Year: 2009

Those of you with (ahem) digestive issues might want to install a toilet with Quattro flushing technology in your bathroom. Marvel at the promotional video below, in which all sorts of stuff gets flushed down a Quattro toilet: 2.5 pounds of carrots, 4 sets of plastic chess pieces, 3 pounds of gummi bears. 18 large hot dogs and all sorts of other stuff that would render an ordinary toilet non-functional. If I had one of these, I’d be flushing all kinds of weird stuff all the time!

…which means it’s time to post the official photo of what the first day of daylight saving time feels like:

For those of you who commute by car, be careful out there tomorrow. That missing hour of sleep tends to lead an increase in car accidents.

Maybe someone can answer this question: Why don’t we stay on daylight saving time permanently and not go through a disorienting time change twice a year?

Here’s a political cartoon by Jim Day:

Thanks to AZspot for the find!

Accordion City’s other name, Toronto, is a native word for “meeting place”. Chicago is supposed to mean “stink onion”, in reference to the marshland onions that grew there well before the “El” and Wrigley Field. The Atlas of True Names presents the world with its place names translated into their meaning, turning the Sahara into the Sea of Sand, Paris into the City of Boatmen, Hong Kong into Fragrant Harbour, Grozny into “The Awesome” and Great Britain into Great Land of the Tattooed.

I’ve posted a collage of maps from the Atlas of True Names below. Click on them to see them at full size:

The best way to come out of a freak accident is freak survival. Cem Tokac of Turkey was struck by a truck that was crossing a railway track while a train was closing in. The train struck the truck, which was then push right into Tocak, who was standing by the tracks. He fell between the wheels of the truck, which is how he didn’t get pulverized.

There are a few more details and a video in this article.