Day: February 15, 2010

The McBournie Minute: You make my flight so much worse

You know what’s wrong with the airline industry? No, it’s not the excessive fees, it’s not the hassle of security, it’s not even the surly attitude airline personnel give their customers. It’s the people around you on the plane. They are the ones who do such annoying things that so easily blame the airline industry for.

Case in point: fat people. Noted fat person and movie director Kevin Smith was recently kicked off a Southwest plane (while it was on the ground) for being fat. Smith said he realizes he is chubby, but that his weight was not great enough to warrant being kicked off of a flight.

For those of you who have not had the experience, some airlines will now make you buy a second seat if you are unable to fit into one comfortably. It’s like cap and trade for calories. If there are no two seats next to each over available, you much vacate the craft. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: You make my flight so much worse

Dentists inflict craft on hapless Valentines

For some people, Valentine’s Day is the worst day in the world. Couples and card companies join forces to rub sex and candy into single people’s faces.

This year, however, was worse.

Dentists across the U.S. lured countless patients into their clutches to do what they love most: to denter. Or to dentrify. Dent? Whatever.

The point is that they performed free procedures on unwitting people, inflicting even more pain. “Happy Valentine’s, here’s a root canal out of the goodness of my heart.”

This may be the worst gift since that scorching case of “love bumps” that we got from Free Whorehouse Day in ’04. (Thanks a lot for that idea, Chugs.)

It’s not safe to go into the war anymore

Hey everyone! What’s 10 feet long, can live up a century, used to live in the Atlantic but now lives in Britain, has a body the size of a fully inflated basketball, oh, and is still growing?

The answer is a Japanese Spider Crab found in Britain, but if you answered the dark arthropod tar that nightmares are made of, we would have accepted that as well.

If the sheer size of this beast isn’t enough to force science to move along with the cybernetic enhancements that humans need (along with jetpack, already!), then I don’t know what is.

It’s the gift you both can share

Because it’s gonna take at least two of you to finish it up, that’s for sure. At least, if your valentine is entomophobic.

Komatsuya Honten, a bakery in Akita, bakes treats in the shape of rhinoceros beetles and their larvae. No worries, as they’re straight-up chocolate, but they look just like the critters some of you used to catch and keep in your childhood. Not me, as I never went after animals bigger than me. As nasty as they might look, they sometimes sell out within an hour, says the shop keeper.

Writer Matt Alt tried the ¥2,100 “Kabuto-Mushi Cake Lovely Pack,” which crawled with two larvae candies and a beetle cake. They sound pretty tasty:

The beetles are cake enrobed in a rich dark chocolate, with chocolate-dipped fruit slices used for thin parts like legs and horns. The larvae are milk chocolate with crisped rice mixed in…

So, remember: human ears taste like chicken, bugs taste like chocolate and the continued existence of this shop tastes like victory in the War on Animals.

How about a Viking funeral?

Some Hindus believe that a funeral pyre is important, some believe that setting the dead adrift in the Ganges River is the best thing for the deceased.

Since the Ganges River is in Asia, a devout Hindu in the United Kingdom asked the government if he could have a funeral pyre when he dies. Davender Ghai, 71m argued that he could be cremated in an open-air fire without changing any of the existing laws. In the end, the courts agreed, however, his neighbor might not enjoy the smell.