When other blondes think you're stupid

The WineRack

I'll refrain from editorializing and just describe it. A sports bra that can be filled with 750 cc of wine (or another comestible) and worn under one's blouse/sweater etc. When you get thirsty, you access the beverage by sucking on a concealed drinking tube. Handy for sporting events, concerts, movies, and other venues where one's beverage is not available. A secondary benefit is the enhancement of the bustline (which would, during the course of an evening, gradually decrease). For men, the manufacturers offer the equivalent in the form of a Beerbelly, shown here without concealing garments...

School has changed since we were there...

An eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut was stripped of his title as class vice president, and barred from attending an honors student dinner because he broke school rules by .... OMG! buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.

Two four-year old children in the Bronx were handcuffed by a school security officer for refusing to take a nap. They were taken from their classroom to another room taken and told "they would never see their parents again." "He was police," Jaden said. "He said, 'You know what happens when you don't go to sleep in there? . . . 'When you go to jail, you're not going to have no fun, no TV, no toys.' "

If you worked for Google...

... in their Zurich offices, you could take a nap in a bathtub while watching an aquarium. Or go from the third floor to the first floor by sliding down a chute... or a fireman's pole. Wait - there's more.....

update March 14. The link above is a series of photos, but I just found a brief video tour of the facility, which you watch by clicking on this --

Advertisement for the cafe at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum

This blogging life...

Recycle - or go to hell

Two months ago I put an entry in TYWKIWDBI regarding "witches knickers," and then did a followup last month on how the problem was solved in Ireland by charging for plastic bags. Now the Vatican has gone one (large) step further: the have redefined the seven deadly sins, which now include "polluting the environment."

It's not clear whether the "old sins" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - are now acceptable, or whether the church has decided to ignore them because everyone is guilty of them. For those interested in getting started on the new list, here are the other six "deadly sins" - genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs.

Note the Vatican isn't joking here, and these are not minor, "venial" sins. These are now mortal sins which can result in "eternal death."

Sheep herding dog

Rather than a sheepherding dog (you'll see the difference if you watch it). Nothing exciting or cosmically important about the 3-minute video, but I thought it was enjoyable. The dog appears to be trying to play - and I think the sheep is, too. One thing I learned is that despite their skinny legs, sheep can run really fast!

(credit to Arbroath, via Scribal Terror)

In a related matter, also from Scribal Terror -

German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog. Police in the northern German village of Guester say the sheep ran through the streets of the town at more than 30mph. It reportedly leapt over the bonnets of police cars used as a road block to cut off its escape and even chased off pursuing police dogs with a few well aimed head butts.

Clever placement of advertisement for pasta

Calvin and Hobbes

(John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes)
Credit here.

Brain images hidden in Renaissance art?

Kudos to Neatorama for linking this fascinating article in Streetanatomy which suggests that some Renaissance painters used disguised images of the human brain in the composition of their paintings. The image embedded above is familiar to everyone - Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Adam." Underneath it is the same image with a sagittal section of the brain superimposed. The image below is Gerard David's "Transfiguration of Christ" paired with a coronal section of the brain. Is this real, or just a curious coincidence?

Polydactyly in the paintings of Raphael

This British Medical Journal article and these responses to the first article describe instances of polydactyly in the paintings of Raphael. Raphael was noted for his meticulous attention to detail and the "perfection" of his paintings, so the presence of sixth toes cannot be viewed as a simple oversight or error on his part. Nor is the subject in the embedded photo an insignificant figure such as a random cherub - it's the infant John the Baptist. Polydactyly (extra fingers and/or toes) is an uncommon anomaly, but it is autosomal dominant (strongly inherited) and therefore the reason it appears in several different works by Raphael may be that the disorder affected a family used by Raphael as models for his paintings.

Phun - a remarkable science toy

This is hard to describe; you really need to view the video to comprehend how this works (the video is a movie of someone playing with the toy). It's "virtually" a 2-D physics laboratory that looks to be the cybersuccessor to Lincoln Logs, the Erector Set, and Lego bricks.

It apparently can be downloaded for free (!!) but I haven't been able to do so because there's no Macintosh version. Perhaps some reader of this blog can download it, play with it, and post comments here.

Jon Stewart, $4 gasoline, and President Bush

Blindness caused by looking for the Virgin Mary

"At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary. Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the ‘miracle’. St Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina..."

more details here.

(A safer alternative would be to hold the sun in your hands)