Dutch residents formed a chorus of opposition to a newly installed “singing road” earlier this month, prompting the road to be shut down after only one day of use. Workers had installed strips that act like rumble strips on 490 feet of road near the village of Jelsum, but instead of the familiar rumbling sound, the strips used vibration to play a popular portion of the regional anthem “De Alde Friezen,” or “The Old Frisians.” But like the earworm that won’t leave, the tune plagued residents of the village to such an extent that they couldn’t sit outside or sleep at night. One resident told the local newspaper, the Leeuwarder Courant, that the constant playing of the song amounted to “psychological torture.”
A fishy hack
Surprise! Hackers are utilizing the nefarious “internet of things” we are happily surrounding ourselves with — which includes everything from internet-enabled household devices to HVAC systems — in order to steal our data. These devices include household appliances connected to the internet, as well as widgets in power plants. The CEO of Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm, recently relayed an incident in which a casino was hacked through the thermometer in its lobby aquarium. Using this “fishy” foothold in the casino’s network, the hackers were able to access a database of high rollers and send it out into the cloud. Makes you wonder what secrets your new internet-enabled fridge might leak.
The badger invasion
If you want to repel invading armies, a castle was the way to go in the 16th century. If you want to repel invading rodents in the 21st century, not so much. Historic Scotland was forced to shut down some tunnels at Craignethan Castle popular with the public because of a “very angry badger,” according to a tweet from the organization. There wasn’t much explanation about why the badger was “angry,” but the animal was said to have caused a mess by digging up through loose soil into the stonework.
Under wraps
Construction work was taking place to renovate Dayton’s Department Store in Minneapolis, MN, in early April when the crew discovered something unusual in the ceiling – a mummified monkey. How did a petrified monkey end up in the upper floors of a former department store dating back to 1902? People all across the state, including the governor of Minnesota, are scratching their heads. The Old Minneapolis Facebook page was one of the first pages to share the story on social media. One theory from the Facebook page as to the origin of the primate mummy is that there was a circus on the building’s eighth floor, another was that the monkey escaped a pet store via an air conditioning duct.
Only 362 more to go …
Philip Ashforth Coppola has spent four decades sketching New York City subway stations in a series of precise and intricate pen and paper sketches. So, far he’s made his way through 110 of the city’s 472 stations. His 2,000 sketches are compiled in 41 notebooks. There’s even a documentary about Coppola’s work as well as an exhibition on display at the New York Transit Museum’s gallery at Grand Central Terminal. A book titled, “One-Track Mind; Drawing the New York Subway” has also been published, which includes 120 sketches in a curated volume. Why does Coppola sketch subways? Coppola aims to prove the beauty of the New York City subway stations, which are often adorned with mosaics and plaques with some dating back to 1900. Although, sketching subways may seem tedious and boring, Coppola aims to show the world the hidden beauty of the mundane.
Spud art
Artist and professor Jeffrey Allen Price thinks the simple spud is worthy of high art. Price owns more than 5,000 pieces of potato objects from toys to books, and snacks. His collection is called, Think Potato Institute, which encompasses everything potato related, whether that’s art, music, or events. One hundred of Price’s collectible potatoes will be on display until June 15 at Stony Brook University’s Charles B. Wang Center in Stony Brook, New York. The exhibit is titled, Potasia: Potatoism in the East, and includes the work of 19 artists from Asia, which was curated by price and the center’s director of cultural programs. Each of the artistic works includes potatoes, whether that’s in paint, video, or an honest to goodness spud.
My spidey senses are tingling
A burger restaurant in Durham, North Carolina is running an exotic meat month that includes the most bizarre burger topping I’ve ever heard: tarantula. Bull City Burger and Brewery’s exotic meat month includes iguana, alligators, and insects, but the tarantula challenge is what is drawing attention. For $30 the tarantula burger comes with gruyere cheese, chili sauce, and an oven roasted tarantula. Because there is a limited supply you have to win a raffle to have the opportunity to try this, ahem, delicacy.
Is that a storm front or are you happy to see me?
People who live on the Gulf Coast region were greeted by an exciting weather map last week. The Gulf Coast Storm Center posted an image of a snow and ice storm that stretched across Texas and Arkansas that had a familiar, phallic shape to it. The picture has been getting a lot of hilarious reactions online, including: “If this storm lasts longer than 4 hours, seek immediate medical attention,” “Don’t expect this storm to pull out quickly…” and “Storm’s definitely going to penetrate deep down south.”
Don’t cry over spilt milk
A truck in Southwest England lost its cargo while going around a roundabout last week resulting in hundreds of gallons of milk in the middle of the road. While an Oreo truck could not be located in time, the local police did report to help clean up the remaining 2 percent of the whole mess. No one was hurt in the accident, but I dairy say that the driver will secure his cargo a little better in the future!
S*#t hole countryside
When New York was banned from dumping poo into the ocean, they figured the next best option was to dump it in the good ol’ south. In Parish, Alabama, folks were recently the unfortunate hosts to a trainload of human waste from New York. Residents say the stench was like “a giant backed-up toilet.” One woman said, “it smells like rotting corpses, or carcasses. It smells like death.” The poop caboose was stalled in Parish because the town of West Jefferson, where the poop was transferred from trains to trucks, obtained an injunction to keep the sludge out of their town. Fortunately for the tiny population of Parish, the poop was delivered to its landfill destination, and after the two month reign of terror, It has joined the rest of New York’s sewage just 25 miles away.
Lions, raccoons, and bears, oh my?
According to New York media reports, someone in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights called 911 to report sighting a tiger on loose Well, police discovered it wasn’t exactly a man eating tiger, but rather an egg eating raccoon. While most people are quick at differentiating between a big orange tiger and a little brown raccoon, some in the New York media conceded that “they do both have black markings.” Hmm…OK. Meanwhile, folks went nuts on social media but it was the disappointment of some news media that took the cake. Some reporters took to Twitter and lamented how the news of “it was a raccoon” dampened their spirits and effectively ruined their Thursday mornings. As if New York doesn’t have enough excitement.
Chester Cheetah would not approve
Police in Louisiana say a woman came home to discover a naked stranger in her tub, eating her Cheetos while taking a bath. The 29-year-old woman was arrested on burglary and property damage charges; police found evidence of water in the bath and a tub-side snack of Cheetos and other delectables on the adjacent toilet. The burglar told the homeowner that an “unknown man had told her to break into the house.” Police found a broken window and a tall ice chest used to get the Cheetos loving bandit inside the home. The burglar was, of course, arrested and it goes without saying that police had to clean the cheese dust off her fingers before the finger printing.
