“It’s a somewhat disturbing case,” says Sgt. Javier Salazar of the San Antonio Police Department. “You think of a child getting a hold of a package that’s got interesting symbols on it, dollar signs in this case, and ingesting something like cocaine that could have a possibly dangerous effect, maybe even deadly on a child.”
The Consumer Category
We bring you the chic and unique, the best and most bizarre shopping offers both online and offline. We offer you tips on where to buy, and some of the less mainstream and crazy, individual and offbeat items on the internet. Anything that can be bought and sold can be featured here. And we love showcasing the best and worst art and design.
Upset mother dresses cat in daughter’s nipple-revealing crop top
Anyone buying a $3 knit crop top from Amzaon whousl know that it shows your nipples and, as one mother says, “Do not buy this, even for your cat.”
Psychoanalyse that.
Posted: 10th, June 2015 | In: Fashion, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Connecticut teacher fired for reading Allen Ginsberg poem students can borrow from the school library
3rd July 1973: American poet Allen Ginsberg (1926 – 1997) with Anglo-American poet and playwright W H Auden (1907 – 1973). (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images) Auden wrote ‘The Platonic Blow‘.
Censorshsip is on the rise in the US. The ‘you can’t say that’ culture is undermining free speech and free thinking. National Coalition Against Censorship has news: “During an AP class discussion about gratuitous language, a student asked a teacher to read an Allen Ginsberg poem. He did. He’s not a teacher anymore.”
David Olio was sacked for reading a poem? Really?
In February two students complained about an Allen Ginsberg poem that, at the request of a fellow student, was shared in Olio’s AP English class at South Windsor High School in Connecticut. A media uproar followed, and Olio was essentially forced to resign.
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The telescopic contact lens let’s you zoom in and out in a wink
The Google Glass was the wasabi enema of cool. But what if you had the functionality without the form? Robert J. Szczerba at Forbes:
For those of us old enough to remember television in the ‘70s the epitome of cool was the Six Million Dollar Man, Col. Steve Austin and his bionic enhancements. But what was once the purview of science fiction is inching closer to becoming an everyday reality, as optics specialist Eric Tremblay unveiled a unique contact lens that provides the user with telescopic vision. The lens was revealed earlier this year at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Jose, California.
The new contact lens, a more advanced model of a prototype introduced in 2013, is 1.55 millimeters thick and features a very thin, reflective telescope, which allows the user to zoom in and out in literally a wink. The telescopic contacts are made with a rigid lens known as a scleral lens— larger in diameter than the more familiar soft contacts, but useful for special cases, such as for people with irregularly shaped corneas. Despite their size and stiffness, scleral lenses are safe and comfortable for special applications, and are an attractive platform for technologies such as optics, sensors, and electronics.
Lord Nelson would have loved it.
Posted: 5th, June 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Chocobana-na: you can inject your cream into a banana (video)
Chocobanana
Stuck for a way to inject chocolate sauce or cream into a ripe banana? Well, worry no more. The Chocobana-na is here to turn the phallic fruit into a loaded missile.
Posted: 1st, June 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
How one writer tricked the Daily Mail into reporting ‘chocolate can Help you lose weight’
The Daily Mail told us that choloclate can help you lose weight.
John Bohannon writes:
“Slim by Chocolate!” the headlines blared. A team of German researchers had found that people on a low-carb diet lost weight 10 percent faster if they ate a chocolate bar every day. It made the front page of Bild, Europe’s largest daily newspaper, just beneath their update about the Germanwings crash. From there, it ricocheted around the internet and beyond… The Bild story quotes the study’s lead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research director of the Institute of Diet and Health: “The best part is you can buy chocolate everywhere.”
I am Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D. Well, actually my name is John, and I’m a journalist. I do have a Ph.D., but it’s in the molecular biology of bacteria, not humans. The Institute of Diet and Health? That’s nothing more than a website.
Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percent authentic. My colleagues and I recruited actual human subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.
Posted: 28th, May 2015 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Painted bronze sculpture of Sir Tim Berners-Lee unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled Sean Henry’s painted bronze sculpture of Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
His lap-top’s in the leather bag slung over his shoulder.
Posted: 28th, May 2015 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
1947: Dectorate your children’s room with Disney-themed DDT-impregnated wallpaper
In 1947, Trimz made ready-pasted wallpaper for children. “Actual tests have proved that one fly can carry as many as 6,600,000 bacteria!” But with DDT the fly is dead. The bacteria are dead. And you child is being slowly poisoned.
Posted: 24th, May 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
London gets ready to cook at the Breaking Bad bar
London is getting bar ABQ, a venue set in a large RV named after the setting of the TV show Breaking Bad in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
For £30, 22 punters-a-time will not get to sample the blue meth, but”cook” two drinks.
Anyone unable to afford £15 drinks can pop along to Danny’s Burger RV (formerly Danny’s Burger Van) on the M62 betweeen 2am and 5am every weekday, where so long as you’ve got the cash, Danny’s pretty much got anything you want.
Posted: 22nd, May 2015 | In: Reviews, The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
London property madness: former Chelsea council flat on sale for £1.1m
A third floor flat in unlovely Keppel House on Brompton Cross, Chelsea, is on sale for £1.5m
Maskells estate agency says the redesigned property features two-bedrooms, a 1952 Soviet-styled exterior, “handcrafted and laid chevron flooring”, “mood lighting and bespoke fixtures”.
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Posted: 20th, May 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Former Thompson Twins singer Alannah Currie stuffs her furniture with roadkill
Alannah Currie, once of the three-piece 1980s band The Thompson Twins, now works as an upholsterer.
She says she has hidden poetry and handwritten stories in different parts” of her chairs. And then there is her use of marterials, which is interesting:
The foxes, swan, lamb and blue tit on my chairs are memento mori. I’m a vegetarian, so I did a lot of research to find the right taxidermist who uses animals that die naturally or are roadkill. I had to wait eight months for the swan. As far as fitting the animals into the chairs, I’m very specific. For instance, for the foxes, I measured the back of the chair, drew exactly how I wanted the foxes to be positioned and sent these drawings to the taxidermist. Then I sewed them in when they eventually arrived. All the furniture is made to be robust. It is functional art – there may be a lamb on the chair, but you can lie beside it or use it as a cushion. To me, they are very beautiful but disturbing at the same time.
You can see more of her work at Miss Pokeno.
Posted: 19th, May 2015 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer | Comment
Photos of the Star Trek flat for sale after owner was jailed for sex crimes
Will you go boldy into the Star Trek flat in Hinckley, Leicestershire.
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Posted: 17th, May 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
My life as a Californian sex doll doctor (photos and video)
The Real Stories documentary Love Me, Love My Doll features “RealDoll expert” Slade Fiero repairing life-size sex toys.
RealDoll’s take one helluva pounding. And Slade’s job is to go in there and make the rough, broken and chaffed smoother than a rubber glove.
Slade works with Matt McMullen, creator of Abyss Creations, located in Southern California.
“The original concept I had was actually not a sex toy at all,” says McMullen… “It was intended to be a poseable mannequin, or simply a form of art.” He quickly noticed that a lot of people saw the dolls in an erotic way. The company makes about 300 RealDolls each year. A standard-issue model sells for $6,500, while a meticulously customized one can go for as much as $50,000.
Slade replaces the damaged vagina, which looks like this:
Fiero traces his interest in dolls to playing with G.I. Joes and Barbie in his youth.
“I was born in 1960 so Joe was the guy I got to hang out with for those formative years.”
“Slade has a very important place in the doll world,” says Elena Dorfman, a photographer who documented that world in her 2005 book Still Lovers. “People are sending him their beloved—or at least a sex partner that they paid a lot of money for. They’re trusting him to fix her. It’s like sending someone you love to the doctor and hoping they’ll come out all right.”
Silicone RealDoll sex doll faces receive teeth at the Abyss Creations factory on February 5, 2004 in San Marcos, California. RealDolls are created using Hollywood special effects technology and have orifices made of a special soft grade of silicone for people who want to ‘enhance their sex lives’, according to Abyss Creations literature. Standard female models sell for about $6000, males for $7000, and are sold only over the Internet. ‘Shemales’ and other special orders are also available. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Slade has tips:
“If you care for it, if you treat it right, you can crank her knees up to her shoulders and bang away at that doll with good hard intercourse and come out shining. But clean her out… Clean her off. If you’ve got a hairy chest, you’re going to leave hairs all over her. If you’ve got a cat, she’s going to pick up cat hair. You want to take care of what you’ve got.”
The customers might be registered:
“I had one guy from Berkeley who had sex so hard with his doll that he ripped the leg off it. The doll was less than a year old, and destroyed. Her calves, from below the knee, had what looked almost like knife puncture wounds. Hundreds of them. I don’t know what this guy was doing to this doll.”
Has Slade ever been tempted to road test his repair:
“I’m not going to be fucking dolls and shipping them to other people. That’s fuckin’ rude. What kind of businessman would I be if I did that?”
Posted: 14th, May 2015 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Jart: You can send your mother a fart in a jar
You can now spend your money to send farts in a jar – a Jart – through the post. For $10 plus shipping, you can send a crispy, airy, or juicy blow off and a note to your mother / enemy / lover.
But how do you know the fart is a genuine fart and not a lab-produced stink? The company’s website says the fart is from a backside, but fails to say which one?
Jart also say the bottled “invisble turd” lingers for 3 to 5 days!
Buyer beware.
Spotter: The Daily Dot
Posted: 14th, May 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Reader photocopies his Kindle to make a more expensive physical backup
Artist Jesse England’s “E-Book Backup” project sees him photocopy his Kindle version of George Orwell’s 1984. He photocopied every page, one by one. He then uploaded the scanned copy to his Kindle.
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Posted: 12th, May 2015 | In: Books, Reviews, Technology | Comment
The Lean Muscle Suit turns wimps into bulging, venin-popping gym gods
Hey, you, skinny!. Yeah, you. It’s time to get ripped, man. You need a muscles that draw you skin tighter than a Hollywood wife’s smile. But you’re too lazy and weak to work out. So why not step inside a Lean Muscle Suit?
The people at Flex Design Costumes tell us:
The Lean Muscle Suit provides a nice, slender tone and build for a more natural and realistic look and feel. Available in our full range of colors (shown here in Beige).
Flex Design muscle suits are constructed with a durable cotton/lycra or nylon/lycra unitard.
Our unique combination of materials has been carefully selected to provide a lightweight suit with great flexibility and range of motion.
Flex Design uses extra heavy duty zippers and stitching to ensure maximum quality and performance for the life of your suit.
Our muscle suits are skillfully assembled and constructed by hand, with each individual muscle carefully placed to provide the most anatomically correct suit for your height and build.
With our optional add-ons, you can create the most realistic muscle suit you’ve ever seen!
Veins: individual veins are put into place to provide an unbelievably real look and feel to each suit.
Airbrushing: contouring and highlighting give definition to each muscle group and create an outstanding suit that doesn’t need to be covered up.
Available in a range of skin tones:
Yours for just shy of $1000.
Spotter: Cory Doctorow
Posted: 8th, May 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
China’s Window of the World amusement park offers a cremation simulator
‘You have to be this long to die’
Chinese looking for a thrill can take the “death simulator” at the Window of the World amusement park in Shenzhen, China. The Indy reports:
Once inside (a coffin), players are then blasted by hot air (up to 40C) and light to create an “authentic experience of burning,” according to its creators, Huange Weiping and Ding Rui.
When the “burning” is over, volunteers see a womb projected on the ceiling and must crawl until they reach a large, white padded area – supposedly representing a womb – where they are “reborn”.
It’s a bit like getting a fake tan in your clothes…
Posted: 8th, May 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Woman delighted to find cocaine in Nature Valley granola bar
Now testing
Public Health UK take note: granola bars in Texas come with free cocaine.
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Posted: 8th, May 2015 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Prepare to vomit with embarrassment: ‘Taste & Colour’ by Green & Black’s is every sense of terrible
As Robert Popper says: “Prepare to vomit with embarrassment”:
We’re celebrating the launch of Green & Black’s THIN Dark 70% with Michel Roux Jr, Tom Kitchin, Emilia Fox, and sisters Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley, as they talk about their love of food through the lens of colour.
You go down the list under a few celebs says ‘yes’:
Posted: 30th, April 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
The selfie stick is over: all hail the selfie arm
I got given a selfie stick and found it to be very good at lying around the place as clutter. Far better is Aric Snee and Justin Crowe’s Selfie Arm. This way you can look as if all your friends are not in the photo- or you;re haning out with Thing.
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Posted: 28th, April 2015 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Nothing says RIP than putting your dead lover’s ashes inside a glass dildo
Last of the red-hot lovers
Good news, deadsters. You can carry on shagging after you’ve stopped breathing. Mark Sturkenboom’s “21 grams memory box” has a box for the widow or widower in need of company. It contains: a diffuser for the deceased’s perfume, an iPod dock to play “your” songs, a necklace on which to keep the key and an urn shaped like a dildo ready on contain 21 grammes of the dead lover’s red-hot ashes.
Says Mark:
“I sometimes help an elderly lady with her groceries and she has an urn standing near the window with the remains of her husband. She always speaks with so much love about him but the jar he was in didn’t reflect that at all.”
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Posted: 27th, April 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Liverpool keep Jordan Henderson but will Nivea stick by their man?
Jordan Henderson has penned a new five-year deal to play for Liverpool. Good news for Liverpool fans. And at £100,0o0-a-week, it’s good news for Henderson, who will just be able to afford a season ticket at top-flight boxing. (Tickets for the Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao’s fight are yours for £100,000 each. It makes £60 to watch your team play Arsenal at the Emirates look like a steal.)
Writing in the Times, Giles Smith wonders if Henderson is going to re-sign for another of his clients: Nivea.
…a deal that has already yielded comedy gold. Indeed, if there was a Bafta for Best Look To Camera By A Footballer In A Narrative-Based Commercial (and now there should be), Henderson would have swept it away for a lifetime.
It is a cracker:
But what does it all mean for men? It’s the decline of man: the steady emasculation of our role models.
Posted: 25th, April 2015 | In: Liverpool, Reviews, Sports, The Consumer | Comment
Diner finds used sink plug in her Hog’s Breath salad
Things Found In Food spots a sink plug in a salad.
The diner at Brisbane, Australia’s Hog’s Breath Cafe got an old plug in her salad. You have to wonder what vegetable the chef thinks the plug resembles?
The eatery’s ggeneral manager Ross Worth offers up an explanation:
“Food hygiene is a top priority for the company. The plug came from a sanitised ice food bath that was designated for fresh produce such as lettuce and tomatoes to be washed in. On that day the staff members have pulled fresh produce out of the bath and accidently pulled the plug with it. The business owner has re-trained his staff on the right processes to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again. As for the customer’s complint that kitchen staff thought it was funny I can’t comment if they were laughing – I would guess not.It’s not a laughing matter, and I’d like to think they wouldn’t laugh.”
Conclusion: don’t order the mushrooms.
Posted: 23rd, April 2015 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
