Real-Life Weirdness

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'm not even sure how you work this on into a game, unless it's the origin story for the dwarves or drow in your DF game. But it's real-life, and it's weird. So here you are.

In former Soviet Russia, citizen abduct C.H.U.D.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'm not even sure how you work this on into a game, unless it's the origin story for the dwarves or drow in your DF game. But it's real-life, and it's weird. So here you are.

It's often said that you can spend your entire life in the New York City sewer and subway system without once coming up to street level, even to cross the rivers. Certainly a good inspiration for drow, dwarves/dvergar, morlocks, CHUDs, and the like.

[Anaraxes]

A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast.

The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week by a New Zealand air force plane about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Auckland.

The rocks stretch for about 26,000 square kilometres.

A navy ship took scientists to the rocks Thursday night. Naval Lt. Tim Oscar says the rocks appeared a brilliant white under a spotlight, like a giant ice shelf.

He says it's the "weirdest thing'' he's seen in 18 years at sea.

"The rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves, and lit up a brilliant white colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf," he said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10826068

A bit west for the usual location of R'lyeh. But who knows how long they've been floating?

Or perhaps it's just Godzilla has broken loose from the sea floor. We can hope it's just Godzilla.

For really weird, just read that "sitting two feet above the surface" quote literally.

[Anaraxes]

Squatters have started raising pigs on the site of Peru's Nazca lines - the giant designs best seen from an airplane that were mysteriously etched into the desert more than 1,500 years ago.

The squatters have destroyed a Nazca-era cemetery and the 50 shacks they have built border Nazca figures, said Blanca Alva, a director at Peru's culture ministry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87E0R720120815

Not especially weird, but redolent of a post-apocalyptic setting where descendants of the survivors are rooting about in the remnants of the high-tech spaceport they no longer understand.

Unless it's the first sign that the aliens are about to come back. What are the "squatters" doing inside those shacks next to the figured, safe from observation? Could even be Lovecraftian -- what ritual required desecration of that cemetery?

And of course if you want really weird -- it's all about the pigs. In Star Trek IV, the aliens came back for whales. But it was really the pigs, all along.

[Jovus]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

And of course if you want really weird -- it's all about the pigs. In Star Trek IV, the aliens came back for whales. But it was really the pigs, all along.

After all, last time they were here, pigs and whales hadn't differentiated from the same evolutionary branch yet...

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Jovus

After all, last time they were here, pigs and whales hadn't differentiated from the same evolutionary branch yet...

All hail the great bacon creator!

(I say this as a non-mamml eater that never the less couldn't resist.)

[Luke Bunyip]

They say it was an accident, but I am sure we all really know the reason that in 1947 the USA fired a V-2 at Juarez in Mexico.

[Johnny1A.2]

Depending on your metric of 'weird' and assuming this is for real:

World's Tallest Dog

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Depending on your metric of 'weird' and assuming this is for real:

World's Tallest Dog

Notable: perspective and no reference information on the height of the woman may be playing merry hell with your eyes on that photo.

I generally don't disbelieve that he's 44 inches tall (danes are already ludicrously leggy, and 3'8" is tall but not impossibly far from the danes I know). However, she's in the background, which means Zeus is closer to the camera and looks bigger. She could also be 4' 11" for all you know - not knowing how tall she is will throw off your eye as well - if you're tall, you'll imagine her to be closer to your size.
(EDIT: I corrected for the forced perspective and took some measurements; if Zeus is 44" at the shoulder, she's 5'3"-ish)

Our shepherd (german/belgian cross with some greyhound in there for spice) was a smidge over six feet tall when she stood on her hind legs and slobbered on you.

[vicky_molokh]

Java proposed as a (secondary) regional language. Article Google-translated from Ukrainian, some nuances lost.

Likely either a misinterpretation or a way of protesting the requests to make Russian a secondary language ('the success of eastern and southern regions'), but still hilarious to link to one's programmer friends.