Wednesday linkfest

After I do a long photo comic, like the one I posted on Monday (Bill Clinton agrees to campaign for Obama), it's hard to get back to normal posts. Unlike most of the garbage I post here, photo comics take a long time, and the hardest part is working out the text, not doing the voice bubbles, which can be done in an hour or two.

So I'm going to coast a little longer by giving you some links I've been accumulating for the past several weeks.

1. This is actually not a link, but I'm including it, anyway. The son of our friends, a good friend of my son, is in Taiwan, where he applied for a scooter license. Among the questions on the exam were these:

1. When a motorcyclist is not happy, usually he/she: (1) is emotionless (2) is not compassionate (3) is angry.

2. Time for honking, each time is: (1) within 2 seconds (2) within 1 second (3) within half a second.

3. Motorcyclist's clothing: (1) is free (2) slippers are ok (3) must be clean.

Then, there were a bunch of signs with Chinese on them, and he had to guess what they meant.

2. No linkfest would be complete without a link to a post about an incinerating toilet. Be sure to watch the video at the company's website. No butt hair was singed in the preparation of the video. Bonus: Also at InventorSpot: Russian scientist solves problem of smelly feet.

3. We all hate grammar ignoramuses, and some of us are annoyed by typos, but few of us engage in vandalism over them. (via How Appealing)

4. A reader at Instapundit creates a political ad about the meltdown at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

5. We'll have to take Obama's criticism of a McCain ad on comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners with a grain of salt.

6. Is Obama too tight with his teleprompter? (hat tip: fee simple)

7. A follow-up by Steven Plaut related to Soccer Dad's post below on Michelle Obama's "rabbi" relative.

8. A columnist at Haaretz is scared to death of Sarah Palin. But the Republican Jewish Coalition flips Congressman Robert Wexler's idiotic linking of Palin with Pat Buchanan and shows that Buchanan's views on Israel are like Obama's.

9. "Tryst turns into $50K robbery for RNC delegate." Plus, quotation of the day: "'As a single man, I was flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman who introduced herself to me. I used poor judgment. If there is any good that can come from this humiliation, it is to caution others that date rape happens to men, too,' he said."

Click here to read more . . .

Potty mouth

In one of his routines from the 1960s, Bill Cosby asked why women go to the bathroom together. Have you ever been out on a double, triple, or fourple date, he asked, and one woman said, "Let's go to the ladies' room" and they all got up? Men would never do that, he said. If a guy stood up and said, "Let's go to the men's room," they'd say, "No, I think you'd better go by yourself." After he left, they'd say, "What's wrong with that guy, anyway?"

It turns out that if you're in Taiwan, you can go to a restaurant where this scenario never has to occur, no matter how many women are in your date group.

Because now, there are toilets right at your seat. In fact, your seat is a toilet.


And in case you don't like surprises, the restaurant's name is Modern Toilet.

I would have thought this type of themed restaurant would reach Japan first, or certainly Korea (whose toilet situation I discussed last week). But I guess Taiwan is trying hard to avoid reunification with the commies. By any means necessary.

So I'm sure you're wondering how this could have come to, uh, pass. Here's how:

The restaurant's Duty Manager, Wei Duo-Yi, explains how the idea developed:

- It was an ice shop decorated with toilets before. Most of the customers like the decorations so we tried to expand it into a restaurant -.

I remember back in the early 1980s, when I lived in Manhattan's West 70s, there was a restaurant on Broadway called Ernie's, and one of my sisters told me that if you ordered pasta, it was brought to you in a huge, white bowl. She called it "pasta in a potty."

It turns out that Modern Toilet takes this concept all but literally, serving food in toilet-shaped bowls. (Which we'll just have to assume are not real toilets.)

The seats are all made from toilet bowls, tables are glass-topped jumbo bathtubs, customers eat from mini plastic toilet bowls - and the WC themes run through the food and drinks menus.

Mmmmmmmm, appetizing!

Last, no one should finish this story without first checking out this video, at the same link, from ITN, which apparently does not stand for International Toilet News. (Mild content warning: Infantile toilet puns, and a poo-shaped chocolate dessert.)

Click here to read more . . .