the Strange and Unusual.

[Betelgeuse]

Chernobyl; Elephants Foot

The massive blob in the picture above, called Elephants Foot because of its shape, is being described as the closest thing to Medusa we will ever get.
To look at it with your own eyes would mean certain death, it has a surface radiation level of 10000 REM/Hour - which is extremely high. Just 350 REM gives a person a 50/50 chance of surviving.

 

[hossoso]

Chernobyl; Elephants Foot

View attachment 867

The massive blob in the picture above, called Elephants Foot because of its shape, is being described as the closest thing to Medusa we will ever get.
To look at it with your own eyes would mean certain death, it has a surface radiation level of 10000 REM/Hour - which is extremely high. Just 350 REM gives a person a 50/50 chance of surviving.

I was unfamiliar with this so I looked it up. Now I know 'nuclear lava' exists... and that fucking sucks dick.

 

[Betelgeuse]

I loved the comparison with Medusa. Look at it and you die. Fantastic!

 

[OfficePants]

Hoss delivers. He's our own private Jack Palance.

 

[hossoso]

Jack Palance? As in Curly, Jack Palance?

The Los Angeles complex that Hitler was to rule from after the Nazis won WWII.

Spoiler

Articles here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...geles-bunker-planned-run-Nazi-empire-war.html
and here: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...der-fuhrers-choice-hq-to-run-his-nazi-empire/

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[OfficePants]

Jack Palance? As in Curly, Jack Palance?

Yes. That one. But more sympathetic to this thread, he was the immortal host of Ripley's Believe it or Not.

 

[Zé Ferreira]

The Los Angeles complex that Hitler was to rule from after the Nazis won WWII.

As an aside, it's so sad that something so pretty and historically significant is completely ruined by beatnik kids and gangsters. I mean, it looks like a very nice setup in general... and then the public happened.

 

[hossoso]

HPV is turning this Indonesian fisherman into a fucking tree because his immune system was unable to muster any resistance to the virus due to a rare genetic fault. He was forced to take work in a freak show.

Spoiler

 

[Grand Potentate]

How does he get dressed? Or perform any bodily functions? Fascinating.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Do you think it turned his dick as well?

 

[hossoso]

The largest book in the world was built by King Mindon in Mandalay, Burma in 1860. It has 730 leaves and 1,640 pages. The marble pages are 5" thick, 5' tall and 3.5' wide.

A young monk walking past the book:

Another man walking through the pages:

A kick-ass diorama of the whole book:

Spoiler

http://www.kuriositas.com/2010/03/biggest-book-in-world.html?m=0

 

[hossoso]

Do you think it turned his dick as well?

I absolutely think it turned his dick as well.

 

[OfficePants]

A straw art team in Musashino Art University made this in 2006, its located on one of the smaller Japanese islands.

Another piece of Japanese art:

This giant fish is built from flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shores along the Seto inland sea in Japan.

 

[OfficePants]

Thai Hacky Sack. At the Waso Chinlone Festival partakers from across the world are judged on their ability to keep the ball going but also creativity.

 

[hossoso]

Haw Par Village Theme Park, Singapore.
To remind you that 'theme' park and 'amusement' park are not interchangeable descriptors.

Spoiler

Whatever though, Singapore...


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[Rain Man]

The Voynich Manuscript (existing copy), named after the rare books dealer that came across it in 1912, is believed to have been inked in the 15th or 16th century, but many speculate that this book is a reproduction of an earlier work.

The alphabet, sentence structure and rhythm lead scholars to conclude that the book is written in a very well developed language but, as of yet, no one has been able to connect it to any existing languages or decipher the text which, given the accompanying illustrations, seems to cover medicine, astronomy, astrology and several unknown scientific disciplines.

The confounding nature and incredible history of the book (which I haven't mentioned, so you'll have to find that on your own) has led many frustrated scholars and cryptographers to reason that it can only be an incredibly elaborate, beautiful, intricate and brilliant hoax from the distant past.

I've been reading about this case for years and always thought it interesting so I was happy to find that there were new developments in the story that tilt the scales back in favor of this being a legitimate document. Here: http://www.livescience.com/37737-voynich-manuscript-language-hoax.html

*It is currently in the library at Yale and can be viewed in full here:http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_manuscrito07.htm#top


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[hossoso]

"I don't like Mondays; this livens up the day."

On the morning of January 29, 1979 then 16 year-old Brenda Anne Spencer climbed to the second story of her home in San Diego with a .22 rifle and began shooting the children waiting to enter the elementary school across the street. She killed two administrators and wounded eight children. After a stand-off with the police she barricaded herself in the house for 7 hours. During those 7 hours, she agreed to speak with a reporter who pressed her for an explanation on why she would do something so horrible. Her reply? "I don't like Mondays."

Every time someone says something like 'I don't do Mondays' or 'Mondays are the worst' I tell them about Brenda Anne Spencer.

I'll also sneak into their office or work-space later and post up a Garfield cartoon. When people mention it to me later they always say that following up with the Garfield comic is more disturbing than the original conversation.

Have a great Monday, everyone.

 

[Betelgeuse]

Gonna tweet that, Hoss. Thanks!

 

[hossoso]

UK punk band the Boomtown Rats (singer Bob Geldolf of LiveAid fame) wrote a very successful song about her but there's some artistic license taken. However, when you take into consideration what the inspiration for the song was... the lyrics, video imagery and catchy pop sensibilities seem really fucked up.

 

[hossoso]

The HarveyBirdman special by Mercedes-Benz.

Spoiler

 

[hossoso]

Kris Kuksi, post-industrial Rococo and the American Grotesque.

Spoiler

 

[OfficePants]

The Mechanical Theater at Schloss Hellbrunn

Built in 1750, the complicated mechanism for the enormous automaton is still functioning in its original form. It represents a bustling baroque town with over 200 moving figures, repeating their clockwork motions with water-powered organ music.

An amazing thing.

 

[hossoso]

 

[OfficePants]

I hope their smoking weed.

 

[hossoso]

I think they all just had the same idea at the same time...

...and only the rats will survive.

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[Grand Potentate]

hossoso This is the best thread on any of the forums I visit, bar none. You've done a great job.

 

[hossoso]

Brian Wells was a middle-aged pizza delivery man. One day he delivered a pizza to a building at the base of a radio tower in a remote area. Two men strapped a bomb to his neck and gave him very specific instructions to rob a bank with a shotgun they provided and to complete a series of tasks by certain deadlines. He was told he would be supervised each step of the way and if he accomplished the goals, they would deactivate the bomb by a remote control. After robbing the bank, the police apprehended him, he told them about the bomb...

Spoiler

The bomb-squad arrived on the scene 3 minutes too late to help him.

Spoiler

However, we can't really blame a tardy bomb-squad. The bomb around Brian's neck was going to go off anyway, there was no way to deactivate it remotely, no matter how successfully or quickly he completed his tasks. He was never going to live through this ordeal.

What I've posted here is only what law enforcement and the media were able to put together in the weeks following the incident.

What has been discovered since amounts to one of the most sordid, convoluted, nonsensical, tragic and delusion-fueled conspiracies I have heard. It is as epic as it is pointless. Which makes it all the more fascinating.

If you're interested in the whole story, the information provided above is enough to get you started on a search.

edit: the pics went into spoilers because I can see where Betelgeuse is coming from.

 

[hossoso]

hossoso This is the best thread on any of the forums I visit, bar none. You've done a great job.

Thank you, that's very nice of you to say.

 

[Betelgeuse]

About the delivery guy and the bomb, that is strange and unusual, but make me feel sad. The first pic is… I don't want to say disturbing, can't find another word, but just make me feel sad.

 

[hossoso]

About the delivery guy and the bomb, that is strange and unusual, but make me feel sad. The first pic is… I don't want to say disturbing, can't find another word, but just make me feel sad.

I agree. What I didn't mention in the previous post is that the delivery driver may have helped plan and carry out the events of that day--a willing conspirator. Right up until the end, of course. Like I said, it is a complex, multi-faceted story. I don't know what to believe... but I know it's nothing good.

 

[hossoso]

I would like to apologize in advance for the content of this post... I'm sorry.

Spoiler

 

[hossoso]

Cherepovetz is a Russian city in the SeveroStal industrial region whose name translates roughly to City of Skulls.

Summer:

Winter:

TripAdvisor can help you book your plane tickets and hotel reservations for your next Cherepovetz vacation now!
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-...a_Oblast_Northwestern_District-Vacations.html

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[OfficePants]

I hear ash is good for the skin. Group trip?

 

[Betelgeuse]

I would like to apologize in advance for the content of this post... I'm sorry.

How am I supossed to sleep tonight after this? :ragecry-18:

 

[hossoso]

The Fierce Missouri Bald Knobbers

In the months and years after the Civil War, the South was a place of utter lawlessness. The collusion between criminals and officials was so thoroughly enmeshed that it was often difficult to tell the difference between the two. Corrupt courts and law enforcement ensured that murders, robberies and rapes were rarely punished with even a fine, and, more often than not, didn't have the chance to go before a judge. Fed up with the current state of affairs a man named Nat Kinney decided to form a vigilante group, they called themselves the Bald Knobbers (after a local topographic feature).

To make their disapproval of these hardened criminals and above-the-law officials known, the Bald Knobbers put on scary fucking masks and embarked on an unrelenting campaign of brutal, remorseless, indiscriminate vigilante violence that was so feverish and so widespread that it even shocked and terrified a population that had just lived through the horrors of the Civil War and thought they had already seen the darkest depravity man was capable of. Their arrival was so sudden and destructive that few people had time to decide which was worse, the crime and corruption or the Bald Knobbers.

 

[hossoso]

The Teratology Collection at the Vrolik Museum, Amsterdam:

Teratology is the study of birth defects and deformities. As we all know such things are best studied in jars.

Warning: not safe for expectant parents.

Spoiler

 

[hossoso]

The last known copy of the 1927 silent film, 'London After Midnight' was destroyed in a fire 40 years after its release. It is one of the most sought after lost films.

Was Lon Chaney creepy as fuck, or what?

 

[hossoso]

Miyakejima, in the Izu Islands of Japan, sits in an area of frequent volcanic activity. In addition to the threat of eruptions, poisonous gas is constantly seeping from the ground.

Some people would just move...

...but those people lack a sense of adventure and imagination...

...tentacle porn.

After a mass evacuation in 2000, residents returned in 2005. They still must have a gas mask with them at all times.

 

[Chorn]

Best active thread on either SF or Ramboforum

 

[OfficePants]

Rambo is right. This thread rules. Time for dinner. Lets fuck with some strange food. Follow me men into a labyrinth of delectable.

How about this tasty moresel?

Casu Marzu: sheeps milk cheese deliberately infested with cheese flies, result is a decomposed maggot-ridden stink bomb... tuck in.

Don't stop there. Lutefisk from Norway. Take cod that has been steeped for many days in lye until caustic. Um, lye is used for cleaning drains in the rest of the world. Some think this is the worst tasting thing on the planet. Pfff. This grows balls.

Baby mice wine is a traditional Chinese and Korean "health tonic". Sold. L' -no need for Port anymore. So while still alive, baby mice are drowned in the rice wine and bottled. It gets better... ferment for a year.

Well, after all these delicacies, we must enjoy Balut. Nothing like a baby duck still in the shell, just at the edge of birth, it's boiled alive. Cambodian's are so lucky.

The Korean 'penis fish' should not be missed as an Intermezzo. Obviously served raw, with salt or sesame seed oil.

Next friends, we keep the theme of penis in fold... nobody can resist the famous and desirable Chinese urine soaked eggs, from, you guessed it, the piss of virgin boys. A triumph.

After these virile eggs, we shall break bread, shaped in the form of a human head. Start at the top.

Time for a break, and of course a drink while your friends are refracting in this dinner for the ages. What else but Cobra Blood Liquor for something to warm the belly and facilitate the digestion. Thailand FTW.

You must be starting to fill up by now? Never. Not until the delicate Cockroach Sushi is tried. Japan at its finest.

Next stop is Greenland, world famous for its cuisine. Hakarl, lest we ignore this treat. Shark fermented for months. Many an ignorant have claimed this is the most disgusting thing they've ever tasted. Pure faggotry if you ask me.

And, finally men, we must return to the womb for dessert. And those clever British are serving a lovely Breast Milk Ice Cream. Think of mom, lap it up.

Thank you for your time.