June 1, 2010
Couple Discovers Secret Room In New Home, Secretly Filled With Moldy Garbage
via The Consumerist by Ben Popken on 6/1/10
Every kid talks about how they're going to have a secret room in his house when they grows up... so imagine the delight of reader Jeannine to discover the house she bought actually came with one! And then imagine how that delight turned to revulsion as she and her partner opened it up and found countless piles of garbage covered with white puffy mold! It would turn out to be only the first of many secrets the house revealed to them, including a basement with 75% secret asbestos tiling! Oh, it's like something out of a fairy tale!
Jeannine writes:
Last year, we went house hunting to try and take advantage of the tax credit for first-time home buyers. As it was getting pretty cramped in an apartment with our two kids, it seemed like a good idea. After looking around for a month or so, we found what looked like the best prospect. We offered $129k compared to their $145k listing, and they accepted the offer almost instantly. It seemed to be a practical miracle to us, and we were overjoyed.
The home inspection turned up a few things wrong of course, but the homeowners gave us an extra $2,000 to cover those repairs. We thought it was great, and went about moving in and settling down.
About a month later was when all the fun started.
We were down in the basement laundry room one night, when we noticed something glinting back underneath the stairs. Upon inspection, it seemed to be a tiny latch embedded into the wall. Looking closer, we noticed a tiny, TINY crack in the wall, or so we thought. When we unlatched it, and pushed....the wall opened up. Yes, we found a flipping secret room under the house. We got a flashlight and peered in, thinking it was the coolest thing ever.
Until we gazed in horror upon piles and piles of garbage, and white puffy mold that stretched from one side of the room to the other. What the....this room, let alone this PROBLEM, wasn't on the inspection, what was this?! We slammed the door shut and hauled upstairs to call the home inspector. He claimed he didn't think it was mold, but would be out there ASAP to come check. We waited...and waited...turned out it would take a few extra DAYS for him to come out and check.
Yes, it was mold, he handed us a couple of dust masks and told us to just "pick it up, put it in garbage bags, and then spray some clorox down there." And....he left with that.
We've now discovered a TON of cover-ups in the house that were NOT mentioned by the previous owners or noted on the inspection. Just a few follow:
1. One of the cabinets had the bottom cut completely out so they could fit the fridge underneath it.
2. The countertop was not a countertop....it was floor tiling stuck down tight to hide the damaged one below.
3. The shower in one room has a corner cubby. Someone had busted holes in it, and then tried to cover them up by using duct tape that matched the color of the walls, and scraping it down. They had covered it with shampoo bottles when we came by, so that we couldn't see it.
4. The cabinet bottom under the kitchen sink had MASSIVE water damage to it, it's literally rotted out. They had stacked up chemical bottles and empty baskets over it so we couldn't see that when we did our lookovers to the house.
5. The koi ponds that they claimed were four and six feet deep were actually only 2 feet. One has a leak as well.
6. Fake wood paneling in a room downstairs were covering up giant holes that look like someone had a temper tantrum and kicked in the wall.
7. One of the worst parts. Over 75% of the basement has ASBESTOS tiling, and we were not told about it! A contractor we hired to come by and install a dishwasher did a walkthru after we showed him the secret room, and he immediately pointed it out.
I'm at my wit's end now, I had thought that this would be a house with some repairs we would have to do. I didn't think for a second that there would be so many problems, that were NOT pointed out by the inspector or the owners!
Is there any sort of advice you guys have on what we should do? Besides sink money that we really don't have in trying to fix some of these problems up.
Sincerely,
JeannineHmm, a not-so-secret lawyer would seem to be in order.
BGD Stray Animals Foundation: Pasha
via Ads of the World by ivan on 6/1/10
Pasha needs your help
Advertising Agency: Markom Leo Burnett, İstanbul, Turkey
Creative Directors: Yaşar Akbaş, İdil Akoğlu, Güven Haktanır
Art Director: Cihan Eryılmaz
Copywriter: Selçuk Akyüz
Illustrator: Magic Group
Photographer: Süleyman Kaçar
Published: April 2010
Cocaine Will Eat Your Skin
Feeling young and free while blowing lines in the bathroom of some glitzy LES rat hole? Well, you won't lookyoung for long. Scientists are finding that 80% of impure cocaine in the US contains a chemical that rots flesh.
Send an email to Richard Lawson, the author of this post, atrichardl@gawker.com.
Hurt Locker Producer Sues "Moron" Downloaders
via The Consumerist by Marc Perton on 6/1/10
Nicolas Chartier, the movie producer who was banned from the Oscars for sending nastygrams about Avatar, and more recently, told a critic, "you're a moron who believes stealing is right. I hope your family and your kids end up in jail," is nothing if not consistent. Chartier has made good on his earlier threat to sue people who downloaded copies of The Hurt Locker, by filing a suit against 5,000 anonymous downloaders in Washington, D.C.
CNET's download on the case:
Voltage Pictures, an independent production company, filed a copyright complaint on Monday against 5,000 John Does in federal court in Washington, D.C. According to court records, next on the company's to-do list is to learn the names of the John and Jane Does from their Internet service providers.Attorneys for Voltage wrote in the complaint that unless the court stops the people who pirate "The Hurt Locker," then Voltage will suffer "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money."
Voltage has asked the court to order anyone who downloaded the movie illegally to destroy all copies of "The Hurt Locker" on their computers and any other electronic device that they may have stored the film.
In its legal filing, Voltage claims to already have the IP addresses for the Does, which could allow the company to track down individual downloaders, if ISPs are willing to share their names. "The plaintiff has identified each defendant by the IP address assigned to that defendant," Voltage's attorneys wrote. "The plaintiff believes that information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification of each of the defendant's true name."
'Hurt Locker' downloaders, you've been sued [CNET News]
PREVIOUSLY: Lawsuit-Happy Producer Tells Boycotter He's A 'Stupid Moron' Whose Kids Hopefully Get Arrested
I love you! Can I buy you something?
via Design You Trust by recave on 6/1/10
A 20-something Australian-based but Worldwide-bound girl with a love for all things Pop Culture, 90s, Art, Music, Film, Fashion and Personality.
Via Recave
Advertise with Design You Trust! - DYT on Twitter - Facebook
Something timeless about a tortoise humping a shoe.
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz on 6/1/10
If this is not a viral ad for Crocs, it should be. (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!) 
Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Works of Art
By Jacopo della Quercia Jan 25, 2010 2,255,581 views
Sure, if you look hard enough you're going to see bestiality, orgies and freakishly small penises in EVERYTHING.
But in the case of classic works of art, you're often right. Yes, as much as we mock Dan Brown around here, the one thing he's right about is that old-school artists like Michelangelo and Da Vinci loved to plant little "Easter Eggs" in their work, often things that would never have made it past the censors.
#7.
The Floating Brain God
Michelangelo's ode to the Book of Genesis, The Creation of Adam, has endured not only as the most famous of the Sistine Chapel panels, but also one of the single most iconic images of humanity.
Note how Adam's pose mimics God's, how mankind is framed off from the Heavens by earth and mountains, and how God and his entourage are rolling around in a gigantic, floating brain.
Wait, What the Hell?
Look closely. It turns out that the figures of God, His angels and even the soon-to-be-created Eve under His arm form a nearly perfect cross-section of the human brain.
While some might dismiss this as a coincidence, experts suggest that it would be harder to explain that this was not Michelangelo's intention. Even complex components within the brain, such as the cerebellum, optic chiasm and pituitary gland can all be found in the picture. As for that sassy green sash running down the pons/spinal column/dude-holding-God-up, it follows the path of the vertebral artery perfectly.
Along with drawing, painting, sculpting, St. Peter's Basilica building and generally being among the universe's top bananas, Michelangelo counted cadaver dissecting as a favorite way to pass the time. He was so mad about corpse-cutting, in fact, that a friend once presented him with a perfectly formed dead Moor as a gift.
So why would this immensely talented genius stick the actual shape of the human brain in the middle of what he had to know was a pretty major work? Was he cleverly suggesting that God was bestowing Adam with divine knowledge? Or was Michelangelo literally saying God was created inside the human brain? It would have been a pretty ballsy message to send while painting the Pope's house for him. Although, since body dismemberment wasn't a hugely popular hobby at the time, he probably knew this one would stay quiet for a while. Basically, it comes down to how big a dick Michelangelo was. Speaking of which ...
#6.
David's Shrinkage
Michelangelo was such a sneaky pimp that this list could have been written on his clandestine hijinks alone. Like Mr. T, his David is as much a triumph of human endeavor as it is an anatomical phenomenon. The precision of the human body captured by Michelangelo has been described as nothing short of spectacular.
Note the exaggerated head and pulsing veins on the dorsum of the hands, engorged with tension. Admire the curve of the taut torso, the flexing of the thigh muscles in the right leg and the prominence of the subject's heroic pen...
...is?
Wait, What the Hell?
That's one disproportionately teeny wiener.
David's junk, which Italians affectionately refer to as his pisello, has become a bit of a running gag for the past 500 years. The statue towers over its audience at 13-feet of perfection, yet his five-inch wang (rounding up) puts him on the shorter end of the stick ... stick.
But a group of doctors have recently come in defense of the statue's tiny member. When viewed from a high angle--the view Michelangelo would have had as he chiseled away in his workshop--David has a stressed look on his face that's invisible from the ground level.
"Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap."
He isn't just simply striking a pose; David is facing his opponent Goliath, the Jew-baiting GIANT. Researchers made a computerized scan of the sculpture as part of their study, and found that every minute, anatomical detail shows a guy scared out of his mind, but ready to pounce like a naked-assed Tyler Durden.
Their diagnosis: The dude's weasel isn't just hilariously tiny, it's running for cover. Which physiologically speaking, is normal penis behavior when the owner of said penis is on the verge of fighting a giant.
After victory is another story.
But since nobody from the ground level could see David's knitted, worrywart brow, everyone just assumed Michelangelo was being a wiseguy. Which would make sense, because dick jokes were as common in Renaissance Florence as they are at Cracked. What doesn't make sense is why Michelangelo left David's Hebrew wang uncircumcised. But that's the subject for next week's article, "The X Most Intriguing Questions Raised by These Close-Up Pictures of Dongs."
#5.
A Secret Soundtrack
All right, this is just weird as hell.
Michelangelo wasn't the only one having his sweet, sticky way with art during the Renaissance. But it really takes another genius of Michelangelo's caliber to up the sneaky ante to the next level. Enter Leonardo da Vinci.
No, he didn't pass on the secret history of the offspring of Christ through cryptograms or backwards crossword puzzle word searches or whatever. He just embedded a secret soundtrack into The Last Supper.
Wait, What the Hell?
Those tasty dinner rolls scattered in The Last Supper may be the notes of a musical arrangement.
Actually, not just the bread, but the hands of Christ and the Apostles as well. One musician found that by drawing a five line musical staff across the painting, the hands and buns seem to line up as the notes of a pretty little composition. This is assuming, of course, that the notes are read from right to left, which was how da Vinci wrote. Don't believe us? Give this a listen.
Suck it Dan Brown.
Even skeptics have acknowledged that the composition's harmony is too perfect to be a coincidence. Da Vinci was, after all, the full-on Renaissance Man embodied, and one of his many, many, many gifts was that of music.
But the madness doesn't just stop with the notes. The same guy who discovered the music also claimed the painting held clues to the rhythm of the song and the duration of each note. So, technically, the first album containing a secret message when played backwards was The Last Supper. How does that egg on your face feel, TIPPER GORE?
And you thought The White Album was clever.
#4.
Spot the Ass Shenanigans
Despite many breakthroughs in art, architecture and philosophy, shit was still pretty real in Renaissance Europe. Even if you managed to survive your infancy, dodge the Black Plague, famine and the general hazards of going through life with your neighbor's feces getting dumped into your drinking water, you'd still probably be dead by age 35. It's no wonder so many Renaissance artists said, "Fuck it" and just painted Jesus and his mom.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, however, wasn't having that cherub painting bullshit. This joker painted hardcore peasant life. And he didn't just paint a couple of people hanging out being all "medievally," he used his art to convey some pretty nasty butt-centered frolicking.
Wait, What the Hell?
Look close enough and you'll see a whole lot of ass.
Wait for it...
In Netherlandish Proverbs, Mr. Elder marries the frivolity of Where's Waldo with the batshit crazy of Salvador Dali by painting hundreds of literal interpretations of Netherlandish proverbs, which sounds boring until you realize how many of them were ass-based. The fact that they built whole proverbs around butts and all that they contain places the Dutch just behind the Asstecs in the Cracked Scale of Awesome Real or Made-up Nations poll.
So Bruegel took these phrases and painted them, and his audience would have immediately got the jokes. But they're lost on us because we don't often say things like:
"They both shit through the same hole."
Which means "They are in agreement." Obviously.
"To fall from the ox onto the ass."
Interpretation: to fall on hard times. Cute, but not as clever as:
"To shit on the world."
Which means exactly what it sounds like: To hate everything. But you know what you should do if you really hate everything? This:
"To wipe one's ass on the door."
At least that's what we do when we want to treat something lightly. Wipe our poop on it.
3.
Flipping Off the Pope
When you think of the Sistine Chapel, you probably think of the Creation of Adam and God zapping Adam to life with his finger, but it's actually only one image among hundreds. Over four years, Michelangelo and company painted a crapload of cherubs and prophets and one drunk, naked Biblical hero.
And to honor his patron, Pope Julius II, Michelangelo cleverly stuck his sexy mug on the body of the prophet Zechariah. Which was a very sweet thing to do unless you get a close look at those angels chilling behind him.
Wait, What the Hell?
That sweet tiny baby angel is telling the Pope to fuck off.
What that precious little baby is doing with his finger is called "the fig" and its meaning is not nearly as adorable as the fat-faced baby doing it. By sticking his thumb in between his index and middle fingers, he's making an old world gesture that essentially means "fuck you." And he's making it at the Pope.
It turns out that Pope Julius II, aka "the Warrior Pope," was such an asshole that he was openly referred to as Il Papa Terribile. Michelangelo chose to seal his fate by personally flicking him off in God's house high above countless priests, cardinals and tourists for eternity. The beauty of the gesture was that medieval soot and the actual height of the painting prevented anyone from seeing it.
Not only that, but three decades after finishing the ceiling, Michelangelo was invited back to paint the wall behind the altar. This time he didn't mess around with mandy-pandy thumb gestures. Oh no. This time he straight painted the mouth of Hell directly behind the Pope's chair.
Either the mouth of Hell or mouth of the Goonie cave. Probably Hell.
#2.
UFOs
Besides being the quintessential study in rock hard Baby Jesus abs...
...Domenico Ghirlandaio's Madonna with Saint Giovannino also features an interesting little blob hovering in the sky over Mary's left shoulder. Especially when you notice the figure in the background, kind up gawking up at it.
Wait, What the Hell?
Some Renaissance paintings totally have UFOs in them.
Domenico Ghirlandaio's Madonna with Saint Giovannino is just one of several medieval paintings with strange, kinda creepy-looking unidentified flying objects soaring around in them. And this particular one has had UFO enthusiasts salivating for years.
Never mind that one expert nay says and poo-poos and claims the images are consistent with early Christian iconography intended to represent the so-called "Holy Spirit." He wasn't there. And anyway, since when would the Holy Spirit take the form of a squat little gold man space traveling in a flying arrow?
Since never. That's when.
Or a flying bowler hat?
Maybe when he's feeling dapper?
And then there are the cases of people actually illustrating stuff they claimed they saw. In one woodcut, Swiss citizens jauntily witness black spheres hovering in the sky. The dots were said to turn red before vanishing.
Or someone just attacked this woodcut with a medieval hole-punch.
Then you have the illustration below, a detail from a woodcut of a mass UFO sighting in Nuremberg, Germany in 1561. The story was that on the morning of April 14, geometric shapes erupted from the sky to do battle with each other.
Although it's hard to take this illustration seriously when the sun has a face.
Science has been quick to dismiss these events as aurora borealis, but since the people witnessing them had no idea what the fuck NASA was, Hans Glaser's engraving of Nuremberg came to be known as a "star-battle" (which may explain why the lowest of the spaceships looks a lot like the Super Star Destroyer Executor).
#1.
PORN! PORN! PORN!
Much of the art made during the Italian Renaissance was specifically commissioned by the Catholic Church, to adorn the walls of Catholic cathedrals, for the everlasting edification of Catholic God lovers. And up until the mid-1500s, the Catholic church was pretty cool with artists getting a free hand on their walls.
Sometimes "free hand" meant tastefully rendered imaginings of the heroes of the Bible. And sometimes "free hand" meant, literally, having a free hand to masturbate with after viewing said pictures.
Wait, What the Hell?
Renaissance artists often used their art to get their freak on.
At least until the Counter-Reformation, when church put the kibosh on the flagrant display of holy genitalia and hired a loincloth painter to cover the most offending penis action. Such as the scene above, from Michelangelo's (AGAIN) Last Judgment. Prior to the cover-up, Mr. Red Robe back there was full-on naked, and looking down at St. Lady Gun's badonkadonk, who was also naked. And considering her bent over posture, it totally looked like he was getting some from the backside.
But the Catholic Church wasn't the only game in town, and plenty of other Renaissance artists used their prodigious talents to prove it. Once these guys were out in the secular world, things started getting explicit. Such as:
Snakey guy on girl...
Girl on girl...
Three-way...
Lactation...
Bestiality...
Hentai...
WTF?
And finally...
You'd think that's piss until you notice that curators catalog it under "Ejaculating." If you are one of those people who never really appreciated old-time artwork before now, we beg you: look at the expression on that horse's face. Who among us hasn't worn that very expression, in that very situation?
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