Hicklebee's Has the Most Awesome Bathroom in the World!

I went to San Jose this weekend, which gave me a chance to visit a bookstore I've heard many great things about: Hicklebee's!

It has everything you could want in a bookstore: a super-friendly staff and LOTS of books. It also has a legendary bathroom complete with sink, toilet, and artwork created by visiting writers and illustrators.

For example, I enjoyed the picture to the right by David Shannon.

And Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame) left behind this an important bum-flap reminder, below.

Ooh, here's a surprising Santa Claus portrait by Marla Frazee. But as I sat in the most awesome bathroom in the world, I realized two things:

1.) Somebody in the hallway was yelling, "What's taking so long?"

2.) I was never going to be able to photograph it all. I mean, this is just PART of the back of the door:

So it was with great regret that I reached for a poo-ticket ... and saw this handy instruction about the only foreign body that's supposed to end up in the toilet. 

Man, what a great bathroom experience! You know, I think that from now on, I'm going to go to Hicklebee's EVERY time I'm in San Jose and I need to "get a book."

"Innkeeper! Another tankard of brain juice here."

The people at Jones Soda have a new drink series available. It's the Dungeons & Dragons Spellcasting Soda collection!

I haven't played D&D in a few eons, so I'm not sure I can even guess what the Dwarven Draught or Eldritch Blast taste like, but I'm guessing that both are pretty sweet...and that either one is better than Illithid Brain Juice!

POP! Magazine

Pop! is "Canada's adventure magazine for kids." (Hey, I like all of those things!)

Anyway, the new issue of Pop! has a review of The Big Book of Gross Stuff, namely:

Thanks, Pop!

But I don't WANT to eat the Boston Celtics!

The NBA has all sorts of deals allowing companies to display team logos. This includes FOOD companies, so you’ll soon be able to eat your team’s logo. I don’t know WHY you’d want to eat your team. At first I thought I might want to eat my most-hated team’s logo (below), but now I’m afraid it would give me indigestion!

Anyway, the logos are made of sugar, starch and food coloring. They’re really thin, and when the cooked pizza comes out of the oven and is sliced, you put the logo on it. Then it sort of melts into the cheese. (Oh, and it’ll add about $5 to the pizza’s price.)

A guy speaking for Pizza Fest Edible Image Toppings, the company that makes these, put it this way: “Most Americans don't make it to an NBA game. This is how they create the experience for themselves.”

Hmmm…is it just me, or is that a little idiotic?

USA Today story here.

"Mommy, that squid is scaring me!"

I have squids on the brain. You see, there are lots of Humboldt squids up and down the Pacific coast of North America. And in reading about them, I came across the photo above, which I thought had to be fake...but apparently, it’s not! 

Actually, it’s the Promachoteuthis sulcus, a small squid from the south Atlantic Ocean. What’s weird is that this squid seems to have teeth. But what’s weirder is that these are actually its circular, folded lips! The squid’s mouth (which is a beak) can’t be seen.

Okay, so squids have lips. Who knew? But what does a squid eat, anyway?

To find out, I read an article by Molly Wachtel, the world’s third-leading authority on squid stomachs. What does she find in squid stomachs? The usual stuff: Digestive goo, fish, crustaceans, other squids, trematodes, nematodes, and squeamatodes.

Actually, I made that last one up. But doesn’t a squeamatode sound totally great? 

Photo from the Tree of Life.

"Poutine" Rhymes with "Routine" (as in "Routinely Disgusting")

I live in Portland, Oregon, and here, there’s a new dish in town: Poutine. It’s so popular, the food even has its own website, namely Portland Poutine! 

If you’ve never had poutine (and I haven’t), it’s made with french fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy. I’m not sure if that sounds very good, and that picture doesn’t help much.

Maybe I should check with someone who’s actually eaten the stuff?

Okay, no poutine for me, thanks.

Addition: See the blog comments for notes on the correct pronunciation of poutine.

Poutine picture from Lisa Miru,

man by Mark Blinch for REUTERS 

via the Oddly Enough blog.

"When it’s No. 2, I look like No. 1. (I poo in blue!)"

Soon you're going to see babies wearing denim diapers. Yes, Little Movers Jean Diapers will go on sale in the U.S. next month. Why is this such a great idea? Let’s let an executive at Huggies explain: 

“Jeans have always been a Mommy fashion must-have, but now it's time for their little ones to steal the style. The design helps babies stay trendy while keeping dry with the same revolutionary design and proven leakage protection that moms have come to know and trust from the Huggies brand.”

Did you see that? "Babies can stay trendy." You know, back when I was wearing diapers, staying trendy wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of “things to do.” (Swallowing Legos was way more fun.)

What cracks me up is that it looks like the diapers have fake pockets and belt loops in the back. Are there real rivets? And I’m not sure the other babies will be impressed if they see a denim diaper sticking out of someone's onesie!
Addition: There's a video for the Jean Diapers where the toddler has this line: “When it’s No. 2, I look like No. 1: I poo — in blue.”

"Yahoo Answers" a Gross Question!

When I was a kid, I was often told there are no stupid questions. But maybe that's not true! After all, I was just at Yahoo Answers. This is a place where people ask questions that can be a little...well, you be the judge!

Actually, you know what? This is a GOOD question! How many calories would a booger have? 

The inside of your nose is coated with moisture, salt, and a sticky protein called mucin. Together, these form the mucus that traps nasty things like dust and germs that you breathe. So a booger is made of water, salt, mucin, and dirt. Sounds like diet food to me! 


Ooh, I found another really good question from Yahoo Answers!

He Ate Doo-Doo!

Over at Weird Universe, a guy named Paul got some maple butter. Not just ANY maple butter, though...this was special Native American maple butter named Anishinaabe Doodooshaaboo-bimide.

Did you see that? There's a doodoo in there!

Bags o' Barf!

I remember my first airplane trip. Everything seemed SO awesome. Look, we get free peanuts! Hey, we're way up high! Wow, I feel sick to my stomach!

Even though I was nauseous, I was sort of impressed by the airline's barf-bags. How thoughtful! And look, it has a plastic lining so my stomach juice won't soak through!

I was so into the idea of a complimentary barf-bag, when I got off the plane, I took mine with me.

And so I started collecting barf-bags! I got up to about 12 of them or so, and then realized that a barf-bag collection isn't that great. You can't really display them ("Behold! My barf-bags!"), and they don't stack on a book shelf or look good framed on a wall.

So I stopped collecting them.

But reading this story has made me change my mind. A guy named Steve Silverberg has been collecting barf-bags for a long time...and now he has almost 2,500 of them! And the Internet is the perfect place to share his collection, so hopefully he'll improve his site over at airsicknessbags.com.

Hey, wait a minute...these bags that Silverberg collects haven't even been USED yet? What a wussy!

Gross Joke!

Over at The Edge, I just read a good one:

If 4 out of 5 people suffer from diarrhea, does that mean one enjoys it?

Pick Up the Wrong Pup's Poop? You're Under Arrest!

Sometimes when I'm walking our dog, Ruby, she poops. Then I pick up her dookie in a bio-friendly bag, wrap it in ANOTHER bag, and throw the poop away.

But sometimes at the park, I'll see some other dog's poop and try to decide: "Can I spare a bag to pick up that poop, too?"

And once in a great while, Ruby will poop in the park. But then I'll walk over and find that there are TWO dog poops...meaning that one of them is NOT Ruby's!

Naturally, I try to pick up BOTH dog poops, but if I'm low on bags, I'd have to guess as to which poop belongs to MY dog. And if I guess wrong, I could be in as much trouble as this grandmother. Pam Robson lives in England, and after her dog pooped in the park, Pam picked up the wrong pup's poop!

A couple of officials saw this, and they wrote Pam a ticket for about $75...for not picking up her dog's poop! This is a tricky one, because Pam was guilty, but even so, she DID pick up a dog's poop, so doesn't that even out on the dookie meter?

Finally, I don't want to brag, but Ruby is the BEST DOG IN THE WORLD. (That's her!)

Balut Photo Upgrade!

Remember that post I had about balut a few days ago? (It's the egg that crunches as you eat it.) Well I found an even better picture of this horrid food item!

And by "better" I mean "worse"!

Photo from here.

The Not-So-Savvy Shopper!

I went to the organic grocery store today. It has good food, but the prices can be sort of high...and I didn't pay attention to them!

It wasn't until I got home that my wife noticed I had bought a $10 bag of prunes.

Her comment: "When you go to the bathroom, the only sound we'll hear is 'CHA-CHING!'" (Oh well...maybe I can drown that sound out with my new iPod/toilet-paper-roll stereo.)

You can get a T-shirt reading 

Confucius say: Man who eat many 

prunes gets run for money here. 

iPhones Are Better Than Toilets?

This is sort of funny. There was a survey of Brits on what they thought were the 100 greatest inventions of all time!

The full list is here, but here are some of the results I thought were interesting:

1. Wheel— Fair enough.

2. Airplane— Okay!

8. iPhone— How is an iPhone more important than a toilet? (Or even a cheese grater?)

9. Flushing toilet— See?

15. Pain killers

22. Toilet paper— Weird that this is so much lower than the toilet.

29. Hot water— THIS is an invention?!

39. Space travel— And this is less impressive than hot water?

44. Roof— Wow.

52. Bicycle— I think this should be much higher.

82. Facebook— PLEASE! Cheese graters are more important.

83. Escalator— How lazy...stairs didn't crack the top 100!

88. Cheese grater— Finally! 

101. Barf bags— Okay, I made that up.

Feel the Magic Atmosphere!

The New York Times invited people to send in photos of funny signs they've seen in other countries. My favorites included this one, taken by Elizabeth Ryan in Turkey. It's a sign for a pay-toilet that has a "magic atmosphere":

And as for this sign spotted by Gabby Dizon in Thailand, I guess it's telling us about a place that chubby males can pee?

Frozen Head-Headline:

An Iowa man named Orville Richardson died last year. In his will, Orville wanted to have his head cut off and frozen, in case he could be brought back to life in the future. (You know, like in The Simpsons or Futurama?) 

But Orville’s family just buried him with his head still attached…so now a judge has ordered that Orville be dug up and decapitated! (His body will be re-buried and Orville's head is going to be frozen.) Full story here.

Nice POOP Button!

A friend visited yesterday, and I was surprised to see her wearing this button:

She explained that she'd made it herself from a domino (!) and that POOP is an acronym for "People Outraged Over Pollution."

Good to know! (Because the OTHER explanation for wearing this button was a little scary.) 

BONUS: My wife has begun sneaking this button onto my clothes. So if I put on a jacket and don't notice it's there for a couple of hours, she thinks it's funny. (Nice. Really nice.)

The Fart Chart: Adults Like It Too!

At the Fashionista Piranha blog, a review for The Big Book of Gross Stuff reads:

Stuffed with the trivia, facts, and history of everything nasty, Gross Stuff shares all you ever wanted to know about the gross stuff that enters and exits the human body. It starts with birth…and sallies bravely through life, sharing all the details on farts, bacteria, and belly button lint. It’s written to target kids 8-14, but at 25 I still found this incredibly entertaining….So go on, don't be squeamish…and check Gross Stuff out!

The reviewer also mentions the book's food/fart chart. And here it is!

Twitter Saves This Guy's A**!

There are some people who think Twitter is useless. Poor fools! Don’t they know that Twitter can save lives?

Here’s what I mean: Recently, a Japanese Twitter user named naika_tei went into a public bathroom. That is, he went into a stall…and after busting a grumpy, he found that there was no toilet paper! 

Since nobody was IN the bathroom to help him out, naika_tei tweeted his request (below) for someone to save him by bringing some toilet paper…but nobody came!

Valiantly, our hero again tweeted that he was in the bathroom and could someone PLEASE help? And then…[drum roll]...a kind soul delivered some poop tickets to naika_tei! 

And so our hero was able to safely wipe his butt thanks to the magical power of Twitter! (I’m assuming he washed his iPhone with soap and water, though.)

(Do you know how cool I am?

I have a Twitter account too!)

"Balut": The Grossest Egg of All!

An egg is a bird embryo. And eating embryos is sort of nasty, if you think about it. But people cook up so many unfertilized chicken eggs, we sort of forget! ("Unfertilized" means no chick will hatch out of the egg.) But what if you took a fertilized chicken egg that a chick WOULD hatch out of... Would people STILL eat it?

Yep! Names like “balut” and “hot vin lon,” are what fertilized chicken or duck eggs are called. The baby fowl develops to the point that it has a head, wings, veins, and feathers. So it’s an almost-ready-to-hatch embryo...until a person pops open the shell and pours the contents into his or her mouth. The embryo is apparently crunchy. (Maybe those crunches will drown out the sounds of my screaming!)

Below, basketball writer Henry Abbott eats balut…because he lost a bet! There may be a short ad at the start of this; once the video starts, if you want to see the gross highlights, they begin about halfway through:

Animal Beverages?

I'm not sure how animals help humans rehydrate, but maybe the drinkers of Pet Sweat and Salty Cat are onto something. (Sorry, I draw the line at Monkey Fizz!)

Someone Pooped in the Pool! (Or did they?)

In the movie Caddyshack, someone throws a candybar into a swimming pool as a joke. Naturally, everyone freaks out because they think someone has pooped in the pool!

And this sort of thing does happen in real life. (And not with a candy bar!) Why do people panic when this happens? If the pool has chlorine in it, the chemicals almost certainly kill the bad germs in the poop. But that doesn’t really matter…somehow, one poop in the pool turns the whole thing into a toilet bowl, and who wants to swim in a toilet bowl? Anyway, this all comes to mind because of this article:

Wow, a hundred people ran screaming to the exit! (Or swam screaming to the ladder.) The pool itself is in England, and I salute the reporter for using the following words in it: poo, faeces (what Americans call “feces”), material, human waste, small solid item, matter. Here’s the most astounding thing about the whole thing:

“A member of staff retrieved a small solid item from the shallow end of the pool and following an inspection of the entire facility nothing else was found, meaning the pool then re-opened for business as usual. The Observer [the name of the newspaper] understands that the solidity of the matter dictates procedure.”

In other words, if the poo is rock hard, the pool operators fish it out…but if it’s more like diarrhea, they drain the pool. I guess that makes sense. It’s hard to clean diarrhea out of the pool with a net!

BTW, in Caddyshack, Bill Murray fishes the candy bar out of the pool, stares at it, and then takes a bite. This causes more screaming...and fainting!

"Swimming Poo" photo by killaclause.

The Bathroom Door is Not Sound-Proof!

As we know, nobody likes to be heard peeing or pooping. Just ask anyone who uses the Pee Without Noise Stool. (Or Marilyn Monroe!)

The Japanese always seem to be pioneers when it comes to bathroom technology. After all, back in the 1800s, a Japanese genius came up with the idea for the Otokeshi-no Tsubo: “Urn for Covering the Sound.” 

The urn was filled with water and put in the bathroom. So when someone needed to pee or poop, the idea was to pull the plug on the urn and let the water flow out of the dragon's mouth. This gurgling would mask the sound of pooping and peeing.

And now the Japanese have come up with yet ANOTHER genius bathroom invention: it’s named the Keitai Otohime, but it’s probably easier just to call it the first-ever, palm-sized pee and poop audio masker.

Basically, it’s a keychain-sized version of the Urn for Covering the Sound. The small electronic device costs about $15, and makes flushing, gurgling sounds. (There is also an iPhone application called “Eco Oto” that does the same thing.) 

But the cool thing about it is that the Keitai Otohime  saves water. That’s because the average Japanese woman flushes the toilet more than two times to conceal her pooping and peeing sounds. That means this device will save four gallons of water every time someone goes to the bathroom!

But maybe the day will come when we no longer need these devices. As a Japanese woman said in this news story, “My own excretory sounds never make me embarrassed. It's much more embarrassing to put on makeup on the train.” Totally. I feel the same way!

Oh, and here’s a 1980s' version of the Keitai Otohime.

Can You Wash Your Hands with Pee?

This video reporter is doing some kind of report about urinals at an outdoor festival in Germany. While she's looking at the pee, a guy comes along and misunderstands what the pee trough is for...

He washes his hands in it! But although the man is clearly ashamed of his mistake, pee is germfree! Not only that, pee is used as a disinfectant in India, because urine also KILLS germs...it's antiseptic! And old pee starts turning into ammonia, which Americans AND Germans use for household cleaning.

(Still, I wouldn't wash my hands with it either!)

Pooh Can Splash!

But over at the Epic Fail blog, they're unimpressed by his toilet seat.

Can a Jellyfish Have a “City of Gonads”?

As you know, Ultra-Gross has never had a story about gonads before. Today, we break that policy to share with you this, the coolest headline ever:

It’s from this National Geographic article about a newly discovered jellyfish that has its gonads on the OUTSIDES of its body. Upon close inspection of the jellyfish, a scientist said these gonads look like “skyscrapers in a downtown business district.” 

Imagine the conversation when that scientist got home!

“What did you do at work today?”

“I closely inspected a jellyfish’s gonads.”

“What did THOSE look like?”

“Skyscrapers.”

Lisa-Ann Gershwin also gave this new jellfish the finest name ever given to a jellyfish with external gonads: MEDEOPOLIS, which is Latin for “city of gonads.”