Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bizarre

please help me i.d. this photo(series) and the artist

Baby_Balrog — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:13:55 -0800

Argh! Can't remember the name of this series of bizarre photos. I think it was something like, "What's the matter with Jonathan" or something like that. It's making me crazy. Please help.

What is this monster in my house

gueneverey — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:41:11 -0800

Does anyone know what this bizarre stuffed animal monster is? So, my fiancee found this thing at a thrift store in Boulder, Colorado maybe 10 years ago. The people at the store didn't know what it was, and thought it was so weird they gave it to him for free. We're trying to figure out once and for all what the heck it is, and if it's something we really need to keep around the house.

It's got long bendy arms so you can hang it on your shoulders (as a backpack?), and there's a zip-open pouch on its back.

Apparently there was a girl at his high school who was really in to Anime, who had one in a different color, so we suspect maybe it's Japanese?

Bonus points: Anybody want a terrifying stuffed animal monster?

One skull too many.

PhoBWanKenobi — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:23:50 -0800

IWishIWereKiddingFilter: How do we get rid of a human medical skull we inherited? omnigut's recent question about unloading a tiger head has reminded me that I have a similar dilemma that, hopefully, you guys can help me solve. A pretty icky, spooky dilemma.

In the nineteen sixties, my father (somehow) obtained a medical skull. It's a real human skull with the plates marked up. I think it has some sort of shellac on it. Being the hippie that he was, he glued a scarab to its forehead and named it Percy. He and his (hippie) friends invented a holiday around Percy called Percymas where they exchanged handmade and recycled junk with one another. Yes, I know, they were pretty weird.

My father died when I was eight and the skull has been passed around between his friends since then. People didn't want to get rid of it for sentimental reasons, but didn't really want it, either. Because, you know, human skulls are kind of creepy. Honestly, I think it's pretty creepy, too. Somehow, at the last celebrated Percymas, Mr. WanKenobi was given Percy to "hold on to." He doesn't really want it (it definitely holds no sentimental value for him!). My mother and my sister don't want it. I certainly don't want it, but Mr. WanKenobi is moving in with me soon, and since he'll be moving across state lines to do so we should probably get rid of it sooner rather than later.

But we can't really figure out what to do with it. We don't want to do anything illegal or of dubious legality since these are human remains we're talking about. Since this question was asked, you can no longer sell human remains on Ebay. Since there's a scarab glued to the forehead, I'm not sure that a med student would want it, but maybe I'm wrong. In case it's relevant, Mr. WanKenobi is in New Jersey. Any ideas as to where we can donate it? People we can sell it to? Any ideas as to how we can . . . erm, dispose of these human remains?

Does anyone remember the names of these obscure artful films?

debbie_ann — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:46:56 -0800

Does anyone remember the names of these obscure artful films? I saw some beautiful weird films years ago in art school and have no idea how to find them again other than asking a film major "Have you ever seen a movie where ..." (He hadn't) So here's what I remember about each film.

Things I remember about Film A.
1. It's in color.
2. There is one English sentence in the whole film. A girl says "I love you" and runs off. The rest is a language I don't recognize.
3. The main character is impotent and at one point is described as a 'drowned mouse riding on the back of a bull.'
4. The cure for his impotence is to sleep with a fat black witch.
5. At one point a beautiful princess is punished, by having fire lost from her kingdom. The only place a torch can be lit is between her legs. There is a scene with a line of people lighting torches while the princess screams in pain.
6. For no apparent reason, in one scene a man dressed as a fish stands by a body of water.
7. There are a lot of unbalanced artsy shots, where you just gaze at the composition. Also a lot of sand color.

Things I remember about film B.
1. It is black and white.
2. I don't remember anyone talking
3. The subject is time travel. A man travels through time and falls in love.
4. The movie is made with a series of still images, instead of moving pictures.
5. In one scene, there is action and it's the love interest breathing in her sleep....it's riveting.
6. At one point the couple is on a date in what appears to be a natural history museum. There are taxidermed animals everywhere but no other people.
7. Someone is killed with a gunshot.

Strange article about a programmer scheduling his life according to software recommendations.

®@ — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:34:19 -0800

Article about "efficiency" software that ended up taking over somebody's life? Very interesting read but I can't recall the keywords. A while ago I read an article about a man who created "reminder" software to help him with memory retention, but that eventually he started living his whole life according to what the software recommended. It may have been in Wired... I looked on their site but couldn't find it, haven't been able to turn up much other places online either.

Does this ring any bells?

To go with the blue hair?

FuManchu — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:01:43 -0800

Why is blue eyeshadow so common? Blue eyeshadow seems to be, by far, the most common non-skintone eyeshadow. Why blue? All searching provides are judgement calls on whether it is still fashionable to wear it.

Is there some apocryphal origin, at least? Most standard makeup seems to be in shades that are already natural -- even clown-red lipstick. But natural blue eyelids I haven't seen.

Please help me scratch this itch.

How do you tell an overly dramatic and bizarre friend to snap out of it?

dasheekeejones — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:46:10 -0800

How to handle a very "different" and overly dramatic friend? She's super sweet and thinks of me like a sister but holy cow, is she out there and usually overly dramatic about everything.

We went to a CGI movie with animals. One of the animals got shot in the ass. She threw a fit for 1/2 hour as if someone got beheaded. I had to calm her down by telling her no cartoon animal has ever died by getting shot in the ass.

During gaming she brings with her this little statue that she constantly strokes and provides "offerings" to it. It's not a religious statue by any means.

Any simple conversation that someone would have usually gets extended into a 3 hour, detailed tome into some sort of dreamy, metaphysical, very LOTR-like tale that makes your eyes roll.

If you ever have seen the SNL with Will Farrell and Rachel Dratch do the "Lovahhhh" skit, that's EXACTLY how she and her husband are except he's still more grounded and realistic than she is.

I once made a blue joke in a group email that her husband's sister was on. She scolded me saying I had to watch it because his little sister was on the email. His "little" sister is entering college and is by no means some religious, sensitive- ear freak. I then told her, " Well for all you know during her typing of an email reply, she was smoking a bong and participating in an orgy so calm down."

She was abused by her mother and I"m guessing her abuse manifested into fantasy coping methods. But quite frankly, it's annoying as hell.

Do you tell someone like her to snap out of it?

I haz a weird movie memory.

ninazer0 — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:09:52 -0800

Help me locate a weird 80's sci-fi movie with almost no info. I don't remember much of the movie for....various reasons. However, I'd very much like to find it again and fill in the blanks.

It was called something like "Living on the Edge" or "Life in the Tubes" and was a sci-fi comedy. People were living in a futuristic subterranean suburbia. It was all done in a very "just regular folks" sort of style. Kids come home from school and mom prepares a snack, which is some sort of toad creature pushed through a grid so that it pops out in slices. One of the kids is playing a sling-shot/target shooting game in his bedroom and has picked parasites off the family pet to use as missiles, with a very messy result.

I'm sorry, but the plot (if it had one) completely escapes me. I recall that Mom was upset because the "tubes" had stopped working and she sent the two kids with a bucket to the engineer for some gloopy stuff for dinner. The kids didn't want to go because they were scared of the engineer.

It was made in the late 70's or early 80's. I believe it was a US movie, or possibly Canadian.

That's all I've got. Does this ring any bells for anyone???

Why does my phone ring when people call an entirely different number?

Trinkers — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:29:04 -0800

All day since 2:00 AM this morning, I've been getting phone calls on my cell phone who didn't dial my number. Please help. All day since 2:00 AM this morning, I've been getting weird phone calls on my cell phone. I thought that the first 9 calls were due to drunk dialing because they happened within 2:07 to 2:21 AM, but it has since become quite bizarre. So far, I've received 21 calls from 14 different phone numbers. I haven't been able to answer the phone every time that it has rung because I was at work. However, I have answered the phone a few times and all of the people who called said they had dialed numbers that are not my phone number. A co-worker called back a few of the others, who also said that they had dialed a different number or had not called anyone at all. Needless to say, this is completely bizarre.

I called AT&T, my provider, and the guy on the phone basically said that he had no idea what was going on. He thought that *maybe* it was because the phone number has been used twice before, but he agreed that it was probably not the answer since I've never received any calls like this until today even though I've had the phone for a month, and also because the people were dialing different numbers. The volume of calls makes it an unlikely answer, too. He said that it would be possible to switch phone numbers, but I would like to find out what is going on and how to stop it if possible. Similarly, paying $5 per month to block the numbers probably isn't the answer, because completely new numbers keep cropping up.

If it matters: I have a non-jailbroken iPhone.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. I'd love to be able to sleep through the entire night tonight without any weird calls.

Is my Ikea desk killing my MacBook Pro hard drive?

fenriq — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:47:19 -0800

Bizarre Hard Drive Failure Filter: Is it possible that my desk from Ikea is helping to send my hard drive to an early grave? Okay, I know this is going to sound insane but here goes. When I use my MacBook Pro on my desk the hard drive will soon start whining and screaming and sounding like it is about to explode. When I use the same exact computer on my table in the kitchen, it is almost perfectly silent. I can use it on the table in the kitchen for hours without even a slight whine. But within minutes of placing it on the desk from Ikea, its like there's a helicopter in my office.

The noise gets so loud I can't hear my television. And right now, on the kitchen table, it is almost silent.

Can anyone make heads or tails of this?

The sound does occur far less frequently when I use the computer while laying in bed and it sits on a pillow (these suckers run HOT!) but it appears that the issue is exacerbated by the desk.

Anyone have any insights? Yes, it is under warranty and I have the box ready to send it back to Apple but I'm pretty they don't use Ikea desks and they may not be able to replicate the problem.

Disk Utility says the disk is totally fine but I found I cannot upgrade to Leopard because of some failure (can't remember now) and I did try it several times.

Dim screen fix results in bizarre keyboard behavior???

doomtop — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:30:42 -0800

We fixed an issue with a dim screen on a laptop, but now the keyboard is acting wonky. What's up with that? The original problem with this laptop (HP Pavilion dv2035us) was that the screen was very dim. We've seen this often and generally this means that the backlight bulb has failed.

So we replace the backlight bulb on the LCD, but the problem is not resolved. So we go ahead and replace the entire LCD. Still the problem is not resolved.

So we try replacing the backlight inverter board. Still the same dim screen problem, now with a brand new LCD/backlight and inverter. Everything replaced and still the same problem, how can this be?

So we look into it further. The only thing we can come up with is the lid close switch. The switch that indicates to the machine when the lid gets closed and tells it to dim the screen and maybe go into sleep mode, etc.

We find the connector that is identified as the "lid close switch" a small cable that connects to the motherboard. We try to disconnect this connector.

The connector is made of plastic, but for whatever reason, the plastic on all of the connectors inside this laptop are very soft and almost what I would describe as mushy or spongy.

We try to gently remove the connector, but due to the mushy connection its sort of falls apart in the removal process. So we just cut the cable entirely.

Now we boot up and voila! the screen is no longer dim!

We put back the old LCD w/ new backlight and the old inverter board. System boots and the LCD is bright and crisp.

Everything seems well.

Then we find out the keyboard is not working properly anymore. The behavior is bizarre. Most of the letter keys work fine. But some of the functional keys exhibit strange results. The "delete" key when pressed with Notepad open outputs "b" and the Notepad Help window pop ups. The second time you press "delete" it then outputs "n=". The third time you press "delete" it doesn't output any text, but selects the Edit menu and turns Caps Lock on.

All of the functional keys on the final column of keys ("home" "pg up" "pg dn" "end") all exhibit similar bizarre behavior.

We can't figure it out, so we replace the keyboard with a brand new one. The problem does not go away...

So what is going on here? What would cause this kind of situation and what could possibly resolve it? This has to be a hardware issue, because connecting a USB keyboard to the laptop is not a problem. The USB keyboard does not have the weird issues that I have described. It seems to be a problem with the laptop's keyboard, but replacing it with a brand new one didn't fix it.

Anyone ever seen anything like this?? We are at a loss and need to restore the original functionality of this system. Any thoughts are appreciated!

Help me find this website with a collection of odd, bizarre medical cases

ArchBr — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:59:07 -0800

Help me find this website with a collection of odd, bizarre medical cases Years ago I came upon his website that had a massive collection of the most bizarre, incredible cases in medical history. Most were very old, cases that happened tens of years ago, before there were all these advanced exams and resources. The cases were separated by nature, like birth/delivery, extra limbs, cerebral, etc.

Any of you seen this site around the web lately?

Seeking explanation of odd lunar phenomena

malusmoriendumest — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 07:13:37 -0800

Can the Moon affect humans in specific ways? Is there any evidence that the rhythms of the Moon have an effect on anything smaller than the tides? I'm reasonably well-versed in astronomy and physics, and have been taught that the Moon exerts enough force on the Earth to control the tides, but not much more. Additionally, I'm an atheist, so I don't harbor any beliefs about spirituality, but it really does seem as though the rhythms of the Moon affect my health and general outlook, best at the Full Moon, worst at the New Moon, even when I'm completely unaware of the phase. I even came down with a serious illness on the day of the last lunar eclipse. I'm desperately trying to find a scientific explanation for this, but I simply can't find anything substantial, apart from scientific papers on the synchronicity of women's menstrual cycles with lunar cycles, when I am in fact male. Does anyone have an idea?

Let's hope this doesn't jinx it.

crinklebat — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:03:03 -0800

Why would using a menstrual cup make periods shorter? To the squeamish: this question, shockingly, contains details about menstruation. I have lost about a day off the end of my period since starting to use the Divacup six months ago. I'd say this was something I was making up, but other people on the web have observed it too. I'm not complaining, but why would this be the case?

For background, I started using Nuvaring in January which took me from about a week to about five days of bleeding almost immediately. Then I started using Divacup around May (at which point my boyfriend remarked that I had delegated all my girly tasks to my vagina) and it seems like every period has been slightly shorter than the last. At this point I can take out my cup after the end of my third-and-a-half day or so and experience only minor spotting.

Again, I love this, but I can think of absolutely no reason why it would happen. Anyone else experienced this? Any medical types with thoughts on possible reasons?

San Francisco Surplus Stores

drezdn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:28:52 -0800

What are the great surplus stores around San Francisco My wife and I are planning on honeymooning in the San Francisco-area (probably the city itself) in early January. Mythbusters has convinced me that the city is filled with stores equal to American Science and Surplus. While my wife isn't looking, which ones should I check out, with an emphasis placed on cool electronics, or the bizarre?

Into the Rabbit Hole? Looking for Messed Up Cinematography

radgardener — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:16:01 -0800

I'm looking for films similar to Jan Švankmajer's Alice and Faust. I watched Alice in July, and two nights ago I watched Faust under the influence of some hallucinogenics. I'm especially interested in movies similar to Faust. Some philosophical content would be awesome. What do you got?

Crazy dog, crazy dog, why are you barking...

miss tea — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 05:04:50 -0800

Any ideas why my dog won't eat out of his food bowl any longer? We recently switched our dog to a higher-grade dry dog food (canidae, if it matters), and shortly thereafter he started exhibiting a very strange behavior. He will stand there and bark at the food bowl, but will not eat out of it. We have tried all sorts of different receptacles, such as other bowls, plates, paper plates... you name it, but he simply won't eat out of the receptacle. But if you put the food directly on the floor, he eats right away.

Oddly, he'll still eat other stuff out of his food bowl-- vegetables, snacks, etc.

Any ideas? For obvious reasons, we'd prefer that he not eat off the floor.

Weird Suburban Portland

iced_borsch — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:22:44 -0800

Tell me some random, strange things about the suburbs of Portland, Ore. I'm particularly interested in these areas: West Linn, Wilsonville, Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, and Lake Oswego.

Details of weird organizations, strange gatherings, odd pursuits, and bizarre people are encouraged.

Desired info can run the gamut from UFO sightings to cults to weird historical anecdotes to roadside attractions.

What Happened to my Girl's Computer?

Doublewhiskeycokenoice — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:31:49 -0800

Incredibly strange happening last night. Is my girlfriend's computer haunted? Does my house have a gnome/stalker? Some language possibly NSFW Ok, so here is a very strange story that has no readily apparent explaination. My gf was over at my place last night working on a project for her anthro class and was up particularly late. I went to bed, and about two hours later she joined me, leaving my two housemates up for another few hours. I get up early the next morning to go to work, and all seems normal. About 8:00 PM tonight the lady calls me and says "Big Boy Nut Sack, huh?" Naturally, I am confused. Turns out that when she went back to her computer (12" powerbook G4), the name of the CD in her computer had been changed to "The Sack Chronicles," the artist to "Big Boy Nut Sack" and the genre to World Music. Originally, the album was titled "beat," and no other fields were filled in. She thought it was a clever prank played by us boys on her unsuspecting computer, but this is simply not the case. None of us have any idea what the deal is with her computer, or what the meaning of these changes could possibly be. These changes were only performed in iTunes, and not the actual files if that matters. The best guess we have now is that someone did it in their sleep, but that seems like a pretty intricate task for a sleepwalker to perform, and none of us have a history of sleepwalking, especially when sober. And what of the bizzare track and album titles? Do these mean anything to anyone? Have iTunes tracks ever changed for no good reason on anyone else's computer? Am I a goofus for even asking these questions?

John Charles Fare fake?

nTeleKy — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 13:51:07 -0800

Can anyone provide me with additional information on performance artist John Charles Fare? I first encountered his name on Wikipedia's List of Unusual Deaths, where it says he was decapitated by a robot during a performance. The only references I could find was the article linked in the question and a few brief mentions here and there. Searches for Golni Czervath, the supposed creator of the robot that performed surgeries on Fare also yielded few results. I get the impression that perhaps they never existed - surely such extreme performances would be better documented - but I'd very much like to know otherwise. So in my pursuit of the truth of John Charles Fare's existence I ask you, the MetaFilter community, does anyone have any information - anecdotal or otherwise - on John Charles Fare?

Nuremburg WTF?

punkfloyd — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:40:47 -0800

I was in Nuremburg, Germany a few years ago and saw a bizarre piece of public art that puzzled me and the Internets has let me down. It is a giant rabid looking rat-like creature (made of copper?) that appears to be going on a rampage. It was located prominently near a castle in the walled city. Can anybody tell me what this horrific sculpture is all about?

Fictional characters with funny names?

Robot Johnny — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:48:23 -0800

Kilgore Trout. Napoleon Dynamite. Waring Hudsucker. Martin Chuzzlewit. Egon Spengler. Herman Menderchuck. President Merkin Muffley. What are some other great, creative, bizarre, or otherwise unique fictional character names?

My nose did something very odd (potentially icky question)

tomble — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 22:45:56 -0800

This may be considered a little disgusting for some - it involves ingrown nasal hairs and a MYSTERIOUS DEVELOPMENT (queue twilight zone music) So, about two weeks ago I developed a hard and painful lump inside my left nostril. It's happened before and I've always had the impression that it was an ingrown hair or pimple of some sort. It was tender to touch, and even gently touching the outside of my nose above this point hurt.

I decided it would be best if I left it alone for a while.

Earlier this week I noticed that a red lump had formed on the outside of my nose, with a white circle of dead skin on top of it. I scratched this off, and noticed that it had formed a head.

A gentle and inquisitive squeeze and then - to my amazement, a perfectly straight nostril hair, about a half inch long, slid out from the lump, along with some other goo! It had somehow travelled through the flesh of my nose and popped out the wrong side! (It was definitely a nostril hair, I took the time to examine it, and I don't grow hair on the outside of my nose).

This has been freaking me out all week. I was at the doctor about an unrelated issue, and told him about it. He was amazed, and insisted that if it ever happened again I should make sure I had a digital camera with me - he wanted the pics!

Has this happened to anyone? Has anyone heard of this? Did I experience some sort of automatic nose piercing?

What is Fei-Chang?

chrisgregory — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 08:20:41 -0800

In my endless pursuit of bizarre new taste sensations, I bought, and ate, a packet of Fei-Chang Flavour Chinese Instant Sweet Potato Noodle. It was pretty good, actually: vermicelli noodles with a salty dark-green powdered stock, not dissimilar in appearance to a pesto of some kind. The ingredients list seemed innocuous: vermicelli, refined sweet potato, potato starch, salt, gourmet powder, sugar spices, vegetable, and the aforementioned feichang flavor powder. So what the hell did I eat? What the buggery bollocks is fei-chang?