– – It’s hard to find a good petrified cat; most are dried out and decayed, and don’t smell very good. There are aesthetics to be considered when buying a petrified cat, or for that matter, a mummified squirrel; not just any one will do!
Enter the bizarre world of macabre memorabilia as presented through the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel documentary/reality show Oddities, which details the operations of Obscura Antiques & Oddities as they go about procuring oddball items like deformed skeletons, skulls, child-sized straitjackets, and archaic medical items for eager clients. –Remember that one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and that there’s a market for almost everything in this world!
The show debuted in 2010, and is now in it’s fourth season. Operating out of the East Village in New York City (–where else?), the business has been overwhelmed by people trying to sell petrified cats and mummified squirrels that they found in their attics, and as a result is no longer in the market for them. It’s hardly your grandmother’s antique shop…this is far more interesting!
– – A cat being used as a “mule” for contraband was detained on the grounds of a Brazilian prison on New Year’s day as it crossed the main gate! Strapped to the cat’s body with tape were drill bits, a saw, files, and a mobile phone with charger and memory chip, all intended for use by prisoners. 
– – With the Xmas season almost upon us and overeating indulgences likely to ensue, it might be worthwhile considering the differences between competitive eating and fad eating. While it’s debatable whether competitive eating is really a sport, there are at least rules and regulations which govern it, and the items consumed tend to actually be conventional foods, such as hot dogs. Fad or event eating in contrast tends to be less structured with at times potentially dangerous consequences to participants; the items consumed, while technically edible, tend not to be commonly found on family dinner tables, such as insects. Other fad or event consumptions have involved normally harmless and indeed vital items, although even water proved fatal to one contestant when consumed to extreme excess over a short time. Fad eating has been spurred in recent years by the advent of reality TV shows, and feed off of the gross-out factor involved. If $100 is offered to someone to eat a worm, there will be takers and those who watch.
– – Don’t the bugs seem to get bigger each year? And there’s something marvelously surreal about going along in a big RV with a human-sized blue bug riding shotgun up front! I could get into this scene…well, this is an ESPN RV marketing campaign commercial that features New Orleans rookie Anthony Davis traveling in the RV together with ESPN commentator Mike Breen and Hugo, the team mascot. They are all very comfortable in one another’s company, a cozy group…thank heavens for cultural diversity!
– – When something has more than four legs, it generally tends to inspire a cringe factor. Something with 750 legs would definitely then register high on the creepy and gross-out scale, and this little beauty is so compact as well; a white millipede named Illacme plenipes, which is Latin for “the pinnacle plentiful feet,” and measures a mere 1 – 3 centimeters long.
– – I’m always glad when giant eyeballs wash up on beaches, bringing to mind as they do such vintage sci-fi classics as 1958’s The Crawling Eye. Eyeballs by nature tend to make people squeamish, especially disembodied ones…and in time for Halloween, too!- -What a gift from the sea!
– – They sound like the perfect subject for a Saturday night original movie on the Syfy Channel: The Vampire Squid from Hell (Vampyroteuthis infernalis). They rather look like a bad movie monster, too, having a type of cloak-like webbing, unusually large deep blue or red eyes, and light-producing organs covering its entire body which it can flash! 
– – Nearing Labor Day as this blog reaches the 300,000 hits mark, we pause to thank our readers for making this possible. And as we consider dubious achievements, we will also make mention of possibly the worst furry-themed movie ever made…Howard the Duck! 
– – The Ozark Howler sounds like a really bad country music act, but refers to a cat-like cryptid reputed to reside in remote areas of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. Said to be the size of a black bear, it boasts a thick body, black hair, glowing eyes, and perhaps horns from its forehead! The Howler is reputed to stand three to four feet tall at the shoulder, and weighs in at about 400 pounds. The creature makes a deafening aggressive, threatening scream that is kind of a combination of a wolf’s howl and an elk’s cry…
FOXSYLVANIA 
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