Cool Things In Random Places

Crocosaurus Cove ” Cage of Death” Not Really…

An Australian  theme park hopes to lure tourists into a “Cage of Death” for a close encounter with a 18ft crocodile.

Just 1.5″in of acrylic separates brave visitors from the jaws of “Choppa” – a feisty saltwater croc.

Top End tourists climb into a clear box before being lowered into “Choppa’s” lair.

They’ll then spend 15 minutes inside the 9 foot high cage and watch Choppa, who lost both front feet while fighting other crocodiles, trying to take a bite out of them.

One of the first people to climb into the Cage of Death, Jim Charles, told the Northern Territory News it was a scary experience.

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Surf at Your own Risk 

Far from the beaches of Hawaii, big wave surfers McNamara and Mamala were the first surfers to ride an Alaskan Glacier Tsunami. Waves sheer ice faces of over 400 feet calved away from Child’s Glacier, crashing into the waters below and setting off left- and right-breaking waves that peel across a pebble-bottom river bank for more than 300 yards, offering rides of up to one minute long. Surfers wait up to several hours in icy water for a glacier to calve. When it splits off, it produces a deafining eruption of water, with chunks of ice exploding into the air, producing a 20-25 foot wave. The surfers then chase down the wave on their jet ski and attempt to ride with out being injured or killed by ice and rock debris. The forecast for surfing these bizarre waves looks good for awhile, with global warming contributing to a massive increase in glacial calving. Child’s Glacier is located on the Copper River, in South-Central Alaska, located near the town of Cordova, Alaska.  continue reading…

It started in a parking garage.

Two men had been arguing all night about their roaches. Drunk and Australian, they decided that the only way to determine who truly possessed ‘the fastest roaches in Brisbane’ was to retreat to a local parking garage. To the cheers of inebriated fans, they held a race. No one really remembers who won.

This is how cockroach racing was born. Every year, in a glorious feat of Australian absurdity, roaches are now raced to the cheers of thousands. The roaches are actually introduced, as at a boxing match, until a bin of them is overturned in the middle of a circle. And at the signal, the box is raised, and these panicked pests make a break for it.

The way that Australians figure it, the cockroaches are just as much a part of their culture as kangaroos or koalas – maybe even moreso. At least with roaches, everybody has one. And besides, a cockroach race is a good excuse to drink. It is, therefore, a brilliant idea.

Performance-enhancers like coffee, sugar and wine are banned. And anyone who argues with the rules is deemed simply, ‘Not very Australian at all.’

If you sail the seven seas long enough, you may be invited to King Neptune’s Court.

The line-crossing ceremony occurs every time a ship crosses the equator. The ship’s passengers and crew are divided into pollywogs (the uninitiated who have never crossed the equator before, and are thus the lowest form of sea life), and the shellbacks (the veterans of previous equator-crossing). Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself had a certificate testifying to his having crossed the equator back in November, 1936.

As they cross the equator, the pollywogs are summoned – sometimes at the behest of “Davy Jones’ – to the court of King Neptune, who occasionally has maidens. The pollywogs are then initiated into the ranks of the shellbacks, by way of various embarrassing tasks: being doused in sea water, getting locked in stocks and pillories, etc. The pollywogs sometimes have to “kiss the baby,’ which just so happens to be the belly of the ship’s most obese man.

Most sailors were happy to break up the ocean’s monotony with good, bizarre fun. Sadly, these initiation ceremonies – especially in the armed forces – allowed ample opportunity for abuse: some crews took the opportunity to dole out full-blown beatings, which lead to the well-deserved suspension or scaling-back of the ritual. But many tourist vessels still observe it: they’re happy just to dump salt water on peoples’ heads, and dress in silly costumes.

A zorb is a hamster ball for people.

Because people are more concerned than rodents about life and limb, a zorb is actually made up of two soft plastic spheres, one inside the other, like a bubble boy nesting doll. The outer layer takes all the impact, while the smaller, internal sphere protects the precious human cargo.

After you have hopped inside, someone then pushes you down a hill. Zorbing hails from New Zealand, which had no shortage of hills to tear down. It made its first international appearance on an early season of The Real World, to mixed results: it was all fun and games until one zorb hit a rock at a funny angle and bounced twenty feet into the air, only to come crashing back down, hard. All the cushioning in the world can only do so much.

For extra absurdity, just add water. If you pour a bucket of water into the interior sphere, you spend the entire ride gliding about in your own miniature wave pool. Hamsters are missing out.

New Zealand couldn’t keep zorbing a secret for long (obviously). It is now also available in Japan, and the Rocky Mountains.

Australians. Hate. Cane toads.

They have every reason to. Introduced in the 1930s from Hawaii to control native cane beetles, cane toads failed in their mission miserably. But they have since reproduced like rabbits on crystal meth, taking Australia’s ecology by storm. They are also studded with bufotoxin-laced warts, which are poisonous enough to kill hungry local crocodiles, let alone beloved pet dogs. Australians are often encouraged to slaughter the buggers wherever they find them, and one scientific research project is in the works to turn them all male, causing population collapse.

All the same, some Australians find themselves with a grudging respect for these seemingly unstoppable creatures. A 1988 documentary, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, approached the subject with fantastically deadpan Australian humour. And a 2003 short film, ‘What Happened to Baz?‘ won the Best Comedy award at the St. Kilda Film Festival.

So inevitably, they have been turned into fashion accessories. Cane toad purses, wallets and handbags are a common sight throughout this island continent, land of Waltzing Matilda and Stirling Mortlock. Their carcasses can serve as fertilizer, and properly prepared – skinned, their poisonous glands removed – general agreement is that they taste like chicken. Because with an estimated two hundred million toads to go around, there’s no reason to let them go to waste.

This shark from a shark derby in Nova Scotia has nothing to do with this post, but its a damn cool thing in a random place as sharks aren’t supposed to look like this in Nova Scotia (at least I hope not while I’m surfing!) One of the best responses to this site as been “it is like a bag of potato chips, once you start reading…”

Do you have some cool or weird thing in mind that could grace the pages of CTIRP?

Tips: Keep it short, sweet, and use a gripping title. Great photos are also a must!

So be creative and share those international oddities.