Best Art Ever?

http://www.brandonbird.com/shopping.html#mini_prints

I don’t know which one I love most…there are so many…

Big Wheel for Adults

Back when I was a little kid – that is, back when water guns looked like real guns – there was nothing cooler than a Big Wheel (well, except Transformers, but nothing’s cooler than Transformers). Giant front wheel, little back wheels, pedals and tassles. I mean come on! Though I don’t remember it, I apparently used to bomb down a tree-studded hill on one of these things when we lived in Knoxville. Probably explains a lot about my present-day driving style. Now, I DO remember blowing down the street in Dallas, one foot balanced on the seat, the other pushing away behind me, skateboard style, and leaping away just before the Big Wheel slammed into the curb. Again, probably explains a lot.

Now that I’m all grown up (in that I have a son of my own and a wife and a job and stuff), I don’t really have the equivalent of a Big Wheel anymore. The mountain bike is more like, well, a bike, and my MINI if anything, is a more civilized version of the go-karts my dad used to take me to drive when I was little.

But…change may be on the horizon. This morning, I came across a crazy contraption called the Trailcart. Invented in Germany, this thing’s being touted as the world’s “first pedal-powered four-wheel-drive off-road vehicle”. But looking at it, all I can think is Big Wheel.

I bet it’d even be fun to run one into a curb.

Demodernization

Wow. Fuel prices are getting so high that farmers are devolving to pre-industrialized methods.

High Gas Prices Drive Farmer to Switch to Mules

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.

“This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”

And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm.

“We’ve been using them quite a bit,” he said.

Brother Robert Raymond added, “It’s the way of the future.”

Food Fight

Military history from WWII – present, portrayed with food. Brilliant.

Why Pulling the Fire Alarm at the Gas Station is a Bad Idea

Wow. They don’t kid around, do they?

from gizmodo.com posted with vodpod

Bordeaux Outlaws Death…

Not entirely sure how this is going to work…

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) – The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish.”

It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0552076620080305

Irony…

From gadget-blog Gizmodo:

Anti-Shark Device Eaten by Irony-Loving Great White

This is awkward…during the testing phase for the Shark Shield, an electronic device that is designed to go on the back of surfboards to keep sharks away, one of the devices was actually eaten by a shark.

Yeah, not only did this thing not keep sharks away, but it actually attracted the attention of a 12-foot great white enough that it mistook it for a tasty snack. Luckily, it was on a buoy and not a surfboard at the time.

In other news, white people like irony, according to Stuff White People Like.

O Glorious Day!

I’ve been waiting nearly eight years, but today, Taco Bueno opened its first store in Austin!

Taco Bueno and a Macworld Keynote in one day…this is probably the best Tuesday I have ever had.

Bookmark and Save for Seven Years

Wow. I think one of these would make for a kick-ass father-son project one day. After all, what boy (or grown man, for that matter) doesn’t love using complicated mechanical contraptions to hurl small objects great distances?

In the meantime, I’ve got my eye on the Desktop Onager…

Well that’s strange…

One of the things I like about WordPress is the way it presents viewer stats on the back end. Is it perfect? No. But it does a brilliant job displaying which posts are receiving the most traffic.

Ever since I posted it, my Reversal Challenge has been dominating all the other posts. I’m not quite sure how, but it became a featured post on the main WordPress site under the “writing” tag.

When I checked my stats this morning, I fully expected to see more of the same. Thus I was somewhat surprised to see my all-but-ignored post on the new Knight Rider, “I’m Sorry, Michael…” owning the page views Titanic-style.

Huh?