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Smuggling melons in a stocking cap?

Greetings Blog Person,My friends and I arevisiting Earth from another planet in your solar system. It rhymes with 'Boopiter.” We have huge bulbous mushroom heads and large hands. We are unable to smile, and we must wear bowties at all times to transmit research data back to, uh, Boopiter. Is there any place on Earthwhere we would be safe and not call undue attention to ourselves?Sure, I think I have the perfect spot,pal. Have you ever heard ofa placecalled Milan?More stuff from the Oddly Enough BlogA model displays a creation as part of Burberry’s Fall/Winter 2008/09 men’s collections during Milan Fashion Week January 12, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

And the rockets’ red glare, I smell gas in the air...

Blog Guy, in the past you’ve given great tips to help dudeslike me figure out whether we made good career choices. Is there any single litmus test that works?Well, I do have a quick quiz I often use.Look down. Are you standingon top of thousandsof fireworks? Now, look in your hand. Are you pouring gasoline on those fireworks?If you answeredYES to both questions, youmay have madebad career choices.Take a moment,light up a cigarette, and give it some serious thought. For further helpfultips, check outearlier posts such asFree advice from the Blog of Death, and Kind of a Daffy vocational move?Good luck, and I care.Worker pours gas on confiscated fireworksin Harbin, Heilongjiang province, January 7, 2008. REUTERS/China DailyMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

Showing haute dogs with relish...

Today we have some videoon a canine fashion show in Japan, in which there is some discussion ofwho was the first to dress up their dogs.I am not making this up.This guyconcedes that 'Paris Hilton... started the trend again,” butadds that 'Japan was one of the first countries in the world that started with dog clothing.”Dude! You feel free to debate this one allyou want. If you want to give the glory to Paris, fine, and if the Japanese want to claim it, that’s okay, too. I’ll just go home and enjoy my dogs,who would eat my faceif I tried dressing them up like this. Daragh Burke reports:Meanwhile, for moreinformation and opinions on the topic, have a look at this slideshow and at our blog posts headlined If looks could kill, Just don’t even ask, andThe photo they didn’t want us to see....More stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

Runaway on the runway!

Memo to fashion show employees: We have received a police tip that an escaped prisoner may try to infiltrate our showin Milan this week.The man is described as 'wild-eyed, with unkempt hair and a disturbed look of intense anger.” The authorities say he also believes he was a Confederate colonel during the Civil War,and may dress accordingly.It is very difficult to believe that someone like this couldmake it onto ourrunway, but please do be alert to the danger, and keep in mind the horrible lapse atParis Fashion Week last summer: Dude! Is there ANYTHING you wouldn’t wear?A model displays a creation as part of Gucci’s Fall/Winter 2008/09 men’s collections during Milan Fashion Week January 14, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro GarofaloMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

Did someone say CRACK? That isn’t funny!

I know you all don’t like math very much, but in order to keep up my accreditation as an online home schooling resource, I am supposed to include an easy story problem every now and then.This photo of a crowd, which looks like Times Square, in fact shows folks trout fishing on a frozen river. More than a million people attend this festival, so let’s see. A million, at an average 140 pounds each, all drilling holes through ice about this thick, throw in some global warming, carry the four, divide by 32 degrees...Okay, got it. How many minutes until this river looks like a pitcher of frozen daiquiris, with a million icy blue people screaming and some trout laughing their fins off?People drop lines in holes on a frozen river at an event to fish trout in Hwacheon, about 12 miles south of the demilitarised zone separating two Koreas, January 13, 2008. REUTERS/ Lee Jae-WonMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

I have a home, but there’s a hitch...

It looks kind of like a shiny porta-jon, but it’s really practically everything you need in a home.This designer in Hong Kong has made a very cozy place for himself which he can pull along behind him on a tricycle. It has a desk, fold-out bed, bookshelves...Ironically, for something that looks like a porta-jon, it doesn’t seem to have one of those, but maybe he could attach one to pull behind the house. And maybe a little kitchen attached to that, and a spare bedroom, and a little-bitty den...Tara Joseph-Hui has a video report - not a whole show, just the, uh, trailer.For other recent tiny house news, check out Little house not on the prairie...More stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

DON’T send in the clowns!

Well, this study may pretty much changes everything. Strength is weakness, Brussels sprouts are chocolate... A poll of young hospital patients found that every one of them rejected the use of clowns as part of the decor, and even the teenagers in the study found clowns to be scary.'We found that clowns are universally disliked by children,” one researcher said.Yikes! However, it also turned out that all the children were perfectly okay with hollow-eyed zombies creeping around under their beds at night, half-eaten brains and blood dripping from their foul luminescent fangs. Who knew? Here’s the story:A carnival reveler dressed as a clown celebrates on the street in Berlin February 18, 2007. REUTERS/Pawel KopczynskiMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

'Sluggo, is that Aunt Fritzi I hear?”

Quick quiz: this model is....a) the co-star of an off-Broadway”Nancy & Sluggo Tribute Show”b) not exactly a shoo-in forPETA’sHumane Achievement Awards this yearc) Justgratefulhe wasn’twiththis same designer’sMilan showlast year,covered here as Taking a shine to men’s fashion..., or the one the year before that, posted as Unveiling the veil...A model displays a creation as part of Alexander McQueen’s Fall/Winter 2008/09 men’s collections during Milan Fashion Week January 13, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro GarofaloMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

Pouting bikini models behind bars...

'Connie, we have a huge problem.Some of the models are complaining that our outfits are too stupid-looking to wearin the fashion show. One of them saidyou want her to go outin a bikini, patterned stockings, boots, gloves, a jewelled purse andnecklace. That does sound kind of lame to me...'Well Connie, if they won’t show up,that’s it.I mean, you can’t drag them out there locked in cages, can you? Can you imagine what the blog headlines would say? Connie? Connie!”Amodel displays a creation from Koyo William Cheung’s Fall/Winter 2008 collection during Hong Kong Fashion Week January 16, 2008. REUTERS/Victor FraileMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog

I call this painting 'Nude in a Dress”

Workers who choose to go on strike protest in the most effective way they can. TV writers withhold words, air traffic controllers close their eyes, and nude models, well, they get dressed again.It turns out the models who pose naked for Italian art schools and colleges are covering up, bringing the production of fresh nude art to a screeching halt for 24 hours. If their tactic works, then, as the saying goes, 'no nudes is good nudes.”It isn’t known what long-term impact the action will have, butwould-be artists have three choices. They can use their imagination, they can work on backgrounds, or they can just paint people looking the way they look most of the time, anyway. Here is the story:Russian artist draws a naked model in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/ Alexander NatruskinMore stuff from the Oddly Enough Blog