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Unusual Stuff

Happy Birthday Converse

Posted 5/16/2008 12:43 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

Chuck Taylor All-Star tennis shoes are everywhere.
I know they are in my closet. I’ve got two pairs tucked in there. That makes me part of 60 percent of all Americans, according to a survey that says more than half of all US citizens own or have owned a pair of the low tech athletic shoes.
The […]

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Unusual Stuff

The Vrolik Is One Morbid Museum

Posted 5/16/2008 12:17 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

The human body is a crazy gizmo.
When you start thinking about how it works it can be overwhelming. I pop in a couple of slices of pizza for fuel and the thing just keeps on ticking.
Curious doctors, scientists and anatomists have tried to solve the puzzle that is the human body for centuries.
Japanese doctor Yasukazu […]

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Unusual Stuff

Mmmmmm - Meat Water

Posted 5/14/2008 12:43 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

Strolling up to the beverage coolers in the local quick mart now presents too many options.
It’s no longer just a question of with which soda will I quench my raging thirst.
Now, thirsty consumers have to wade through shelf upon shelf of chilled energy drinks, sodas, bottled waters, flavored waters, teas, flavored teas and electrolyte-replenishing beverages.
All […]

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Unusual Stuff

Gruesome Bread Heads

Posted 5/14/2008 12:02 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

The picture above is not part of the promotional advertising for the latest addition to the Saw movie series.

The heads are actually available in a bakery in Thailand.
Thai artist and baker Kittiwat Unarrom brings dough and anatomy together in truly creepy form. Kittiwat’s family owned the bakery and he added his ghoulish artistic touch to […]

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Unusual Stuff

Nuclear Waste as Art

Posted 5/13/2008 2:30 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

Nuclear waste and art are rarely combined in the same sentence.
However, a storage facility for nuclear waste in the Netherlands is bringing a new approach to the problem.
The Habog Facility has been painted a bright orange and is covered with giant equations to capture the attention of passersby. Inside the building, in addition to the […]

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Unusual Stuff

Red Hot Lover Captain Kirk and his Alien Women

Posted 5/13/2008 1:46 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

My dog wakes me up every morning about 5 a.m. to go outside.
The only good thing about this canine habit is that it coincides nicely with TV Land’s morning schedule in which Star Trek (The Original Series) has a prominent place, airing every Monday through Friday.
So while I doze back off for another hour of […]

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Unusual Stuff

Skeeter Eaters

Posted 5/12/2008 9:41 am by Stephanie Sturgis

Once again, it’s Mother Nature to the rescue.
You can’t turn on the news on television or click online to a news site without hearing about the housing foreclosure crisis. All across America, houses are empty and abandoned due to money woes.
Many of those homes in warmer states like California, Florida and Arizona have swimming pools […]

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Unusual Stuff

Floating Shelves Are Decor Magic

Posted 5/12/2008 9:05 am by Stephanie Sturgis

I love a clever design trick that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg or necessitate a trip to one of those giant furniture stores.

Roaming the Intertubes, I ran across a shelf on Neatorama that pulls off a trick worthy of Kris Angel and David Blaine.
It’s a “floating” shelf and you don’t have to be […]

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Unusual Stuff

To Infinity and Beyond on NASA’s Kepler Mission

Posted 5/09/2008 4:31 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

I’ve finally found a way to travel into outer space without having to die and have my ashes hurled out into oblivion.

NASA is affording me (and anyone else inclined) an opportunity to send my name into space as part of the Kepler Mission.
The Kepler mission is a search for Earth-size and smaller planets in the […]

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Videos

Annoying Kids Get Their Payback

Posted 5/08/2008 1:29 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

What’s more annoying than a cutesy kid on a Hummel figurine?
How about annoying kids in real life.
They run around like maniacs while their parents are often oblivious to the distractions and mayhem their “little darlings” are causing whether it’s during a concert or ceremony, at restaurants and stores or just in the neighborhood.
Sometimes these brats […]

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Videos

Bringing The Noise With Toys

Posted 5/07/2008 1:07 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

I’m still a kid at heart.
I love me some toys. Among the clutter on my desk is a hula dog bobble head, some Simpsons stuff and an old Pee Wee Herman “action figure.”
So imagine my delight when I ran across a woman who combines toys to create “music.”
Yep, Kitty Clark has some creative notions and […]

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Images

Phone Sheep

Posted 5/07/2008 12:22 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

In an age of cell phones, ye olden dial phone with the curly cord is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
So what to do with all those useless coils of cord.
How about creating a flock of sheep that you don’t have to feed, shear or clean up after.
The art was created by Jean Luc […]

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Unusual Stuff

Chunky Monkeys = Obese Chimps on a Diet

Posted 5/06/2008 11:10 am by Stephanie Sturgis

PopFi proves once again that it loves a primate tale. From spear-tossing orangutans to chimps pimping out grooming for a little monkey-bumping sex, PopFi has the scoop.
From a scoop of one kind to maybe two or three or four scoops of another kind.
Some Chunky Monkeys in Japan may have been the inspiration for one of […]

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Videos

Kinder, Gentler Grand Theft Auto 4

Posted 5/05/2008 9:32 am by Stephanie Sturgis

Unlike classic video games which people search high and low on the Internet to find, certain video games get a bad rap.

You shoot a few people, including some cops, steal some cars, boats and planes or blow up some stuff and suddenly you’re the scourge of the gaming world.
The Grand Theft Auto game series has […]

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Unusual Stuff

Bionic Dolphin

Posted 5/05/2008 8:48 am by Stephanie Sturgis

I may be showing my age, but I’ll admit I watched the original episodes of the $6 Million Dollar Man when they aired way back when. Steve Austin was pretty cool.

Winter the dolphin may not be a $6 million dollar version of the aquatic mammal, but she is sporting a tail that scientists had to […]

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Unusual Stuff

Mexican Witch Hunt

Posted 5/04/2008 6:30 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

A newspaper in London has revived the flurry of interest surrounding the video of a “witch” flying off a Mexican cliff and soaring over the local terrain around Monterey, Mexico.

Is it a balloon?
Is it a witch?
Is it a UFO?
If’ it’s a witch, could it be Endora or the Wicked Witch of the West or […]

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Images

Unusual Crate Labels Help Defeat Scurvy

Posted 5/02/2008 10:03 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

As part of the consuming public, I am not impervious to creative advertising.

Yes, I’m a sucker for a funny, creative commercial.
The lightsaber bus stop ads had my attention.
Before television , advertising was glued to the end of a crate, usually containing anything from beets to lemons to oranges.
A collection of crate labels shows how marketers […]

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Videos

Boomerangs in Space

Posted 5/01/2008 1:06 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

What’s that goofy saying from the 70s?

“If you love something, set it free. If it belongs to you, it will come back to you.”
Something like that.
So I’m guessing people who throw boomerangs really believe that.
These are also the folks who were curious about what happens to a boomerang when it’s thrown in zero gravity.
Japanese astronaut […]

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Unusual Stuff

New Meteor Crater Spotted Via Google Earth

Posted 4/30/2008 12:18 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

There are just certain things anyone with a computer and access to the Internet eventually do.

I’ll admit I’m no different than anyone else. I’ve Googled my own name and I’ve plugged in my address to Google Earth to get a sky high view of my neighborhood.
It turns an Australian scientist put Google Earth to better […]

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Unusual Stuff

Curious Cats Avoid Catastrophe

Posted 4/30/2008 11:51 am by Stephanie Sturgis

I’m more of a dog person than a cat person, so sometimes all the LOL cats on the web drive me a bit crazy.
However, I did take note of two stories of adventurous cats in the news recently.
No, not this lost pet poster from earlier on PopFi. These stories were about actual cats.
One involved a […]

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Unusual Stuff

Naked Penguin Gets Wet Suit

Posted 4/29/2008 12:44 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

What is it with birds losing their feathers lately?
Just the other day, PopFi had a story about a naked cockatoo. Now we get another featherless feature.

Pierre the penguin has puzzled biologists at the California Academy of Sciences. The 25-year-old African penguin began to lose his feathers due to age. The feathers act as an insulating […]

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Unusual Stuff

Da Vinci’s Parachute Design Successful

Posted 4/29/2008 12:28 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

I’m not the daredevil type.
Don’t expect me to jump out of an airplane anytime soon, but if I did you can bet I wouldn’t be using a parachute design that had never been successfully tested.
That’s what Olivier Vietti-Teppa did, risking his life on a chute based on a design from a time when man […]

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Unusual Stuff

Orangutan Fishes With Spear

Posted 4/28/2008 12:38 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

The line just keeps on blurring between how we as humans differentiate ourselves from the rest of the mammals.
PopFi has already let you know that chimps will trade grooming for sex.
Now, wildlife photographers have captured the first shot ever of an orangutan using a tool. The primate had watched local Borneo fisherman use a spear […]

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Images

Japanese Anatomy

Posted 4/25/2008 12:02 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

In our pop culture saturated world, Grey’s Anatomy is a hugely popular television show featuring McDreamy in its cast.
Prior to the hit TV drama, Gray’s Antomy of the Human Body was a hugely popular book filled with precisely accurate drawings of the human body and all that it entails. The book released in 1918 includes […]

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Videos

Darth Vader Beats Up His Neighbors

Posted 4/24/2008 11:01 am by Stephanie Sturgis

I’ve tried to wrap my mind around the fanboys and geeks who spend hours recreating meticulous costumes and performing scenes from their favorite movies.

I’ll admit I don’t get it.
But I certainly appreciate when these guys go so far over the top that the cops have to be called in.
That happened in the UK when […]

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Videos

Interactive Holograms

Posted 4/23/2008 11:48 am by Stephanie Sturgis

Who wasn’t mesmerized the first time they saw R2D2 beam out a version of Princess Leia begging Obi Wan for help?
Come on. Admit it. That was pretty cool. Especially if you saw the movie on the big screen back in 1977.
The hologram has advanced pretty far since then and now LM3Labs has come up with […]

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Unusual Stuff

Balloons Found, Priest Still Missing

Posted 4/23/2008 9:36 am by Stephanie Sturgis

A Brazilian priest’s stunt to raise money seems to have backfired and hopes for his safety are getting gloomier.

Rev. Adelir Antonio di Carli rose high into the air in a chair suspended below hundreds of helium-filled balloons on Sunday. di Carli was attempting to set a record for time in the air supported by party […]

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Unusual Stuff

Mugshot Mania

Posted 4/22/2008 10:46 am by Stephanie Sturgis

It’s amazing what a little makeup, flattering lighting and some photoshop work can do to a snapshot.

Nobody knows this better than celebrities who get arrested and then have their mugshots plastered all over the Internet. No makeup, red glassy eyes, unkempt hair.
There are several classics. The grumpy Glen Campbell, the disheveled Nick Nolte in his […]

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Images

Fashion Fish

Posted 4/22/2008 10:00 am by Stephanie Sturgis

As an avid fan of television’s Project Runway, I’ve watched designers make dresses out of candy and put together funky new uniforms for the US Post Office employees. It’s great TV to see the creative mind at work.
Granted, I’m not a fashionista and would rather throw on a T-shirt and jeans than don haute couture.
However, […]

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Unusual Stuff

Oregon Cop Stops Python

Posted 4/21/2008 12:38 pm by Stephanie Sturgis

Call me a chicken, but I never considered a career in law enforcement. Those men and women are true heroes. When their radios blare out a call, they never know what they’re getting into. Maybe it’s an alligator in the backseat of a car pulled over for making an illegal U-turn.Or maybe it’s pulling a […]

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