Results tagged “pleaseexplain”

Drunken Polish prank, something more sinister, or just tomatoes that fell off a truck? Kurt Strahm sent us over some images of tomato torture in Greenpoint's McCarren Park. He spotted a strange scene on Wednesday morning with tomatoes lying in the street, being crushed by the passing traffic. That's not so strange, but seeing tomatoes impaled on the fence surrounding the park...very strange.

It's the FedEx Package shuffle!

Reader Jim sent us this sign he saw at one of the 14th Street L stations that was "taped to a column in the same haphazard fashion as legitimate MTA service change notices." But it turned out not to be an MTA service notice but a warning from the Lesbian Avengers!

Now, just so we're clear, I have one simple rule: I never sit on the train when there is a woman standing. Ever. Period; the end; no exceptions. There are those who would say that in this day of equality and women's lib, I have every right to sit where and when I please. And they may be right. But it seems to me that no matter how liberated we make our womens, or how absolute our equality becomes, women will still always wear heels and occasionally carry our children to term for 9 months. Those two things alone earn them a seat in my book -- case closed.

The Germans are so weird AND so clever! Der Spiegel reports that the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg foraged various rivers in Europe and the U.S. to find the "substance produced by the human body during cocaine consumption." And when they hit the Hudson River, apparently the numbers were through the roof for consumption, when taking into account statistics for drug use:

For example in New York, IBMP teams searched the Hudson River and found the by-products of a projected cocaine consumption totaling 16.4 tons per year. There are approximately 3.4 million people aged 15 to 65 living in the Hudson's watershed. According to the United Nations "World Drug Report," 2.8 percent of Americans in this age group use cocaine at least once a year. That would mean that about 95,000 people are responsible for an annual consumption of 16.4 tons of pure cocaine -- a per capita rate of 172 grams per year.

Continue reading "Hudson's Murky Waters Have...Pure Cocaine?"

A tipster sent in a link to this picture on Jskrybe's photo stream on Flickr. Below it, he asks: "I know this is based on a work by the British conceptual artist Martin Creed, but why is it here in the West Village (corner of Leroy and Greenwich)? Is it authorized? A copy? What gives?" A little Googling reveals that the work is genuine-- but we still don't understand it. We did the math, and the whole world plus the work DEFINITELY equals the work plus the whole world! Ten points off for failing to balance the right side of the equation. [Related: the original work at London's Tate Gallery.]

WhatISee snapped this very strange image over the weekend. Do you know what makes it so weird? Answer is here. Bonus points for any background information that could explain the picture.

We always thought that handball was that game you play in a schoolyard with a little blue ball-- the one where you bounce the ball off the wall and try to hit it in a way that your opponent can't return (and the ball is allowed to bounce only once before it gets returned to the wall.) But then yesterday we were reading Time Out, and they had an article about the New York Team Handball Club based in Williamsburg. The game they described seems to have nothing to do with the handball we played growing up. A little research on the old internet turned up these rules-- but this game seems much more like raquetball, played with all four walls, and doesn't sound like the game the NYTHC is playing. Can one of you handball experts straighten us out? What exactly is handball, and how does one play?

We spotted this bird in a tree just south of the lake in Central Park when it suddenly took off and flew right above our heads. It seemed huge-- like four times the size of your average pigeon-- and it seems to have some distinct markings on the stomach. Any ideas, especially from our ornithologist friends?

You guys were great at explaining the Bertrand Russell graffiti mystery over the weekend, so now we've found another puzzler for you to unravel. We've seen a bunch of these sheep all over town these last few weeks-- but this one carries the puzzling message "stop the sheep-- fukc the shepard." Who are the sheep, and why do they need to be stopped? And who is this shepard? And why does he need to be fcuked? We are seriously confused.

We spotted this strange piece of streetart off Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg. We read the Wikipedia entry on Bertrand Russell, and learned a lot of interesting facts: he won the Nobel prize for literature and was an outspoken anti-war activist, and in 1931 became an Earl. His philosophical work was varied but always marked by his belief in the value of mathematical precision and logic. He apparently knew the deal about a lot of things-- but to what in particular was the writer of this piece referring? Does anyone know?

We were skating down 2nd Avenue in Sunset Park the other day, when we spotted this weird fish on the side of an abandoned building. The fish is on the south side of the street (in the 20s? Lower 30s?), about 15 feet off the ground. Does anyone know who created this fish? What's the story behind it?

We were biking out at the southern edge of Red Hook yesterday when we spotted this beautiful 9/11 memorial on the front of one of the quirky old buildings. It definitely wasn't there last November, when we took some shots in the area. Does anyone know the story behind it, or who made it?