I can only guess as to what might have happened here, and most of it is based on the idea that space aliens came to earth to steal a truck full of used shoes to harvest the soles for rubber.   Either that or some shoe store, rather than throw away their unsold stock of kicks, decided to just overturn the boxes on the freeway late last night.  That way the state cleans up the pile of Chuck Taylors and the folks doing the dumping don’t have to pay to have the trash hauled away.

If anyone finds any nice-looking size 12 dress shoes out there, let me know.  I could use a new (used) pair of nice shoes!

Tags: Miami, Florida, shoes on the expressway, palmetto expressway, shoes dumped on the road, shoe dump, mysterious shoes

Who doesn’t love a weird building?  I know I do, and I’m pretty sure everyone else does too.  That’s one of the reasons why we talk about weird modern research facilities.  Well, the sci-fi blog io9 is full of like-minded folks, which is why they put together a gallery of buildings that look like spaceships.

That’s one thing I don’t understand about architecture.  Why can’t it be cooler?  There needs to be more fun in the design of buildings.  They really SHOULD look more like spaceships, or anything other than big glass boxes or concrete bunkers.  I mean, I can understand the difference between a functional building and something fun, like an art gallery, but if you can make a television tower look awesome, you can do pretty much anything and make it look awesome.

Tags: buildings, architecture, weird buildings, buildings that look like space ships, sci-fi buildings, scifi buildings, landmarks

Also, it’s kind of gross.  Seriously gross.  I mean, where do you refuel?  Do you pull up to the Exxon and just say, “Jam this hose into that fat kid’s butt?  I’ve got a long drive.”  Do you swing by the truck stop, eye the truckers waddling around, and then call one over for a little emergency surgery when you need to boost the fuel tank on your car (which I’ll now call The Fatmobile)?

It’s not like you can find big buckets of old lard just laying around on every street corner… oh wait, McDonalds has to empty their fryers somewhere.  Never mind.  Just transition from human lard to curdled vegetable oil, Dr. Craig Bittner, and you should be fine.  You can take your old human fat and use it to make soap.

Tags: alternative fuels, biofuel, biodiesel, cars, unusual fuel, unusual car, Dr. Craig Bittner, Beverly Hills, car runs on human fat, liposuction car, car powered by human fat, the fatmobile

Hi there, PopFi readers.  Did you have a good Christmas?  I know I did.  The brief respite from the rigors of scouring the Internet for fun stories was most welcome.  I didn’t take a vacation or go skiing, but I did get an MP3 player (among other gifts).  They’re fun (I bought some songs just last night, actually), but what I didn’t know is that having an MP3 player could save my life.

Note to self:  if you ever go skiing, take your MP3 player.  Getting lost in the mountains, even if it’s the beautiful Swiss Alps, doesn’t sound like any fun.  It’d be even less fun when you’re at risk for hypothermia and freezing to death.  That, my friends, is why I don’t ski.  Well, that and the fact that I don’t live anywhere that’ll support skiing.

It’s crazy how dependent you become on these pieces of technology.  When I got my cell phone, I thought “I’ll never use this,” but it turned out to be handy.  I resisted getting texting on my phone, but now I use it constantly.  My laptop was invaluable during my changeover in desktops.  I have no doubts that this MP3 player will become a crucial addition to my technology lineup sooner, rather than later.

Tags: Zurich, Switzerland, MP3 player saves lost skiers, MP3 player, saved by technology, MP3 player rescue

Some of these I had completely forgotten about.  Pancake Bunny and Dramatic Chipmunk/Prairie Dog are still everywhere, especially if you’re active in any online forums.  The LOLrus is a rock star.  But some of these are blasts from the past.

Most people got their first exposure to weird Internet memes via the Hamster Dance.  I know I did; I had honestly forgotten all about it.  I don’t think I’ve ever even seen Viking Kittens, so that’s one I’ll have to look up.  It’s been around since 2002, but I must have missed it for the last 6 years.  I still love Badgers Badgers Badgers.

The day before Christmas is a pretty dead day at most workplaces, unless you work in retail, so head on over to the PopFi archives and click around for awhile.  It’s a great, work-safe way to spend some quality time with the Internet.

Tags: hamster dance, dramatic chipmunk, lolrus, animals, Internet culture, Internet sensations, memes, badgers badgers badgers, lolcats

The Purple Squirrel isn’t just a drink at your favorite bar anymore.  An actual purple squirrel has been paying regular visits to Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, England, creating quite a sensation among students and staff.  The grape-colored visitor, nicknamed Pete, has become something of an unofficial school mascot.  I think they should make him an official school mascot, because he’s awesome.

Pete has any number of potential sources for his purpley goodness, so says wildlife expert Chris Packham, as quoted in the article linked above.

“Squirrels will chew anything even if it’s obviously inedible. It is possible he has been chewing on a purple ink cartridge and then groomed that colouring into his fur.

“Underneath there’s a normal grey squirrel who has just given himself an unusual hair colour - you would pay a fortune for that in some salons.”

Maybe it’s just me, but those seem like really weak explanations.  If he fell into a mystery purple-ink filled bucket, how did he get out?  How could he have gotten himself so purple and so evenly purple if he’d been grooming himself with a mouth full of purple ink.  Who even MAKES purple ink (and what would it taste like)?

No, I know the real answer.  Pete, the lovable friend to all children, is really The Squirrelminator.  He’s been sent back in time to do one thing:  hunt down John Connor, and stop the human resistance.

Tags: squirrel, purple squirrel, Chris Packham, Meoncross School, Stubbington, Hants, England, unusual animals, nature, odd animals, oddities

PopFi first brought you coverage of the story of Dede Kosawa, the Tree Man of Java, way back in April when he had four pounds of warts removed from his body.  A few months and many more surgeries later, he’d had an additional ten pounds of warts removed and was looking forward to finding a new wife and getting back into the work force.  Unfortunately, the Tree Man’s bark is starting to come back, robbing him of his ability to use his hands once again.

I feel bad for this guy, as I’m sure we all do.  He’s lost jobs, a wife, and suffered serious health setbacks due to a medical condition that leaves him with a weakened immune system unable to fight off the warts, but he’d made so much positive headway!  Doctors had warned him the warts might come back, though the condition would never be life-threatening again.  I can only imagine they didn’t think his warts would come back this strongly.

It’s only been four months, but you can see from the picture just how badly the condition has become.  Is this poor guy doomed to spend the rest of his life in and out of the hospital every few months, sloughing off pounds of cutaneous horns for the next 40 years?  That’s no way to live.

Tags: unusual, health, freaky, tree man of java, warts, strange, weird diseases, dede kosawa, tree man, unusual diseases

I love nothing more than a good explosion. Fireworks, action movies, demolition scenes… wherever something is getting blown up, from hotels to models, I’m totally there. With popcorn, even.

Maybe I should have gone into demolition instead of getting an English degree. Sure, that means a ton more math and probably some engineering and boring stuff like that, but it also means I could make things explode for a living. How awesome would it be to be able to push down that plunger and bring down a gigantic, historic old building?

One of the reasons why I wish I had the ability to opt out of paying into Social Security is because in the US, Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme.  Those who pay in first get paid by those who pay in second, and so on.  You may get back what you put in before you die, or you may not.  Ida May Fuller, the first person to receive a Social Security check, got $22,888.92 in benefits, but paid in only $22.75!

To sustain the escalating level of benefits given out takes up a significant portion of the federal government’s budget (SSI and related expenses compose the largest chunk of the federal budget), you need to take more from the next generation or have more people paying in.  Given the upcoming Baby Boom baby bust, as Boomers retire in droves, the system is unsustainable.

Stop the pyramid, I want to get off.  Given that there might be no money in the coffers by the time I get old, I’d rather take what I’m paying in now and put it into a CD, so that way I’m guaranteed SOMETHING for when I’m old and gray.  Assuming I don’t have to blow my savings on a casket before retiring.

Tags: Bernard Madoff, Madoff Fund, Ponzi, Charles Ponzi, Ponzi scheme, Social Security, pyramid schemes, confidence scams, cons, con artists

The bloggers in the audience undoubtedly know that whatever you say out there in cyberspace can come back to haunt you in the real world.  That goes double for your actions and activities posted on MySpace, Facebook, and all those other social networking websites that the people use religiously these days.  Not only are these websites becoming popular among people and businesses, they’re also a legally accepted way of delivering court documents.  That’s right, guys; now in addition to friends requests from people you don’t want to find you and the usual bevvy of advertisements, your Facebook page can now be used to subpoena you!

I’m not a big fan of using any of those social media things, and I’m always very careful about what I blog about.  The last thing I want to do is lose my real-world job because of something crazy I said or did (or someone said about me) online, and that kind of firing happens a little too often for comfort.  Given that you can’t even scratch yourself without the Internet hearing about it these days, it was only a matter of time before the lawyers invaded Facebook.

That said, I’m really surprised it’s taken the court system this long to accept Facebook and MySpace as a valid way of serving notice to offenders.  Emails have been perfectly valid legal documents for years now.   MySpace pages are used as court evidence in murder cases.  Virtual process serving is going to be the next big leap forward in criminal justice. If you’re going to skip out on your loan, then you’d best set your profiles to private or the law is going to catch up with you!

Tags: MySpace, Facebook, Internet, Social Media, Facebook subpoena, legal documents served online, virtual address, court, laws, virtual process serving, Australia, Carmel Rita Corbo, Gordon Poyser, Mark McCormack

Who else could go from being one of the first Playmates of the Month and hanging out with Hugh Hefner to being a Christian missionary in Africa and working for Rev. Billy Graham?  Some saw her pictures as playful and fun, but others thought they were immoral and tried to have them banned.  She lived as a recluse for many years, but at the same time was an idol to thousands of men and women everywhere and the forerunner to the sexual revolution of the 60’s.

From the CNN article:  “She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality,” said agent Mark Roesler in a written statement.  “She is the embodiment of beauty.”

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone who hasn’t seen it go check out The Notorious Bettie Page whenever you can.  It’s a brilliant biographical picture about one of the most controversial women of her time, directed by the brilliant Mary Harron and featuring an incredible performance by Gretchen Mol.  Bettie was an amazing woman with a truly incredible life story.

Tags: pinups, pin ups, bettie page, betty page, pinup queen, pinup model, bettie page dead, obituaries, celebrities, the notorious bettie page

We’ve discussed Robert Scott’s abandoned camp in the Antarctic before, but little did I know that Antarctica is literally full of abandoned buildings, ships, and even entire towns.  It also has more ghosts per resident than anywhere else in the world, if you believe Dark Roasted Blend’s awesome article and image gallery about the ghosts that haunt the ice flows and the ghost towns that contain them.  I’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica, just to hang out with penguins and be really cold, but now I want to go and take a ghost tour, too!

The most notable town that was abandoned was Grytviken, on South Georgia.  Before the Great Depression, it was home to over 2000 people in seven different communities.  Now it’s home to tourists and buildings like that gorgeous old church you see above you.  Apparently people still come and take care of the buildings to prevent wilderness from completely overtaking things, but in such a cold environment, everything stays preserved longer.

Tags: ghost towns, abandoned buildings, abandoned towns, ghosts, ships, Antarctica, Grytviken, South Georgia, tourism

My cat feels this way about lettuce, of all things. Whenever anyone is making a salad around her, she’s right there. Whenever I’ve got the lettuce out of the fridge, she’s practically crawling up my leg to get her leafy green fix of iceberg chewing. Maybe it’s the water she likes, or the fact that it’s usually cold. All I know is the rustle of a plastic bag of Dole salad mix attracts her like the Pied Piper’s piping!

Tags: cats, broccoli, broccoli kitten, cat videos, videos, funny, lolcats, youtube, broccoli cat, cat loves broccoli

The Batmobile was parked in front of the GMTV studio when it was ticketed by the local parking authority.  Even Batman can’t get away with illegal parking.  While the whole thing might be a publicity stunt, having dealt with the authorities before on matters of parking, it’s probably legitimate.  Most people wouldn’t do this kind of thing as a simple prank or publicity stunt.

Awfully brave officer there to ticket a car bristling with weapons!  It’s probably a good idea they didn’t try to tow it away.

Tags: image gallery, images, funny images, batmobile, batmobile gets a ticket, den of geek, london, united kingdom, gmtv

This isn’t some party school like Chico State, this is Cambridge.  This is an above-Ivy league institution!  Charles Astor Bristed spent 5 years at Trinity College, and all he could talk about was how much his English compatriots loved drinking games and prostitutes.

However, it wasn’t all bad.  Bristed wrote of Englishmen, “I might say that these young men, so inferior to ours in purity, were superior to them in some other moral qualities; that they minded their own business, and told no lies or scandal of others.”

Of course they didn’t!  When you’re consorting with loose women and binge-drinking, you don’t talk about other people because you don’t want them gossiping about you!

Image:  Amazon

Tags: Cambridge, Victorian college students, Trinity College, Charles Astor Bristed, Five Years In An English University, college

When they say there is nothing new under the sun, they really mean it.  Take, for example, LOLcats.  Those goofy cat pictures with the silly captions are thought to be an invention of the modern Internet, but as it turns out, there’s a history there that extends far beyond 4chan or I Can Has Cheezburger?.  In fact, what is thought to be the ancestor to the modern LOLcat was found.

The story is the picture, actually a postcard, was found by someone named Tracy Angulo in a Seattle, Washington, antiques store.  It dates from 1905 and while this LOLcat uses proper grammar, it is still in all caps, is still a cat picture with a goofy caption, and most importantly, still reminds cats everywhere that they can’t has cheezburger.  It’s nice to know that it’s not just people on the Internet who find these kinds of things funny, and that LOLcats aren’t some symptom of modern day education gone horribly wrong.

Tags: Internet culture, Internet memes, lolcats, the world’s first lolcat, I Can Has Cheezburger?, pictures, funny pictures, Tracy Angulo, Seattle

The only complaint I have is that there’s something missing. I can understand not mentioning flavofibes from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, but there’s a certain sci-fi food that was a criminal omission. I’ll give you a hint.

I guess you could throw in some delicious Gamera soup, too. It’s definitely more palatable than that awful foodslop from The Matrix, but you could probably pull better Klingon fare out of your replicator. And don’t forget to drink your blue milk! You won’t grow up to be a big, strong Jedi if you don’t drink your blue milk!

Tags: science fiction, food, thanksgiving, sci-fi, sci-fi food, unusual thanksgiving food, movies, feasting

I can understand if this was some sort of event where someone was using the Seuss organization’s copywritten characters to make a profit, but Light Up Louisville is nothing of the sort.  It depends on corporate sponsorships to keep going every year, it makes absolutely no money for just about anyone, and it exists only to bring a little bit of holiday cheer to downtown Louisville.  Do the geniuses at DLA Piper and Seuss Enterprises really think Theodor Geisel would have minded that his characters might be used to make children smile 17 years after his death?

Somehow, I think that this display of Grinchiness would run against what Dr. Seuss would have wanted.  They may as well have stolen all the lights and trees and made Louisville celebrate with homemade glow sticks.  At least there’s still plenty of roast beast.

Tags: Louisville, Kentucky, Light Up Louisville, Dr. Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Whoville, Theodor Geisel, DLA Piper, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Christmas, holidays

This is football, not basketball we’re talking about! Abilene Christian’s men’s basketball team only scored 90 points in a loss on Saturday! The ACU Wildcats scored on 13 of 15 possessions, and the two teams combined for 22 touchdowns, all of which you can see in this insane video below. It’s long, but it’d have to be long to cover all that scoring!

I can’t even run the score up like that when I’m playing video games. This game blows away the NFL’s highest scoring game in history, a 69-41 brawl between the Giants and Redskins on November 27, 1966. However, the highest scoring game in college football is still Georgia Tech’s 1916 slaughter of Cumberland, 222-0. However, those games didn’t have a prophetic dream involved! If you believe what ASU quarterback Billy Malone said, one of ACU’s players fortold the events of the game in a dream.

Malone credited teammate Marcus Franklin with providing a foreshadowing of what was to happen.

“(Franklin) told me this morning that he had a dream where we won 98-63 or something like that,” Malone said. “It’s obviously nice to think that.”

That’s still nothing compared to the oddity that is the all-dwarf European football (soccer) team.

Tags: Abilene Christian University, ACU, Wildcats, West Texas A&M, college football, 93-68 college football game, highest scoring college football games, highest scoring football games, unusual sports news, football, American football, sports, unusual football game

It might not be a pirate’s life for you and me, but there’s plenty of pirates pillaging the high seas.  If you don’t believe me, you can check out the International Chamber of Commerce’s Live Piracy Map, where you’ll see where these incidents are taking place, when they’ve taken place, what sort of ship was involved, and what the crime was reported to be (attempted, boarding, hijacking, even fired upon!).  If I were you, I’d cancel that pleasure cruise to Somalia, as Somalian pirates have captured 7 vessels in 12 days!

The ICC Piracy Map is the brainchild of the International Maritime Bureau.  Amazingly, hijacked vessels had no one to report the crime to, other than local law enforcement, until 1992, when the Piracy Reporting Centre was established.  The PRC issues a weekly piracy report, piracy warnings, maintains the live map, and even issues reports on suspected pirate vessels so other freighters in the area can know who to avoid.

This just goes to show you that no matter how you ship things, from freight to rail to ship to air, there’s always someone willing to try and steal it.  I had no idea piracy was so bad still.  I had assumed, I guess wrongly, that big vessels were safe from boarding.  That just goes to show you that there’s no limit to the brazenness of modern pirates.

Tags: ICC, PRC, IMB, piracy map, international chamber of commerce, piracy reporting centre, pirates, modern pirates, live piracy map, pirate report, pirate activity, Somalia, somalian pirates, pirate attacks

Axl Rose has been working on the new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, since 1994.  It’s been supposedly ready for release for many years, but legal problems have kept the album delayed.  It’s missed release date after release date.  The band has toured to drum up interest in the album, but the album hasn’t appeared yet.  The whole thing has kind of become a joke, honestly.  Dr. Pepper, the soda company, famously promised in March that if the album came out in 2008, they would give away free drinks to everyone in America.  The album’s scheduled release date is November 24, 2008.  It’s going to make it this time, and Dr. Pepper will make good on their promise.

From the AP article:   “We never thought this day would come,” Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper’s vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “But now that it’s here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper’s on us.”

Starting this Sunday at 12:01 AM, you can head over to the official Dr. Pepper website and print out a coupon good for a free 20-ounce soda.  I’m incredibly surprised.  I’m not surprised that Dr. Pepper is honoring their promise; I’m surprised that Axl has gotten the album into stores!  Word is the album is pretty good, too.  I guess Dr. Pepper, like Red Bull, spurs your creativity!  Thanks for the free soda, Axl!

Tags: Dr. Pepper, Axl Rose, Guns N’ Roses, Guns And Roses, free Dr. Pepper, Chinese Democracy, GNR, free drink, free soda, free beverage

My mother and grandmother both smoked when I was a child.  In fact, my grandmother on that side of the family died from emphysema.  When I was in kindergarten, I went upstairs to where my grandmother stayed (and where my mother went to smoke), and told my mom that I didn’t want her to die of cancer, so she should quit smoking.  Right then and there, thanks to her kindergarten-age son, she quit smoking and hasn’t picked up the nicotine since.

I know it’s hard to quit smoking.  I’ve had friends who have tried dozens of times to kick the habit.  Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on earth, but if you can make it one day, why not try for two?  Why not shoot for a week?  Or a month?  Someone I work with quit smoking cold turkey at age 59, and if you can change a habit you’ve had for over 40 years, you can do ANYTHING.

If you’re not going to quit for your own health, do it for me.  I need my readership to not die.  If you won’t do it for me (that thought makes me want to cry), do it for your loved ones.  They don’t want you to die, either.  If you won’t do it for them, do it because cigarettes cost a ton of money, and you’ll need the spare cash when gas shoots back up to $4.50 a gallon this summer.  The car of tomorrow won’t need gas, but we’re not anywhere near tomorrow yet.

Tags: smoking, cigarettes, tobacco, quitting smoking, stop smoking, The Great American Smokeout, avoiding cancer, the great american smokeout 2008

People are very excited about the election of Barack Obama.  One kid got so excited, in fact, that he got Obama’s visage shaved into the back of his head.  We’re talking his name, head, shoulders, facial features… the whole nine yards!  Kwame Boyce-Deacon is now an official Internet sensation.

It’s not the best likeness I’ve ever seen of President-Elect Obama, but it’s not bad considering it’s carved into someone’s hair.  The shoulders are a little narrow, but they captured Obama’s Will Smith ears pretty well, and the Obama name emblazoned next to him is a really good touch.  I like the fact that the barber, Clint Rainford, included Obama’s tie in the picture.

The whole process took about 45 minutes, so you have to applaud both the skill of the hair stylist and the patience of the 14-year-old whose head is now a canvas dedicated to Obama’s historic victory.  While the hair will grow back, the picture will live on forever.  Fortunately, it’s not a tattoo (yet).

Tags: barack obama, obama, barack obama haircut, obama haircut, picture in hair, Kwame Boyce-Deacon, obama haircut, Clint Rainford

Just look at this. This cat is smart enough to ride on the back of a Roomba, maybe even drive the Roomba, and what is my cat doing right now? She’s sleeping in my bed, on top of my covers, because she knows I’m not mean enough to give her the boot so I can get under the blankets and get warm. So not only is my cat not cool enough to ride the vacuum cleaner and still doesn’t have a good Slinky impression, she’s also mean!

I’ll get back at her, though. One of these days, she’ll be up to her neck in surfing rats and won’t know what to do. Then I’ll be the one laughing! Well, she doesn’t laugh, so I’ll guess I’ll be the one sleeping comfortably in my bed, rather than just laying on top of my covers like a soft-hearted animal lover who is too kind to disturb an animal’s rest. Even though that animal sleeps roughly 18 hours a day, I’m still too nice to give her the boot.

Tags: roomba, cat riding a roomba, animals, funny animals, cats, lolcats, funny cats, videos, funny videos

The Simpsons, now tied with Gunsmoke for the longest-running prime time program in American history, has had an incredible impact on popular culture.  They’ve been on every kind of promotional piece of merchandise ever made, have had a hit movie, and have not one, but two words in the dictionary.  D’oh made the cut and got into the world-class Oxford English Dictionary, while newcomer meh has made it into the Collins English Dictionary.

The article describes meh, submitted by Erin Whyte from Nottingham, England, as Meh was submitted by Erin Whyte from Nottingham, England.  Collins is going to define the word as “an interjection to suggest indifference or boredom or as an adjective to say something is mediocre or boring or a person is apathetic, bored or unimpressed.”

While the definition of the word is more than a bit meh, it just goes to show how influenced the language is by pop culture.  William Shakespeare coined many new words and phrases, and he is probably the father of modern written standardized English thanks to his inclusion in Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language.  I guess you could say Homer, Lisa, Bart, Marge, and Maggie are modern-day Shakespeares.  Who else has two newly-invented words in the dictionary?

Tags: meh, The Simpsons, Erin Whyte, Collins English Dictionary, new word coined by The Simpsons, new words, new dictionary entries

She’s got a whole list of great ideas for her eye:  Bluetooth capability, 3x optical zoom, a SD memory slot, and the ability to take still photos and videos.  She’d like to film a Tanya-eye-view documentary of her life.  I’ll be honest, if she gets this cyborg eye built in, and I lost an eye, I’d be next in line for this installation project, so long as they didn’t make it a tattooed eye.

I don’t know how often I’ve seen something and wished I had a camera with me so I could take a picture of it.  It seems like every week I pass a car wreck or crazy sign or something that screams, “Hey, take a picture of this!”  It’s hard to get the phone out and get the snap done while driving, though, so in a situation like that a camera eye would come in really handy.

Image:  Halloween Costumes

[tags]cyborg eye, webcam eye, artificial eye, Tanya Vlach, video camera eye, Bluetooth eye[tags]

After Beatie gave birth to his daughter Susan on June 29, Thomas never resumed the male hormone treatments that turned him from a Hawaiian beauty queen into a bearded fellow with the hopes of having more children.  Well, Thomas and Nancy are going to be parents again, with an expected due date of June 12, 2009.  After his 40-hour labor last time, I’m a little surprised that Thomas is getting back into the baby game so quickly, but good for him and his family!

For his sake, I really hope his labor goes better this time.  I’ve heard from friends that the second child is easier than the first, and hopefully this is as true for pregnant men as it is for pregnant women.  Our best wishes go out to Thomas and his family on their latest miracle baby!

Tags: Thomas Beatie, pregnant man, pregnant man is pregnant again, Thomas Beatie pregnant, pregnant man, Tracy LaGondino

Geraldo is unable to handle the big waves. We’ve all seen the evidence of that, but he didn’t have Shane Wilmott teaching him. If the Aussie can teach mice to surf, he can teach anyone (or anything) to ride the waves. Maybe even me!

Now, I know you’re looking at the picture above, or in the picture gallery at Oddity Central, and you’re thinking to yourself, “That’s got to be Photoshop.” That’s what I thought, too, so I’m taking the liberty of reposting the video below, and linking to an old article from Orlando, Florida’s WKMG Channel 6 that proves that yes, those are mice and yes, they are surfing.

Maybe I should hunt Shane up. I can’t surf, I can’t water ski, I can’t skateboard, and I can’t even roller skate. I have a sense of balance only slightly better than a drunk one-legged man on stilts. Well, a stilt, I guess.

Tags: animals, videos, mice, rats, surfing mice, surfing rats, unusual animals, Australia, Shane Wilmott, animal tricks

Google is just an unstoppable octopus of helpfulness these days.  If you’re a webmaster, you know all about Google Analytics, which tracks your website’s performance, and Google Trends, which tracks general internet things of interest.  There’s also Google’s advertising network AdSense, the Google Android smart phone OS, the Google Chrome web browser, and all the other things that Google does to expand the brand.  Now, Google is interested in keeping you healthy with their new Google Flu Trends.

Basically, Google and the Centers for Disease Control decided to get together and make an interactive flu map showing you just how bad flu season is in your area.  There’s also historical flu data and most helpfully, a flu shot locater that works via your zip code and tells you where you can go to get your flu resistance assistance.  It seems like a strange thing for Google to branch out into, but it’s probably just a precursor for Google MedSense, their competitor to WebMD, or some attempt to launch a searchable physician network database.

It’s just one step closer to Googlezon, but nobody ever said that The Matrix couldn’t also be helpful, right?  So long as we can all avoid another deadly flu pandemic like there was in 1918, I don’t care what Google Flu does.

Tags: health news, google, google flu, google flu tracker, flu tracker, influenza, the flu, flu monitoring, flu shots, flu map, flu trends, 1918 spanish flu pandemic, flu outbreak, flu shot locator

November 11 is a special day throughout the Western world.  In Europe, the date is known as Armistice Day, which commemorates the cessation of hostilities in World War I (and the groundwork for hostilities in World War II).  In Great Britain and the Commonwealth, the date is celebrated as Remembrance Day, dedicated to the sacrifices of soldiers and civilians in times of war.  In the US, the date is best known as Veterans Day, and the 2008 celebration is looking to be an extra special one, as the identity of the V-J Day kissing nurse, one of the most famous unknown faces of World War II has been discovered.

See the young lady in that famous photograph above by Alfred Eisenstaedt?  Her name is Edith Shain, and she’s the centerpiece in this year’s Veterans Day parade in New York City.  President Bush will celebrate his last Veterans Day in office by dedicating the World War II battleship USS Intrepid as a floating museum.

There are going to be parades and celebrations all throughout the country today, so get out there and make sure you thank your country’s war veterans properly in whatever way you see fit.  While you might not believe in war, we should all appreciate the sacrifices these men and women made and continue to make for our respective countries.  They truly are the few and the proud.

Tags: Veterans Day, Veterans Day 2008, USS Intrepid, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, holidays, WWI celebration, WWII photo nurse, V-J Day kiss nurse, Edith Shain, Alfred Eisenstaedt

I wasn’t a cat fan until I actually got one, now I can’t get enough of the crazy little critters. Actually, that’s not entirely true, the one I have is more than enough cat for me to deal with, but I love seeing people’s cute videos of cats. Take, for example, Slinky Cat. Isn’t that a great Slinky impression?

Cats do some crazy, awesome things. Like skulk around like ninjas and attack helpless printers. Unfortunately, my cat Toonces doesn’t do anything that funny while I have a video camera around, so I can’t get some Internet fame. Well, that’s not true. I do have a video of her driving the car. Check it out.

Special thanks to my friend, the ghost of Phil Hartman, for narrating the clip for me.

Tags: cats, slinky, lolcats, videos, funny cats, cat videos, animals, pets, cute, slinky cat, toonces the driving cat

It’s a special day today for a lot of my good friends who are members of an elite wing of the United States Armed Forces.  That’s right, leathernecks, it’s time to wish happy birthday to the United States Marine Corps!  Oorah, devildogs!

There is no branch of the service that commands the loyalty and respect that the Marine Corps does, and there’s no branch of the service that has been more romanticized by popular culture.  From the paint-blistering tirades delivered by real-life Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket to John Wayne’s cinema heroics in The Sands of Iwo Jima, the love affair between Hollywood and the Marines has a long and storied history.

One of the reasons behind this might be the fact that so many Marines have gone on to become huge Hollywood stars, so they give back to the Corps that gave so much to them.  Among some of the famous Marines who made it big in Hollywood are Gene Hackman, Brian Dennehy, Lee Marvin, and Steve McQueen.  If they’re not funny enough, there’s also Drew Carrey, Jonathan Winters, Bea Arthur (one of the first female Marines), Don Adams (Inspector Gadget and Maxwell Smart), Captain Kangaroo Bob Keeshan, and Bozo the Clown Bob Bell.  For those who love music, musicians Freddy Fender, Nate Dogg, Shaggy, CJ Ramone and both of the Everly Brothers are jarheads.  The founders of both Dominos Pizza (Tom Monaghan) and Little Caesar’s Pizza (Mike Illich) are also Marines, and I bet the active enlisted service wishes those two provided the chow.

That’s before you count the artists, authors, boxers, professional wrestlers, Congressmen, governors, astronauts, and other public figures who have worn dress blues.  Truly, the Marines have given a lot for, and a lot to, the United States, and I’m proud to have had many friends and relatives who have gone into the service of the Corps.

Semper Fi from your pal at PopFi!

Tags: usmc, united states marine corps, marine corps birthday, usmc birthday, marine birthday, military, us military, 233rd birthday, 233rd anniversary of the marine corps, famous marines

Isn’t she just the cutest little baby critter ever? If you still need more proof of her cuteness, the Sydney Morning Herald has an image gallery of her here. She’s going to be a media sensation (and I kind of want a pet pygmy hippo).

Interestingly enough, the most famous pygmy hippo is Billy, who started life as