Burst of Weirdness (Page 7)

Oddities and Awesome abound! But no oddities today…just straight-up awesome. :: Here’s one of those stories I would never have thought to even consider as even being a story: a profile of Black Jack, the riderless horse used in many military funerals — including, most famously, that of President Kennedy. Black Jack became the caparisoned horse because he refused to do anything else. He was not suitable for riding, he wouldn’t pull anything and he refused to parade. Exasperated, they sent him off to do a funeral procession as the caparisoned horse (riderless horse in the procession). The only thingDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: Ten Really Terrific Reading Nooks. Not a fan of a few of these (the moon-shaped bed seems odd to me, and I don’t know about the one hanging over water), but most seem to me a pretty neat and creative use of space. ::  Thirty hilarious street posters. They’re not all hilarious, actually, but a few of them did make me laugh. Salty language alert. More next week! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound…. :: Director Steven Soderbergh on On Her Majesty’s Secret Service For me there’s no question that cinematically ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is the best Bond film and the only one worth watching repeatedly for reasons other than pure entertainment (certainly it’s the only Bond film I look at and think: I’m stealing that shit). Shot to shot, this movie is beautiful in a way none of the other Bond films are—the anamorphic compositions are relentlessly arresting—and the editing patterns of the action sequences are totally bananas; it’s like Peter Hunt (who cut the first fiveDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: I think that you can not name a single human pursuit that does not have, somewhere on this planet, a museum devoted to it. Case in point: A museum to French fries. :: A bit of set-up here: The Wife’s car has satellite radio, which is pretty cool. We like the stations devoted to specific decades in popular music. Usually we stick the 70s and 80s, with occasional dips into the 60s. One night, I took her car to pick up some pizza, and I decided, on a lark, to listen to the 40s channel,Down the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: I’m not sure if this is weird or awesome: Beard yeast might sound icky at first, but it’s really grown on one Oregon brewmaster. Rogue Ales, a brewery and pub based in Newport, Ore., is developing an ale made out of yeast harvested from the beard of award-winning brewmaster John “More Hops” Maier. The whole thing started as a joke. Brett Joyce, president of Rogue Ales, told KPTV on Sunday that the folks at Rogue Ales had been trying to harvest a new yeast strain from their hop yard for some time, but with littleDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: If it seems like virtually every 30-40-something woman you know is named “Jennifer”, well, here’s why. This also shows that in about ten to fifteen years, the world will be run by Emily’s, Emma’s, and Sophia’s. (And please tell me that the recent surge of Isabella’s is not because of Twilight. I’d hate to think that such an awful book is going to live so long in American consciousness.) :: In many places, you get a ticket if you leave your car parked for too long. Apparently not so in a town in China, whereDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound. So does jaw-dropping awfulness, like this. Yeah…sorry, folks, but it is, by a wide margin, the single weirdest thing I saw online all week. (In all seriousness, the “group” Ylvis is actually a comedy duo, and this song was meant as a simple silly parody thing, but then it went “viral”. Here’s an article about the phenomenon — it’s really not unlike how, for a time, Steve Martin was completely overshadowed by his own “King Tut”.) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

Links fixed. Sorry folks, I don’t know what happened there. Oddities and Awesome abound! :: We’ve made a weekly ritual in these parts of going to a local artisanal cupcake joint that launched a couple of years ago. They’re very creative with their wares, and we look forward each week to seeing the online posting of their special flavors and planning our Saturday visit. Now, they have come up with some doozies of strange flavors, but thus far, they have to my knowledge attempted nothing like this. I’m not even gonna describe it. Just go look. (No, I would notDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: You could do a lot worse, when wasting time on YouTube, than watching old clips from Whose Line Is It Anyway. The British version is preferred, but the American version (not the current one, the one with Drew Carey hosting) had a lot of good things going on. Here’s a clip I like a lot: Whose Line‘s American version seemed almost designed to force the players to have to deal with things going awry, like here when the music stops and yet he’s so into the moment that he keeps right on singing. :: SeenDown the rabbit hole….

Oddities and Awesome abound! :: I’ve seen a bunch of these before, but even so, they remain ever-fascinating: 31 haunting images of abandoned places. The hotel in Colombia is particularly haunting. :: A couple of guys decide to go into a couple of restaurants and tip their servers a couple hundred bucks. I love this. More next week! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….