Fat Cat

Maybe Chuck has deemed "animals inherit estate" stories NO LONGER WEIRD. But such was not the case in 1966.

Original article here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 19, 2014 - Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, Money, Cats, 1960s

Innovative Projects in Canada

Canadian tax dollars at work! Back in 1984 (source: Montreal Gazette - Oct 17, 1984), the Canada Council gave the following grants to fund Canadian artists who had "innovative" projects:

• Jim Freedman got $4,885 to write a book on "professional wrestling as it relates to small towns, offering reasons for its decline in popularity."

• Richard Lyle Hills received $3,125 to write "a collection of short stories examining the lives and values of those who work at construction jobs."

• Joanne Claire was granted $8,200 to write "a book which questions the beliefs and assumptions upon which our lives are based."

• Daniel Boudereau and Helene Cosette got $14,700 to develop "a performance integrating movement and color by acrobats inside a multi-chambered cubic structure."

Thirty years later, what became of these projects? The only one I could track down was Jim Freedman's wrestling book, which was published by Crowbar Press in 1988 as Drawing Heat (Amazon link). And it actually sounds like an interesting book.

But all the other projects — nada. Did they actually produce anything with the money given to them?

Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 19, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category: Government, 1980s

A Pet Well Loved

Would you pay 'a few hundred dollars' for high risk brain surgery on a gold fish? Well, this pet's owner felt it was worth the expense. George came though just fine. If you'd like to see more pictures they are available on yahoo images.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 18, 2014 - Comments (11)
Category: Pets, Fish

Peeing in the ocean

Go ahead and pee there all you want. Scientists give it an official thumbs up!

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 18, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category: Body Fluids

Narcissister

Caution: some brief flashes of bare bosoms--a tactic which seems to constitute the entirety of the performer's artistic armory--in video and at the link..

More info here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 18, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category: Disguises, Impersonations, Mimics and Forgeries, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art

Poopy Trap

In Vienna, Austria someone set a bucket full of feces to explode when a line was tripped at a spot where police regularly park to watch for speeders. The police officer who tripped it was covered in poo from six and a half feet away. He wasn't injured except perhaps his dignity.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 17, 2014 - Comments (9)
Category: Cops, Explosives, Pranks and Revenge, Stupid Criminals, Nausea, Revulsion and Disgust

Money in Hamsters!

One of those vintage ads that promised easy money by starting a home animal-breeding program, such as raising giant frogs. I wonder if anyone who responded to one of these ads ever did end up making money from the hamsters or frogs. Source: Popular Mechanics, 1950

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 17, 2014 - Comments (11)
Category: Animals, 1950s

Fire Maidens of Outer Space

Wikipedia entry here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 17, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category: Aliens, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Movies, 1950s, Dance

Lion in Freezer

A UK health inspector recently reported finding the body of a dead lion in a restaurant's freezer during an inspection. The frozen animal was lying next to the food to be served to customers. The restaurant owner insisted he wasn't planning on serving the lion to customers. Instead, he was going to feed the meat to his dogs. He had received the lion from a nearby zoo. [mirror.co.uk]

Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 16, 2014 - Comments (11)
Category: Food, Restaurants

Causes of Lunacy

I love these reasons for being committed to the lunatic asylum, as given in this report for the year 1836.

"Repelled eruption" confused me, until I found this sentence from a text of the same era: "If the insanity succeeds the suppression of a cutaneous disease, of a fetter, an erysipelas, or any other repelled eruption, vesicatories are the means, par excellence : they are preferably applied upon the place where the disease at first existed."

And almost thirty years later, many of the "causes" were still present, as seen below in this report for the year 1891.

Browse through more reports here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 16, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category: Experts and Authority Figures, Nineteenth Century, Brain Damage