"What? You want me to carry on? Ok..."
Weird things you have read about. Page 45
In a previous life, that car was a slice of toast.
There are any number of unusual pop music artifacts — pieces of Beatle sheets, Britney Spears' gum — but not even Gene Simmons has considered selling a used casket.
So keep an eye on eBay: the Big Bopper's family is planning to auction the late rock 'n' roller's casket in the next few weeks.
According to the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson's casket, made of 16-gauge steel, was exhumed last year so it could be moved to a more visible location. The Big Bopper, once a Texas DJ, was killed in the plane crash that also took the lives of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959, a day since called "the day the music died." He was 28, and had just had his first major hit, "Chantilly Lace." He was also the songwriter of George Jones' "White Lightning" and Johnny Preston's "Running Bear."
After the casket was removed, the "Chantilly Lace" singer's remains were exhumed — an autopsy showed that he did, indeed, die of crash-related injuries — and placed in a new casket. The old one, according to the Enterprise, has been in public display at the Texas Musicians Museum in Hillsboro, Texas, since last year.
It's apparently in good condition, with just some minor rust spots and a white lime stain where water rose against, but did not enter, the casket. (Indeed, Richardson's body was said to have stayed in excellent condition.)
Jay Richardson, the singer's son (born three months after his father's death), told the paper he had "no personal use" for the casket.
"When you get down to it, it is just a metal box," he said.
But it could be worth some money, says Texas Musicians Museum founder Tom Kreason.
"Certainly there'll be some distaste, but I think this is a piece of history that is very special," he told the Enterprise.
And if it doesn't sell? "We've made a point about the historical value of J.P. Richardson."
Drugs + munchies + artistic talent = Louis XIV
And people say marijuana kills creativity.
Mean while a literally shocking story.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_photo_essay_1.html
"I yam what I yam," declared Popeye. And just what that is is likely to become less clear as the copyright expires on the character who generates about £1.5 billion in annual sales.
From January 1, the iconic sailor falls into the public domain in Britain under an EU law that restricts the rights of authors to 70 years after their death. Elzie Segar, the Illinois artist who created Popeye, his love interest Olive Oyl and nemesis Bluto, died in 1938.
The Popeye industry stretches from books, toys and action figures to computer games, a fast-food chain and the inevitable canned spinach.
The copyright expiry means that, from Thursday, anyone can print and sell Popeye posters, T-shirts and even create new comic strips, without the need for authorisation or to make royalty payments.
This is kind of funny:
Burger King has just unveiled their new Angry Whopper. As many companies are now doing, they've tapped into Facebook and created an application to help promote it. But this Facebook application is a bit….different. Instead of encouraging you to join a group, find new friends, or spread the word, Burger King's new Whopper Sacrifice Application is offering you a free Whopper if you DE-FRIEND 10 people from your friend list.
As Platforms Optional notes, normally when you de-friend someone they may not even notice. Not the case with Whopper Sacrifice. Part of the application makes sure that each of the 10 friends you choose to ditch get a nice note alerting them to the fact that they have been de-friended.
http://www.sogoodblog.com/2009/01/07/whopper-sacrifice-ditch-10-friends-get-a-free-whopper/
Haha!
I suppose you can always re-friend them after you've had your lunch. 
I read about this in an in-flight magazine yesterday.
In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 77 years later, the ninth drop is only just forming.
Yeah, but the weird thing is that, given time, the glass will drip too.
Oddest thing reading at the moment: a book claiming the moon is apparently hollow due to the manner in which it orbits the planet, that rocks from the moon have been dated to ages older than the Earth and some date to an incredible 20 Billion years old - four times older than the solar system and nearly as old as the universe. I need to check out the references and figures given for those snippets. But yes, I read some pretty kooky stuff and not by accident either. Doesn't mean I believe it all... at least, not until I can verify.
Ten-year-old girls are ready for marriage, according to Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric.
Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country's grand mufti, told Al Hayat newspaper that those saying ten or 12-year-old girls are too young to marry are being 'unfair' to them.
Al Sheikh's comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage.
In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.
Though the mufti's pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.
On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an 'inhumane violation' and rob children of their rights.
The commission's statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.
Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.
Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, the mufti said: 'We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.'
The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a 'bad path'.
'Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,' said Al Sheikh, according to the Al-Hayat newpaper.
There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year.
It is also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the Internet.
Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.
Mufti 
Ewww. Foreign-ified lettuce. 