Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Futility Closet » Disinformation

Friday 1 March 19:37:30 UTC 2024

For myself, I must say that I find [Edward] Lear funniest when he is least arbitrary and when a touch of burlesque or perverted logic makes its appearance. … While the Pobble was in the water some unidentified creatures came and ate his toes off, and when he got home his aunt remarked: ‘It’s a fact the whole world knows, … [Link]

Weird Universe » The Kendall Paracone

Friday 1 March 12:18:00 UTC 2024

In the early years of the American space program there was a lot of concern about how to get stranded astronauts safely back to Earth. One idea was the "Kendall Paracone," proposed by Robert Kendall of McDonnell Douglass.

Kendall imagined astronauts dropping from space back to earth inside of a giant, gas-inflatable shuttlecock. The shape of the shuttlecock would ensure … [Link]

Weird Universe » “The Film-Flam Man” Episode of MULLIGAN STEW

Friday 1 March 10:17:00 UTC 2024

Explanation here.

IMDB entry for the episode here.

[Link]

Futility Closet » Shop Talk

Friday 1 March 7:39:35 UTC 2024

An odd little item from the New Zealand Police Gazette, Sept. 20, 1893: Christchurch. — William Strange and Co. report that between the 2nd and 4th instant their premises were broken into, and a determined but unsuccessful attempt made to break open the safe, the words ‘No time and little room; bad luck’ being written thereon with a piece of … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons