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We all long to know what the future will bring, whether we’re thinking about tomorrow, next month, or one hundred years from now. (Okay, perhaps we typically concern ourselves the least with the far-future.) The longer the timescale, of course, the trickier things are to predict — and this is especially so for matters of aesthetics.

Case in point: check out these wacky fashion sketches from 1893. These pictures come from an article entitled “Future Dictates of Fashion,” penned by one W. Cade Gall and published in The Strand. Gall had a vision, certainly, but of what world, I’m not sure.

The Public Domain Review writes:

The designs themselves have a somewhat unaccountable leaning toward the medieval, or as John Ptak astutely notes, “a weird alien/Buck Rogers/Dr. Seuss/Wizard of Oz quality” to them. If indeed this was a genuine attempt by the author Gall to imagine what the future of fashion might look like, it’s fascinating to see how far off the mark he was, proving yet again how difficult it is to predict future aesthetics. It is also fascinating to see how Gall envisaged the progression of fashions across the decades – considering that, from our perspective now, his vision of 1970 doesn’t much look much different to 1920 – and to see which aspects of his present he wasn’t even able to consider losing to the march of time (e.g. the long length of women’s skirts and the seemingly ubiquitous frill).

Mr. W. Cade Gall seems to have had a strange fixation on umbrellas, tobacco pipes, and pointy shoes.
You can check out the rest of the drawings here.

Below: chilling, long-awaited photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster? A boat wake? Or simply a processing artifact left over from the way aerial photos are digitally stitched together? You decide!
(Original source and article here.)

After another extended hiatus, stay tuned for more exciting posts about our weird world!

… is located in Canada, and is a mere 1 square mile (or 640 acres). The Carcross Desert, as it is known, is not a true desert – the area is “too humid” by technical standards – but rather a jarring series of sand dunes in the Yukon left over from long-dried lakes. 

This shocking tidbit brought to you by Time Magazine. Think about that: ten percent of all photos ever taken in the history of the world… were shot last year. Humanity is producing media and content at an astounding rate! 

An anonymous tipster has drawn our attention to this fast-breaking news in the Pacific:

Here’s the latest plan scientists have come up with to kill some of the estimated 2 million brown tree snakes that have wiped out many other animals on Guam:

In April or May they’re going to lace dead mice with painkillers, attach them to little parachutes, drop them from helicopters and hope that they get snagged in the jungle foliage. Then, if all goes well, the snakes — which as their name implies hang out in trees — will eat the mice and die from ingesting the painkillers’ active ingredients.

Let’s hope that the snakes do eat the mice and not some other poor, unsuspecting native species. Unforeseen consequences are always a risk when you drop dead mice out of choppers!
(Article here.)

Some time ago we wrote about the greatest “order pizza to a stranger’s house” prank ever played; today, we bring you the tale of one of the greatest April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time. 

The prank succeeded beyond Porky’s wildest dreams. News of it got picked up by the Associated Press and ran in papers around the world.

The reaction of people in Sitka, once they realized the volcano wasn’t really erupting, was almost uniformly positive. Even the Coast Guard wasn’t too mad about the stunt. Porky met the Admiral years later at a Fourth of July party. As the Admiral walked over to meet him, Porky was afraid he was going to be chewed out, but instead the Admiral told Porky he thought the prank was classic.

You can read more about Porky’s classic prank here.

As a resident of Geauga County, the maple syrup capital of Ohio, and the nephew of a maple syrup producer, this article hits close to home:

UNION COUNTY, IL (KFVS) –

A Union County family got the scare of their lives on Wednesday morning as drug agents swarmed onto their property.

“I heard the dogs barking. And I knew that meant somebody was outside the house,” said Laura Benson.”They had a report of a meth lab going on on our property. And they wanted to investigate it.”

So the Bensons gladly showed the officers what they really were doing, which was making their own maple syrup.

The Bensons want to thank their neighbors for being so alert and notifying the police.

“I think my neighbors on their way to church see the buckets and stuff and think we’ve got a meth lab operation going on here. I just want to put their minds at ease, and let them know it’s maple syrup. And that they’re all welcome for pancakes if they want to come on over.”

I can see how a misunderstanding like this might occur, honestly: lots of metal buckets and plastic tubing, strange contraptions, fires burning late into the night, and so on. For those uninitiated in the art of maple syrup production, it might very well resemble a meth lab. My own uncle has had the fire department called on him: his sugar house, lit up at night and spewing steam and smoke, does look like it’s ablaze. And honestly, I would prefer concerned neighbors who care enough to make a call. 

This may be the greatest headline ever written. It’s almost too good to be true. But it is. 

Cookie Monster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thief sent a ransom note to a Hanover-area newspaper demanding bakery Bahlsen donate boxes of cookies to a children’s hospital in exchange for its iconic treat. The gargantuan cookie has since been discovered.

The iconic snack, belonging to famed German cookie company Bahlsen, has finally reappeared after a thief dressed as Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster swiped it in early January.

Police in Hanover spotted the valuable treat hanging on a statue of a horse in front of a university Tuesday morning and are now working to determine whether it’s the company’s original trademark treat.

There, the expectation is that women are to give men chocolates. According to Wikipedia, this practice “appears to have originated from the translation error of a chocolate-company executive during the initial campaigns.” The Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia explains:

Sometime in the 1950s, a Japanese chocolate manufacturer took inspiration from the western tradition of Valentine’s Day and began producing heart-shaped chocolates, declaring February 14th as a day women confess their love with a gift of chocolate. The incentive was seen as an opportunity to boost the post-war economy and was a great success during a time in which Japan was eager to adopt western customs and ideas. The main difference – that only women are to bear the burden of gift-giving – is supposedly the result of a translation error made by a chocolate company executive. About a decade or so later, candy companies capitalized on the chance to balance things out urged men to give back a month later with gifts of marshmallows. This practice developed into what is now known as the March 14th holiday “White Day,” on which men reciprocate with white chocolates or other small gifts to women.

I wonder how many other traditions around the world originated with misunderstandings. 

Are the bright colors a safety hazard for the overly-sensitive eyes of children? Nope. They’ve simply offended the ridiculously-delicate sensibilities of a handful of neighboring homeowners:

One homeowner, who did not want to be named, said: “It was supposed to be less than half the size than it is now. It’s a complete eyesore from the Burford Road – it looks like a fairground.”

Cotswold District Council has said the play area would remain off-limits for now because of the complaints.

Talk about uptight. (Full article here.)