.Things are getting weird here!
Woman Who Ate ‘Unusually Large’ Amount of Wasabi Developed Broken-Heart Syndrome
A woman got more than a burning mouthful when she mistook a serving of wasabi for avocado — the spicy food appeared to cause her to develop “broken-heart syndrome,” according to a new report of the case.
Love your new avatar, Arjan.
Love your new avatar, Arjan.
I am the Arjan of Zur en Arrh
Love your new avatar, Arjan.
I am the Arjan of Zur en Arrh
Zur En Arjan
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/arlindo-armacollo-wax-figures-brazil-viral
I love the description here of his ‘unusual’ or ‘peculiar’ waxworks:
The word they are looking for is ‘crap’. I have very little artistic talent and as such if I was tasked with doing a waxwork likeness of Marilyn Monroe it would look very similar to this, a shit one.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/arlindo-armacollo-wax-figures-brazil-viral
I love the description here of his ‘unusual’ or ‘peculiar’ waxworks:
The word they are looking for is ‘crap’. I have very little artistic talent and as such if I was tasked with doing a waxwork likeness of Marilyn Monroe it would look very similar to this, a shit one.
That looks more like Mary Trump than Marylin Monroe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/arlindo-armacollo-wax-figures-brazil-viral
I love the description here of his ‘unusual’ or ‘peculiar’ waxworks:
The word they are looking for is ‘crap’. I have very little artistic talent and as such if I was tasked with doing a waxwork likeness of Marilyn Monroe it would look very similar to this, a shit one.
I always love this genre of story, it seems there’s quite a bit of money in shit waxworks museums, it’s funny how often they crop up. (One of my favourite Adam & Joe sketches was them setting up a deliberately awful one for paying punters and seeing what they could get away with.)
His Nelson Mandela is really quite something.
Mandela Smash!
His Nelson Mandela is really quite something.
That’s clearly Ted Danson made by a colorblind person.
His Nelson Mandela is really quite something.
That’s clearly Ted Danson made by a colorblind person.
No, this is Ted Danson:
October 9, 1993:
Ted Danson Under Fire for Roast of Whoopi Goldberg
@Andrew are you just going to let this happen?
Australia to kill pigeon that crossed Pacific from Oregon
Yes, we take quarantine VERY seriously here. You can’t even take fruit across state borders.
Yes, we take quarantine VERY seriously here. You can’t even take fruit across state borders.
Still reeling from those frogs Bart Simpson brought with him?
Yes, we take quarantine VERY seriously here. You can’t even take fruit across state borders.
Still reeling from those frogs Bart Simpson brought with him?
Please note, in Australia they were called Chaswassers
Yes, we take quarantine VERY seriously here. You can’t even take fruit across state borders.
This has been a source of amusement for me.
Australia is incredibly strict 0n movement of food (for valid reasons). Malaysians cannot travel anywhere without packing half their suitcases with snacks and food. No Malaysian born and raised has ever travelled without large amounts of noodles and biscuits in their case, it’s compulsory. When we go to the UK Audrey even packs a rice cooker.
I knew both these facts when I flew from Kuala Lumpur to Perth, seemingly nobody else on the flight did. The customs area is basically the Aussie staff throwing all this stuff into large bins as Malaysians look on aghast and dismayed. I can only assume the reason there isn’t a ‘DON’T BRING ANY FUCKING FOOD’ warning when you buy a plane ticket is they get some use of out of all that stuff.
NY Times correction:
‘Magic mushrooms’ grow in man’s blood after injection with shroom tea
Jesus, that’s fucking terrifying. Fungi are a really impressive species.
It would all be destroyed.
I’ve never deliberately sat down to watch it, but there’s a cheap prime-time reality TV show called “Border Security” that films the Border Force and quarantine agents at our airports – they find all kinds of things in people’s luggage and have to deal with a slew of lies and excuses. Folks bring fruit, raw meat. Some guy brought pigs’ blood. Naturally a lot of the episodes deal with drug smuggling offenses too.
People bring weird things on planes. I was at my cousin’s wedding and one of her uncles was wearing a t-shirt and blazer and had to keep telling people that it was because someone had packed fish in their luggage and it had leaked into his bag while in the overhead compartment, ruining his dress shirt.
I’ve never deliberately sat down to watch it, but there’s a cheap prime-time reality TV show called “Border Security” that films the Border Force and quarantine agents at our airports
That show exists in many countries and my wife likes watching them. There’s a channel we get that plays the UK, Ireland and Australian ones back to back. The Aussie one is definitely the most boring because it is mainly tourists from Asia committing the high crime of having a pineapple or some other fruit in their case.
Fun Trump family news: Ivanka wouldn’t let her Secret Service men piss at her house (where there are six toilets).
According to the Washington Post the president’s daughter and her top White House adviser spouse have apparently exiled the squad of men and women assigned to keep them from harm’s way from using the toilets in their sprawling Washington DC mansion.
“Instructed not to use any of the half-dozen bathrooms inside the couple’s house, the Secret Service detail assigned to President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law spent months searching for a reliable restroom to use on the job,” the paper reported, citing neighbors and law enforcement official.
It quoted one law enforcement official as saying: “It’s the first time I ever heard of a Secret Service detail having to go to these extremes to find a bathroom.”It added that Secret Service members in the couple’s detail who were desperate to relieve themselves had resorted to a porta-potty, as well as bathrooms at the homes of Barack Obama and Vice-President Mike Pence.
The solution to the problem was not a cheap one. Since September 2017, the paper reported, the federal government rented the stricken Secret Service members a basement studio with a bathroom for the purposes of them going to the loo. The cost to taxpayers? Some $3,000 a month.A White House spokesperson denied the couple restricted agents from their home. But the Post stuck by its investigative guns, saying: “That account is disputed by a law enforcement official familiar with the situation, who said the agents were kept out at the family’s request.”
Oh, and this is such a great headline:
Armie Hammer denies having sexual fantasies involving cannibalism
You know you’re in trouble when you have to deny that.
To recap: earlier this week an Instagram account (using the handle @houseofeffie) posted a series of screenshots which she alleges are disturbing DMs between her and Hammer, who she also claims to have been in a relationship with for four years (whilst he was still married to his (now) estranged wife, Elizabeth Chambers).
Said screenshots appear to show Hammer detailing a number of graphic and violent sexual fantasies, as well as recounting a story about [WARNING: GRAPHIC] a time he once cut open a live animal and ate its still warm heart. A couple of examples of these messed up messages include “If I wanted to cut off one of your toes and keep it with me in my pocket, so I always had a piece of you in my possession?” and “I am 100% a cannibal” and “I need your blood, I crave it”.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a35211636/armie-hammer-cannibal-dm-screenshots/
He has also been accused of being emotionally abusive by an ex-girlfriend, so there seems to be more serious trouble coming his way.
You know you’re in trouble when you have to deny that.
Well, at least he didn’t have to deny a related murder he obviously did in his home-made submarine. Like that danish guy.
Fun Trump family news: Ivanka wouldn’t let her Secret Service men piss at her house (where there are six toilets).
Just when you think they’ve already done every horrible, inhumane thing…
You know you’re in trouble when you have to deny that.
Well, at least he didn’t have to deny a related murder he obviously did in his home-made submarine. Like that danish guy.
THOSE FUCKING DANISH!!!!
Jesus, I’d forgotten about the submarine killer thing. What a nightmare story that was.
THOSE FUCKING DANISH!!!!
Here we go again
THOSE FUCKING DANISH!!!!
People bring weird things on planes. I was at my cousin’s wedding and one of her uncles was wearing a t-shirt and blazer and had to keep telling people that it was because someone had packed fish in their luggage and it had leaked into his bag while in the overhead compartment, ruining his dress shirt.
Did the wedding take place in the EU? Maybe that guy was just clever enough to know that you can’t take meat, but you CAN take a really big fish!!!
It was in Massachusetts so it was probably just some Masshole.
THOSE FUCKING DANISH!!!!
Here we go again
Is there animosity between Danes and Swedes? All European countries seem to have other countries they love to hate. There is a love-hate relationship between Netherlands and Belgium, but honestly I really love the Belgians (except Brussels which is a sucky city). It is a weird country though.
There’s cultural animosity between Swedes and all our neighbors. Except maybe the Fins. There is a slight competition, especially in hockey and other sports (but especially hockey) but it’s not so much animosity. It could be different in Finland though, they might not like us as much. Finland has historically been a part of Sweden as long as Sweden has been a thing. They’re Ireland, we’re the brits.
Swedes have funny stories about Norwegians, that their language is silly and that they’re stupid. Norwegians use the exact same stories of stupidity but with Swedes as the subjective placeholder.
I don’t know any stories about the Danes in the same way, but the cultural animosity isn’t far removed from the truth: They’re all rabid alcoholics that smoke indoors and have potatos stuck down their throats.
I don’t know any stories about the Danes in the same way, but the cultural animosity isn’t far removed from the truth: They’re all rabid alcoholics that smoke indoors and have potatos stuck down their throats.
Aki Kaurusmäki taught me that that is also true for the Fins. Well, except for the potato part potentially.
Neighbouring school classes, cities, counties, countries… there’s usually this kind of rivalry going on with some of your neighbours. I suppose it can be healthy? Unless you’re going to war. Then it turns unhealthy very quickly.
(Fucking French.)
All European countries seem to have other countries they love to hate.
Not just Europeans. That rivalry with neighbours seems to exists everywhere, even if it isn’t hugely serious and more poking fun and wanting to win in sports.
Malaysians and Singaporeans are always taking jabs at each other (although Malaysians like their Thai neighbours to the north).
That rivalry with neighbours seems to exists everywhere, even if it isn’t hugely serious
We have football rivalry with the Germans but otherwise most people are OK with Germans. I don’t think there are many here that still carry a generalized hatred for them.
Our other neighbor is the UK across the water I guess. Not really a rivalry there, you are just quirky.
The most contentious relationship is with the Belgians. I think there is linguistic rivalry there, Flemish Dutch sounds nicer than Dutch Dutch. Flemish people are poetic souls, the best poets in the Dutch language are from our neighbors to the South. And their food is better. (And beer)
I don’t know any stories about the Danes in the same way, but the cultural animosity isn’t far removed from the truth: They’re all rabid alcoholics that smoke indoors and have potatos stuck down their throats.
You’re confusing them with the Irish.
The difference is that this is an insult to the danish but a compliment to the irish.
1st preserved dinosaur butthole is ‘perfect’ and ‘unique,’ paleontologist says
The first dinosaur butthole ever discovered is shedding light where the sun don’t shine. The discovery reveals how dinosaurs used this multipurpose opening — scientifically known as a cloacal vent — for pooping, peeing, breeding and egg laying.
The dinosaur’s derrière is so well preserved, researchers could see the remnants of two small bulges by its “back door,” which might have housed musky scent glands that the reptile possibly used during courtship — an anatomical quirk also seen in living crocodilians, said scientists who studied the specimen.
Although this dinosaur’s caboose shares some characteristics with the backsides of some living creatures, it’s also a one-of-a-kind opening, the researchers found. “The anatomy is unique,” study lead researcher Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. It doesn’t quite look like the opening on birds, which are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. It does look a bit like the back opening on a crocodile, he said, but it’s different in some ways. “It’s its own cloaca, shaped in its perfect, unique way,” Vinther said.
The well-preserved booty belongs to the dinosaur Psittacosaurus, a bristly tailed, Labrador-size, horn-faced dinosaur, meaning it was a relative of Triceratops. Like its famous tri-horned cousin, Psittacosaurus lived during the Cretaceous period, which lasted from about 145 million to 65 million years ago. Previously, Vinther and his colleagues had studied this Psittacosaurus specimen, found in China, to determine its skin color, and at the time, he noted that its nether regions were preserved.
“Then, I got a chance to look at the specimen again, up close, and suddenly realized, ‘Oh my god, the cloaca is actually quite well preserved, and we can actually see some anatomy that I didn’t think we could see,'” Vinther said. So, he took a closer look with study co-researchers Robert Nicholls, a paleoartist, and Diane Kelly, an expert on vertebrate penises and copulatory systems at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
None of the reproductive soft tissues (like a penis) were preserved. So the researchers can’t say whether the dinosaur was male or female. Even so, this dinosaur likely had copulatory sex, unlike some birds that bump butts when they do a “cloacal kiss” during reproduction, Vinther said.
To get a more complete picture of Psittacosaurus’ cloacal vent, Kelly compared it with those of living land vertebrates. The vent is the opening, and the cloaca, which comes from the Latin word for “sewer,” is the muscular chamber behind it. Based on its preserved anatomy, the opening could have been either horizontally oriented, like a bird’s, or vertically oriented, like a crocodile cloaca, she said.
Moreover, the team noticed that the outer regions of the cloaca were covered with a dark shade of melanin. Perhaps this darkly pigmented area was a type of visual display, similar to bright-red butts seen in baboons, the researchers said. The reddish-brown Psittacosaurus was countershaded, meaning it had a dark back and a light underside, so its pigmented posterior would have stood out, he said.
This dark melanin may have also provided antimicrobial protection — something seen in humans. “We have melanin in certain parts of the body that never sees the light of day,” Vinther said. “Our liver is chock-full of melanin … because we don’t want microbial infections in these places.”
The pigmented lobes on each side of the dinosaur’s anal opening might have held musk-secreting glands, the researchers added. These glands are found in both male and female crocodilians, and in those creatures, they release a fatty, smelly substance during courtship, Kelly told Live Science.
And, just like in most land vertebrates (except for mammals, which have more than one hole for defecation, urination and reproduction), this dinosaur used its hole for everything, which explains why researchers found a fossilized poop in its butt. “It’s like a Swiss Army knife of excretory openings,” Vinther said. “It does everything.”
The same Psittacosaurus cloacal vent was described in October 2020, when another team posted their research in the BioRxiv database, meaning it has yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a journal. Vinther, who had shared his data with that team for another project, said the researchers used the cloacal vent data without his permission. However, “there were misunderstandings and miscommunications about the nature of the research on both sides,” said Phil Bell, a senior lecturer of paleontology at the University of New England in Australia, one of the researchers on the October 2020 study.
The new study was published online Tuesday (Jan. 19) in the journal Current Biology.
New Zealand tackling the hard hitting stories:
Did everyone spontaneously applaud Amanda Palmer in a Havelock North cafe? A Spinoff investigation
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a cafe. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth.Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet that split New Zealand in two. Her message began innocuously. “Just walked into a coffee shop here in Aotearoa New Zealand,” she said, believably. But then, the kicker: “and everybody behind the counter, not really knowing me but knowing I was American, erupted in spontaneous applause”
Palmer’s claim was incendiary. It didn’t mesh with the Aotearoa New Zealand many of us thought we knew, where any achievement, from getting an A on an assignment to winning the Rugby World Cup, is met with a grim nod and a stern reminder not to get too full of yourself. She was asserting that New Zealanders were not just nice, but effusively nice in public. It had to be a lie. “Insufferable,” tweeted David Farrier. “The New Zealand cafe that spontaneously applauded Amanda Palmer has closed due to it not existing :(((,” wrote Peter Taggart.
Love this one:
But don’t bury the lead there, Martin! It did happen!
Coleman said the day before Biden’s inauguration, Palmer came in for her regular coffee fix and spoke to him about US politics. “We were discussing whether it was going to kick off with the Trump supporters and things with the protest,” he said. When Palmer arrived the following day, Coleman clapped and said congratulations as she walked in. “I don’t recall it being a major thing,” he said. “It was kind of like good for you. Way to go. Glad that there’s a change.”
And the ending to the article is very funny:
Overall, Palmer’s claim is rated One Pinocchio. It contains selective telling of the truth, and some exaggeration. However, the overarching impression the tweet left is that New Zealanders are a kind, generous and publicly effusive people. That idea has been proven false by the backlash to the tweet, among many other things. It is rated Four Pinocchios, and will one day be lowered with Satan and the rest of his lies into the fiery pit. Now, it is time to end this uncivil war. The answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions. Unity is our path forward. May god bless you all and may god bless the United States of New Zealand.
I didn’t do it wrong, I did it old-school!
The spelling lede is an alteration of lead, a word which, on its own, makes sense; after all, isn’t the main information in a story found in the lead (first) paragraph? And sure enough, for many years lead was the preferred spelling for the introductory section of a news story.
So how did we come to spell it lede?
Although evidence dates the spelling to the 1970s, we didn’t enter lede in our dictionaries until 2008. For much of that time, it was mostly kept under wraps as in-house newsroom jargon.
[…]
Others have been less than willing to embrace the new spelling. At The Awl, founder Choire Sicha tore out at those who use lede like it’s an affectation:You schmucks who use ridiculous journo-terms make me crazy! Finally, someone is willing to speak out against the use of “lede” in public. Because, ha ha, sucka, there’s no reason for it! (Plus, MOST OF YOU ARE JUST BLOGGERS.)
—Choire Sicha, The Awl, 19 Sept. 2011
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-versus-lead
Shut up, you hipster schmuck journo!
As lede is purely American and therefore not proper English, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
As lede is purely American and therefore not proper English, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Okay Mrs Thatcher, we didn’t mean to be improperly unenglish.
As lede is purely American and therefore not proper English, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
I’d been wondering what was keeping you!
As lede is purely American and therefore not proper English, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
I’d been wondering what was keeping you!
He was having problems getting the lead out.
Oklahoma lawmaker proposes a bill that calls for creation of a Bigfoot hunting season
This is pure Chris Morris stuff.
US toddler to release debut album recorded in the womb
Fun to learn that the womb sounds like a horrific, dystopian movie nightmare.
Already exhibiting the kind of confidence required by rock stars, Yupanqui is apparently a fan of her own work. “Her awareness of what was happening was astounding,” said label Sacred Bones. “She would open her eyes wide and stare at her parents, seemingly recognising her own sounds from the womb, knowing that they were revisiting those rituals that made them come together as one.”
This is the best news story of all time you may now shut down the internet.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/09/texas-lawyer-zoom-cat-filter-kitten
That cat looks really sus. Airlock first, questions later.
He had a cat filter on? FURRY!
In News of the Stupid
Police: Man shot, killed after ‘prank’ robbery for YouTube video (kwqc.com)
These pranks are not really pranks. I mean Candid Camera, this is not.
Also, What Happened to Gorilla Glue Girl Tessica Brown’s Hair? (thecut.com)
This one baffles me. The logistics of it do not make sense. You can’t use Gorilla Glue spray the same way you’d use hair spray. There is no way it would just stick to your hair and not your face, your hands, your comb. I don’t see how anyone could use Gorilla Glue adhesive accidentally without it being much worse.
This is the best news story of all time you may now shut down the internet. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/09/texas-lawyer-zoom-cat-filter-kitten%5B/quote%5D
And as usual, they already fount out that the cat lawyers is actually a huge asshole… that’s why we can’t have nice things =(
Ok, not really “weird” per se and two years old, so not really news, but it’s nice.
Turkish Garbage Collectors Open a Library from Books Rescued from the Trash
Talk about Frosted Flakes…
Indian man killed by his own bird during cockfight – BBC News
Poyo is just really, really bad ass!
Indian man killed by his own bird during cockfight – BBC News
Poyo is just really, really bad ass!
Amazon changes app logo that ‘resembles Adolf Hitler’
My favourite part of this story is that it includes a picture of Hitler, in case you weren’t sure who they were talking about.
“Oh… that Hitler.”
I don’t think anyone was outraged or offended, just noted the resemblance. And then Amazon thought maybe it was best to not have a logo that reminded people of him.
I don’t think anyone was outraged or offended, just noted the resemblance. And then Amazon thought maybe it was best to not have a logo that reminded people of him.
Yeah, I mean, if you have a choice of a logo that some people say looks like Hitler and one that doesn’t look like Hitler at all…
Amazon: now 80% less reminiscent of Hitler.
Some people see images of things holy in their religion in random objects. Others see Hitler.
It can be both!
I was actually considering posting about this in the Relationship Thread.
Maybe she said “freeway” and they misheard.
Maybe she said “freeway” and they misheard.
Dave, was that you parked on the side of the M-5 the other night?
This is the daughter of Rudy Giuliani.
That’s not her fault.
Al-x wrote:
This is the daughter of Rudy Giuliani.
That’s not her fault.
Was Rudy part of the three-way with his own daughter? Is that what you’re suggesting?!
Was Rudy part of the three-way with his own daughter? Is that what you’re suggesting?!
Nah, she’s too old for him.
I get it, @al-x; Guiliani did some good stuff for NYC (getting rid of the “squeegee men” at street corners, providing strength and focus during the 9-11 nightmare), but he also presided over some not-so-good stuff (Disneyfication of Times Square/42nd Street). Nevertheless, over the past four years as Trump’s pitbull he has used up all the good will that he may have earned during his Mayorship of the Greatest City in the World, and now he deserves all the humiliation and bad press that he’s getting lately.
You guys are all missing the point…
I don’t think anybody is missing the point, they’re ignoring it because the sexual activities of relatives shouldn’t matter to politics.
Also, when it comes to sex and humiliation with regards to Giuliani, Sacha Baron Cohen took part of that. Being caught on camera trying to have sex with a minor is rather more embarrassing than whatever his daughter may be doing with people who are all consenting adults.
I guess this is her form of rebelling. Almost like Claudia Conway.
Or she’s doing it because it makes her happy, regardless of who and what her father is.
I’ve gotta say, Al, it’s a pretty misogynistic attitude to say that the actions of a 32 year old woman can only possibly be motivated and defined by her famous father. She’s a person in her own right, not some extension of Giuliani.
Mayorship of the Greatest City in the World
When exactly was he mayor of Dublin?
When exactly was he mayor of Dublin?
He was a body-double for Bertie Ahern in 1986-87.
She’s a person in her own right
Only men are people. Women are less than that, and their character is measured exclusively by their looks. Jesus christ, Martin. Get with the times!!
When exactly was he mayor of Dublin?
He was a body-double for Bertie Ahern in 1986-87.
Shit, I met him then.
Shit, I met him then.
You have contracted Sanguinare Vampiris.
Taiwan pleads with citizens not to change name to ‘salmon’
TAIPEI: A top Taiwanese official issued a plea on Thursday (Mar 18) for people to stop changing their name to “salmon” after dozens made the unusual move to take advantage of a restaurant promotion.
In a phenomenon that has been dubbed “Salmon Chaos” by local media, around 150 mostly young people flocked to government offices in recent days to officially register a change in their name.
The cause of this sudden enthusiasm was a chain of sushi restaurants.
Under the two-day promotion, which ended on Thursday, any customer whose ID card contained “gui yu” – the Chinese characters for salmon – would be entitled to an all-you-can-eat sushi meal along with five friends.
Taiwan allows people to officially change their name up to three times.
But Taiwanese officials were not amused.
This kind of name change not only wastes time but causes unnecessary paperwork,” deputy interior minister Chen Tsung-yen told reporters as he urged the public to “cherish administrative resources”.
“I hope everyone can be more rational about it,” he added.
Local media ran interviews with people who took advantage of the promotion.
“I just changed my name this morning to add the characters ‘bao cheng gui yu’ and we already ate more than NT$7,000 (US$235)” worth, a college student surnamed Ma told TVBS news channel in southern Kaohsiung city.
Roughly translated, Ma’s new moniker means “Explosive Good-looking Salmon”.
“I’ve changed my first name to ‘salmon’ and two of my friends also did,” a woman surnamed Tung told SET TV. “We’ll just change our names back afterwards.”
Other salmon-themed names reported in local media included “Salmon Prince”, “Meteor Salmon King” and “Salmon Fried Rice”.
The United Daily News reported that one resident decided to add a record 36 new characters to his name, most of them seafood-themed, including the characters for abalone, crab and lobster.
Source: AFP/dv
