Hipster Sounds Turn Your Office Into A Coffee Shop
Unusual Stuff

Let Google Prioritize Your Inbox

Posted 8/31/2010 12:00 pm by

Leave it to Google to never rest on its laurels.  Their GMail service is the best of the best as far as webmail service goes, having surpassed Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and all the other free webmail servers thanks to its integrated chat, telephone/voice chat/VOIP, and spam filtering services.  Now, GMail is about to organize your email for […]

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Cat Lovers Flock To Cat-Filled Tourist Trap

Posted 8/31/2010 11:30 am by

Many years ago, the town of Houtong, Taiwan, was a prosperous mining community.  It was one of the many industrial towns that thrived thanks to Taiwan’s burgeoning coal industry.  Then, of course, the world changed, manufacturing fell off, and Houtong quickly became deserted as people streamed out, leaving the town to find work.  However, Houtong […]

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Trapped Miners To Get Video Games

Posted 8/31/2010 11:00 am by

How do you pass the time when you’re stuck in a hole miles underground, in cramped conditions, with nothing but bottled water, field rations, and chemical toilets for comfort?  Why, you take a cue from every other shut-in and play video games!  Those unfortunate Chilean miners trapped in the rescue shelter for the next few […]

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Unusual Stuff

Troy Polamalu’s $1 Million Dollar Hairdo

Posted 8/31/2010 10:30 am by

If you follow college sports, quite often you’ll hear of athletes going out and getting an insurance policy against injuries that might harm their NFL career.  A quarterback might get his shoulder insured, or a running back his feet.  Either way, athletes getting insurance policies is nothing new, but what is something new is NFL […]

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XBox Live’s Prices Rise

Posted 8/31/2010 10:00 am by

Since Microsoft debuted the Xbox and rolled out companion online gaming service Xbox Live, the only thing constant has been the yearly subscription fee of $50.  Now, like all things, that bargain too must pass, as Microsoft has announced that they’re going to be raising the rates of the Xbox Live Gold service starting on […]

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Unusual Stuff

Virtual Girlfriends Taken On Real Vacations

Posted 8/31/2010 9:30 am by

Only in Japan.  Last year, a Japanese man married his virtual girlfriend, a character from the popular “Love Plus” franchise, and took her on a honeymoon with him.  Now, other “Love Plus” fans are getting to go on honeymoons with their virtual girlfriends, thanks to an unprecedented tourism campaign by the resort town of Atami, […]

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Stay Wired Marshmallow Man

Posted 8/31/2010 9:00 am by

If you’re looking for a way to stay awake during that all-night Ghostbusters marathon, boy do I have a way for you!  It’s the perfect combination of sweet sweet sugar, tasty marshmallowy goodness, and caffeine:  The Stay Puft Caffeinated Marshmallow!  (Before you have to ask:  yes, it’s from ThinkGeek, the greatest store ever). While the […]

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Unusual Stuff

70 Applicants For Every Job

Posted 8/31/2010 8:30 am by

It’s a bad job market out there, and that shows not in the dearth of applicants, but in the surplus of applicants.  No matter what the job, there’s somebody overly-qualified looking to fill it, and that’s going to get worse before it gets better.  With every graduating college class, the job market gets tougher and […]

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The Oxford English Dictionary May Soon Learn The Meaning Of Gone

Posted 8/31/2010 8:00 am by

For generations, the Oxford English Dictionary has been the default dictionary of the English language.  Until a word graced the pages of the OED, it wasn’t a real word.  However, thanks to the changing publishing industry, when the newly-revised third edition of the Oxford dictionary is ready for printing, there might not be an audience.  […]

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Unusual Stuff

Mushroom Hunter Massacre

Posted 8/31/2010 7:30 am by

It’s hunting season in Italy.  As a result, hunters are donning their camouflage and sneaking out at night in pursuit of their quarry.  However, these hunters aren’t toting rifles to land deer and elk, they’re carrying buckets and are looking to land mushrooms.  It’s mushroom season, and unfortunately, this mushroom season is shaping up to […]

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Unusual Stuff

My Name Is Hurricane Earl

Posted 8/31/2010 7:00 am by

Much like the title character on the television show My Name Is Earl, Hurricane Earl is probably going to leave a lot of destruction in his wake, unintentionally.  On the show, Earl is a well-meaning man trying to undo a lifetime of ill deeds; on the Weather Channel, Earl is a swirling mass of storms […]

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Two Terror Suspects On Dry Run Nabbed In Amsterdam

Posted 8/31/2010 6:30 am by

In another display of stunning airport security fail, Dutch officials in Amsterdam had to do what American officials in Birmingham, Alabama, Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan, failed to do.  Two Yemen-born men, Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi and Hezem al Murisi, were arrested in Amsterdam after a terrorism dry run in which the two men […]

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Unusual Stuff

Brass Monkey, That Drunken Monkey

Posted 8/30/2010 11:00 am by

At the historic Groot Constantia plantation in the heart of South Africa’s wine country, rich folks and tourists come to drink the fruit of the vine and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the 325-year-old vineyard.  Unfortunately, increasing numbers of baboons are doing the same, and like your average college student, the drunken apes are breaking into homes, vandalizing […]

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Frankenstein’s Bad Night

Posted 8/30/2010 10:30 am by

As any Frankenstein monster could tell you, fire bad.  As Forrest V. Frankenstein, Jr. could tell you, police bad.  That’s the hilariously-named crook who was arrested by Hamilton County police at a Toby Keith concert at Riverbend Music Center outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Apparently, the incredibly drunk Frankenstein stumbled over to uniformed police officers and told […]

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Unusual Stuff

McDonald’s Great Moon Burger Is Big In Japan

Posted 8/30/2010 10:00 am by

The specialized foods available at the Japanese version of McDonald’s are pretty incredible.  The Japanese have strange tastes, and the things they associate with America are even stranger once filtered through the Japanese culture.  However, it’s still McDonald’s.  That’s what makes it so fascinating.  It’s as familiar as the restaurant down the street and as […]

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Unusual Stuff

Cannibal Cafe Opens In Berlin

Posted 8/30/2010 9:30 am by

Is it tasteless or tasty?  It depends on your opinion on cannibalism.  A new restaurant, Flime, which opened in Berlin in December, is looking for donations.  They don’t need money; they want your meat.  The restaurant is taking donations of human flesh (and seeks an open-minded surgeon for a staff position) to facilitate the cooking […]

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25 Percent Of Strippers Have College Degrees

Posted 8/30/2010 9:00 am by

The old joke is that the average stripper is a coed trying to work her way through college.  Everyone scoffs it off and continues to think that most strippers are dumb or drug addicts.  As it turns out, at least in Great Britian, the average stripper is about as educated as the average person (or […]

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Unusual Stuff

Shakespeare In Klingon

Posted 8/30/2010 8:30 am by

William Shakespeare is probably the most widely-read author in the known world.  His works have been translated into over 45 languages, so it’s not surprising that he’d also be the first author to be translated and performed in an alien language.  Two Shakespeare plays, Much Ado about Nothing and Hamlet, have been translated from the […]

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Volcano Wakes Up After 400 Years

Posted 8/30/2010 8:00 am by

For over 400 years, a volcano known as Mount Sinabung has been peaceful.  Thousands of people in Indonesia moved into the shadows of the mountain, which is on the island of Sumatra, in the northern portion of the island.  Those same thousands of people are now looking for a place to flee to, as Mount […]

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Union Employee Fired For Trying To Start A Union

Posted 8/30/2010 7:30 am by

You’d think that a union, where the workers unite against their oppressive employers, would be in favor of its own employees unionizing.  However, unsurprisingly, that’s not the case.  When it comes to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the union that’s made firing teachers nearly impossible in New York, union president Michael Mulgrew prefers to […]

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Cruise Ship Stuck In Arctic Waters

Posted 8/30/2010 7:00 am by

According to the theory of global warming, this is the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen.  The water levels are supposed to go up, not down, so cruise ships like the Clipper Adventurer aren’t supposed to run aground on unmapped rocks and not be able to get free from them when traveling through the Arctic […]

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The 2010 Emmys: Big Winners and Bigger Losers

Posted 8/30/2010 6:30 am by

Last night was the night for Hollywood to gather in celebration of its favorite subject–itself!  The 2010 Emmy awards were a night of fun and frolic, especially for those folks lucky enough to take home trophies for their work throughout the previous year.  It was also the end of an era for a few shows, […]

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Unusual Stuff

Police Chopper Turns Camera Bomber

Posted 8/27/2010 11:00 am by

A police helicopter turned into an impromptu police bomber in Columbus, Ohio.  The Columbus Police Department’s helicopter had a pretty nice $100,000 infrared camera attached to its belly.  I say had, because that camera is currently a $100,000 pile of garbage after the camera fell from its moorings on the helicopter and crash-landed onto three parked cars […]

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Unusual Stuff

Black Rice, The Next Superfood

Posted 8/27/2010 10:30 am by

It sounds like a bad 70’s-era blaxploitation kung-fu movie.  “He’s the dopest Shaolin to ever stand up for the brothers!  Rudy Ray Moore is Black Rice.  Rated R, because the man don’t want you to see it!”  However, black rice, also called forbidden rice, isn’t a movie or a person, it’s a food.  Specifically, black […]

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Unusual Stuff

Google Goes Real Time

Posted 8/27/2010 10:00 am by

Google’s been launching new products left and right lately.  For every noteworthy failure like Google Wave, there’s some noteworthy success (or at least noteworthy improvement to existing successes) to go along with it.  The latest Google goodie to go live is Google Realtime, which basically serves as a real-time stream of information aggregator culling together […]

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I’m Not Angry, I’m From Philly

Posted 8/27/2010 9:30 am by

Mike Monteiro has lived in San Francisco for over ten years, but it’s not home to him and it probably never will be.  Like most people in California, Monteiro is a transplanted resident.  Originally from Philadelphia, he found his hard-nosed Philly attitude stuck out amongst the peace and love crowd of San Fran, and after […]

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Tiger Cub Discovered In Pile Of Stuffed Animals

Posted 8/27/2010 9:00 am by

Airport officials were doing their customary bag searches at Bangkok, Thailand’s international airport when, during the process of screening, they found a Thai woman who had a backpack full of stuffed toy tigers.  However, during the X-ray process, airport security saw something that looked strange, and it was obvious the woman was having difficulty handling […]

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Flying Fish KOs Kayaker

Posted 8/27/2010 8:30 am by

Houston, Texas, native Brad Pennington is kind of a big deal in the world of endurance boat racing.  They’re like  marathon runners for the paddling set.  He’s one of the top endurance boaters in the world, and having recently won the 460-mile Yukon River Quest, he was one of the favorites for the Missouri River […]

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MIT Pranksters Put TARDIS On Roof

Posted 8/27/2010 8:00 am by

On the British sci-fi show Dr. Who, you never really knew where the Doctor and his companions were going to land next thanks to their time-traveling police box known as the TARDIS (short for Time And Relative Dimensions in Space).  That bright blue police box has become an iconic part of science fiction lore, a […]

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Unusual Stuff

American Airlines Hit With $24 Million In Fines

Posted 8/27/2010 7:30 am by

During 2008, American Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration spent most of the year at loggerheads over issues of safety and the timing of safety inspections regarding American’s 286 MD-80 jets.  While the two sides argued over the wiring problems in the jets, American apparently didn’t take them out of the fleet; in fact, American […]

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