Can You Handel More Ukulele Madness?
We’ve featured the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in the past. But it’s tough to get too much of a good ukulele hoedown.
They’re back for your Saturday cultural pleasure. This time, it’s a rather unique arrangement of George Frideric Handel.
Link: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Undies Optional: Manly, Rugged, American-Made Utilikilts
So, laddie boy, you rather fancy yourself wearing a kilt, do you? Easier said than done. Here in the States, proper Aberdeen tailors are in short supply. Besides, who wants to risk ticking-off some short-tempered Scot just because you’ve chosen the wrong tartan pattern?
What you’re wanting is an American made kilt: something as manly and rugged as you are. Crafted, perhaps, of good ole blue denim or motorcycle leather.
Then the Utilikilt is for you.
Utilikilts have actually been around for a while, producing what they call Men’s Unbifurcated Garments — a Stateside interpretation of the traditional Scottish kilt. They’re not as fussy as the originals, opting for simpler fabrics, a more generous cut, and working-class touches such as hammer loops and cargo pockets. They’re the Dockers of the kilt world.
Steven Villegas cobbled together the first Utilikilt back in 1999 as a comfortable, utilitarian alternative to trousers. He snapped on a prototype and headed for a local club. A bouncer asked where he could buy one, and Villegas realized he’d stumbled upon a business. Within a year, he’d sold 750 Utilikilts and was working of of a sprawling Seattle warehouse. Utilikilt sells worldwide these days.
Utilikilt wearers a pretty eclectic bunch. But they say they have one thing in common: people want to know what’s under the kilt.
Which is half the point.
Link: Utilikilts
Evil Mom Ruins 16 Year Old Daughters Life
Posted 13 Mar, 2008 under Video by Shea Gunther | 10 Comments
There’s a lot of pain in the world. War, Famine, Disease, and Hunger are out there, chipping away at people and communities. Single mothers work three jobs to support their families, barely scraping by each month on minimum wage. Homeless people walk the streets because of years of neglect, mental illness, substance abuse, and society’s disdain for people in ragged clothes. Third world mine workers die at an average age of 35 because of caveins, black lung, and gas leaks.
And this poor girl’s mother had the temerity to give her a Lexus for her 16th birthday but didn’t give it to her at her actual birthday party. Her mom basically ruined her life. Like, forever.
The world is cold, cruel place.
(On a serious note, it’s a little disconcerting to see that the upper class is raising such douche nozzles. WTF)
The Weird Epidemic of Toilet Babies Continues
Posted 13 Mar, 2008 under News by Chris Baskind | Leave a Comment
There’s a veritable epidemic of babies being flushed down train toilets.
First there was the December case of the Taiwanese woman who gave birth in the toilet of a busy commuter train. It ended well, after workers successfully extricated a newborn girl from the lavatory plumbing. No wrongdoing was alleged, and mother and daughter are both doing fine. The Taiwan Railway Administration even gave the family free passes for future train rides. Careful in the bathroom next time, ma’am.
Toilet Baby Number Two
Now comes a more serious story from Ahmadabad, India. A young pregnant woman named Bhuri Kalbi was traveling overnight with her family when she fell ill. She entered the bathroom and delivered prematurely before fainting.
But unlike the case in Taiwan, toilets in many Indian trains are essentially chutes which pass waste directly to the tracks below. By the time she regained consciousness, the baby was nowhere to be found.
Family members pulled the trains emergency brake, and engineers radioed back to the previous station. A search was launched. The news was finally relayed that the baby had been found lying between the tracks — alive. The girl was 8 to 10 weeks premature and weighed just over three pounds.
… And a Second Happy Ending
Indian officials don’t doubt Kalbi’s story, and the baby was last reported recovering well from complications related to her early birth.
Here’s mother and child at a hospital in Ahmadabad (Reuters photo by Amit Dave).
Link: BBC News
The Worst Exercise Machine Ever
Posted 12 Mar, 2008 under Stupid by Chris Baskind | 3 Comments
I’m typing hc9 this STory usiong my
New Hawaii Chair eXerCise mach ine. Itz 2800 rPM motor cretaes *h4s0 the perferct hip-swiveling EXercise while ! I work at the computer ter minal. I’m losing
weight
while I WOrk@!
But I’ve gotta throw Up now
The F-117 Stealth Fighter Retires
Posted 12 Mar, 2008 under Tech by Chris Baskind | Leave a Comment
UFO spotters will have one less distraction by April.
The venerable F-117 Night Hawk — popularly known as the Stealth Fighter — is heading for retirement. A creature of the Cold War, the inky black, bat-like craft was a closely guarded military secret until 1988.
But time has passed by the F-117. While still a front line weapon through Operation Desert Storm, the Night Hawk’s radical geometry and radar-evading design restricts the jet to subsonic operation. It’s also not technically a “fighter,” carrying no defensive capability beyond its stealthy characteristics. The F-117 was intended as a light bomber, designed to slip through an enemy’s radar network to deliver precision armaments in the dark of night.
The last of the operational F-117s will be flown to Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range on April 22nd. The 52-plane fleet with be mothballed at the same restricted military facilities where they were first tested in the early 1980s.
There’s no doubt the Stealth Fighter was cool to look at. Its lines have influenced a generation of sci-fi movie art directors and auto designers.
As with technology, fashions change. Stylists looking to the military-industrial complex for inspiration have already turned their attention to the F-117’s successor, the F-22 Raptor. After a decade of angular auto bodies clearly patterned after the Night Hawk, Cadillac’s new Cien concept car points the way to the future for monied, road-bound, wannabe fighter pilots. It’s a future of curvy lines, smooth surfaces, and concert-worthy mobile entertainment systems — without the bother of actual combat missions.
Stealthy looking cars will also be a tad cheaper than their archetypes. The F-117’s official unit cost was about $45 million a copy. Each F-22 Raptor will set taxpayers back about $361 million per aircraft, based on program costs reviewed by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
Link: KFOX-TV
Little Amy Winehouse Jiggles Her (His?) Way Into Your Drug Addled Heart
Great Noodly Appendage!
Check out this video of La Pequeña, aka Little Amy Winehouse. This is mildly disturbing.
Via [PopCrunch]
Awesome Knitting Projects That Would Freak Out Your Granny
Posted 11 Mar, 2008 under Art by Chris Baskind | 3 Comments
If anyone could make the case that knitting is actually cool, it would be Ansley from the Blue Arts crafting blog.
Ansley makes and sells a lot of stuff, from jewelry to paper crafts. But where she really rocks is her off-the-wall knitting projects.
You might think of knitting in terms of that butt-ugly sweater your granny knit for you way back when — the one your mom always made you wear whenever you went for a visit. But check the Princess Leia bun cap at the top of this article. It’s enough to make you wanna illegally download the first three Star Wars movies.*
What woman wouldn’t want to slip into the feminine power of Batgirl with these stylish fingerless gloves?
There’s also a little something for guys. A whole lot of something, actually:
Yup: a jumbo size breast pillow. It’s big enough to give Dolly Parton an inferiority complex, and is crafted from soft, hand-dyed wool colored to match Playboy’s classic Eldon Dedini cartoons (link is probably NSFW).
You can’t buy these knitted creations, but you can grab Ansley’s patterns and instructions in PDF form from her Etsy store for less than 8 bucks. Then go scandalize your granny.
* Our weasel lawyer would want you to know we’re kidding about this.
Link: Blue Arts (via Jason Griffey on Twitter)
Shock Video: Lufthansa Jet Nearly Crashes in Botched Landing
Posted 11 Mar, 2008 under News by Chris Baskind | Leave a Comment
They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one, but passengers on this Lufthansa jet may beg to differ.
All 137 people on board a German domestic flight eventually arrived unharmed — though badly shaken – after a wind gust tipped the Airbus A320’s left wing into the runway, nearly cartwheeling the craft. The quick-witted pilot managed to regain enough control to punch the throttle for an emergency “go around,” circling the airport for a second landing attempt.
In the video, you can see the plane struggling against a stiff 56 mile per hour crosswind, its nose pointed upwind. As it makes contact with the runway, the pilot uses his rudder controls to straighten out. But a gust lifts the right side of the Airbus, forcing the left wing into contact with the tarmac. There’s a huge blast of dust and rain lifted by the jetwash as the plane blasts back to full throttle, miraculously pulling away without serious damage.
The incident occurred March 1st at Hamburg’s airport. Investigators are trying to determine if the Airbus should have been allowed to attempt a landing under such high wind conditions.
Link: Spiegel Online (via Weather Underground)
So You Think Your Commute Sucks?
Posted 11 Mar, 2008 under Culture by Chris Baskind | Leave a Comment
Okay, no more bitching about the drive to work. At least you’re not this Bangladeshi potter, who no doubt pedals this impressive load to and from market every day. There’s probably not even a Starbucks on the way.
Link: Photo by Pavel Rahman (via Bikehugger)
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Snarf the Feed
