Category: True Stories

Varmints

Our neighborhood has had gopher problems ever since the city quit treating the underground metropolis in the park 100 feet from our property, so we hired an extermination company at our own expense. They put bait in the tunnels, and they gas them.

When poison and gas doesn’t work, they taunt them mercilessly all the way back to the park. Now they take pictures of their taunting, and email the photos to prove it.

moxieroutes-document-204707

True story, and I noticed that the photo was deleted from their customer link entitled “How Did We Do?”

Arcul de Triumf Bucharest

Bucharest-monument

In response to this post, fellow blogger wheels sent me the photo above with this caption:

Reminds me of what I saw on a trip to eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria). When they put up scaffolding around a monument or building for repair work, they put up screening fabric printed with an image of what it looks like.

That’s the Arcul de Triumf, a monument dedicated to the veterans of Romania’s War of Independence against the oppression of the Ottoman Empire (and later for Romania’s role in WWI). This is its 3rd incarnation: the 1st was wooden, erected in 1878. It was replaced with another in 1922, then that one was demolished and rebuilt in 1936. So what’s behind the curtain? This:

Arcul de Triumf Bucharest December 2015

Apparently, that poor guy in the red car has been trapped in the roundabout since December 2015.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like:

Arcul de Triumf Bucharest

Signature Service Hot Links

Gas Can Guitar Boy

Why A Pair of Pants?

“Pants” is an abbreviation for “Pantaloons,” originally a two-piece garment, with one sleeve for each leg, both tied around the waist. The codpiece was a polite, yet not-so-polite, appurtenance. Pantaloons (with or without codpieces) were a hit in France in the late 1600s. What a surprise.

The word “pantaloons” comes from the French pantalon, derived from Italian pantalone, named after San Pantalone, aka Saint Pantaleone, aka Saint Panteleímon.

St. PantaleoneThat guy was pretty cool. He practiced medicine until he became a Faith Healer and was accused of witchcraft in 305AD. He survived being set on fire with torches, being dipped in molten lead, tied to a rock and thrown into the sea, fed to wild animals, torn apart on the rack, and a beheading. He freed a bunch of slaves, too. Once he agreed that beheading was usually lethal, he was beheaded a second time and he died.

But that’s not all.

In the Middle Ages he came to be regarded as the patron saint of physicians and midwives. A phial containing some of his blood has been preserved at Constantinople; on his Feast Days (he scored three – 27 July, 28 July, and 18 February) his blood boils. Pure awesome.

The origin of the taunt “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” is related.

Straatsen in the Netherlands [via].

Hexaflexigon burrito. Do it. Eat it.

Some of these DIY illusions are cool.

RHNB = Red Hot Nickel Ball. Nice video collection by a guy who knows what to do with one.

El Niño – He’s a-comin’ ta gitcha, and Google Maps has you covered.

We’ve all seen ’em. They’re called dickheads.

Don’t do this [via].

Do this instead. [Top image screen-capped from that video and doctored a tad.]

[Update: Added the Epilogue to the St. Pantaleone saga.]

The Church of the Half Pipe

Church of the Half Pipe 2

Church of the Half Pipe

Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel (aka Okudart) collaborated with La Iglesia Skate and Red Bull to transform the decrepit interior of the old, abandoned Santa Barbara church in Llanera, Asturias into an awesome skatepark called the Kaos Temple.

[Caption found here. Other images and more to the story found here.]

The How & Why Wonder Book of Hot Links

Wonder Book

Levitating Superconductor on a Möbius strip [via].

Oikophobia and Xenophilia are related.

Chocolate or vanilla? The debate began around 1520 when Cortés y los Conquistadores brought both to Europe.

Irreverent satire/snark posted in 2004 comes true.

Repost: The Entire Bible in 30 minutes or less.

The Cliff’s Notes’ version of The New Testament takes more than 30 minutes, but the intro is interesting.

Top image from The How And Why Wonder Book of Atomic Energy. This illustrated series was awesome.

The Weasel Goes Pop

JackInTheBox 1800s
That’s a 19th Century Jack-In-The-Box, and it creeps me right out.

What’s the “weasel” and why does it go “Pop?” Hard to say, but it likely has to do with weaving yarn. When it became associated with the toy is a mystery, and why the toy became associated with fast food stumps me as well.

[Found here.]

2014 IBM Card Mandelbrot Set Dot Matrix Printout

Dot Matrix Mandelbrot 2

Dot Matrix Mandelbrot

Zoom in on the X to the far left. It’s identical to the tractor-feed image. [Found here.]

Hot Links in F# Major

Maynard Ferguson's Firebird

Books In Chains: Combating Book Theft in Medieval Times.

Fred Willard on Letterman 1987.

Zappa, Beefheart & Pink Floyd 1969  [via].

From the Unusual Sentences Department:
“Twenty minutes in, he stops, lifts his tail, and produces one phenomenally long and sonically impressive Super Fart.”

The Clark Brothers ca. 1948. Too slow? Jump to 02:40.

Charlie Ryan & The Timberline Riders – The B-Side of Hot Rod Lincoln:  Hot Rod Hades.

This is kinda cool. It’s a Unicorn Head Squirrel Feeder, and I like the soundtrack.

Whap whap whap whap.

How to make a cigar box diddley bow.

The Superbone begat the Firebird. Pretty ingenious in that it allows a B♭ trumpet player to play difficult keys (like F♯ major) with a slide adjustment.

[Top image: Maynard Ferguson playing a Firebird left-handed.]

“And Now For The Weather…”

This is what happens when you post a link to a $23 dress on Amazon to a female meteorologist Facebook group.

[Image and caption found here. Click the image for larger weather.]

Margo Lillie’s Contribution To The World: The Physics of Cow Tipping

“Every cow who gives good service deserves a tip.”

– Bunk Strutts 2015

Physics of Cow Tipping 1

A 2005 study led by Margo Lillie, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia, concluded that tipping a cow would require an exertion of 2,910 newtons (654.2 lbf) of force, and is therefore impossible to accomplish by a single person. Her calculations found that it would take at least two people to apply enough force to push over a cow if the cow did not react and reorient its footing. If the cow did react, it would take at least four people to push it over. Lillie noted that cattle are well aware of their surroundings and are very difficult to surprise, due to excellent senses of both smell and hearing, but that according to laws of static physics, “two people might be able to tip a cow” if the cow were “tipped quickly—the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react”. The Lillie Study has been replicated by other researchers, who confirmed that at least two to four people can, in fact, push over a cow.

Money quote: The Lillie Study has been replicated by other researchers, who confirmed that at least two to four people can, in fact, push over a cow.

I’m no rocket surgeon, but adolescence and alcohol are usually associated with stories of cow-tipping, and I imagine that Ms. Lillie and the other researchers who replicated the study had a blast that night.

[Explanatory graphic found here, study description from here, and trippytippy cows are here.]