Making a mountain out of basically no hills

So some Dutch "semi-professional cyclist-cum-journalist" named Thijs Zonneveld wrote a column half-jokingly proposing that the Netherlands should build an artificial mountain.

Thing is, the idea has kind of caught on, and now, he actually wants to find a way to build a mountain between one and two kilometers tall, which would be higher than the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, currently the world's tallest man-made structure.

So far, there are only a few minor snags:

Zonneveld has yet to figure out exactly how the Dutch mountain would be designed and built, what materials would be used, where it would be located, and, crucially, how much it would cost. He declined to put even a rough price tag on it.

Well, sounds like you've got a great proposal there, and I'm sure dozens of serious contractors will be lining up to work on it.

By the way, did I mention that most of the country is just above sea level? Sounds like a fantastic place for a massive structure like that.

D'oh!

I hope for this guy's sake that they also threw out all of the sharp knives in the home:

An Australian man says he accidentally threw out $50,000 worth of his wife's gold jewelry recently in an attempt to fool any would-be robbers.

The Queensland man -- who gave only his first name, Geoffrey -- hid the family's gold collection in garbage bags after his GPS navigation system and keys were recently stolen, The Courier-Mail in Brisbane reported in its Tuesday edition.

"I had this great idea to split the gold into three rubbish bags so if the thieves did come in they're not going to find it," Geoffrey said.

The valuable trash bags, however, ended up in the local landfill last week when the man's children cleaned house in anticipation of an upcoming move.

You know, if you're hiding your valuables in garbage bags, you might want to tell other members of your family about that, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 like that.

Since it's Friday night...

...and Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the East Coast, how about a more pleasant Irene? Namely, Native American actress Irene Bedard, the voice of Disney's Pocahontas:

She's a little on the flat side, but still much more pleasant than that hurricane of the same name.

Caution! Cute speedbumps ahead!

This would be absolutely terrifying to anybody who's never watched a nature show:

Authorities in Flagstaff, Ariz., are assuring residents there are no rogue pandas roaming the city after some pranksters got creative with an electronic street sign.

The Arizona Department of Transportation-controlled sign was set up to warn drivers not to make left turns at a busy intersection. But motorists heading to work Monday morning got an entirely different message: "Rogue panda on rampage."

I suppose that if you were the owner of a local bamboo grove and also happened to be confined to a wheelchair, this might be disturbing news. Otherwise, not so much.

This is somehow worse than nuclear waste

Slipping on this stuff probably isn't going to give you Minotaur-like superpowers:

A spill of frozen bull semen bound for a breeder in the state of Texas triggered a scare on Tuesday that temporarily shut down a U.S. interstate highway during the morning rush hour.

The incident began when the driver of a Greyhound bus carrying the freight alerted the fire department he had lost a part of his load while negotiating the ramp on a highway near Nashville.

Am I the only person who thought that a Greyhound bus wasn't the best possible conveyance for transporting animal semen?

Think of the luggage, people.

Breaking news!

This is an actual headline: Experts: Resumes should leave impression.

No, really?

Kids are stupid

Okay, I feel kind of bad about making fun of a thirsty child, but...

An 8-year-old boy desperate for a drink tried to get into a neighbor's home by sliding down the chimney, but got stuck for more than four hours, authorities said.

West Valley City police Sgt. Robert Hamilton said the thirsty boy climbed a tree to get onto the home's roof, then slid down the chimney feet first on Friday. The boy made it 30 feet down the chimney before he became wedged between the basement and main floor.

Come on, kid! You could use far less ingenuity to stack stuff up to get at the cookie jar. Have you never noticed that water comes out of a thing that's on the exact same level?

On the other hand, we don't know whether or not this kid has any mental problems (the article doesn't say so). Whether or not he does, people really shouldn't be leaving eight-year-old kids at home alone. The results are sometimes hilarious in the movies but are more often tragic in real life.

Since it's Saturday evening...

And I was too lazy to look for a suitable attractive lady last night, here's a pic of NCIS Los Angeles actress Daniela Ruah:

She's got leeeeeeegs!

I won't bother to elaborate much on this

Amen, brother.

"I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s," Lester said. "But come on. There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo."

I should also add that there are a lot of people under the age of 50 (myself very, very, very much included) who should be barred from wearing Speedos and other revealing clothing in public.

Seriously, me, you should cover the hell up. They make full-length robes for a reason.

Mad Max wouldn't have this problem

We're always told that stereotyping people is wrong, but, well...

An Australian man had his driving license suspended for 10 months and was fined after he was caught driving a scooter made of a motorized beer cooler capable of carrying several dozen drinks -- after knocking back a few.

The unconventional scooter featured a cooler box mounted on a wheeled frame and powered by a 50 cc engine, complete with a steering handlebar. The cooler doubled as a driver's seat and was able to hold up to 48 bottles of beer.

[...]

"By the time we built it, it was quite late so we thought we'd go for a bit of a test run," he told Network Ten.

He was caught by the police en route and found to be more than three times over Australia's legal blood alcohol limit, and was charged with drink driving and driving without a license.

The important lesson to take away from this is that Australia actually has a legal blood alcohol limit. And police, for that matter.

(Also, that was a gasoline joke.)

Trapped!

I'm probably going to hell for making any jokes about this, but I was probably going to hell anyway, so who gives a shit?

An Illinois woman's lawsuit against Premier Care in Bathing claims she was trapped in one of the Florida company's tubs for more than 30 hours.

Anna Cullen, who lives in Western Illinois, filed a lawsuit Monday in Cook County Court alleging she fell and "became wedged in the tub," which she was using for only the second time Sept. 4, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday.

Okay. I'm not the most svelte guy in the male modeling division. I'm actually (no, ladies, don't scream otherwise!) kind of overweight. But I have a regular shower/tub that came with the house I live in. I didn't have it built so that I could get in and out of it if there was an accident where I slipped. Still, I doubt that I could possibly find myself "wedged" in the tub, barring some sort of horrible multi-fracture or paralysis-inducing accident.

What I'm getting is that this woman must be fat. No, MORBIDLY OBESE.

See, I'm kind of a fat guy (again, female fans, stop screaming "THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!")but if I fall down in the non-custom-built shower/bath that came with the house I live in, I will never be "wedged" into that space.

I guess that what I'm getting at here is that you should have paid for the Super Size Big Gulp Shower.

Undercover ops

Generations of filmgoers have seen various films about cops pretending to be criminals in order to bust the bad guys, and I understand that it actually happens now and then. I just haven't seen this kind of undercover work, though that may just be because it's an Italian thing...

Undercover police have donned togas, capes and sandals to stop a turf battle among Italians who impersonate gladiators outside the Colosseum and other landmarks in Rome and make money by posing for camera carrying tourists.

The trade has been tolerated for years, but that was before about 20 of the practitioners began assaulting and intimidating their competitors to take over lucrative tourist spots such as the Colosseum, the Forum and the Vatican, officials and police said Friday.

So police decided to intervene disguised as gladiators, garbage collectors and tourists, but their operation at the ancient arena and the nearby Piazza Venezia wasn't easy.

On Wednesday, police impersonating gladiators were attacked when they told competitors to leave the scene, but police dressed as garbage collectors and tourists came to their rescue.

They seem to have a costume budget that a lot of Broadway shows would envy.

I wish there was a photo of the Italian cops dressed as "tourists," though. Do they have undercover fat Italian guys in USA T-shirts or imported Asian detectives? Do the police gladiators ever ask to be transferred to fake-garbage collector duty, or vice-versa?

In fact, is this where rogue members of the Rome PD get transferred?

Since it's Saturday Night...

...and I fell asleep early last night before I could get around to posting any cheesecake photos, here's one of actress Amy Adams:

She's one hot tomato! Get it? Because she has red hair? Hey, it's not like I get paid for this stuff.

Well, duh

Alternate headline: Everyone More or Less Pleased About Seeing Naked Lady:

The Woodward County, Okla., sheriff said he isn't investigating the case of a naked woman at a golf course since no one has made a formal complaint.

The incident occurred last month at the Elks Lodge No. 1355 golf tournament fundraiser for its annual rodeo at the Boiling Springs Golf Course in Woodward, Okla., The Oklahoman reported. A woman stripped down during a putting challenge, though she was not asked to do so, the report said.

"We haven't had anybody come in and make a report," Woodward County Sheriff Gary Stanley said Wednesday. "Somebody would need to come in and make a report ... We don't have a victim."

I beg to differ, since there are no photos accompanying this story.

The firm that runs the golf course has been warned that it could lose its lease it anything else this awesome inappropriate happens again.

"We don't claim responsibility," said JCLA Vice President Chris Moya. "She didn't come from the parking lot onto the course naked. It's like predicting lighting."

I think this is inaccurate insofar as nude women showing up at putting challenges are most likely statistically somewhat rarer than lightning strikes.

Now there's something you don't see every day

I don't tend to spend much (okay, any) time in the woods of New Hampshire, but I'm pretty sure that this is a rare occurrence in those parts:

Authorities are investigating the discovery of a decomposing blue shark in the woods of New Hampshire.

Police say they found the 6- to 8-foot shark Thursday night after someone reported smelling something decomposing.

I also don't really have a nose for things that are decomposing. "Something smells bad" is just more of my default setting, seeing as how I am rarely around decomposing creatures of any kind.

The article goes on to say that they think someone caught the shark in the ocean and then dragged it out to the woods to get rid of it for some reason, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense but is more reassuring than the idea of the shark somehow flying there, I suppose.

Since it's Friday night...

...and that is the time of the week usually reserved for the sexy ladies, here is former Amazon ass-kicker Lucy Lawless:

No, I don't mean that she used to beat up the shopping website. Not that I know of, anyway.

Stupid jerks

Why is it that the spiders in this neighborhood constantly insist on spinning their webs at the level of my face and/or hair?

Not. Cool.

When tanning is outlawed...

...only outlaws will be tanned:

Wisconsin police said a man caught driving a stolen vehicle is also facing charges for allegedly sunbathing nude in a stranger's yard chair.

Police said Derek Knight, 20, of Brookfield, was arrested at 1:30 a.m. Friday after driving to a condominium complex in a car that had been reported stolen, Patch.com reported Wednesday.

Officers said Knight was previously arrested June 29 after a woman reported he was sunbathing nude in a chair near her front door and refused to leave. Police arrived to find Knight wearing only a bandanna wrapped around his face and a pair of sunglasses.

Wow. The whole "outlaws" thing I mentioned earlier may be accurate. After all, a court system based on victims pointing out moles or freckles seems like a bad idea.

Criminal mastermind caught somehow

It seems that the cops managed to find a clue which led them to the fiend:

A fugitive from upstate New York who taunted police on his Facebook page to 'catch me if you can. I'm in Brooklyn' has been arrested.

The Daily News says U.S. marshals and NYPD detectives tracked Victor Burgos down to an apartment in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood Monday night, sitting at his computer with his Facebook page open.

Yeah, I'm not the kind of person who even commits the most minor of crimes, but I still don't think I'd entice law enforcement officers to issue me a jaywalking ticket, much less a felony.