Category: True Stories

Hot Air Blown [Updated with Link to story]

balloon-vs-tower

balloon-vs-tower 2
I don’t know the story behind it, but that’s some scary stuff. Besides the balloon snag, that tower wasn’t engineered to handle a bigass inflated windsock trying to pull it down.

[Found here.]

UPDATE: Apparently the accident dates to October 2004 during a hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque NM. After the collision, the veteran pilot grabbed the tower to stop the gondola from swinging, and he and two boys (ages 10 and 14) climbed down 600 feet as news helicopters buffeted the tower before being called off. Here’s the balloon in better health:

smokey-bear-balloon

[Full Story here; h/t Guy Fleegman via Twitter.]

“Where Do We Go From Here?” Real Life Jenga.

Jenga Stairs

“Damn. Gotta pound out another exit, Danny. Guess I’ll see ‘ya on the other side, mate. Look after me missus.”

[Found here; related post here.]

The Incredible FungiMan Releases Spores While Eating Your Lunch

FungiMan

[Found here.]

Amish Ice Cutters Rescue Stranded Ice Breakers Rescuing Global Warming Proponents Stranded in Antarctica

harvesting ice

[Strutts News Services – Cleveland] Getting from Pennsylvania to Antarctica takes a while, but steady diligence always works.

Mennonites from around the globe are moving to free rescue vessels trapped in pack ice that threatens to crush the hulls of ships sent to evacuate a bunch of vapid idiots whose intentions were to view and compile data on melting ice during the Antarctica summer. The vapid idiots were successfully evacuated by ice breaking helicopters, and they’re now home safe and sound.

Those who volunteered for the rescue missions, as of this posting, are not, and nobody cares about those brave bastards.

EXCEPT FOR THE AMISH.

[Image found here.]

The Mothership

The Mothership - Seattle WA

And it’s not photoshopped.

[Found in here.]

Hot Links of the 11th Dimension

FLATLAND Edwin Abbott

In Dreams is an experimental film about childhood nightmares by Samuel Blain.

“I never forget a face.” Yeah, you’ve heard someone say it, but how would they know? I got a score of 91% and 82% on this test.

The Legend of Chuck Norris lives on. I’m amazed that I didn’t make it into the Top 50, or maybe I did…

Crashing Cell Phone Conversations At The Airport.

This Guy Travelled The Country In A Pink Tutu Just To Make His Wife Laugh During Chemo.

Very cool fractal art.

Yeah, it snowed in Cairo. BFD. Weather happens, and it’s not caused by humans. We don’t have that much power, never will, no matter what Mr. Catastrophe told you.

How long can YOU watch a kitten with nasal problems in front of a fire place? [via]

WorpDress just informed me that this our 2,609th blog post. Wish they’d warned me a few years ago. I’d have cleaned up the yard, re-caulked the tub and got rid of the meerkats (cutesy little standy-uppy weasel-lookin’ bastards).

Top image from Edwin A. Abbot’s 1884 classic novella “Flatland.”

Christmas Arachnids

Christmas Spider

“An old European Christmas legend tells of a poor woman unable to provide the traditional decorations for the special holiday. A spider made his home in her tree and began to spin beautiful webs. On Christmas morning, the first light of sun struck the cobwebs, turning them to silver. When the woman awoke, she found the tree was covered with silver treasure. The spider had brought good fortune!”
[via]

Other versions claim it’s a German or Ukrainian tradition, and that either the Christ Child or Santa transformed the webs. Although I grew up in an area with a large German population, I never heard the story and can’t find an original source.

Yet, there IS such a creature called a Christmas Spider.

[Image found here.]

Phil Jones’ Contribution To The World

Susan and Annie 1

“I have a deep respect for anyone who is willing to put their face on a bus stop bench knowing what people do to them.  I thought it would be fun to do my own take on our local realtor advertisements.” –Phil Jones

Phil Jones’ “take” is to dress up as the people in the bus bench back adverts and replace their portraits with his own. Look closer:
Susan and Annie 2
Clever innocuous graffiti from Minneapolis, and there’s more at his website. Susan and Annie liked it, too.
[Found here.]

Nothing Much Happened Today.

Nothing Much Happened Today

[Found here.]

The Best Crappiest Speakers Ever Made.

RCA

They looked like armadillos boinking a mailbox, and yes, they were speakers. They were virtually indestructible. They hung on the inside of your car window when it was freezing outside and wouldn’t allow you to roll it up all the way.

They were also easily stolen with a pen knife. Lupe had a wall of them in his apartment, all wired together and hooked up to his stereo for a tinny wall of sound. Listening to Led Zeppelin through a dozen drive-in rattlebuzzers was truly something to behold. Truly.

[Found here.]