FOLIO OLIO: MONDAY #2185

NEWSY BITS...

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The "choking game" is an activity popular among 9- to 16-year-old kids in which they strangle themselves or each other — sometimes at parties or sleepovers — to get a high. The most common reported age of death is 13, Alex’s age. Many kids like Alex — smart kids who do well in school and have loving families — regard the Choking Game as a legal and safe alternative to drugs; one popular nickname for this is the Good Kids’ High.

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The Atlantic explains how close New York City is to a food crisis, if supplies from outside the city are disrupted by natural or manmade events: "New Yorkers rely chiefly on food from across the country, or the other side of the world. And to complicate matters, in recent decades the big companies that run these systems... keep much smaller inventories than in years past, sized to meet immediate demand under stable conditions—a strategy known as "just-in-time."

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Was Vincent Van Gogh murdered? "And, anyway, what kind of a person, no matter how unbalanced, tries to kill himself with a shot to the midsection? And then, rather than finish himself off with a second shot, staggers a mile back to his room in agonizing pain from a bullet in his belly?"

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Student leader Lester Shum arrested in HK protests

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No.

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It's the thought that counts...

In loving memory, pants were worn at half-mast.
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That's pretty damn touching.

LET'S DO ANIMALS FIRST...

This is the child who grew up to force shower cap companies to put instructions on the package...

That's true, by the way. It reads something like, "One head at a time."

THAT IS A FUCKING SNAKE!!!

And...

When she’s ugly as fuck but you stay together cause you’re ugly as fuck too.

Freakaaaaaay....

If I were Superman, I would fly into space and find proof that aliens exist.

No. Please, no...

Believe it or not, emus are very curious and this man knows they will travel great distances to investigate something strange...

Those birds came from fields far away to investigate.

This guy gave me the weirdest look when I flushed his urinal for him. It's like people have no concept of manners anymore.

Males....they are all the same...

If life were fair, we would all have a penis and a vagina within reach of each other.

Yeah, let's see a cat do this...

I wonder if this is the same bird on two different cars or two different birds...

The safest child in her neighborhood...

My wife’s nickname is Gillette because she’s the best a man can get. And she will cut you.

Baa-ram-ewe...

The problem with people who mean everything they say is that they think everyone else does too.

DNA molecules smeared onto the exterior of a sub-orbital test rocket are capable of surviving a 13-minute trip into space and a scorching re-entry, European researchers say.

I wonder how many young men have jacked off to a picture of the queen.

Answer later.

Let's talk about interiors for a moment.

As you should know by now I like wood and stone and brick. I'm not much for covering up the building structure.

I am also aware that the above is very, very expensive. That doesn't mean I can't like it. But look at the table. Do you think it was designed that way?

And this.....what can I say about this...

It is beautiful. Clean. Well laid out. Some wood here and there. But look at the walls. Not one piece of artwork. Who wants to live in a house without artwork?

Something has been bothering me for a long time...

I had a pretty clever idea of offering $1 bills in a gumball machine, so I got a hold of some plastic things...

And just wadded up the bill and crammed it in...

That always bugged me...too sloppy.

Then I wondered if I could fill the plastic do-dads with quarters and they fit perfectly...

Ten fill the containers exactly with hardly a rattle...

So I re-fitted the original with about 40 pounds of quarters...

I like it much, much better than the first one...

But now I have a bag full of dollar bills that have been crushed for half a decade and are more or less useless for any other project...

So I guess it's time for the old dryer with a damp towel and three sheets of dryer sheets to relax them....

Remember, I've had to do that before. Such is the life of an artist.

By the way, while I was going through every place that could possibly have a quarter, including my 5 gallon coin jar, I came upon not one, not two, but three US dollar coins. I am absolutely certain that I got them as change, them counted as a quarter.

Look at this...

The dollar and the quarter are almost EXACTLY the same size!

How could anybody be so stupid.

And they wonder why nobody wants to use them.

P.S. - The only way I realized that those three coins were dollar coins, was that the fit is so close in the plastic containers, the dollars wouldn't "lay flat", as it were.

A rare Hitler is up for auction and is expected to fetch at least $60,000. Purchased in 1916, the watercolor depicts Munich's old city hall and is currently owned by two elderly sisters. The 11x8.5" work includes an original bill of sale and a letter confirming, in the 1940s, that it was an authentic Adolf Hitler painting; the artist had by then moved on to a career in politics and achieved a measure of public notability.

Speaking of Hitler, here's a couple of striking images from WWII...

It was stated that the above is a British troop finding shelter from the rain under an overturned Tiger tank.

Below a German prisoner is paraded through Paris to be spit on and cursed...

That he wasn't stomped to death says something about the difference between them and us.

"Who Dies" puzzle from above: They all die. The trick is that the force of the rolling ball on the right will strike the seesaw with enough force to send the other stone through the far-left man and it rebounds onto the man below him.

(and by the way, I'm getting pretty fucking angry when sites won't allow me to drag a gif where I want it to go)

Each one of these gets progressively more difficult to spot...

Shit you don't see every damn day...

Extended family Christmas gatherings are like sitting around with living, breathing forwarded emails.

Do with this as you will...

There's a whole lot going on in the clip...

NASA has issued this new image of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

"Issued"? Interesting terminology.

I thought this pretty cool. The pond froze over slightly. Then the leaves fell and because they were darker, they absorbed more heat and melted through the ice....

What a bunch of ice holes.

A real druggy friend of mine was told by security he couldn’t drive home from the emergency room because of the medication he had been given. He called his wife and had her drive him to his truck. Problem solved.

One Of My Very Own...

Every time I don't clog a toilet I feel like I've gotten away with something.

(don't we all?)

Nice ass.

(and shit like that is why I am going straight to hell)

A couple of Star Trek outtakes...

In the last one, the extra was just supposed to walk by.

Carving something like this out of stone...it leaves me speechless...

Is it still okay to use Jew as a verb?

Photography...

And...

The hours and hours of drives just like this are some of my happiest memories...

My primary concern was finding something to install one of my art installations upon. Yeah, it was way cool.

My youngest daughter is taking drum lessons....

Why? I asked her and she said that I once gave her two drumsticks when she was very young and she loved them. As I recall, my first wife "lost" them after about a week.

The terror their parents lived through knowing they had no power to stop the danger...