Sunday, November 27, 2011

Submerged Church in Italy

This 14th century church in Graun, Italy was submerged by a dam in 1950. More than 160 residents were forced to leave their home to make way for the reservoir. The only evidence that a town existed there is the church tower that sticks out of the water. What once was the villages of Graun and Reschen, now is Reschensee, or Lake Reschen. Very erie.

One wonders if there are people still alive that remember living right there and going to church there, as a child. Do people ever use this as a dive spot?



Photos from Wikipedia.org
Top Picture: Photographer: Markus Bernet
Ice picture: Frederik Schulz

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Woman Jumping Out of a Cake

I was recently discussing idle topics with teenagers. The topic of women jumping out of a cake came up. Surely they didn't know what that was referring to?

They all were familiar with the scenario:
At a decadent party, they wheel out a large cake. The a beautiful woman pops out of it. Everyone is shocked and delighted.
Everyone seems to know of this scenario. As I remember, it was a common gimmick on TV shows when I was a kid. Among all the things in the world we should be interested in or pay attention to, women jumping out of cakes has risen near the top. So much so, that Duffy Lyon, who does sculptures out of butter for the Iowa State Fair, did a sculpture of herself. See the picture above-left. I assume that almost everyone who saw it knew the woman jumping out of a cake scenario, didn't think twice about it.

How did all this woman jumping out of a cake business get started?
Stanford White was a big time architect in New York. He designed a lot of things, like Madison Square Garden. You can read up on him at Wikipedia. The cake story is not exactly clear, and it is strange the Wikipedia article does not cover the "cake" incident. In 1895 a picture taken at a party of his was printed in a New York newspaper. The picture was of a woman jumping out of a cake. After that, cake jumping became all the rage. All it took was one picture, and the rest is history. 11 years later Stanford was murdered by a jealous lover of one of his flings, the trial was a news sensation.

I wonder if he was plagued by the woman jumping out of a cake picture and the legacy it inspired. Was he questioned about it all the time? Was he sick of hearing about it? I can imagine friends nicknaming him "Cake". Sort of like Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson, my favorite Monty Python sketch:

Arthur "Cake" White?

Can anyone provide any more information about the famous origin? Is this just an urban legend? Why can't I find the famous picture that was the spark of it all? A mystery! Please comment....

Friday, November 11, 2011

Eating Dirt

Geophagy is the act of eating earth - clay or chalk like substances. This is different than the disorder Pica. Geophagy is not considered a disorder, just something people do.

There seems to be 2 reasons people eat clay or dirt, if they do not have a mental disorder like Pica. One reason is that clay in your system can leach out dangerous toxins in food. The other is that some people just crave it!

You can actually buy dirt for eating, see http://whitedirt.samsbiz.com/. Yum!


Eating clay is prevalent in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Southern United States. According to a 1986 article in the New York Times:

To this day, many rural Southern blacks dig clays with the desired sour taste from local pits, often from subsoil in roadbanks, Dr. Vermeer said. ''In Alabama, damage to roadbanks in some places has been so extensive that the highway department has posted signs requesting local residents not to dig into them,'' he noted.

The clay is baked and often mixed with vinegar and salt. In northern cities, some women who crave clay have their favorite types sent by Southern relatives, while others consume Argo starch, which has similar properties, as a substitute.

Some poor whites in the South also eat clay despite strong social pressures not to. Although American physicians tend instinctively to condemn the practice, ''no current evidence indicates that normal consumption of clays in the American South is either beneficial or harmful,'' Dr. Vermeer said. Eating of excessive quantities can cause intestinal blockage.

OK, that is weird, but it is considered within the range of normal human behavior, unlike harvesting and ingesting bear bile and monkey brains!

Potatoes originated from South America. The original varieties contained poisonous toxins and could only be tolerated by the consumer eating the vegetable with clay that leached out the toxins. Even today these types of potatoes can be found in South American markets, and you can buy jars of clay that you are to coat your tongue with before eating the potatoes. Potato affectionados claim the poisonous ones are the best tasting ones.

Pregnant women are known for craving strange food. Coincidentally pregnant women are the largest consumers of clay.


Now that you know geophagy exists, and that it is not harmful, wanna try some?







http://www.magneticclay.com/eating-clay.php

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Family Radio Goofy People

After all the hullabaloo about the apocalypse, Harold Camping, people giving away all their money to prop up a false prophet - I saw a car today with a Family Radio bumper sticker. Family Radio, if you remember, was/is Harold Camping's radio network.

Don't you think this person would be too embarrassed to have this on their car?

See my last blog about Harold Camping.

OK, now I must let this topic drop - I'll let my "Harold Camping is a goof ball" obsession not obsess me anymore. No more Harold Camping blogs (unless he does something really goofy again, of course!).

I cannot seem to find a Harold Camping Bobblehead for sale anywhere on the internet. You would think the people driving the Family Radio cars and vans around would have a good source for these. Does anyone know where I can get one?

Monday, November 7, 2011

Fried Kool-Aid


I'm a little late with this one. Fried Kool-Aid was all the rage this summer. Despite it's popularity on the internet, our local fair did not have this for sale. I expected it to be everywhere, just like deep-fried Twinkies were a couple of years ago.

The name "Fried Kool-Aid" conjures up the thought of there being a pot of boiling oil and you throw in a package of Kool-Aid. Then something magical happens and it turns into the tasty treat of my dreams. Something I've never tasted before.

Not quite...

Most of the recipes we found on the web are basically the same. Here is one from friedkoolaidrecipe.com:

Kool-Aid Cookies:
1/2 c. butter
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. unsweetened any flavor Kool-Aid (grape, use 1 1/2 tsp.)
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk
1 beaten egg
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 c. flour
Cream butter, egg, and sugar; mix well. Then mix all ingredients and mix to first mixture. Place heaping teaspoon on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.

ICING:
1 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. soft butter
2 tbsp. milk
1/4 tsp. Kool-Aid powder
Mix powdered sugar with Kool-Aid powder with soft butter. Add milk and mix thoroughly, then spread on cool cookies.

We used cherry Kool-Aid. The picture of our experiment is posted above.

The result? .... They were OK. The recipe basically makes a doughnut that is ball shaped. The little bit of Kool-Aid in the product acts just as a light flavoring - nothing more.

So, Fried Kool-Aid is a bit of an over hype. Not really worth all the calories you ingest. But I support the GoofyFood community for trying.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

October 21, 2011 The Apocalypse

UPDATE - Oct 22, 2011 - Sorry Harold - we are all still here. Better luck next time!

UPDATE - Oct 21, 2011 - It is morning, I am still awake, the good people I know are still here...

UPDATE - Nov 7, 2011 - I heard a report on the radio - Harold Camping admitted he made a mistake, and that he is now out of the predicting business.

Remember all the Hubbub on May 21, 2011, which was "Judgement Day"? Harold Camping from FamilyRadio.com predicted that the Judgement Day, or Rapture was a "spiritual rapture", whatever that is. I never did really understand the explanation.

October 21, 2011 is now supposed to the the actual end of the world. As of this writing, that is tomorrow.

But if you were not one of the chosen on May 21, 2011 - there is nothing you can do. At this point you are either chosen or doomed. The decision has been made on May 21. This is the reason the doom-sayers are no longer driving around and handing out pamphlets. No reason to, any conversions now are worthless (according to them).

Harold Camping has changed his story a bit, though. He now says that the end of the world will "probably" be October 21, 2011. Probably! Is he finally having doubt? Isn't this akin to Moses striking the rock twice?!? Whoops!

It will be interesting what FamilyRadio.com's response will be on October 22. I predict the response will be something like "Sorry for the mistake, but we've already spent the millions sent to us! We'll try to remember to wave from our new yacht!"

See the past ETR articles about this subject:

October 21 Apocalypse
Harold Camping and the Spiritual Rapture

You can still get a Jesus Action Figure. Pretty cool, but it won't do you any good if you did not pass judgement on May 21!


Monday, October 10, 2011

3 Things China Should Stop Doing ASAP

Not to pick on the Chinese - but ..... I'm going to pick on the Chinese. I know our Western society does a lot of sick things, but I keep hearing about these 3 very disturbing really unnecessary things. Why do they have to do such silly and evil things!

These things are so disgusting that I can not go into detail here. But you can look up the gory details yourself on the web and get involved in some movements against these practices.

Eating Monkey Brains

This is disgusting! While researching this topic on the web I found that most pictures and details of eating monkey brains are too disturbing for this blog. I can't go into the details - look it up yourself if you dare. It is still being done today! Amazing.

Bear Bile

Bear bile? Come on - disgusting! Wikipedia says bear bile is
a digestive juice produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder
.
How to they obtain bear bile? That is the bad part. They have cruel farms with bears in small cages. They suck bile from their gall bladder ... I can't go into the details, they are too sick, the stuff of nightmares.

Note: Bear bile is not used to cure impotence.

Shark Fins

Shark fins - yum yum!

This is totally ridiculous. Shark fins are used for shark fin soup. This soup is considered a delicacy and can cost $80/bowl. What is bad about this is how the shark fins are obtained. The process is known as shark finning. Fishermen catch a shark, cut off it's fin, and throw it back into the water to die without the fin.

Millions of sharks die this ghastly death and it is decimating the shark population.

I hear the arguments for these practices to continue:
  • Cures impotence
  • It is traditional
My rebuttal this: 1 - The Chinese government had to institute the One Child Policy because they were making too many babies. I don't think they need to do these weird things for impotence. Anyway, if they do, aren't there pills for this? And, aren't there factories in China making cheap knock-offs of these pills that would be better than bear bile? 2 - As adults you need to sometimes cast off some of your society's traditions that don't make sense. Grow up!


Image sources:
http://www.squidoo.com/MONKEY-BRAIN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bear_bile_01.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shark_fins.jpg

Thursday, September 15, 2011

David Walliams Swims 140 Miles of the Thames

British comedian David Walliams swam to Houses of Parliament from the source of the Thames river. 140 miles. He completed the swim for charity and raised more than £1 million.

As if swimming 140 miles was not enough, his main challenge was living though "Thames Tummy", which is the diarrhoea and vomiting caused from the famously unclean waters of the Thames river. A lot of the Thames pollution is from sewage. Yuck!

David is famous in England for his BBC comedy show "Little Britain" in which he plays a myriad of characters. He looks great in his swimming outfits, he is in great shape, obviously. But most people know him as his alter egos on "Little Britain". For instance, he plays the extremely conservative church lady who gets sick when confronted with today's "liberal" social norms. She doesn't just get sick - she uncontrollably projectile vomits on the naive "liberal" victims.


I am sure that was thinking about the church lady while he was vomiting while swimming in the Thames. I wonder if this will change his future portrayal of the character?

"Little Britain" is available for instant play on netflix. Go to http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Little_Britain/70140407?trkid=2361637. Caution! Some of it is raunchy! The Brits like it that way.

You may wonder "Where is the source of the Thames?" It is called Thames Head, about one mile north of Kemble, near Circencester in Gloucestershire.


Houses of Parliament, where he swam to:

Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Debt Movie Review


Rating: A
Note: This movie is rated R. Not for kids!


Saw the movie. Liked it.

This espionage thriller takes place in 1966 and 1997. There are lots of East Berlin reenactments which were pretty well done, gave the the feel that they actually filmed it in 1966 East Berlin. Good plot. I recommend it. It is one of those movies that transports you to another time and after the movie the first several seconds out of the theater into the real world are confusing.

Actress Helen Mirren does a really good job in this movie. She is very intense and has a really bad scar that makes you wince every time you see it on her face. Strange how they do not show her face scar on the movie poster.

Jessica Chastain (never heard of her before) plays Helen's character as a young woman. She is really gorgeous! At least until she got hit in the face with a broken piece of china, the source of the scar. Wince.


I kept thinking about the cut-turned-bad-scar on her face. She should have tried this:










Face In Cutout Hole


You know those large billboards where you put your face through the hole into a scene and it is supposed to look funny or cute, but it never really works?

Well, someone sent me a picture that actually seems to be worth the effort. The picture to the left looks funny and cute. Is she really reading that book? It looks like she is! But I am not really convinced the beaver is reading his book.

If you have any "successful" billboard-scene-face-cutout pictures - send them to me and I'll post them.


Update: Someone sent me a cute cut-out picture! Finally harnessing the true power of the web. See below.


And another one! (Same model as in the first picture)









Wednesday, August 31, 2011

1980's Dating Video Disasters


In the early 1980's video dating was all the rage. Remember there was no internet then. This video dating company went out of business, someone found the tapes, and made this collage.

Whatever happened to these guys? Ellen Degeneres tracked down 3 of them:


Big Phil is still a pretty good looking guy! Maurice really let himself go.

The women they dated could have used a date rating standard if they would have had their own Rate-A-Date pads:


Or, if it is immediately apparent the date is bad, but you can tolerate the guy, get this notepad:



Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bad Accident


What happened? What is that a picture of? How did his wife explain this to the police?

On July 30, 2011, Leroy Luetscher of Tuscon Arizona, dropped his pruning shears while gardening. The shears stuck into the ground blade first, the handle sticking up. He bent down to pick them up and slipped.

It may be a good time to have all young children leave the room - before you read the next few sentences...

Yes, he slipped, lost his balance. His head came down full force on the handle and the pruning shears handle went through his eyeball socket all the way to his neck. See the picture, the handle is inside his skull!

The doctors were able to reconstruct the eye socket and save the eye. He now has some minor eye lid swelling and a bit of double vision in he eye.

It is a miracle! Here is a joke he could tell all the neighborhood kids:

Q: What's worse that a pruning shears blade rammed into your eye socket?
A: A pruning shears handle rammed into your eye socket!



I hope he goes out and gets a tattoo to commemorate his miracle. Maybe he should try some of these:


Or maybe just an Oprah Winfrey tattoo will suffice. See Oprah Winfrey Tattoos




SpaceX Dragon To The Rescue?

Did you know this was going on? Maybe not. For some reason it does not make the front page of too many newspapers.

The International Space Station (aka ISS) - floating several hundred miles above the earth - had a setback several weeks ago. Now that the last Space Shuttle has been retired, it is up to the Russians to bring supplies to the ISS. The Russians are using their outdated unmanned Soyuz rockets to deliver much needed supplies. The last shipment was unsuccessful, it exploded after take off. The Russians are saying they will not send up another one till they fix the problem that blew up this one. So the crew of the ISS are left without supplies, which will run out in November.

Now for the really cool part - The Dragon. The Dragon and Falcon9 are products of SpaceX - see http://www.spacex.com/ for more details. SpaceX is attempting to be the first privately funded manned spacecraft, and it plans on docking with the ISS some time in December.


The Falcon 9 is the rocket that will boost the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.


Here is a great picture of the Dragon capsule:


Here are the details:




Now the bad news - The Dragon will not be ready in time to save the ISS mission. The dragon will not be ready for docking till December. The ISS crew will need to leave the ISS by November 19th if the Russians can't get their act together and deliver supplies.

But if the Russians can deliver supplies, there will be people on board the ISS able to help with the docking. So we may see the first commercial manned unmanned flight to the ISS in time for Christmas 2011. Keep your fingers crossed!

Reader "David" posted some interesting extra details in the comments. I will re-post his comment here. Thanks David!

Just a couple of corrections and some interesting details. First, last year became the first private company to launch a vehicle into orbit and renter that vehicle to a safe and successful- touchdown on Earth. Until now only the Russians The U.S. and the Chinese governments have been the only entities to do so. The Soyuz rocket did not explode during launch. It's upper stage failed to ignite and therefore could not reach orbit. The cause has been determined to be a faulty gas generator. The gas generator supplies the turbo pumps with their initial rotation until the flow of fuel or exhaust takes over the job. Also there are three other spacecraft being developed by private companies under contract with NASA in what is called the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Program (COTS); Boeing has a capsule, Sierra Nevada is developing a small space-plane called Dream Chaser (way cool!) and Orbital Sciences is developing a non-reusable cargo ship. SpaceX has also entered Dragon and their rocket,the Falcon 9, into the Commercial Crew Development program (CC-Dev)which is for future manned missions.

Another couple of cool points about Dragon and the Falcon 9 are that Dragon will eventually land using it's rocket thrusters built into the side of the ship which will also be used for the emergency escape system and its main thrusters when in space and secondly, their other plan is to reuse the first stage. This will require the first stage to do a 180 degree flip after its upper stage has been separated, restart it's engines to slow down, flip again to reorient for reentry and then land in the ocean on a parachute system. Both of those things are super cool!

SpaceX is designing another rocket called the Falcon 9 Heavy which will be basically the same as Falcon 9 but with two more identical booster rockets strapped to either side of the main core stage. This will be the most powerful rocket in existence and second only to the Apollo era Saturn V. Furthermore SpaceX will have launch facilities in Cape Canaveral in Florida, Vandenburg Air Force Base in California which is currently under construction, and another facility, possibly in Texas. This is because SpaceX already has a huge number of manifested launches already on the books for satellite companies and others. They believe that they will be producing one rocket per week when they ramp everything up to full production Now for the absolute best part of all of this. They are doing everything for about 10% of what NASA would cost to do the same. They plane to achieve the Holy Grail of the space industry, launches for $1000 or less per pound. Historically the cost has been about $20,000 per pound per launch.

Photos courtesy of SpaceX/NASA

Sunday, August 21, 2011

October 21 Apocalypse

Reminder: The actual end of the world, aka the Apocalypse, is coming up soon.

We all remember the Judgement day fiasco on May 21 of this year. But the media has seemed to have forgotten that the actual end of the world is coming October 21, 2011. At least - according to Harold Camping.

We haven't heard much from Harold lately. What has he been up to? He has been laying pretty low, out of the public's eye.

In June he suffered a stroke. He has been in the hospital and in recuperation since then. See the ETR May 17, 2001 post where I sort-of-predict he was to handle the fiasco by having a heart attack. I was not far off.

Here is the announcement they make about Harold's condition:


His radio station empire has pulled the plug on his radio show - at least for now. I assume harold will not come back - too embarrassing for the company. But they have not totally distanced themselves from harold. On the front page of the familyradio.com website there is a link "What Happened on May 21?". On this page they try to explain the fiasco. On may 21 the Rapture did occur, but it was a "Spiritual Rapture", which I do not completely understand.

The last sentence of their explanation is a blatant attempt to keep the fiasco alive and bring in more money:

Anyone can continue to beseech God for mercy because salvation and the election program are entirely in God’s hands.

According to their philosophy this is not true. We should have been all "judged" on May 21, that is final. How can we still be saved? Crazy.

If you really do think you still have a chance - you'd better show your faith to the world by getting one of these:









Friday, August 19, 2011

Gérard Depardieu Peed on Plane

This guy got in trouble for peeing while inside a commercial plane. He didn't pee in the toilet.

Gérard Depardieu is actually a very famous French actor, he has starred in hundreds of films. Most of his films are in French, so the movie going masses in the U.S. are likely not to be familiar with him. But in most of the world he is a big deal!

Here is the story - He swears he was not intoxicated at the time. He was on a flight that was delayed on the tarmac. He asked to use the toilet - but was refused. So he did what he had to do. He peed on the carpet.

Afterwards he was very embarrassed and offered to clean up the mess. He claimed he has a prostate problem that ignited all this.

Look at the picture. He has really let himself go to pot. He needs to shape up and lose a few hundred pounds before peeing on another flight.

He is lucky. He can go home to sulk - and use his French Toast Stamp - almost all French citizens have one of these:







Sundays and Laxatives

Amazing information is at your fingertips when you goof on on the internet!

Google Analytics is a free tool that lets you see search trends. What are people searching for in their browser?

My research has uncovered an interesting trend. Every Sunday - EVERY SUNDAY - the searches for "laxatives" increases significantly.

What could be the reason for this? I have thought of several possibilities:

  • Laxative commercials on TV are finally sinking in to peoples consciousness after a weekend of TV watching
  • Bad weekend diets, not enough fiber for 2 days?
  • Medical school students researching
  • NASCAR?

The last possibility about NASCAR may have some merit. Here - I've plotted the search trends for NASCAR:


Is there a correlation between laxative searches and NASCAR searches? It sure seems so! I am going to leave it to the read to ponder why - I don't know!

Since this blog entry may turn up when people search for "laxatives", I'll list a good product here. You can click on this and actually order it...



I wonder what type of person searches for laxative on a Sunday? You would think that the majority of people know what a laxative is, where to get it, how it works. Why search on Google?

You can perform your own searches for interesting trends. Here is the actually working trend tool. Select the "edit" link and enter your own terms. GIVE IT A TRY...


Please comment below if you uncover anything interesting!

NOTE: See my laxative-related story at http://elephanttoenailreport.blogspot.com/2011/08/puppies-as-laxative.html





Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Ninkles

OMG!

Women have a new thing to worry about. Wrinkled Knees - aka "Ninkles". Maybe not so new, but the world has just begun to care.

As a woman age there are many factors that can lead to knee wrinkles. According to anti-ageing and hormone specialist Dr Cecilia Tregear, from London's Wimpole Skin Clinic, ninkles occur as a result of the loss of elasticity and collagen in the skin, which is caused by a combination of factors.

'Poor nutrition, sun damage, unbalanced or declining hormones — due to stress and approaching menopause — as well as a diet high in sugar, all conspire to create wrinkly knees.'

It is said that Nicole Kidman had Ninkles, but I don't believe that, she is to perfect for an affliction like this.

The picture to the left is a recent one of Elle Macpherson. See the close-up of her knee. Elle! You have Ninkles!

For normal women, I don't really see this as a problem. This is natural, and I bet most men really do not care.

But I take exception to the rich model-ish women who have made obscene amounts of money from us just by showing their bodies and nothing more. They owe it to use to get those Ninkles fixed or cover them up!


Elle - OMG!

Maybe she should try this:




Nicole - No Ninkles!






Bieber Gomez Breakup?

NOTE: This information is current as of August 17, 2011. Things can change!

There has been a lot of buzz on the internet about Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber breaking up. I'm telling you now - it aint't so! They are still in love, just as much as ever!

Just look at the picture - she is so gorgeous - he is so cute! The were made for each other!

This current breakup rumor is just one of the many silly rumors floating on the web. The silliest of them all is that Selena dumped Justin for Chris - Don't Call Me Charlie - Brown. See Here..., yuck! That is a stupid rumor.

Someday, they will have to break up. We all actually want it to happen someday, just not now. Imagine how sad it would be if they get married and Justin never gets to experience the real thrill of millions of women adoring him.

THAT WOULD BE SAD!


To help Justin prepare for the future - order this T-Shirt:


But - Pirate Ducks are not SAD!

Glow in the Dark Duck