In the Weird

Aliens!

2009-06-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Or not.

Brilliant!

2009-06-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Robotic furniture powered by vermin like mice and flies, which it catches itself. Functional AND functional.

At long last?

2009-06-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead.

Alumni group to pay $6M to separate Antioch College in Ohio from parent university

By Associated Press

12:52 PM EDT, June 30, 2009
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — An alumni group from Antioch College in Ohio has a conditional agreement that will allow them to operate the financially strapped school and reopen in two years.

The alumni group agreed to pay parent Antioch University $6 million for the campus and the college's endowment. The school is closed because of financial problems caused by declining enrollment, a heavy dependence on tuition and a small endowment.

The college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, is the flagship of Antioch University, which also has campuses in Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Calif., and Keene, N.H.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, is contingent on approval from the Ohio attorney general's office and university bond holders.

I <3 the future!

2009-06-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

Telekinesis machines? In the Weird seems to have missed the announcement of Mattel's Mindflex, the game that allows players to move objects with thought, but here comes even more exciting news: a wheelchair controlled by thought.

It's an EEG device that "analyzes brain wave data using signal-processing technology and delivers neuro-feedback to the driver." Similar technology is being used for other mind-controlled devices, as well as the next generation of more-accurate lie detectors.

Nerd Core

2009-06-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Actor/writer and acknowledged nerd John Hodgman discusses President Obama's geek credentials while the president plays along in front of a crowd of media correspondants. Good, clean fun for geeks and nerds!

The best of both worlds

2009-06-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

More stuff to love:

Dean Fraser draws pop culture icons in the style of The Simpsons at Springfield Punx. His most recent posts caricature the folks from Lost. Older posts showcase comic book superheros (Marvel and DC), old TV characters, and pretty much whoever strikes his fancy.

My skin just came off my body and ran away

2009-06-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

(from a tech demo of animation from a still image)

You're less dead than me

2009-05-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

So have you had the chance to meet the glorious Croy Devenish-Phibbs and his hilariously dead family? Croy is the 103 year old (so it is claimed at least) "silver surfer" of the web and twitscape who has urged people to send him photographs of donated park benches around Scotland with obituary markers from his extended Devenish-Phibbs clan... with extremely humorous results. This is one of the funniest "public art" projects I have ever seen... may take a bit to load the images, but hang in there, they are so very worth it.

Click here to visit the Devenish-Phibbs bench plaque photo gallery.

One of my favorites, just as a teaser:
"For Flo who used to love to come to this park to chase squirrels, sniff dogs and do her business in the bushes. She was by no means a conventional woman but we miss her all the same.
Florence Devenish-Phibbs, wife and sister
1830 - 1934"

They saw a need...

2009-05-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Click here to read about an exciting new invention: the scorpion shield, which keeps the potentially dangerous arachnid from climbing into your child's crib and stinging him to death!

In fact, out here in the desert, there's nothing at all weird about this, but I imagine folks in the rest of the country shuddering and shaking their heads.

"At night [the inventors] used to prowl the rooms in their North Side home with a black light and tongs, catching scorpions."

Yes, many scorpions fluoresce under ultraviolet light! Isn't that interesting? Just another one of nature's miracles.

Florescent scorpion

But don't breathe easy just yet: "...although smooth glass is a good shield, it won't keep out every scorpion. They also walk across ceilings and sometimes drop onto furniture." Are you ready to move out to the desert?

Go to www.scorpionsafe.com to learn more!

Two-Stroke Rhythm Section Looks Exhausting*

2009-05-11T13:37:00.001-07:00

This reminds me of a wonderful duet for trombone and tractor I once heard at the SF Contemporary Music Players, I wish I could remember who that composer was.

Tractor Used As Drums For Sweet Georgia Brown

(thanks steve)

* apologies for the pun, I couldn't resist.

Introducing the USB Toaster!!!

2009-05-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful way to start the morning! Just plug it in to your USB port and it will toast the news, weather or any photo directly onto your bread! I'm guessing cloudy with a chance of cream cheese!

Serious monsters

2009-04-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

We love the serious study of the bizarre as much as anyone (OK, we love it more than most people) but we don't deny there's room for a little comic relief in the pursuit of secretive animal species. Enter In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Big Foot. This tell-all tome offers up the dishiest dirt on the often elusive, always misunderstood forest dweller. Sure, Bigfoot can't always control his love of eating people, but he has feelings like anyone else, and he's not afraid to share them.

Read more and buy the book at Dragon's Library

Fertile ground

2009-04-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

This one strains credulity in a way that goes above and beyond our normal cryptozoology posts. Let's call it cryptobotany. Doctors in Russia claim to have removed a two-inch fir tree from a man's lungs. The video shows a two-inch fir tree nestled inside a surgical incision.

Mostly likely it's hoaxier than that last Loch Ness Monster sighting, but who knows? Maybe his lungs were moist and fertile. Maybe enough light penetrated his chest to nurture a baby evergreen.

Maybe the hospital was short on funds and really, really needed some free viral publicity.

Someone turned my dream from last night into a short film

2009-04-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

The coming robot revolution

2009-04-11T06:50:00.000-07:00

Skynet hasn't yet achieved awareness, but CB2 is learning to recognize facial expressions. Invented by a team of scientists at Osaka University, this charming baby robot is equipped with moving eyes and tactile sensors, which allow it to interact with its "mommy."

Short article about CB2 on NationalGeographic.com.

Where The Hackers Get Together

2009-04-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

PRI's The Takeaway did a nice short video spot on the mixed media hacker collective phenomenon, specifically about NYC Resistor:
"Hacker spaces" are giving geek tinkerers a place to gather, create and collaborate

(My brother is the guy with the bags full of hacked iPods)

People with too much faith in the political process

2009-04-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Or possibly, just realists.

Chinese Vampire Deer Attacks on the Rise!

2009-04-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

So they claim that this is no April Fools joke...

Pet owners in Bedfordshire, UK have been reporting increasing numbers of attacks by a population of Chinese Water Deer whose ancestors escaped from a local safari park in 1920's & 30's. The tiny little deer (2 ft tall, and no more and 31 lbs) come equipped with nasty 3.5 inch boar-like tusks which they have been using to ravage unsuspecting dogs who think they are just chasing away Bambi and then suddenly realize they are actually be chased themselves by Bambi's bloodsucking uncle, Count Bambula. Don't f@#k with Bambi!

Read the full article from the UK's Mail Online.

Feeling Lucky?

2009-03-10T17:38:00.001-07:00

Today, Simon & Schuster releases the sequel to the 2007 Newbery award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky. This novel, entitled Lucky Breaks, picks up shortly after the first story ends. Lucky is very nearly eleven years old, she has finally been adopted by her former guardian, Brigitte, and she is ready for some excitement. Unfortunately, she still lives in Hard Pan, population 43, and between coaching Brigitte on how to be American and sabotaging her best friend's potential opportunity to leave town, Lucky finds real excitement hard to come by. When Paloma, a pretty, funny girl just Lucky's age turns up at Brigitte's new cafe, Lucky can't help but see signs that things are changing. But change never comes in the form that we expect.

Author Susan Patron has created a very real character, full of the conflicting wonder, anger, and hope that marks the beginning of a child's transformation into adulthood. Readers young and old can't help but fall into Lucky's story, laughing when she laughs and worrying when she missteps.

Susan Patron also gives great interviews! She was kind enough to grant one to me. Here's an excerpt:

It took me a long time to find the heart of Lucky's story; I couldn't figure out what was driving the book. My mother's death in 2003 sideswiped me; it knocked me over, but at the same time it made me understand the feelings that give life to Lucky. I hope young readers will come away from the book with a feeling of hope, a sense that we human beings can redeem ourselves, an understanding that love is the answer.

Interested? Want to hear the rest? Want a link to information about the author's book tour? Read more...

Trying to kill 15 minutes?

2009-02-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

In the Weird can help!

Here are a few off the beaten track recommendations.

First, Validation: A Fable about the Magic of Free Parking. This sixteen-minute short film has won several awards. It is brilliant and delightful and features the ever-adorable T.J. Thynes.

Second, from TripAdvisor's list of the 10 dirtiest hotels in America: dozens of hysterically scathing reviews of a cosmically awful hotel.

Third, The Hero Factory. Make an avatar of yourself as a superhero. Hey, we never said we could help you be productive!

Giant Anime Machine Flees Film Set and Eats a Dozer!

2009-02-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is not some crazy escaped monster from an anime movie or the next Transformers, but rather an actual, functioning, dirt, stone, coal, and occasional bulldozer chewing monster of a machine created by the Krupp company of Germany. This absolutely absurd giant wheel excavator/trencher is known as the Bagger 288, which weighs in at 45,500 tons!!!

DarkRoastedBlend.com has put together a great page of images of this beast and others, including how a full size bulldozer can be like a little food stuck in it's teeth!

Things we like

2009-02-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

Well, we're back once more, after a fortuitous stay in our nation's capital, where we couldn't help but notice how retailers such as Chevron, Pepsi, and Ikea are capitalizing on the change in the air with huge Metro ad campaigns that reflect back to presidential campaign issues. Chevron wants people to consume less energy. Ikea wants to encourage change in the form of home decoration.

And Pepsi, in case you haven't caught this, has revamped their logo to sort of look a little bit more like Obama's red, white, and blue rising sun icon. (Hint: flip the Pepsi logo upside down.)

Things could always be worse.

Also, Bristol Palin explains that expecting abstinence from teens is unrealistic. You don't say. Next you'll be telling us that prophylactics can prevent unwanted conception!

But we don't want to sound smug. What we really like is web comics, and specifically, the Happiest Vagina T shirt by Danielle Corsetto, author of Girls with Slingshots, available in pink or gray for only $15.

That's a happy vagina!

Sour Grapes

2009-02-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

What's been cracking me up lately is a spate of primarily print media outlets, which are basically no longer terribly relevant but still eking out an existence, attempting to demonstrate some kind of technological savvy by criticizing popular Internet websites and conventions. When Time Magazine, which, to me, represents a kind of movie-theater-popcorn-grade nutrition in the banquet of news analysis, posts a list of the top 5 overrated blogs, it really feels like grasping at straws. Sorry, Time Magazine, but the reality is that icanhascheezburger.com is entertaining and appealing across a wide swath of culture. Your magazine is not.

And don't even get me started on the multiple articles across news sources on the theme of "Facebook 25 Random Things Lists are stupid." Basically what you're saying is that hundreds of thousands of people are participating in an activity that you don't care for. I spent all the 90s feeling the same way about Seinfeld but that didn't stop people from enjoying an essentially brainless television program. But guess what? I didn't try to look cool by writing editorials about how stupid it was, I just didn't watch it. I didn't pretend that my feelings about that show (and many other popular shows) were news.

This is truly a last ditch effort to try to convince readers that old sources are hip, happening, and have their finger on the pulse of modern culture. Step 1: Identify Internet Trend. Step 2: Dis Internet Trend. Step 3: Profit. Except that I just don't see how you're going to pull step 3 out of your ass.

Ostrich bite...

2009-01-27T23:59:00.000-08:00

Yes, they do.

Why does Rush Limbaugh hate America?

2009-01-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Obsolete, hypocritical bigot panders to minuscule, racist fan base

Some loud mouth rabble-rousing drug addicts will say just about anything to persuade themselves that they're relevant to the national discourse. Funny how critics of Bush's obvious and compound mistakes were, in Limbaugh's mind, evil, anti-American folks, but it's patriotic, by his reckoning, to wish for the current administration's failure before they've had a chance to do anything? Yes, that's what he said. Rush Limbaugh "wants" Obama "to fail."

Can we break that down? Rush Limbaugh want unemployment and bankruptcies to rise while American businesses shut their doors forever? Rush Limbaugh wants millions of Americans to lose their homes to foreclosure? Rush Limbaugh wants veterans and civilians alike suffering for lack of adequate health care? Rush Limbaugh wants the continued suspension of Constitutional rights and American freedoms? Rush Limbaugh wants America to pour billions of dollars and the lives of young Americans into the bottomless sinkhole of an unwinnable war? Rush Limbaugh wants to garner the animosity of every other nation in the world?

Does Rush Limbaugh get a paycheck from the KKK? Who are these people who continue to encourage this hatemonger to speak publicly?

And, of course, the subtext: Rush Limbaugh wants to return to the witch hunt mentality of the 1950s HUAC red scare, and will point to the bugaboo shadow of "socialism" in a vain attempt to foment fear of change while stamping out the possibility of hope.

Or does Rush Limbaugh want the title of "Most Ignorant Person in America"? He's got my vote. I hope he succeeds. Here's a note, Rush Limbaugh: the majority of thinking Americans do not fear the word "socialism" because we know that's your shorthand for "more equal distribution of resources." It's only a frightening concept for greedy xenophobes. If Bill Gates and Warren Buffet aren't afraid of it, what's your problem?

We're going to file this one under "comedy" and move on.