I’m guessing no one even noticed I was offline about 90% of the time over the past 8 days. My children and I traveled to my mother’s house while the wife was out of town. Mom doesn’t have an internet connection at her house currently, although I could occasionally but not reliably leech from neighbors wireless networks while there. Aside from over-eating a few times, thereby slowing up my progress on losing (a target of) 60 pounds, it was a very good week. If you care about my wonderful time away from home, continue reading below the pretty ‘more’ link. I assure you it is more tedious and dull than my normal writings – you’d be best served by skipping to the next post…
Category: Useless knowledge
Information you have no need for. Ever. Usually about me, but possibly about other trivial crap in the world.
But she’s “not a violent person”
This really isn’t the kind of thing you read about every day. At least, I hope it’s not the kind of thing you read about every day. It certainly isn’t something I’ve heard about too many times before.
A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend’s testicle with her bare hands has been sent to prison.
Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: “That’s yours.”
. . .
In his statement, Mr Jones said she grabbed his genitals and “pulled hard”.
He added: “That caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain.”
It does sound a little something like Ron Shock would talk about. But outside of that – yup, it’s a fairly rare story. By the way – if you ever have the chance to see Ron Shock, he is one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen. Go see one of his shows. Buy his videos after the show. You won’t regret it.
Also, that story headline here? It’s an actual quote from the lady who did the, ummm, ripping. And I must say, I know of no non-violent or loving way to rip a man’s testicle from his body.
[tags]Violent testicle removal, Unwilling partial castration, I’m not a violent person[/tags]
Why I should be playing World of Warcraft
As you may remember, I’m a bit of a gamer. My current addiction is City of Heroes. But another poster in the CoH forums linked to this little screenshot that shows why I should have been playing World of Warcraft instead.
As much as I play my MMO, I probably would have had enough gold for that exchange had I been playing WoW all this time.
Not adverse? I can at least confirm my wife isn’t secretly playing WoW. Might have to give up CoH and start playing WoW so next time I can take advantage of a chick trading anal sex and was in to costumed nasties for in-game money.
[tags]WoW, World of Warcraft, Anal, Group, I’m playing the wrong MMO[/tags]
Millenium Falcon stop-motion build
Someone with significant patience and LEGO building skills made the Millenium Falcon and created a stop-motion video of the process.
Pretty cool, but much more time consuming than I could tolerate. I’m amazed at the process and necessary patience to pull this off. (via TechEBlog)
[tags]Millenium Falcon, LEGOs, Stop-motion video, Stop motion, Star Wars[/tags]
Vision Robotics – building the body-harvester of tomorrow?
Sometimes the robots try to hide their steps to world domination. Other times, they get bad humans involved who broadcast the robots’ future build plans to the world. Here, I present to you the Matrix style body harvester being built by Vision Robotics.
Sure, they show it as an orange harvester, but just crank the size up an order of magnitude or two and it will be the perfect size to pick the body pods, copper-top.
[tags]Body Harvester – a la Matrix, The robots will take over, The coming robot uprising, Vision Robotics build the body harverster of the future[/tags]
Steampunk lamp
The 
fine folks over at boingboing seem to have a steampunk infatuation lately. Now that’s all and good. I generally don’t have even a passing interest in the steampunk posts, and can quickly skip the articles when I see the header. Perhaps I pause if there are images, but generally these don’t even hold sway on my attention for more than the briefest of moments. Recently, however, they posted a link to Frank Buchwald’s German lamp design site along with a cool image snagged from Buchwald’s. This was the first steampunk post from boingboing that I thought looked good, so naturally:
No word on pricing (although I didn’t really look carefully – it’s probably there and easily found), but that does look worth a bit of cash. If the steampunk motif catches your fancy, then see what else boingboing has on steampunk and report back what you like. (via boingboing)
[tags]Steampunk, Steampunk lamp designs, Retro-future lighting[/tags]
Ooops on the mailing
Received an email today from one of the online sites I occasionally order from. I think someone made an oops in handling the mail merge:
Probably should check who ran that mailmerge.
[tags]Tiger oops, Mail merge mishap[/tags]
Disaster averted – for now
Thanks to the quick thinking of one man, we have one less vampire to threaten the world now.
A peacock that roamed into a fast-food restaurant parking lot was attacked by man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.
Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city’s Center for Animal Care and Control.
Please don’t think I actually condone beating animals. I hate to think how many crazy people are out and about, hidden in plain sight. And here, I don’t mean “suffering from minor or major mental disabilities” crazy, but rather “potentially and likely dangerous but not recognized as such” crazy. It’s not hard (for me) to think that someone who would beat a peacock because they believe it to be a vampire as falling into both categories. I’m all for helping treat those in the first category and trying to help them function in the world as it is. I’m pretty much not so much in favor of helping the second category group back into society at large without major improvements at recognizing whether or not they actually still fall into the second category.
[tags]He started it!, The peacock was a vampire, Protecting the world from vampiric fowl[/tags]
Today in History – Hello, Dolly
Well, probably not the “Hello, Dolly” you are thinking of, but on this day in history the first successful mammal clone, Dolly the sheep, was born.
Originally code-named “6LL3,” the cloned lamb was named after the buxom singer and actress Dolly Parton. The name was reportedly suggested by one of the stockmen who assisted with her birth, after he learned that the animal was cloned from a mammary cell. The cells had been taken from the udder of a six-year-old ewe and cultured in a lab using microscopic needles, in a method first used in human fertility treatments in the 1970s. After producing a number of normal eggs, scientists implanted them into surrogate ewes; 148 days later one of them gave birth to Dolly.
Also of note today in history is the 1946 introduction of the bikini, the first American fatality in the Korean war in 1950, and the 1921 accusation for throwing the 1919 World Series of several Chicago White Sox members. This and more at The History Channel’s This Day in History for July 5th.
[tags]Today in History, Hello Dolly, Mammalian cloning, Dolly the clone born, The real clone wars[/tags]
Electrocute your hot dogs for wholesome good taste
What’s the best way to enjoy food? Deep fried, of course. But as a fallback, what would be fun to do to your food? You could, you sadistic freak (and we like that about you), instead electrocute your hot dogs, treating them like the condemned criminals they really are.
[tags]Electrocution for yummy hot dogs, Can’t fry? Electrocute instead, Presto hot dog cooker[/tags]
Eye Candy – more freaky chick pics
I have a thing for freaky looking chicks. And to me, that’s a term of deep admiration, not an insult. Lately, the freaky chick I’ve been paying attention to is Amy Lee from the band Evanescence. She’s very pretty, and into the goth freaky look.
See? Pretty. Freaky. Mmmmmm. I looooove those boots.
[tags]Amy Lee, Evanescence, Freaky hot chicks, Eye candy[/tags]
One-eye gator and a man’s one good ball
Sometimes, words cannot fully express our concerns for the well-being of others. We wish this man well, and hope for a speedy recovery from the injury he suffered while trying to get a good grip on his wet, sloppy ball.
A man who lost his ball in a golf course pond nearly lost a limb when a nearly 11-foot alligator latched on to his arm and pulled him in the water, authorities said.
. . .
Burger, from Lenoir City, Tennessee, was taken to a hospital but was not seriously injured, Morse said Tuesday.
It took seven Fish and Wildlife officers an hour to trap the one-eyed alligator, which measured 10 feet, 11 inches, Morse said.
See, in Tennessee, we’re just used to dealing with snakes when trying to find our balls. We don’t often see that many teeth in places where we would find our balls.
[tags]Man gets bit hard trying to grab one of his balls, Beware alligator[/tags]