According to Reuters:
At least 18 mushroom-lovers have been killed in accidents while hunting for their favorite fungi in the mountains and forests of northern Italy.
People are so secretive about the locations of their favorite fungi, that they dress in gray or brown and start before daylight using headlamps to spot their prey, so competing fungaioli won’t see them.
Many fungaiolo travel alone, without any way to call for help causing even a minor accident to become life threatening. Add thunderstorms and heat into the mix and you get not only a bumper crop of the tasty fungi, but the wet, slippery conditions that have led to so many of this year’s fatal falls.
According to Alpine rescuers some people are so consumed by their obsession with mushrooms that they take unnecessary risks. One 58 year old man died because he left the path he and his friends were following and took off up a steep incline after spotting a particularly nice porcini mushroom. He slipped and fell almost a hundred meters
From RCNevada:
Is it just me or does this thing look like a missile launcher?
They have this beastie over at Pioneer Loan and Jewelry (a Las Vegas pawn shop).
The guy that pawned it put a lot of effort into the brackets connecting these two telescopes just so he could use them simultaneously.
He said the bottom telescope is for viewing the stars and the top telescope has a camera adapter to capture nebulae.
Ya know….. I’m reasonably certain that the guy built it to look at the stars, but I bet if some voyeur found this under the tree at Christmas it would make his whole year.
(I wonder what would the neighbors say if I put this contraption on my roof and started tracking airplanes?)
Coca-Cola is being sued for misleading health claims about their “VitaminWater.”
First the reasonable part:
Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims.
WASHINGTON—A federal judge has denied Coca-Cola’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit over what the Center for Science in the Public Interest says are deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on the company’s “vitaminwater” line of soft drinks. The company claims that vitaminwater variously reduces the risk of chronic disease, reduces the risk of eye disease, promotes healthy joints, and supports optimal immune function, and uses health buzz words such as “defense,” “rescue,” “energy,” and “endurance” on labels.
Now the WTF? part:
Coca-Cola’s defense is that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”
The judge also rejected Coke’s argument that disclosing sugar content on Nutrition Facts labels eliminates the possibility that consumers may be misled into thinking the product has only water and vitamins, and little or no sugar. Gleeson cited a similar case involving deceptive fruit imagery on packages for Gerber’s Fruit Juice Snacks, which are mostly corn syrup and sugar. That court held that “reasonable consumers should [not] be expected to look beyond misleading representations on the front of the box to discover the truth from the ingredient list in small print on the side of the box.” Vitaminwater has 33 grams of sugar in each 20-ounce bottle.
(reprinted from Some Old Dude)
A friend just returned from the South Pacific with a bottle of Vin de Tahiti, vin rouge.
The vineyard is located on the atoll of Rangiroa, 221 miles from Tahiti, and according to their their website is run by these gentlemen: “Mr Dominique AUROY, a wines fine connoisseur as well as a successful entrepreneur and business man who has been living in Tahiti for the past 35 years, and Mr Bernard HUDELOT, a viticulturist in the Burgundy region and a professor at the Vines and Wines University in Dijon.”
This level of expertise bodes well for a red, so we grabbed four t-bones, cranked up the BBQ, and poured ourselves a glass.
Our resident wine “expert”, who, having taken a wine tasting course, knows more about the subject than the rest of us, swirled and sniffed and took a small sip, rolled it around in her mouth, spit it out, and declared it to be “a not very good year for a Châteauneuf-du-K-Mart.”
I took a sip and decided that that was a terrible insult to K-Mart.
Perhaps we got a bad bottle, but it strikes me as being a tourist trap kind of product. Something you buy for the novelty, not to actually drink, like Cobra Snake whiskey. (something else I’ll never taste again.)
William Shatner aka “The Shat” has a new gig as the Admiral on My Outerspace dot com
The site is completely SiFi themed and subdivided in to ships and planets where the members interests can be explored.
The planet Orpheus has a musical theme and the Galaxy is where Sci-Fi Fans and MYOUTERSPACE observers participate in discussions, view videos, and communicate with the MYOUTERSPACE community.
But my favorite planet is Creatia:
Creatia
People like writers, directors, and playwrights call this planet home. Creatia hosts a creative environment for thinkers of all kinds like writers, directors, and playwrights, who call this Planet home. Become a citizen of Creatia today and take advantage of the rich resources that this planet offers its citizens.
Obviously writers, directors, playwrights and the other masters of redundancy are welcome, but editors are strictly persona non grata.
The site’s been kicking around since 2009 so it’s still young and the only thing about it that bothers me, aside from the copy being written by someone from the Department Of Redundancy Department, is Shat’s green hair. I wonder if it’s supposed to be a joke, or if knocking boots with all those different colored women has finally taken it’s toll.
Vremya Novostei: The content of toxic substances – lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, radioactive nuclides, caesium, pesticides and ergot – must be restricted in the Russian beer. Parasites of bread reserves – insects and ticks – must not appear in the production process. Beer must be made without the use of ethyl alcohol. Labels on the end product must provide full and true information for customers. These are a few of the new technical regulations on beer.
They are also regulating the amount of beer in special beer. It must contain at least 80% beer.
Beer based soft drinks and cocktails must contain at least 40% beer.
Beer based soft drinks??…. Only in Russia.
The Colorado River Toad or Bufo alvarius, also known as the Sonoran Desert Toad, is a psychoactive toad found in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The skin and venom of Bufo alvarius contain 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin.
Here’s the potential problem:
Owning this toad is not illegal, but the substance it secretes is a “controlled substance.” So you don’t need to worry about some wildlife agency busting you for possessing and/or licking this critter, but since it produces a controlled substance you might need to worry about the DEA.
And yes, there are people who actually lick this toad to get high. –Although it seems to me that if you’re running around licking toads…. you probably don’t need to get any higher.
There’s no word yet on a PETA campaign to rename the Colorado River Toad to “land puppies” to try and stop the practice.
So, how many of you read this as “Erotica?”
It’s a phonecard based on a character developed by Pro Wrestling Revolution.
