Weekender #6: June 20, 2009

A collection of links, news, and oddities that I’ve come across during the past week.

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Weekender

WARNING: Do not fall asleep in a tattoo parlor, or you will end up with more than you bargained for — like the Belgian girl who wanted 3 stars on her face and ended up with 56. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that you could fall asleep while getting a tattoo, let alone getting one on your face; I'm more inclined to believe the tattoo artist she's complaining about, since it sounds more plausible that an 18-year-old girl made a stupid decision to go overboard on the tattoos, then changed her mind after her father and boyfriend both threw fits.

This has already made the media rounds, but the guy who ran scams by posing as his dead mother is just too weird not to mention here. It's not the impersonation that's weird, it's the full-on Norman Bates mentality he seems to have going along with it. Hasn't he heard you should never go full-Norman?

One minute you're a nobody, the next you're a star — in Prague. A U.S. family was startled to find that their Christmas card photo was being used on a supermarket advertising poster in Eastern Europe. At least they didn't go full-Elaine and flash some nipple; then they'd be advertising a sex shop.

Britain has a singles club exclusively for people with the surname Patel. I would have started my own surname singles club up when I was single, but the chances of finding someone with my hyphenated name were slim to incestuous.

Animal updates: whales have names and know how to use them; rats can gamble; the cephalopods can hear you!

Normally I don't go around trash-talking celebrities' figures, but it has to be said: Lindsay Lohan is scary skinny.

I know, I know, I'm a bad person, but I can't help but find it hilarious that Robert Pattinson got hit by a cab while running from a shrieking horde of fangirls. I always said those Twilight-obsessives were dangerous…

A recent study found that women who rent their home weigh less than those who own their home.

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely: I came for the layout, but stayed for the comic erotica (eroticomedy?).

Speaking of diaries, here's Pepys' Diary, presented as a weblog. I could lose a week reading this.

Welcome to Stating the Obvious: Titanic Edition. It's bad enough that this "researcher" felt the need to retread half of the film's "sins of comission and omission", but he also lists as a fact his opinion of the Carpathia's Captain Rostron (the "greatest hero" of the disaster) and mentions some stuff about Murdoch that doesn't correspond with anything I've ever heard.

If my kid ever tried to clean a puppy by flushing it down the toilet, I'd… actually, that idea's not half-bad. Maybe we should clean small kids that way, too…

Here's a good article from Newsweek about Oprah and the dubious health advice she promotes. (Side note: Suzanne Somers? Batshit crazy.)

I want this shirt because it reminds me of Captain Scott at the South Pole. Is that wrong?

British women may out-perform men at university, but can they locate their own lungs? Probably not. I blame the Victorians; 64 years of referring to everything below the neck as the "nether regions" just leads to confusion for everyone.

An interview with the "Progressive Girl" — you know, that hot little number Flo from those insurance commercials. Everybody wants her, and nobody can say why. Rrrowr.

Last, but not least: WTF?