“More Fun than Winning the Lottery”

That was the reaction of an amateur treasure hunter in Britain who stumbled upon a hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure in a neighbor’s field. Archaeologists are proclaiming it the greatest collection of medieval treasure ever found in Great Britain.

“This is just a fantastic find completely out of the blue,” Roger Bland, who managed the cache’s excavation, told The Associated Press. “It will make us rethink the Dark Ages. That’s basically what it’s going to do.”

The seventh century hoard, found by 55-year-old Terry Herbert on farmland in western England two months ago, consists of about 1,500 pieces of gold and silver, some inlaid with precious stones. So fine is the craftsmanship that experts say it could have belonged to Anglo-Saxon royalty.

The treasure will likely be sold to a museum, making the finder (and his neighbor) very rich men.

UPDATE: A much more detailed account of the story can be found here.

Yep, It’s a Fake

But a very good fake. If you’ve seen this video of an incredible water slide stunt, be assured that the idiot who performs it really didn’t. It’s a clever marketing gimmick by Microsoft-Germany.

Even so, it’s worth seeing again:

Death Will Not Be Cheated

Johanna Ganthaler and her husband, Kirk, were scheduled to fly Air France Flight 447 back to Europe after their vacation in Brazil. In one of those odd twists of fate, they were late to the airport and missed the flight — and certain death.

After returning to Germany on a later flight, they rented a car and headed for home in Italy. Driving through Austria, they were involved in a head-on collision. Johanna was killed.

While the deaths of so many on a downed airplane is a tragedy, the truth is that all of us will die some day. It’s just a question of when and how.

New Golfer’s First Swing: Hole-in-One!

At age 62, Unni Haskell decided to take up golf. So she hired a pro to give her golf lessons for a couple of months. Finally, the day came when she felt she was ready to take on a real golf course, the nine-hole Cypress Links course in St. Petersburg, FL.

Boy, was she ever.

On her very first swing on the very first hole, Ms. Haskell nailed a hole-in-one. Her pro, standing next to her, went nuts, but Ms. Haskell was a little bewildered. She had no idea what she had just accomplished.

I’m thinking Ms. Haskell missed an opportunity here. After she hit that shot, she should have dropped her clubs and walked away from the game, retiring as The Greatest Golfer In The History of the Universe. Nobody could ever top that.

It’s Pi Day

Congress may not be very good with numbers, but they’ve taken the time to honor one number that everybody can appreciate: pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, usually rounded to 3.14. Naturally, Pi Day is today, 3/14.

For Better or Worse . . . Especially Worse

You’ve seen a lot of wedding bloopers, but I guarantee you’ve never seen one like this.

Who Says Weathermen Are not Romantic?

This is a proposal she’ll not soon forget. Cute!

If Sarah Palin Was Your Mom

Take a few moments to check out the Palin Baby Name Generator.

Type in your name, and the Generator will pop out the moniker that Sarah would have given you if she was your mother.

My Palin alter ego? Bush Gator Palin.

Hey, with a name like that, I could go places.

Viruses as Assembly Line Workers

From PopSci:

Engineers at MIT have figured out a way to deal with virus that is better than just killing them: they’re putting them to work. The researchers have developed a new technique wherein a key component of a microscopic battery is assembled by viruses, allowing for the cheap and simple construction of very small power sources.

Great idea . . . until the viruses unionize. If you think your last bout with flu was bad, wait until these little puppies go on strike.

Bigfoot — Big Yarn

The internet is all abuzz with news that a couple of men have found the carcass of a Bigfoot specimen in a remote area of northern Georgia (USA). They’ve stashed the corpse in a home freezer for safe keeping, but have promised a scientific study in short order to establish the validity of their claims.

Given the shady history of at least one of the men involved, Jason Daley at Popular Science makes a prediction:

I’ll bet that this Bigfoot sighting will follow the same disappointing script as other cryptozoolofical finds–after they release their photos and (likely inconclusive) DNA evidence and the body goes behind the “armed guards,” it will then be lost, “destroyed” by a freak event, or never seen again, except on grainy film shot by a horrible photographer that will be endlessly examined on the History Channel.

UPDATE (8/19):  Yep, it’s a fake.

Square Wheels?

This would be a pretty rough commute to work, right?

Well, not necessarily.

I think it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing this in the Tour de France anytime soon.

Road Signs: A Traffic Hazard?

John Staddon is a Duke University professor who spends a lot of time as a guest professor in Britain, too. His experiences driving on either side of the Atlantic have given him a unique perspective on how the two countries regulate driving. He comes to a startling conclusion:

U.S. traffic policies are inducing a form of inattentional blindness in American drivers. When so many drivers say, after an accident, “I didn’t see him,” they’re not all lying.

What Automobile Safety Ought to Be

Our son Jonathan lives near Texas Motor Speedway, and drew attention to this recent crash during a qualifying run. The driver, Michael McDowell, walked away from the wreck.

This goes to show what cars could be like, if we really wanted to ensure the safety of passengers. Of course, who would want to drive such a machine to work every day?

Place Your Order Now

I’m sure these yachts will sell like hotcakes.

Hillary-Obama Street Fight: The Movie

Okay, the interactive version.

Pay close attention to the two faces that occasionally pop out of the left and right of the screen. And take a moment to try the “Taunt” move.

The Ice People

No, not Eskimos.

These are people who have the amazing ability to tolerate extremely low temperatures, including ice water, for long periods of time, without harm to their bodies. Read the stories of two of them here.

Clancy Birthday Bash

I just came across this little montage of video clips from Tom Clancy’s 60th birthday party last year. Naturally, it had a heavy military theme, conducted on the retired battleship U.S.S. New Jersey. The soundtrack from The Great Escape was an especially nice touch. (Good work from the folks at CVP Experience.)

Six Degrees of Separation

Here’s an interesting history of the scientific basis for the theory of social networking that says everyone on the planet is only six relationships away from everyone else — along with some reasons why it is so difficult to test the theory.

I did not realize there was a Wichita angle to the story.

Minority Report is Here!

Not the Pre-crime Unit technology (thank goodness), but the large interactive computer screen. Panasonic demo’d a prototype at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the article. Prepare to be wowed.

Eating Your Way to Wealth

When George and Leslie Brock decided to eat at Dave’s Last Resort and Raw Bar in Lake Worth, FL, last Friday, they got more than they paid for. A lot more.

George was eating a steamed clam when he bit on something hard. It turned out to be a rare purple pearl. Experts say the jewel could be worth thousands.

Hey, dear — how about seafood tonight, huh?

The Mail Moves Slow Out Here in the Boonies

But this is a little ridiculous:

A postcard featuring a color drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl was mailed in 1914, but its journey was slower than Christmas. It just arrived in northwest Kansas.

The Christmas card was dated Dec. 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Neb.

If your math is slow, that’s 93 years late.

Ethel is deceased, so the Post Office went out of their way to get it to her sister-in-law, Bernice Martin. Bernice was told that the card was apparently found somewhere in Illinois.

There’s gotta be an interesting story in there somewhere.

Introducing the Islamic Car

Iran is pushing a plan to build an “Islamic car,” complete with a compass that points to Mecca, and special compartments to hold the Koran and prayer scarves. The car will likely be built in Malaysia.

No word yet on whether the car will come with the suicide bomber option, pre-wired for easy detonation and maximum explosive effect.

Oh, and the new car is warrantied for 24 months, 24,000 miles, or 24 infidel deaths, whichever comes first.

Ouch! That Had to Hurt!

Check out this video taken from a helmetcam, worn by a woman on a motorcycle. The caption accompanying the video doesn’t indicate how badly she was hurt in the accident, but it sure came in handy in the investigation that followed.

A B-17 Coming Home

Here is a fascinating article that ties together a number of loose threads from several earlier, unrelated posts of mine: on WWII bombers, the Kododa Trail, and guys who look for lost airplanes.

The article also mentions one web site that is a treasure trove of such information, specifically relating to WWII aircraft lost in the Pacific. Great stuff.

The Magic Bat

Keep your eye on the bat after the hitter drops it. This will never happen again in your lifetime.

This happened in a Mets/Braves game Sept. 12, 2007.

UPDATE: The original source was removed at some point, so I’ve replaced the link with another.

Dangerous Occupation

It looks like serving in congress could be hazardous to your health. Following the death of Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) in a fall in his home last week, Josephine Hearn has compiled a brief history of deaths of senators and congressmen. Suicides, crashes, medical conditions, explosions, even a hunting accident — members of Congress are definitely not immortal.

How to Evacuate an Airplane

Think 873 people can evacuate an airplane in 77 seconds? They can, if the airplane is an Airbus A380, and the evacuation is a controlled test.

A Blonde Moment

I’m sure that Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, is a bright, articulate young woman — not to mention stunningly beautiful. But you wouldn’t know it listening to her response to a simple question during the recent Miss Teen USA pageant.

Note the pageant host working hard to stifle a laugh.

So why does Miss Upton do beauty pageants? To improve her communication skills. I think she has quite a few more pageants to go.

UPDATE: Even funnier than the video, were the titles of the some of the blogs commenting on the incident:

• Both Beauty and…Well, She Has Beauty
• She’d make a great news anchor
• One Child Left Behind: Didn’t Anyone Tell Her The Correct Answer Is Always, “World Peace”?
• She Done Bleached Out All Her Smarts!
• Swim to Iraq, and Then Take a Left at South Africa…
• Please Tell Me This Child Isn’t My Future
• Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 answers a trick question
• Miss Teen South Carolina Speaks. Sort Of.
• It’s important for your age and IQ to match
• At least it wasn’t Miss Louisiana
• Your Government Schools at Work
• Where Blonde Jokes come from!
• Maybe we could borrow South Africa’s maps?
• reason #786 why we homeschool
• She’s Eligible to Vote, Too
• Beauty Pageant Word Scramble

And my personal favorite:

• She Answered That Like a Dem in a Presidential Debate

Firstborns and IQ

Being a firstborn myself, I couldn’t pass this one up.

Dinesh D’Souza reports on a new study out of Norway indicating that firstborn children have IQs that are, on average, three points higher than their siblings. D’Souza’s conclusion: “Firstborns tend to be Numero Uno when it comes to brains.”

Ah, yes.  It’s tough being Number One, but somebody’s gotta fill the role.

Space Diving — The Ultimate High

An article in Popular Science ponders the possibility of space diving — jumping from a craft sixty miles above the earth, and plummeting earthward for several minutes in a specially designed suit, finally parachuting safely to the ground. Researchers working on the idea believe that, with the right equipment, it would be possible for an astronaut to safely dive from full orbit, 150 miles up. Such a plunge would “essentially turn their divers into human meteorites.”

One of those working on this project, Jonathan Clark, has a very personal interest in this idea: his wife Laurel died in the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Never mind the cost of getting up there in the first place — what would this hobby do to your life insurance rates?