March 15, 2010 | weird news

Tombstones don’t offer much information – dates of birth and death, possibly a mention of children provided the deceased wasn’t a prolific breeder, and maybe a quote by Groucho Marx. That is partly due to the limited space available on a tombstone, which prohibits the inscription of the collected works of Peter Benchley, and also the fortune charged by engravers – middle names are a luxury we can ill afford in these recessionary times.

An enterprising company in Phoenix Arizona, Objecs, is offering a new gizmo that could up the entertainment value of the graveside experience, and give future generations more to remember about the deceased than the tombstone particulars. The company’s RosettaStones are stone tablets that can be affixed to headstones (or passed out on keychains at funerals) and contain radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which direct users of mobile phones carrying compatible technology to an online memorial archive. The archive could contain remembrances, photos, biographical info, IMDB highlights, favorite recipes, and voice messages that you don’t need a member of the psychic alliance to access.

We welcome this multimedia dimension being added to the otherwise – let’s face it, dull and depressing – experience of visiting a cemetery, and would like to offer our own suggestions for ways to perk up that trip to the boneyard:

A/V tours of entire cemetery: Now commonplace at museums and places of great historical import, such as Graceland, user-controlled guided tours delivered via headsets could boost cemetery attendance and raise the profiles of those interred for whom attendance is down.

Theme songs: While picking out a tombstone, a perspective dead person could also choose a themesong to be played at a respectful volume when a large red button on top of the tombstone is struck. “Grandpa Joe did enjoy his Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

Artistic rendering of life’s dreams realized: Here, the person buying the tombstone would meet an artist and discuss the dreams of youth that were crushed long ago and replaced by disenchantment and dread. The resulting painting could be included as a multimedia item as part of the RosettaStones archive, or maybe slapped on the back of the tombstone itself, depending on cemetery rules.

Enemies list: The RosettaStones archive could include a list of all the people truly despised by the deceased, from those who never paid back loans, to the type of grudges so intense they outlast even death.

Electrified tombstones to ward off pee vandalism: The jury is out on whether peeing on the electric third rail of a train track can result in an unpleasant zap to the genitals and death. Mythbusters found that this could only happen when someone was ridiculously close to the track. Here we suggest electrified tombstones with enough of a current running through them to kill enemies looking to urinate on the grave of a vanquished foe. The cost would be prohibitive and environmentalists, as well as health and safety officials, might raise cause for concern, so only really an option for privately run cemeteries.

March 13, 2010 | Rants

The Shark Guys are pleased to announce a recent collaboration with Jon Donnis’ Bad Psychics website and associated network of debunking sites.

Noel recently recorded a segment for the second episode of the Bad Psychics podcast, the Badcast. The topic is psychic year-end predictions. Readers familiar with this rundown of psychic predictions from 2008 and this one from 2009 will be able to safely predict the tone of what he has to say about our clairvoyant friends.

Listen for him at the 13:50 mark, and stay tuned for future Badcasts, as you never know which Shark Guy might turn up!

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March 12, 2010 | religion, weird news

Call him the non-stick Nazarene.

The Telegraph reported that Toby Elles, a bank cashier, nearly checked out when he “fell asleep cooking some bacon” and awoke, startled to find that cooked into the skillet was non other than the pan-seared prophet himself.

“My housemates and I had a few beers earlier in the evening [Editors' note: this should come as no surprise to anyone] and I thought I would snack before going to bed and as it was cooking I decided to take a rest on the couch. When I woke up about an hour later the room was full of smoke.”

That the Savior would be rendered in bacon fat  is in keeping with his artery-clogging culinary tour which has included pancakes, fish sticks, Pizza Hut pasta, pierogis and Kit Kat bars. Considering his name is so often uttered in restaurant kitchens (albeit with the modifying gerund in between that starts with ‘F’ and ends in ‘G’) perhaps it’s not suprising that he’s been made to order.   

Elles, who is considering making a glass case for his find, considers it a miracle and that the image is uneqivocally JC, however we’re not so sure (see pic below).

The crusty likeness could also easily be South American Marxist revolutionary and noted t-shirt Che Guevara and not just because it suits the name, but 70s-era Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey.

Also, a case could be made for Daniel Day Lewis as Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York, WWE wrestler Al Snow, possibly Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and at one time or another, all members of the Allman Brothers Band except the black guy.