother.

 

Once upon a time in a land of opportunity someone realized that there was a market for pig machines. Sitting for weeks on end, he pondered the problem before he went to the drafting board and came up with this excellent solution to a puzzle that had been bothering mankind since the first porkers were domesticated: how to adorn a sow with lipstick.

Obviously distraction was a key part of the resulting product, and once the animal was oblivious to its surroundings, one could also measure and weigh it. This data greatly reduced the amount of guessing that coopers required, allowing them to expand their trade, and thus pork barrel spending turned into a booming industry that survives to this day.

True story.

[Image from here, crossposted here.]

Mason Reese’ Contribution to the World

Remember him?

Some folks just get better looking with age. According to Wikipuddlia:

“Mason Reese [45] is an owner of Paladar, a Pan-Latino restaurant located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He opened an establishment named “Destination Bar and Grille” located on Avenue A in the East Village.”

[Image from here.]

18 April 1942 – The Doolittle Raid

December 31, 2009 — Jonna Doolittle Hoppes speaks about her Grandfather, General Jimmy Doolittle from her new book “Calculated Risk” and the importance of recording history for future generations at the Historic Flight Foundation’s “B-25 Grumpy Welcome Reception”. This clip includes original film footage of the crews on the historic “Doolittle Raid” of WWII, which proved to the US and the Japanese Empire that America could and would strike back.

There’s obviously more to the story than we’re able to present here. The anniversary of the Doolittle Raid deserves recognition, as it was not only unimaginably dangerous and ballsy, but very necessary to send a message to Japan, as well as to the American public. It was created, orchestrated and accomplished in a little over 4  months after the unwarranted attack on Pearl Harbor.

Military Magazine recently published a first person account of a pilot who volunteered for the mission without knowing what it was. The mission wasn’t revealed until the modified bombers had been loaded onto the U.S.S. Hornet and the Hornet was at sea. Of the pilots who volunteered, all were given opportunities to decide for themselves whether they wanted to go on, without reprimand or dishonor, and not one of them sat down.

http://www.milmag.com doesn’t have the story on line yet, but it’s a must read.

[Crossposted here.]