David As Santa?

I am sure that Santa Claus (Saint Nick, Santa, Father Christmas, or whatever you call him) has had more than his share of practical jokes in the past hundreds of years. It never occurred to me, though, that he would come out as muscular and naked! Apparently, I do not have as much imagination in me as Barry McBee of Big Spring, Texas.

McBee, who loves to make people laugh, decided to put up a replica of Michelangelo’s David (yeah, that ultra-muscular guy with no clothes on) on his front lawn. Following the spirit of Christmas, he decided to add a white beard and a pointy red hat (Santa’s garb, in case you didn’t get it). All the guy wanted to do was elicit a chuckle here and there, but he got more than he bargained for.

According to city officials, they received complaints from parents whose children were inquiring as to why Santa was naked. Seriously, if I were a kid, I probably would have first asked how he lost all that flab! Anyway, city officials didn’t find McBee of violating any city ordinances. However, in the interest of keeping peace in the community, they asked McBee to “put more clothes” on Santa David.

It seems that McBee is an easy going guy – he gave in easily and dressed his statue with black and white shorts. After all, we cannot have Santa suffering from frostbite, can we? Oh, and just for the record: I think he should have gotten red and white shorts to match the hat!

Photo courtesy of Yahoo News

The Best Job In The World

I want in! And so does the rest of the gazillions of people inhabiting this tiny planet of ours. Last week, an ad was placed online, encouraging people to apply for what is touted as the best job in the world. The job description?

Whoever “wins” the post gets to be the caretaker of a little island paradise in Australia. This is what is written in the job description as published in the official web site:

The role of Island Caretaker is a six-month contract, based on luxurious Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a live-in position with flexible working hours and key responsibilities include exploring the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to discover what the area has to offer.

You’ll be required to report back on your adventures to Tourism Queensland headquarters in Brisbane (and the rest of the world) via weekly blogs, photo diary, video updates and ongoing media interviews.

But that is not all! There are other tasks which the caretaker might be asked to do, including (but not limited to) the following:

Feed the fish - There are over 1,500 species of fish living in the Great Barrier Reef. Don’t worry – you won’t need to feed them all.

Clean the pool – The pool has an automatic filter, but if you happen to see a stray leaf floating on the surface it’s a great excuse to dive in and enjoy a few laps.

Collect the mail – During your explorations, why not join the aerial postal service for a day? It’s a great opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of the reef and islands.

Now tell me if anyone can ever resist that job? Apparently, everyone and his mom visited the site after hearing about the job opportunity, making the web site crash.

Scientists: Santa’s Reindeers Are Female

How many times have you wondered whether Santa’s reindeers are male or female? I am sure that if you have not thought about it lately, you wondered about it at least once when you were a child. We may never know the answer for sure but scientists over at Texas A&M University are trying their best to figure out the gender of the reindeer.

The Associated Press ran a story yesterday:

“Santa’s reindeers were really females, most likely,” said Alice Blue-McLendon, a veterinary medicine professor specializing in deer who cites the depictions of Santa’s helpers with antlers as the primary evidence. It turns out reindeer grow antlers regardless of gender, and most bulls typically shed their fuzzy protrusions before Christmas.

But Santa’s sleigh helpers might also be castrated males, known as steers, said Greg Finstad, who manages the Reindeer Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Young steers finish shedding their antlers in February and March, just as non-expecting females do. Bulls generally lose theirs before Christmas, while expectant mothers retain their antlers until calves are birthed in the spring. This allows them to protect food resources through harsh weather and to have enough for developing fetuses, he said.

Sledders most often use steers because they maintain their body condition throughout the winter, he said. Bulls are tuckered out from rutting season when they mate with as many as a dozen females in the months leading up to December. That leaves them depleted and too lean to pull a sleigh or sled through heavy snows, Finstad said.

Alright, but I really cannot see anyone naming their daughter Rudolph.

Cool Chewing Gum Art

In a way you could call it eco-friendly as what this artist uses as his canvas, is something people literally spit out and throw away, right on the street – chewing gum!

Artist Ben Wilson is the creator of these clever works of art on the street, transforming what was once unsightly blobs, into whimsical, funny and interesting miniature paintings on a unique canvas. A native of London’s Muswell Hill, Wilson’s work has been featured repeatedly by the British press and two short films have been made.

Ben Wilson at work

Ben was actually a pavement artist (something I’ve always enjoyed looking at ever since I saw that scene in Mary Poppins age 6), and when he realised it was illegal to paint on the pavement, he resourcefully thought to paint directly on the gum, which is obviously ok. He’s caught a lot of attention doing it, and now Ben is a known as a local hero in his suburban neighborhood. How I wish he’s do that to all the gum around!

Will Life Be Worth Living in 2000 AD?

Ok, so this isn’t exactly what you’d call news, but I just had to share this amusing article written in 1961.

Some things slightly ring true, the bit where kids learn from TV (not entirely, but which parent hasn’t bought and educational DVD, CD rom or system like Leapfrog?), indoor swimming pools and tv telephones, juice powders (Tang), tablets for energy and overall healthier people (the eco-friendly organic craze worldwide).

But largely, the article proves to me that scientists really can’t predict the future after all, or we would have floating roofs on our houses by now!

The article was the the July 22 issue of Weekend Magazine (printed where? I have no idea, I doubt it still exists) found on the web in the Pixelmatic website.

Will Life Be Worth Living in 2000 AD?

What sort of life will you be living 39 years from now? Scientists have looked into the future and they can tell you.

It looks as if everything will be so easy that people will probably die from sheer boredom.

You will be whisked around in monorail vehicles at 200 miles an hour and you will think nothing of taking a fortnight’s holiday in outer space.

Your house will probably have air walls, and a floating roof, adjustable to the angle of the sun.

Doors will open automatically, and clothing will be put away by remote control. The heating and cooling systems will be built into the furniture and rugs.

You’ll have a home control room – an electronics centre, where messages will be recorded when you’re away from home. This will play back when you return, and also give you up-to-the minute world news, and transcribe your latest mail.

You’ll have wall-to-wall global TV, an indoor swimming pool, TV-telephones and room-to-room TV. Press a button and you can change the décor of a room.

The status symbol of the year 2000 will be the home computer help, which will help mother tend the children, cook the meals and issue reminders of appointments.

Cooking will be in solar ovens with microwave controls. Garbage will be refrigerated, and pressed into fertiliser pellets.

Food won’t be very different from 1961, but there will be a few new dishes – instant bread, sugar made from sawdust, foodless foods (minus nutritional properties), juice powders and synthetic tea and cocoa. Energy will come in tablet form.

At work, Dad will operate on a 24 hour week. The office will be air-conditioned with stimulating scents and extra oxygen – to give a physical and psychological lift.

Mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by facsimile.

There will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and translators. Machines will “talk” to each other.

It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will increase a man’s stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities.

The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. Cars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.

Railways will have one central dispatcher, who will control a whole nation’s traffic. Jet trains will be guided by electronic brains.

In commercial transportation, there will be travel at 1000 m.p.h. at a penny a mile. Hypersonic passenger planes, using solid fuels, will reach any part of the world in an hour.

By the year 2020, five per cent of the world’s population will have emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond.

Our children will learn from TV, recorders and teaching machines. They will get pills to make them learn faster. We shall be healthier, too. There will be no common colds, cancer, tooth decay or mental illness.

Medically induced growth of amputated limbs will be possible. Rejuvenation will be in the middle stages of research, and people will live, healthily, to 85 or 100.

There’s a lot more besides to make H.G. Wells and George Orwell sound like they’re getting left behind.

And this isn’t science fiction. It’s science fact – futuristic ideas, conceived by imaginative young men, whose crazy-sounding schemes have got the nod from the scientists.

It’s the way they think the world will live in the next century – if there’s any world left!