Tag Archives: weird

Car Wash Gone Critical

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Kelson

Car Wash Sign: Radioactive Fallout - Wash it off here

Spotted today in El Segundo, California.

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Your MOM was Photoshopped!

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Kelson

Door: This Is Not A Door. So, remember this photo of a door labeled “This is not a door?” Last year, someone else sent a picture of the same door to FAIL Blog. Then a week ago, someone submitted mine to Friends of Irony, where Katie spotted it a few days later.

Here’s where things get interesting.

On both sites, people were absolutely convinced that it was “obviously” photoshopped.

*headdesk*

No, it’s real. It’s in a small business complex at the corner of Newport Ave. and Irvine Blvd. in Tustin, California. You can go there and look if you want. And of course there are the two photos taken from different angles.

The obvious conclusion is that people don’t really know how to tell whether a photo has been manipulated. At least on FAIL Blog, some of the doubters had reasons, even though they amounted to not understanding perspective.

I was tempted to post a comment linking to this XKCD strip (My hobby: insisting that real-life objects are photoshopped), but settled for requesting a photo credit instead.

Posted in Computers/Internet, Signs of the Times, You Must be Mistaken | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

This is True: Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Kelson

This Is True is a weekly newsletter rounding up weird news from around the world, summarized with witty comments by Randy Cassingham. It’s usually funny, sometimes sad, sometimes infuriating — but it always makes you think.

I’ve been a subscriber for years, and highly recommend it. One of the things I like about it is that he makes more effort to verify the stories than the typical “odd news” wire service that simply repeats something printed in a distant newspaper without realizing that it’s the local equivalent of the National Enquirer or Weekly World News. (Did anyone ever actually verify that Wii Fit nymphomaniac story last month? As near as I could tell every single article used the same tabloid as a source.)

Anyway, I could keep talking it up, or I could show you an example story using the True-a-Day service:

Cassingham also links to interesting news items on Twitter and on Facebook, though not the same articles

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LOST Commercials Explained

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Kelson

Here’s my theory on LOST’s weird commercials: They figure that anyone still watching the show after this long doesn’t need to be convinced to watch the next episode, just told when it’s on. So they might as well have fun with it.

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Car-Parts Predator and Soldier

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Kelson


Car-Parts Predator and Soldier, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Outside an automotive shop. As near as I can tell, the one on the left is supposed to be a Predator with a machine gun grafted to its arm, but the fish-like head gives it a faintly Lovecraftian look.

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Not A Door?

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Kelson


This Is Not A Door, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Let me guess: Magritte designed this building.

Posted in Photos, Signs of the Times, You Must be Mistaken | Tagged | 2 Comments

Starting the Week with Weird Al

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Kelson

My iPod ran down its charge over the weekend, and I had to plug in the car charger this morning and start over at the beginning of a playlist. I usually leave it on shuffle on a reaaaaaally long list so I get lots of different songs.

AlapaloozaIt started up with “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Bohemian Polka,” which was a fun, off-kilter start to the week. When it followed up with “Jurassic Park,” I didn’t think much of it. Twofers by artist, and even by album, aren’t that uncommon.

When “Living in the Fridge” started up, I got a little suspicious.

Sure enough, when I stopped the car and checked, shuffle was set to “off.” I figure the playlist must have been sorted by album the last time I synced, with Alapalooza the first on the list.

I’m still not sure whether it switched off shuffle when the battery ran down, or I just had it off before and didn’t notice because the last playlist I was listening to was pre-shuffled. Still, it was — appropriately — weird.

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Found Shell Beach

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Kelson

Listening to the Dark City soundtrack while scanning a roll of old photos. Just picked up a photo of the sign for Shell Beach. #

Shell Beach Sign

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Hear me!

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Kelson

Vertical Horizon: Burning the DaysA few minutes ago I was trying to fix sound on my Linux box. Nothing would play, until Katie heard it beep to notify me of a new Twitter message. I closed Twhirl and suddenly my music player worked. The song lined up? Vertical Horizon’s “All is Said and Done.” The first line of the song? “I need you to hear me.” That gave us both a good laugh.

I thought a major point of PulseAudio was to let applications share the sound card cleanly. *grumble* Sound worked fine before Fedora switched. I can’t even blame it on a bleeding-edge distribution, since from what I hear, Ubuntu has similar problems.

At least now I know (sort of) why it stopped again after applying the Complete guide to fix PulseAudio and video/audio VLC Media Player issues.

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Bosley, John Bosley

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Kelson

I’ve just started re-reading Neverwhere. When Richard and Door first meet — after her injury has started to heal, anyway — he introduces himself as “Richard. Richard Mayhew. Dick,” A page or two later, Door calls him “Richardrichardmayhewdick.”

IIRC Neil Gaiman said he stole the joke from Douglas Adams, who had someone refer to “Dentarthurdent” in one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, but I always think of a Charlie’s Angels episode in which someone greeted “Bosleyjohnbosley.”

The thing is, I barely remember Charlie’s Angels, so the way I remember it is actually as “Bosleytombosley” … and in my memory, she’s saying it to Tom Bosley!

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