Don the Magic Juan knows his bling and it ain't this CRV!

This was spotted in the parking lot of the local Bally's workout center by my friend Ed. One side of the CRV has some pimpalicous chrome wheels. You'd expect a matching set on the other side right? Nope. Just the stock wheels from the factory!

I'm not sure of the motivation here -- I would not think that you'd bother buying fancy chrome wheels and tires if you knew you could only afford two, but then again, I seen worse.

Click below for a larger image.

This CRV has a tame side and a side with attitude!

Snapped by one of my buddies, this confused Corolla seems to think it might be a Mustang. Or something.

Look closely at the hood and notice the not-so-small hood ornament. I'm not sure if it's bolted-on or just glued, but I've got to admit it's a strange placement for a Mustang type ornament. I wonder perception this guy is trying to achieve -- maybe it's funny like having a set of bullhorns on the hood. Then again, he might be serious and thinking it actually looks cool.

Whatever the case, this is more proof that even a smallish homogenized town like Fort Collins, CO has its share of weird automotive modders and nuts. Click below for a larger version.

Here's a bit of silliness spotted by a friend. This Subaru WRX not only has the typical hood scoop, but the owner has somehow figured that his car would look faster if it also had an intake scoop on the roof! As you can see in the photo, the scoop doesn't appear to go anywhere as you can see light coming through. And, isn't the Subaru a front-engine car, hence the hood scoop?

Yep, more bolt-on silliness from the rice-racer scene in Colorado. Oh, and I like how he formed the license plate around the bumper rather than purchase the proper holder. Or maybe driving fast caused the plate to bend! Slap a Type-R sticker on that bad boy and you'll have the fastest looking car around, well maybe except for the Geo Metro rice racer I wrote about some time ago.

Click the image below for a larger version in all it's bolt-on accessory goodness.

Thanks for the pic, Al!

Crawdads, or crawfish I guess, are basically like tiny lobsters according to my childhood memories. Any time I've found them, it was in the water at the lake or somewhere like that.

That's why these photos, which were taken in a soybean field in Indiana, were so interesting.

Apparently, the crawdads build these little "castles" in fields out there. I guess that there's enough water for them to stay moist underground from the irrigation of the crops. So, they must dig a little underground hole and push the mud blobs up to the surface, thus forming the tower-shaped, unusual looking castle. I've been told that the towers are usually three to four inches tall.

That gets us to interesting point #2: these are much bigger. The short one was probably six inches or so high, so it's twice the typical size.

There was one crawdad mud castle that really towered above the rest, though. It was over 14 inches tall. The knife shown in the photo is 3.75" long, so you can judge just how tall the tower is. If you ask me, that crawdad is making tons of extra work for himself pushing the mud blobs up that high!

A quote from the person who took the photos:

They push mud up from the hole in which they live, presumably to enlarge their quarters? This is the only place I have seen these structures in all the places we have lived. I have been told that crawdads build these, but that is taken on faith. I have never seen a crawdad in a hole. However, if you drop a rock into the mouth of one of these holes, you will hear clicking, which presumably are the claws of the crawdad clicking as it warns whoever is above not to come down the hole.

Anyway, there's your "odd nature stuff" tidbit for the day! How many of you even knew that crawdads built such things or lived in soybean fields?

When you see these photos for Fantazyland in Egypt, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was abandoned and possibly had even been used as a military training ground.

However, this amusement park is actually open for business! Of course, "open" is a relative term. It seems that most of the rides are inoperable, which I suppose is probably good when you consider the safety issues which are likely present.

What I cannot believe is that somebody took the time to actually build what appears to be a decent park with some nice rides, but then they let it decay to such a level. Perhaps there are other issues which take precedence to riding roller coaster - perhaps like not getting shot, but still...

I have no idea how this got the idea to blast down a steep mountainside on his mountain bike at over 70 mile per hour, but I have to think he's just a tad crazy. You know the wheel has to be wobbling like mad at that speed and riding on even hard-packed dirt, let alone that soft looking soil, at that speed would be reasonably insane.

Well, despite the fact that the rider had the ability and luck to pull the high-speed stunt off, I guess they don't design mountain bikes for those kinds of stresses. His bicycle breaks during one of the rides and the rider goes tumbling for a very rough landing.

Here's one to lighten your day!

I just stumbled across this video taken from a Belgian children's cartoon show which features a dancing, farting pig. Yep, you read that right -- a farm animal who dances, sings, talks, and passes gas! I guess it's probably as good or better than a dancing, fat purple dinosaur!

Oddly, as I watched it, I could not stop. The catchy music and foreign flair kept me enthralled throughout the entire clip. It makes me wonder just what magic ingredients those Belgians put into their fine beers!

(If the video/audio stutters on you, just pause it for a short time to let the stream cache a bit.)

Wow - I cannot say that I'd ever think of building something like this, but someone came-up with the idea to build a "robotic chair". This chair is capable of basically falling apart and then it will reassemble itself.

The details are almost non-existant, but I'm guessing that there is a human operator controlling the robot which you don't see in the video. If the robot has some kind of vision system and auto-retrieves its pieces, that would really be a neat feat. However, the idea is still fairly interesting and represents some decent engineering.

To get the legs to lift the unit up from a flat sprawl probably involves some hefty motors with low-ratio gearboxes. The seat clamp which raises the back of the chair is pretty cool too. The entire project looks like it was probably custom machined and pretty nicely at that. There don't appear to be any cords, so the batteries must be contained in the base. I wish there were a few more details on the innards and how the robot was built and works (like any automation provided by an on-board computer, vision system, sensors, or is the whole thing remotely controlled by a human via radio?)

I guess this is what happens when you get hobby robot builders who aren't into arena battles and spend their time building other weird robots instead

This is one of the more strange ideas I've seen lately despite the fact that it's very non-tech oriented.

You can buy a bunch of cardboard cut-outs that you assemble into a 3 dimentional mesh. The mesh is placed in your yard where you'd like the chair to grow, and then filled with dirt. Sprinkle with seeds and you've got a chair in several months.

I guess that instead of using a fabric protectant on this chair, you probably use bug spray

I remember as a kid, oh, probably at about 8 years old, how I'd convert any money I had into $1 bills so that I could feel "rich". I'd stuff the 10 or so bills into my wallet and marvel at how wonderful that giant wad of cash looked.

Fast forward to today.

Apparently, people today aren't smart enough to figure-out how to make an "impressive" wad of cash without accessing the internet. Here is the proof. Oh yeah, I guess it's now called a "poker roll" or "gangsta wad".

Yes, you read that correctly - someone took the time to document how to use a rubber band from a bunch of broccoli to hold folded money allowing you to flash what appears to be thousands of dollars next time you sit-down at the local poker gathering.

Run forth with your new knowledge and impress the world! Whip-out your gargantuan gangsta wad at the local grocery store! Impress the high-school kids working at Target with your behemoth broccoli-banded poker roll. Your poker buddies will tremble in fear!

Maybe this really is the internet that Al Gore invented...