51 WEIRDEST TOURIST TRAPS IN AMERICA

From Trutv.com
I was shocked/impressed/bothered by the fact that I have actually been to three of the places on this list.  More shocking is that there are several I would go out of my way to see.  Been to one?  Interesting in one?  Let me know!  I marked mine with the link to the info on that location.

1. World's Largest Office Chair - Anniston, Alabama
2. Outhouse Races - Anchorage, Alaska
3. Museum of Fake Frogs - Eureka Springs, Arkansas
4. Don Parks' Yard of Statues and Stuff - Phoenix, Arizona
5. Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum - Los Angeles, California
6. Two Story Outhouse - Crested Butte, Colorado
7. Timexpo Museum and Easter Island Statue - Waterbury, Connecticut
8. Run-over Fireman Monument - Washington, DC
9. Skull Silo at Frightland - St. Georges, Delaware
10. Gorrie Ice Museum - Apalachicola, Florida
11. Fitzgerald Wild Chicken Festival - Fitzgerald, Georgia
12. Kalaupapa Guided Mule Tour To Leper Colony - Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii
13. Don Aslett's Museum of Clean - Pocatello, Idaho
14. Cube of 1 Million 1 Dollar Bills - Chicago, Illinois
15. World's Largest Ball of Paint - Alexandria, Indiana
16. National Farm Toy Museum - Dyersville, Iowa
17. The World's Largest Collection of The World's Smallest Versions of The World's Largest Things - Lucas, Kansas
18. World's Largest Barrel of Bourbon and Crucifix - Bardstown, Kentucky
19. Jerry Lee Lewis Museum and Liquor Store - Ferriday, Louisiana
20. Jerry Cardone's 7 Wonders of God Creatures - Houlton, Maine
21. 9/11 Memorial "To Lift A Nation" - Emmitsburg, Maryland  http://www.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/gallery/51-dumbest-vacation-spots-in-america.html?curPhoto=21
22. The Porter Thermometer Museum - Boston, Massachusettes
23. Monument to the Dean of Michigan's Tourism Activity - Kewadin, Michigan
24. Shoe Fence - Downer, Minnesota
25. World's Only Cactus Plantation - Edwards, Mississippi
26. Mount Rushmore with Fake Celebrity Heads - Branson, Missouri
27. Montana Vortex and House of Mystery - Columbia Falls, Montana http://www.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/gallery/51-dumbest-vacation-spots-in-america.html?curPhoto=27
28. Andy the Footless Goose - Hastings, Nebraska
29. Brothel Art Museum - Crystal, Nevada
30. Stairway to Nowhere - Chesterfield, New Hampshire
31. Martinka Museum of Magic - Midland Park, New Jersey
32. Runaway Bride 7-11 Payphone - Albuquerque, New Mexico http://www.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/gallery/51-dumbest-vacation-spots-in-america.html?curPhoto=32
33. Sidewalk of Stars - Binghamton, New York
34. Tom Haywood's Self-Kicking Machine - New Bern, North Carolina
35. Casselton Can Pile - Casselton, North Dakota
36. Duct Tape Festival - Avon, Ohio
37. Twister (the Movie) Museum - Wakita, Oklahoma
38. World's Largest Pig Hairball - Mount Angel, Oregon
39. Schwenksville Museum Of Nostalgia - Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
40. Cow Vomit Rope at the Little Compton Historical Society - Little Compton, Rhode Island
41. Monument to the Father of Gynecology - Columbia, South Carolina
42. Skeleton of a Man Walking A Skeleton of a Dinosaur on a Leash - Murdo, South Dakota
43. illbilly Golf - Gatlinburg, Tennessee
44. Animatronic Bartender at the West of the Pecos Museum - Pecos, Texas
45. Room of Mining Disasters - Helper, Utah
46. World's Tallest Filing Cabinet - Burlington, Vermont
47. Norfolk Mermaid Trail - Norfolk, Virginia
48. Volcano Toilets - Granger, Washington
49. The Mystery Hole - Ansted, West Virginia
50. The Mustard Museum - Middleton, Wisconsin
51. Town with Population of One - Lost Springs, Wyoming

Five Things E!Online Thinks They Know About the New Batman Movie

Five Things We Think We Know About the New Batman Movie

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Today 12:00 PM PST by JOAL RYAN

Valerie Macon/Getty Images; DC Comics; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; DC Comics; Warner Bros. Entertainment

Christian Bale's back. Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy are in. The Dark Knight Rises is down for July 2012. 

So, what else we got? Clues, tidbits and fake press releases. Here's where, to the best of our knowledge, the upcoming Batman movie stands:

RELATED: Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new Wonder Woman

1. Christopher Nolan Is Waiting on Awards-Season to End: Bat-butler Michael Caine told E! News on Monday that he hasn't seen a script—because there isn't a script to see. "He [Nolan] said, 'I'll finish it in two weeks,' " Caine reported. The reputed timeline, you may have noticed, coincides with the Oscars being over, and Nolan being done with black-tie appearances on behalf of Inception. (So, hurry up, The King's Speech, and win everything already!)

2.  The Riddler, No; Catwoman, Yes—We're Pretty Sure: Nolan himself dismissed the notion of the green-suited puzzler making the cut. So that's that. Then last month, Warner Bros. confirmed Hathaway had been cast as Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, although the studio never actually referred to Hathaway's character as Catwoman (even as it referred to Hardy's character by his supervillain name, Bane). It's probably nothing. Probably. 

3. The Inception Reunion Is On—a Fake Press Release Confirms: There's been a lot of buzz that Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are looking to join dream-team alum Hardy. The latest official word on both actors is that they're in talks. The latestbogus press release says Cotillard is signed, and set to play Caped Crusader temptress Talia al Ghul, and that Gordon-Levitt is signed, and set to play Batman nemesis the Black Mask. Please ignore the bogus press release. (OK, how about, please try to ignore the bogus press release?)

4. The Score Is Going to Be "Epic:" Does this pronouncement seem premature considering we don't have a script, a full cast or a movie, yet? Eh. Composer Hans Zimmer said it (to MTV News), so at least it's actually true. (Unless, that is, he was kidding.) 

5. Bale Is Going to Bail—After This Movie, Definitely Maybe: Here's what the unmasked man told E! News last November: "Unless Chris says different, this will be the last time I'm playing Batman." No word from the fake press-release department if Nolan has said different.

Extrodiary Roald Dahl List Telegraph!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8328574/Roald-Dahls-10-finest-hours.html

Roald Dahl's 10 finest hours

From children's books to dark tales of murder, there are countless moments of brilliance in Roald Dahl's writing: here are ten.

British author Roald Dahl Photo: Ronald Dumont/Getty Images

By Mark Monahan 2:00PM GMT 16 Feb 2011

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1) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)

Dahl’s description of the taste of Wonka’s Whipple–Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight as Charlie eats it is merely words on a page. And yet, however many years or even decades it now is since one first read it, it still feels like the most delicious, luxuriant, succulent, sumptuous thing that any of us has ever actually eaten. The moment when Charlie sees the gold ticket peeping out from beneath the wrapper is pure magic too – has childish excitement ever been more brilliantly conveyed? And to think Martin Amis recently disparagingly said that he might well write a children’s book only “if I had a serious brain injury”. Clever fellows really can talk twaddle sometimes, can’t they.

2) A Dip in the Pool (1952)

Having bet his and his wife’s life-savings that the ocean-liner on which they’re cruising will make poor progress, the doomed hero of this grown-up short story befriends a kindly old woman on deck before hurling himself overboard before her eyes in an attempt to slow everything down. He never finds out, however, that she is not quite all there – moments later, after she has watched him flailing in the ship’s ever-lengthening wake, she tells her disbelieving carer about the curious incident. “Such a nice man,” she insists. “He waved to me.”

3) Danny, the Champion of the World (1975)

The point when the 120 drugged pheasants, packed together like sardines in a pram, begin to soar out of it, only to start flopping desultorily back to earth as their still partially narcotised wings fail them. It’s one of Dahl’s funniest passages, told with a vividness and relish strong by even his standards.

4) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (1977)

This wonderfully convincing fantasy’s extraordinary description of a candle’s flame, starting with the yellow outside, then the blue bit, with the black core at its centre. Has anyone who ever read this ever looked at a lit candle in the same way again?

5) Lamb to the Slaughter (1953)

The moment in this short story when the police – investigating the murder of fellow copper Patrick Maloney – find a formerly frozen leg of lamb in the oven, now completely cooked. This must be the only story ever written in which the cops eat the murder weapon. Genius.

6) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)

Vermicious knids! (With the “k” sounded, of course.) Has a disagreeable alien ever been endowed with a better name? The fact that these ovine beasties are also inveterate show-offs, and know only one word of English – scram – which they spell out in mid-air, only adds to the comedy.

7) The Landlady (1959)

Two of Dahl’s smartest tricks were his ability merely to hint at danger, and – similarly – to cut his short-stories dead before reaching a conventional conclusion. This one (first seen in The New Yorker) is the supreme example. Checking into a quiet B&B, Billy Weaver finds the last two names in the book before his ringing a vague bell – but he dismisses the thought. Every time you read this, as Billy eyes the stuffed animals in this lonely house, you will him to get the hell out. But before long, the apparently good-natured woman serves him tea “that tasted faintly of bitter almonds” (ie cyanide – another mere taste, as it were, of darkness). And, with similarly perfect authorial understatement on Dahl’s part, the story ends with her kindly answer to Billy’s enquiry as to whether anyone at all, apart from he and those other two, has stayed there in recent years. “No, my dear,” she says. “Only you.”

8) The Great Switcheroo (1974)

Dahl’s dark-hued moralising flowered particularly memorably in this tale from his most explicitly adult short-story collection, Switch Bitch. It reads like a cautionary tale for would-be swingers everywhere – over-confident studs, in particular – and the conclusion, as so often with Dahl, is as unforgiving as it is hilarious.

9) James and the Giant Peach (1961)

The moment when Aunts Spiker and Sponge are crushed by the now enormous fruit. The thrills! The excitement! The satisfaction! Revenge has never – in any sense – tasted sweeter.

10) Pig (1960)

This short story from the collection Kiss Kiss is one of the most brutal – and brilliant – things Dahl ever wrote. Essentially a cautionary tale about the morbid dangers of over-protecting children – with a nice side-swipe at vegetarianism, too – it is packed with linguistic and stylistic references to Voltaire’s Candide. But, where the French master’s masterpiece concludes with his protagonist blithely cultivating his garden, this ends with the similarly ingénu hero, Lexington, being strung up and slaughtered like the titular ungulate. In a final, jet-black nod to the Voltaire, it ends with him passing “out of this, the best of all possible worlds, into the next”.

About Hipsters...

10 THINGS ABOUT HIPSTERS THAT MAKE ME SO MAD

By Dan Hopper

Everyone on the internet makes fun of hipsters constantly. It’s easy to do – hipsters are in many ways both ridiculous and annoying. In 2007, internet hipster-ridicule seemed to peak with the“Hipster Olympics” sketch video, a thorough and spot-on parody that got 2.5 million views and basically summed up all there is to ever say about hipster culture.

Still, almost four years later, internet lists abstractly ripping on hipsters continue to go super-viral on a near-daily basis, such as last week’s Hipster Little Mermaid Meme, to the point where the vague, niche concept of the hipster has essentially spawned more things online making fun of hipsters than there actually are hipsters (and I live in Brooklyn, and I’m not as mad at these individuals as the entire internet seems to be).

Rather than continue to point out that hipster humor is a long-exhausted, formulaic dead horse of easy viral material, I’ve decided I might as well just hop on board. Here’s my contribution to the online hipster humor zeitgeist, a list of 10 THINGS ABOUT HIPSTERS THAT MAKE ME SO MAD:

10. Their Black Glasses

What is up with those? Get some regular glasses you d*cks! “Oh, look at me, my glasses are black and all like thick and sh*t.” Tell me if you can read this: SHUT UP.

9. They Love Pitchfork

Man do they love that website Pitchfork. Buncha d*cks making sh*t music for d*cks and d*cks writing about it. Why are you reading that crap? Hipsters should go to better websites instead of sh*tty stupid ones like that one.

8. They Do Everything Ironically

Hey look at me, I’m doing this thing but I’m not actually doing it because it’s ironic! That’s what hipsters are ALWAYS like. Hey check it out, tiny Alf T-shirt! Guess what? That t-shirt sucks and so do you. And no, I’m NOT being ironic.

7. They All Do Yoga And Eat Organic

Hey wanna go to brunch, there’s this new FREEGAN place on Dumbstreet, it’s called “Place” cause it’s too cool to have a name and also everyone’s like doing Pilates there. Hey hipsters, you know what meal I love? LUNCH. Not ORGANIC magic window garden lunch, just regular lunch. It’s a meal. TRY IT.

6. They Think They’re So Cool

Laugh at things? Why would I laugh at things and smile when I can stand here like a big dipsh*t and look like I’m not caring? Oh, what’s that you got there, some really cool thing? PSHHH. I don’t care, I’m too cool.

5. They Like All This Obscure Music

Hey, have you heard of this new band, they’re called D*CKTW*T, it’s three Siberian babies and a goat with a washboard, they’re playing at this organic coffee shop I like, wanna go see them? Oh no, they released an EP now they’re too popular for me, cause I’m a hipster. UGHHHHH.

4. They’re All Rich But They Pretend To Be Poor

Lemme live in this shack with sh*t smeared all over the walls cause I’m like this Bohemian artist even though my dad’s like the President of the U.S.A. and he sends me a check for a zillion dollars every day and I pretend like I hate him and keep wearing these like super old jeans. YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE YOU HIPSTER SCUM!

3. They Hate The Mainstream

“That’s too mainstream for me, I don’t like it!” is what hipsters are always like whenever they see stuff. Could they possibly hate the mainstream more? It’s like, are they talking about Hitler or are they talking about the mainstream, I’m confused cause they hate them both the same. Like, did the mainstream molest them as a child??

2. Their Clothes Are So Stupid

Should we throw away these used American Apparel leggings and ratty teal scarf from the 1930s? No, sell them to a vintage store so some stupid hipster can buy them for a billion trust fund dollars and wear it to their vinyl wine & cheese parties. Don’t do any of that you assh*le! Wear normal things and stop being so f***ing stupid.

1. They Don’t Like Regular Stuff

“We don’t like normal stuff we only like this other stupid stuff, we’re hipsters.” Just like regular stuff instead of your stupid weird stuff, you weird d*cks! What a bunch of d*cks. UGH. Hipsters.

Is anything here that we haven't already said?  Give me something more people.  Post your additions.  What do you love and/or hate about hipsters.

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