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?

You can walk out to it in the winter!

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

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

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....

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...

Magical Jewish Teas - They'll do the trick!

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

Addiction: Wet, Slimy hair

This is one of the strangest things.

This man has an obsession with pulling wet hair from people's drains. He really only likes shower drains. Long brown hair is his favorite. Above all, it has to be slimy and wet! He performs this ritual about 100 times a year. This involves scouting for drains that have not been picked at before.

This is the way it goes:

• Stress builds up...God knows, life is stressful...
• He finds someone with a drain that he has not mined before.
• He gets a coat hanger or something similar and works to pull out hair from their shower drain.
• He fondles the hair. His stress disappears!
• Several seconds later he is disgusted by the hair and throws it away

We must wonder - After having his addiction broadcast on TV and the internet, will he ever be able to get a date? Probably so, there are people out there, like this woman, for example:


Her favorite is eating TV remote controls!

Puppies as a Laxative

Warning: This is strange and disturbing! This is also true! I am not making this up!

Hippocrates, as you may know, is often described as the founder of modern medicine. You may not know that Hippocrates had it in for puppies.

In the book Hippocrates, you may wish to follow along HERE for a good translation. He describes various animal meats and how they affect the body.

He states:

The flesh of puppies moistens and passes by stool, still more by urine.

Translation: Eating puppies will help you poop and pee better. A great laxative. I guess if you get desperate you'll try anything.

Later in his book be explains that puppy meat should be boiled. Who knew?!

Hedgehogs are also good as a laxative, but he does not mention how to prepare them. I am assuming boiling would be best.

Hippocrates: Eat a boiled puppy, you'll feel better!

Why don't they teach us the good and interesting stuff in school? We have to learn about such things on the streets...

Restroom Graffiti

Don't ask why I was there and why I was taking pictures in the men's restroom!

I was in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in the old train station. I had to use the restroom, as if often the case. I sat down, looked up, and saw this wonderful graffiti on the wall!

What is it? I'll probably never figure it out.

The Anti PowerPoint Party

Politics at its best!

Note to reader: Don't fall asleep! This is an article about Power Point presentations - but hold on - this is interesting (at least I think so!).

Update: 3 hours later I received a reply to my inquiry. See the end of this post.

Switzerland has a new political party trying to gain momentum. It is called the APPP - the Anti Power Point Party. They intend to become the 4th largest political party in Switzerland. See their website at http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/.

The main point of this movement is that whenever a presentation has to be made, people will most likely use Microsoft's PowerPoint software, or something like it. The result is that there are A LOT of really boring presentations being given out there. The presenter relies too much on the software and not the content and presentation technique. The result is that A LOT of people waste A LOT of time attending really boring presentations. If you have ever been to a boring presentation with a lot of PowerPoint slides being presented, you are familiar with the sickening feeling of your eyelids forcing themselves closed and your desperate attempts to keep your eyeballs regressing into your head showing only the white parts. It is terrible!

But PowerPoint presentations are not only boring. They are BIG money wasters. The PowerPoint software is very expensive. And time spent boring people is productivity lost for all those people. The APPP estimates that in Switzerland US$2.5 Billion dollars is wasted every year. Worse yet, they estimate that Europe wastes US$160 Billion a year on bad and useless presentations.

If I lived in Switzerland, I'd think about joining this party. Here is a video on their site where the founder Matthias Poehm explains the APPP's concept:

>

One question remains that I did not see on their website (I may have just not seen it). If you HAVE to make a presentation, what are your alternatives? Mime? I'll send Matthias and email and ask him. I'll post the answer here if I receive a reply.

Update: Just after I emailed Matthias Poehm, I found it on their website. See this page: http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/the-cause/the-solution/. The answer: Flips Charts! See his explanation.

Update: I just received a reply to my inquiry (3 hours later). This guy is on top of things!

Dear Gello
I just saw that you already discovered the site with “the solution”.
But here is the answer to your question anyway:
The best proven alternative to PPt ist the „Flip-chart“. You’ll get a multiple effect compared to a presentation with powerpoint.
It’s because of two reasons:
First: People convince and not technical aids. This always have been and always will be.
Second: It’s not the result that creates the effect – but it is the CREATION OF THE result. Therein lies the effect and not in the result itself. That’s why PowerPoint as a principle can’t work.

Please watch this two-minutes video to see a demonstration of it: http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/the-cause/the-solution/
You can also introduce this video to your blog. (it’s also on youtube)
In this site you will also find a lot of tipps how to use the flipchart professionally.

Regards
Matthias

P.S. Please become a proponent of our movement. You stay anonymous, you have no fees to pay, no obligations. It’s only by having a lot of members that the medias will report widely, and thus people in everywhere start talking about it, and thus things are going to change. So one minute for a big change: http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/participate/become-a-member

Thank you
Matthias

Oprah Winfrey Tattoos

40% of Americans have a tattoo. Personally, I've never been tempted to get a tattoo, I think they are unattractive.

But that was until I discovered Oprah Winfrey tattoos! Supposedly it is all the rage. They look awesome. Should I get one?

The video is of a man getting and Oprah Winfrey tattoo. It looks like it hurts, but the end result is that it actually looks like Oprah. And it will last a lifetime.

I've discovered some other photos of Oprah tattoos. These are from http://www.bestweekever.tv/2011-06-24/the-5-most-inspirational-oprah-winfrey-tatts/. See their page for more examples, or just Google for them.

Pot Holders vs. Oven Mitt

Over the constant din of human chatter I occasionally hear something that makes my right ear perk up and point. It happened again the other day.

"A lot of people don't really know what a pot holder is.", I heard a young woman (teenager!) say recently.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

She went on to tell me that there is a confusion about what exactly a pot holder is. If she tells her friends she made a pot holder, they ask her what that is.

I had to admit, I was drawing a blank! It was very embarrassing. I am starting to have senior moments. It had been soooo long since I've last even thought of a pot holder and it's place in society. I guess over the years in my mind I was just referring to them as those square thingies in the drawer.

So here I am to set everyone straight.

The square thingy in the picture is a pot holder. It is used for the same purposes as an oven mitt, but is used in situations where less manual dexterity is needed in hot oven situations.

Photo credit: The images above are from http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=983146&navAction=jump&navCount=

Note: I am not associated with the sellers of these products. I just used their picture.

Man Babies

Have you seen ManBabies.com? Some of the pictures on this site are really cool and creepy.

WARNING: This is a tremendous time waster! You can't look at just one. You will find yourself not only looking at the pictures, but studying them.

People photoshop pictures of a man holding a baby. They switch the heads of the man and the baby. Then they submit it to the site. Viewers can vote for their favorite.

One of my favorites:

Like I said: Cool and Creepy!

Levitating Photographer

Natsumi Hayashi is a photographer in Tokyo who's specialty is photographing herself "levitating". Visit her website to see her blog and her pictures. This woman is truly gifted. I wish I was as creative as her! She calls herself "yowayowa camera woman". よわよわカメラウーマンです. Awesome.

My favorite ones are where she appears to be flying.

There is no more else to say! Look at her pictures and visit her site: http://yowayowacamera.com/

New Spelling Bee Champion

This story makes me feel really inept, especially after the article about not being sure how to spell wiener. I know how to spell it now.

Sukanya Roy, a 14 year old 8th grader, won the 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her winning word was cymotrichous. I've never heard of the word, and neither has my spell checker!

Congratulations Sukanya!

Chess Boxing

Yes, you read the title correctly. Chess boxing is a real sport that combines boxing with chess. The bout starts with 4 minutes of chess, followed by 2 minutes of boxing, over and over. The winner is the first one to check-mate, or knock the opponent out.

There is a World Chess Boxing Organization. They are looking for new participants, male/female, from all weight divisions.


What's next? Diving Poker? Race Car Tennis? The imagination is the limit!

This is Sad and Wrong

Look at this picture, if you can. It is prominently posted on a child beauty pageant site. I was surprised to learn these are still legal. Why didn't the JonBenet Ramsey fiasco shame these people into submission? What will it take?

Inventor's Picnic

No, not Teddy Bear's Picnic, this is Inventor's Picnic.

Let me back up....

Several years ago I was helping a friend clean out some old junk. An old family photo album that my friend did not care about was going to be thrown away! So I took it home. This awesome picture is from this album.

I know who the accordion player, he is Albert Tessier, a sort-of well known musician in the Los Angeles area.

But who is the suave looking guy just standing there in the middle?

I think this may be Steve Reeves, the famous body builder. What do you think? Here is a picture of him in his younger days:

Could it be that this really is Steve Reeves and he was making a publicity appearance at the event? He doesn't look like an inventor. But to be honest, I've never seen an inventor with his shirt off. Take a look at this other picture HERE. That really looks like the middle guy in the picture.

The reason I am making the connection is that I recently saw the Hercules movie starring Steve Reeves. It is one of those bad Greek story movies from the 1950's.

Does anyone have any insight into who this person is? Is it Steve Reeves? Please leave comments! Help me figure this out.

And another thing. What is the Inventor's Picnic??? It seems that nothing can escape being mentioned on the internet - except the Inventor's Picnic. I could find no information about this picnic. What is the name of the society? It is obscured by the men standing in front of the sign. Any clues?





The cheesecake photo is from http://www.musclebuildblog.com