Unusual Life

PlantAmnesty’s mission is to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs, and this photo is used as an example of terrible pruning.

But I must admit, I kind of like it! I would love to have Happy Face shrubs outside my front door. But that’s just me.

PlantAmnesty has a whole photo gallery of plant and shrub mutilation. While most are pretty bad, the more topiary-style shrubs are rather cute.

Unbelievable photo set from Boston.com

It is Carnival Season in many countries around the world with a Roman Catholic heritage. Celebrations and parades put on just prior to the observance of Lent. Tomorrow will be the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but the past couple of weeks have seen parades and celebrations throughout Europe, the Caribbean and South America - notably Venice, Italy and Brazil. Collected here are just a glimpse of some of the elaborate celebrations of this Carnival season.

More fabulous photos about the Carnival on Boston.com

To celebrate Lincoln’s birthday and President’s Day, the editors at RoadsideAmerica.com have selected their favorite Lincoln tourist attractions and exhibits. From a much longer list, these 12 leapt onto the stage of infamy — from the Lincoln Watermelon Monument to the bronzed foundation of Lincoln’s Boyhood Home. There’s even one unmentionable exhibit (which they’ve chosen to mention, of course).

Buy Abraham Lincoln candy

Unusual Lincoln objects at Brown University

Abe Lincoln and Jesus Shrine

Lincoln Watermelon Monument

Marlow Harris and JoDavid wish you the very best this holiday season from the streets of downtown Seattle.

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus has abs of steel.

Or at least this one does.

Leave it to Los Angeles to concoct a wild plot twist involving the role of the traditional mall Santa. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings throughout the holiday season, Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls dance and delight throngs of shoppers at the Beverly Center mall. (The standard jolly and rotund Kris Kringle appears at the mall during the week and midday on weekends.)

Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls

Is it a trend, a fashion or just a really bad idea? Ugly Christmas sweaters are making a comeback and we here at Unusual Life are on the cutting edge, as usual.

Click here for slide show of bad holiday sweaters.

The local Shop-Rite grocery store won’t personalize a birthday cake for little 3-year old Adolph Hitler, son of Aryan Nation members Heath and Deborah Campbell of Greenwich Township. Little Adolph has a younger brother and sister too, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

“We believe the request … to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate,” said Karen Meleta, a ShopRite spokeswoman.

The Campbells turned down the market’s offer to make a cake with enough room for them to write their own inscription and can’t understand what all of the fuss is about.

Holland Township family angry that supermarket won’t personalize cake for their son

• Here’s our best shot at starting off the year in the right frame of mind.

Can we interest you in a bit of exercise wallking around Greenlake
at noon on New Years Day
dressed in bad wigs and ugly track suits?

WHAT? Who would show up for that???

Well, we showed up for that.

The Annual New Years Day
Bad Wig and Ugly Track Suit Walk

Only 2.5 miles around Greenlake.
Noon, New Years Day.
Perfect for that possible New Years Eve hangover cure,
and best attitude way to start the year.

Please Join Us next year.

Please make sure you show up at noon on New Years Day January 1, 2009 for our next Annual New Years Day Bad Wig and Ugly Track Suit Walk.

YES, Kiddie/Wading Pool, Noon, 1/1/09 !

If you missed the opening, don’t worry, you can drop by anytime to the Official Bad Art Museum of Art at Cafe Racer because it’s now open from 7am until 2am, 7 days a week. Stop by for lunch or dinner or a cold one after work and view the stupendous art.
• Video by Marlow •

• Get fit, bitches !!!

Scary video of guys hurling themselves off of a mountain.

Mountain Wingsuit

This floating swimming pool in the river is called the Badeschiff (that’s German for “bathing ship”) this floating swimming pool is really just an old barge transformed into a public pool last year in Berlin, on the Spree river. Unfortunately, the river itself is much too polluted for people to swim in, so this idea, as crazy as it looks, makes some sense.

It was first spotted in 2007, during a very hot Summer and during the off-season it’s covered and closed to the public. But the hot Summer is here again and the Germans in Berlin will once again be able to enjoy a swim in the cool water of the Badeschiff. Would’ve been cool if it had a glass bottom though, so you could see the river.

The Floating Swimming Pool - Oddity Central

This is so sad……

Sea of Garbage

Is Apple the Newman of Microsoft ?

Well, Microsoft has released two milestone announcements today.

The first, which most readers may be aware of with today’s media coverage, is that Microsoft has negotiated a $10 million dollar deal with Jerry Seinfeld, who will appear as a key celebrity pitchman in ads along with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in an effort to invigorate it’s image in the ongoing Apple Inc. young hip dude versus the Microsoft Corp. stodgy old-fart guy.

This new $300 million ad campaign, one of the largest in Microsoft’s history, and pitting it against Apple will no doubt insure minimal market “shrinkage” for a company which identifies itself only as Microsoft.

We here at Unusual Life are devout lifetime fans of Jerry, attend his sold-out shows at the Paramount, and watch Seinfeld reruns incessantly, so we salute you Bill for crashing at Jerry’s place or whatever you’re going to do in the ads. This sounds like great fun and I want to sit in on those ad brainstorming meetings.

As much as this excites us however, The second bit of news Microsoft announced today is the release of the much anticipated Photosynth online software.

Photosynth is an amazing new way to share and experience photography in a 3D environment.

Our introduction to Photosynth here at Unusual Life happened a couple of months ago when we were contacted by our pal Janet Galore, asking if Microsoft Live Labs could film at our home for a new top secret software project called Photosynth to be released soon.

Apparently, for their Photosynth “How To” software release video they were looking for an interesting home with some cool art, and the right amount of synthy quality…?

Of course!, we replied, and the film crew with talent Laura Foy arrived two days later for the shoot, which was lots of fun. I immediately began researching Photosynth, and realized that in the near future I would have a new tool that would fundamentally change the way that I thought about taking photos in a most profound way. At the shoot, my initial conversation with David Gedye set my mind spinning with creative possibilities and practical applications of synthing photos together in 3D environments: online virtual galleries, travel, real estate, anything to do with sharing visual information.

Like the best of any viewer created online community, it opens the doors to a whole new experience in open community visualization and interactive possibilities.

And guess what?

You can create your own synth - fast, easy, and free.

Here’s the Photosynth release video, featuring our living room. Here is a Flickr Set of the Photosynth shoot at our place, and the actual Synth that was created of our “92% Synthy” home by Photosynth group manager, David Gedye.

What better way to celebrate the closing of Weep Week in Memphis than to look at some Elvis real estate for sale.

Scary Elvis’ Graceland replica for sale in L.A. for only $999,000.

It’s located at 17912 Parthenia St, Los Angeles, CA 91325, and has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths.

I wonder if it comes furnished?

And a REAL Elvis house for sale in Palm Springs.

The 5,000-square-foot estate at 845 W. Chino Canyon Road was bought by beloved music legend Elvis Presley in April 1970. He paid $85,000 for it, according to previous Desert Sun reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s now on the market again for $17M. Right.

Elvis Honeymoon House photo tour