May 24th, 2012 at 3:00PM:
You've probably heard of the vending machines in Japan that sell used panties supposedly worn by schoolgirls. It appears Japan isn't alone in having sexual vending machines in public places. Not far from my home in Santander, on Spain's northern coast, I came across this innocuous-looking little cubbyhole. Its vending machines offer hot food, soda and snacks 24 hours a day.
It's in between a ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
odd posts
The Sex Toy Vending Machines Of Spain
May 24th, 2012 at 3:00PM:
You've probably heard of the vending machines in Japan that sell used panties supposedly worn by schoolgirls. It appears Japan isn't alone in having sexual vending machines in public places. Not far from my home in Santander, on Spain's northern coast, I came across this innocuous-looking little cubbyhole. Its vending machines offer hot food, soda and snacks 24 hours a day.
It's in between a ...Museum Month: Cockroach Hall Of Fame & Museum, Plano, Texas
May 24th, 2012 at 1:00PM:
We've covered some pretty weird museums this month here on Gadling. One that may take the prize for the weirdest is the Cockroach Hall Of Fame & Museum in Plano, Texas.
Museum curator and professional exterminator Michael Bohdan opened the museum so he could educate people about a bug that's got a serious knack for survival. As Bohdan points out, cockroaches have been around more than 350 ...
Torture Museums Look At The Dark Side Of History
May 13th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Ah, the Good Old Days, when everyone lived in a perpetual Renaissance Festival quaffing ale and shouting "Huzzah!" It must have been wonderful.
Not!
People died young, the cities were filled with rats and open sewers, and God help you if you ever got arrested. You'd be taken to a torture chamber in order to "confess" while being subjected to various imaginative torture devices, like the ...The International UFO Museum And Research Center At Roswell, New Mexico
May 11th, 2012 at 1:00PM:
Something strange happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Rancher William Brazel found a bunch of debris in the desert that he couldn't identify. He described it in the July 9, 1947, issue of the Roswell Daily Record as a "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks."
The paper reported that Brazel estimated that all together the ...Barbed Wire Museums Take On A Prickly Subject
May 10th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
I've always loved museums on obscure subjects because they teach you how overlooked objects can have a big influence. Barbed wire is one of those objects.
While various inventors started experimenting with barbed wire in the 1850s, the founder of barbed wire is generally considered to be Joseph Glidden, whose 1873 design soon stretched across the American West. Before then, it was nearly ...Roman Fort Attacked By Moles, Archaeologists Benefit
Apr 26th, 2012 at 3:00PM: When you stroll through a museum, you generally assume that all those ancient artifacts you're seeing were dug up by professional archaeologists or found by accident by some farmer plowing his field. Mostly you'd be correct, but researchers into England's Roman past are getting some unexpected help. . .from moles.
Moles at the site of Epiacum, a Roman fort dating from the first to the fourth ...The Kensington Runestone and other Viking mysteries in America
Mar 16th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked me what I thought was an easy question.
"Who discovered America?"
"The Indians!" I replied.
My teacher frowned at me and asked, "No, what EUROPEAN discovered America?"
"Oh, Leif Erikson. He was a Viking."
Obviously annoyed, my teacher told me, "No! COLUMBUS discovered America."
"But the Vikings came here in the year 1000. ...
Travel safety: are swans dangerous?
Mar 5th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Mr. Asbo is not a nice swan.
He's attacked numerous boaters on the River Cam at Cambridge, England, hissing and pecking at anyone who comes close. Back in 2009, he even attacked the Cambridge Rowing Team during their historic May Bumps race. The race had to appoint a special marshal to keep an eye on the naughty bird.
Swans are very territorial, especially when they have a nest full of ...
Scotland tells collector: stop stealing our eggs!
Feb 27th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
An obsessive collector of rare birds' eggs has been banned from visiting Scotland during nesting season. The ban was slapped on Matthew Gonshaw, 49, and lasts from February 1 to August 31 of every year for the ten years. He's also banned from visiting land owned by the Wildlife Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Gonshaw has been repeatedly arrested for stealing the eggs ...Turkey's unique national pastime: oil wrestling
Feb 25th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
While America has baseball, New Zealand has rugby, and Australia has cricket, Turkey has a national pastime that some may find a bit odd-- oil wrestling. Also known as "grease wrestling," the sport involves men clad in black leather pants carrying wicker bags that contain bottles of olive oil, which they must pour over every inch of their flesh. Because it's so difficult for a participant to ...
Ten random observations about Greece
Feb 11th, 2012 at 10:00AM: While researching my travel series on Greece I noticed some interesting things that didn't fit into any of the articles. Some of these observations may be obvious to those more familiar with Greece, but odd first impressions are one of the fun things about travel!
1. Flying low over the Aegean as we made our descent into Athens airport, I swear I saw dolphins playing in the blue waters. We were ...Top ten lake monsters (besides Nessie)
Dec 16th, 2011 at 10:00AM: Here at Gadling we've reported a lot of news about the Loch Ness Monster. Nessie gets so much media attention that one might think its Scottish loch is the only body of water haunted by a mysterious and almost certainly fictitious creature.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Lake monsters are everywhere. Here are ten of the most interesting, most of which inhabit lakes that are easy to ...Weird monument in Wales has interesting history
Dec 6th, 2011 at 1:00PM:
If you're staying in Aberystwyth, Wales, you can see it from pretty much everywhere--a tall tower on a bluff to the south of town. At first it's hard to see what it is, so my wife, five-year-old son and I decided to walk there and have a look.
It was an easy two or three kilometers from town through a wooded trail up a fairly steep slope. What greeted us once we made it through the trees was ...Amsterdam's Torture Museum
Nov 25th, 2011 at 12:00PM: Like many travelers, I have a soft spot in my heart for tourist traps. Whether it's the politically incorrect cheesiness of South of the Border or the shabby weirdness of The Thing, nothing brings a smile to my face better than some cheap, gaudy attempt to capture my attention.
Amsterdam's Torture Museum fits the bill perfectly. Behind a pseudo-spooky facade are reproductions of torture ...Bad marketing: don't use a horse to advertise a butcher shop
Nov 24th, 2011 at 11:00AM:
I spotted this butcher shop sign near my new home in Santander in northern Spain. What's wrong with this picture? Yeah, the "Equine butcher shop" is using a horse to advertise its product!
Now I'm going to give this hardworking small business owner the benefit of the doubt and assume horse was never sold at his shop. I can't say for sure, though, since the place went out of business before I ...Preserved human flesh at Amsterdam's Tattoo Museum
Nov 13th, 2011 at 10:00AM:
This is exactly what it looks like--the preserved human flesh of a tattooed man. Judging from the style and subject, I'd say it's from a nineteenth century American sailor. I spotted it sitting on the director's desk at Amsterdam's Tattoo Museum.
Ah, Amsterdam! I've visited you so many times and yet you always have new surprises for me.
Amsterdam is a great city for museums. There are two ...Portland's International Cryptozoology Museum to get a bigger home
Sep 26th, 2011 at 3:00PM:
One of Maine's most offbeat attractions is about to get five times the space.
The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland will be moving from its current home in the back of the Green Hand Bookshop at 661 Congress St over to 11 Avon Street, where it will have much more room to show off its collection of Bigfoot print casts, monster photos, movie props, and thousands of other strange ...Fish farmer snaps photo of Nessie
Sep 17th, 2011 at 11:00AM: Loch Ness has been getting into the news a lot lately. There's been a rise in sightings this year, Nessie was photographed in July, and a UFO was spotted over Loch Ness last month.
Now a new photo of Nessie has emerged. You'll have to go to the link to see it because we don't get a photo budget here at Gadling and Nessie photos don't come cheap. Instead you get to marvel at this fine Lego ...Copenhagen city square built on poop
Sep 15th, 2011 at 10:30AM: Being an archaeologist can be a tough job--hot weather, frustrating digs that don't turn up any finds, dirty conditions. . .especially the dirty conditions.
A dig in the Danish capital Copenhagen has turned out to be dirtier than usual. Archaeologists excavating under Kultorvet Square have found two 18th century outhouses that are literally filled with historic faeces.
Kultorvet means "Coal ...Civil War reenactor injured in groin by his horse
Aug 12th, 2011 at 3:00PM: Two Civil War reenactors were injured yesterday preparing for a reenactment of the Battle of Wilson's Creek.
One man playing a Confederate cavalryman got pinned under his horse, while a Union cavalryman got injured when his horse stepped on his groin. Exactly how he got into a position where his horse could do that is unclear. Both were given medical attention but neither was thought to be ...
