You may have heard of Rule 34, as defined in xkcd: if you can think of it, there’s probably already porn of it on the internet somewhere.
I saw this on Facebook today, posted by Thomas:
I am therefore proposing Rule 01: if you can think of something tacky, it is probably already available for sale online as a redneck accessory. Continue reading
It seems like we have enough issues to worry about in America, that we don’t need to contrive concerns that the supposed adoption of medical codes originally created by the World Health Organization is somehow a threat to American sovereignty. (WARNING: Don’t click that link if you don’t want a huge heaping helping of paranoia and dumb.)
– The balance on his mortgage vastly exceeded the number of fucks he gave: A Bulgarian man was about to lose his house to foreclosure. Since the bank’s lien only covered the house, not the land, he decided to deliver the house to them—in pieces.
– Also giving no fucks (so to speak): In England, a man was arrested for driving while naked and while, uh, otherwise occupied. His lawyer gets props for his willingness to seriously push that fine line between “explanation” and “excuse”:
DRIVING ON a busy 100kmh [60 mph for us Yankees -CP] road normally requires two hands on the steering wheel.
But Neal Marshall was caught masturbating, and totally naked, while driving along the M56 motorway, in Chester, England, the Chester Chronicle reported.
Marshall’s solicitor [that’s English for “lawyer” -CP] Adrian Evans told Chester Magistrates Court today (AEDT) that his 49-year-old client got “carried away” when engaged in a “messaging conversation”.
“This does not excuse his actions but it goes a way to explain why he was seen doing it,” said Mr Evans.
“He bitterly regrets his actions. He never intended to be seen by a member of the public.”
– Different from a “food baby”: This week I learned that a “stone baby” is an actual thing (h/t Jason).
– You heard it here: “Remote-controlled cyborg sperm.”
– This week in neologisms: From io9, I learned the word “hankle.”
![By carmichaellibrary (Student Book ArtUploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Student_Book_Art_1472687855-1.jpg "By carmichaellibrary (Student Book ArtUploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Click to embiggen.
Isabelle, our new, unofficial library mascot. On loan from a student artist.
I definitely do enjoy self-referential art.
Photo credit: By carmichaellibrary (Student Book Art. Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
This is from a Reddit post entitled “Casting a Fire Ant Colony with Molten Aluminum,” which is apparently a thing people do.
People go to such great lengths for the sake of art. I screencapped a few comments discussing the ethics of the project.
– As long as they’re not atheist cats: A colony of feral cats in Brooklyn keeps moving into an outdoor nativity scene, presumably drawn by the warmth of the lights. They also reportedly push baby Jesus out of the way, confirming what we knew about cats all along.
– Caveat emptor: Hoping to get his kid a sweet Xmas gift, a man paid $750 for an XBox One….photograph:
[Peter] Clatworthy, 19, of Bilbrough, UK, who intended to give the XBox One to his four-year-old son for Christmas, admits he was conned, because the listing clearly stated it was a photo of an XBox One Day One edition console. However, he decided to buy it since the item was listed in eBay’s video games and consoles category.
“It said ‘photo’ and I was in two minds, but I looked at the description and the fact it was in the right category made me think it was genuine,” he told the Nottingham Post. “I looked at the seller’s feedback and there was nothing negative. I bought it there and then because I thought it was a good deal. It’s obvious now I’ve been conned out of my money.”
Although eBay has promised to take action against the seller because misleading listings are not allowed, it may not help him because the Xbox One is reportedly sold out in the UK, SWNS reported.
Oops.
– Holiday stress? A 38 year-old man in China, reportedly fed up after 5 hours of shopping with his girlfriend, responded to her refusal to stop shopping by jumping off a mall balcony and falling seven stories to his death. The statement of the mall representative seems to place quite a premium on holiday stress:
A spokesman for the shopping center says no one below was injured in December 7 incident, and that the man died instantly upon impact.
“This is a tragic incident, but this time of year can be very stressful for many people,” the spokesman said.
– This barely counts as news anymore: Police arrested an 18 year-old for allegedly stealing part of Paul Walker’s car while the tow truck was at a stop light, after he posted a picture of his bounty on Instagram.
At least this tendency to advertise such escapades on social media might free up police resources to work on matters other than petty theft……like robbery:
Just before robbing a burger joint, two unnamed teenage girls thought it would be oh so cool to pose for a quick selfie — dressed head to toe in their bad-to-the-bone burglary get-up … all while holding a nearly 12-inch knife.
You can probably guess what happened next (Hint: the answer begins with “a” and ends with “rrest.”)
– The Inevitable Headline: Ever since I vowed to never learn anything about the “flesh-eating drug” known as krokodil, I have dreaded the day that those words would appear in the same headline as the word “genitals.” That day has arrived.
– The art world will tremble, no doubt: Presenting the man who wears naked white women as scarves (h/t Sarah):
Photographer Nate Hill is the man behind the Trophy Scarves Instagram account. The premise is that he asks (and gets asked) by white women to wear them like scarves…According to The Root, Hill uses Craigslist to find a lot of his subjects…Hill told Vice that Trophy Scarves is all about making a statement about race and culture and the way society treats women.
– At least he tweeted after the rescue: Mitt Romney’s son Josh reportedly rescued four people from the wreckage of a car that crashed into a house at 70 mph, then tweeted a picture of himself next to the wreckage:
We’re happy that everyone was safe, and that Romney was able to help — but we’re also amazed at the Romney family’s ability to turn even the most heroic of acts into a smug spectacle of douchebaggery.
Presenting the shoebill, Balaeniceps rex, apparently also known as the whalehead. It lives in Africa, and it appears to be mildly amused by you.
It’s also classified as “vulnerable,” which is better than “endangered,” but still not good. Who could harm such a majestic creature? I mean, as opposed to backing away slowly from such a majestic creature while trying to avoid direct eye contact.
Photo credit: Jimo.
Whatever sort of crap you’ve had to deal with recently, I hope it doesn’t compare to the ordeal of Harrison Odjegba Okene (h/t Bob):
Entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in an upended tugboat for three days, Harrison Odjegba Okene begged God for a miracle.
The Nigerian cook survived by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene’s rescue in May — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWGILmKCqE — that was posted on the Internet more than six months later has gone viral this week.
As the temperature dropped to freezing, Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited the last psalm his wife had sent by text message, sometimes called the Prayer for Deliverance: “Oh God, by your name, save me. … The Lord sustains my life.”
To this day, Okene believes his rescue after 72 hours underwater at a depth of 30 meters (about 100 feet) is a sign of divine deliverance. The other 11 seamen aboard the Jascon 4 died.
This miraculous (for lack of a better word) rescue has a shock-horror element to it, as well:
Divers sent to the scene were looking only for bodies, according to Tony Walker, project manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving.
The divers, who were working on a neighboring oil field 120 kilometers (75 miles) away when they were deployed, had already pulled up four bodies.
So when a hand appeared on the TV screen Walker was monitoring in the rescue boat, showing what the diver in the Jascon saw, everybody assumed it was another corpse.
“The diver acknowledged that he had seen the hand and then, when he went to grab the hand, the hand grabbed him!” Walker said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
“It was frightening for everybody,” he said. “For the guy that was trapped because he didn’t know what was happening. It was a shock for the diver while he was down there looking for bodies, and we (in the control room) shot back when the hand grabbed him on the screen.”
On the video, there’s an exclamation of fear and shock from Okene’s rescuer, and then joy as the realization sets in. Okene recalls hearing: “There’s a survivor! He’s alive.” [Emphasis added.]
I took the liberty of capturing the “jump” moment in GIF form for posterity. Feel free to add in suspenseful music. Also, I wish Mr. Okene all the best.
– When a prank goes very, very, very wrong: They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but I feel bad for even thinking of humor in this. It might be better described as irony but it’s been almost 20 years since I dropped English as my major so I could be wrong. Here’s how the story began: a 19 year-old woman was driving with a group of people, all also 19, on the New York Thruway after a day at the beach. A backseat passenger decided it would be funny (or something) to pull the string on the driver’s bikini top. As the driver tried to get her top back on, the car veered off the highway, collided with a guard rail, and flipped. The prankster died in the crash, and several passengers were injured. An appellate court in Brooklyn found last week that the driver was not civilly liable in a lawsuit filed by another passenger, because the removal of her top was “a sudden and unforeseen emergency not of her own making.”
– Time for a new calendaring system: The town of Wallsburg, Utah did not hold an election on November 5. Because they forgot. Again. Via Kevin at Lowering the Bar:
Wallburg’s city recorder, described by the Salt Lake Tribune as “the employee responsible for oversight of elections,” not only failed to oversee this year’s elections, he or she forgot to have any. The recorder failed to announce the filing period or make any other arrangements for municipal elections on November 5, when everybody else in Utah has them. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late. The mayor and councilmembers will have to be appointed (by who, the report didn’t say) and will serve for two years until the next elections roll around in 2015.
Remember when I said “again”? Oh yes:
Everyone should be familiar with that procedure, at least, because it’s what they had to do in 2011 after the last municipal elections. Which Wallsburg also forgot to hold. An acting mayor and councilmembers were appointed at that time, and those were the seats that were supposed to have been filled this time around.
As Kevin notes, they might consider appointing some new people, or else this could start to look fishy. There may also be an opening for a city recorder soon.
– Here’s a very creepy headline, which I will copy here but not discuss further because seriously, WTF: Sydney Leathers will be selling her excess labia to the highest bidder.
