Category: Weird

Uncle-From-Hell Xmas Presents: Personal Air-Raid Horn

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What kid wouldn’t get a thrill out of playing Air Raid Warden and cranking out 115 decibels of fun at the playground? This is my Uncle Fester payback for that tin-drum you bought my kid, the bow-and-arrow set that ended up embedded in the windowsill of the neighbor’s master bedroom. You know who you are. I’m coming for your sanity.

Here, for your holiday shopping pleasure, is the Superior Airhorn company’s personal air-raid klaxon (with carrying bag).

“Manual Hand Crank Operated Air Raid Siren. Will produces a loud adjustable sound of 110 decibels. Made out of durable plastic (ABS) housing.  Ideal for getting peoples attention, or rooting for your favorite team in sporting events, and many other uses.  Comes with a carrying case.”

http://www.superiorhorns.com/media/wav/100p.wav

WARNING: This puppy is loud. I just blew my ear drums when I listened to a sample through my headphones at work.

 

Beer for dogs

Yesterday colleague Bryan House (@bryanhouse) ended Acquia’s first customer conference, Engage, with a beer tasting demonstration. Everybody was served a flight of beers, a snack tray of two kinds of malt, some fresh hops and a few coffee beans. As a failed home brewer (my product made excellent slug bait around the zinnias and tomatoes), hearing a professional brewmaster talk about the factors that go into a great beer was a great education and excuse to quaff an Octoberfest, a local beer (Narragansett Autocrat Coffee Milk Ale) and a Dogfish 90-minute Imperial IPA.

But when Bryan showed this beer, from BrewDog, the strongest beer in the world at 55% alcohol, I could only think: “Dogs would go insane for that shit.”

Dude of the Day – Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart

Tip of the hat to Uncle Fester for finding the best first paragraph of any Wikipedia entry. Ever.

“Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and pulled off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in World War I, he wrote, “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.”

What is it about English tough guys taking off their own fingers? See Sir Ranulph Fiennes. “He sustained severe frostbite to the tips of all the fingers on his left hand, forcing him to abandon the attempt. On returning home, his surgeon insisted the necrotic fingertips be retained for several months before amputation, to allow regrowth of the remaining healthy tissue. Impatient at the pain the dying fingertips caused, Fiennes cut them off himself with a fretsaw,  just above where the blood and the soreness were.”

I order you to have a Happy Valentine’s Day

I would have loved to have handed these out in third grade to the other kids at the Perley Elementary School in Georgetown Massachusetts. Do little kids still do the cheap Valentine’s Day exchange? Anyway….it’s one of those days and I thought some Totalitarian Dictator Humor was in order. Click for a bigger view.

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The Music with Talking Thing has to end

I listen to a lot of ambient music during the day while I work — I’ve always listened to something in the background while writing — generally instrumental stuff streamed through Last.fm which I can tune out but which gets rid of the bleak silence of my office  hereon the Cape or in Manhattan. I’ve noticed over the last six months a lot of music incorporates people speaking  — not singing — fragments of everyday conversations over the music. This is not singing. This is talking. Thank god Last.fm has a “ban” button so I can banish this stuff forever. But I swear there’s more of it and it keeps coming.

I give you “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb.

And finally, “Close Your Eyes and Daydream” by Obfusc. This one was the last straw and forced this rant out of me.