Category: Bizarre

Driving can be dangerous. I’ve had many a brush with death, coming a hair’s breadth from death because of my folly(cle). Not that any of these awful puns have anything to do with the car of 44-year-old Maria Lucia Mugno. Nothing morbid here, just a car COMPLETELY covered inside and out with hair, which must raise a few eyebrows. And it’s not like I mean she drives around everywhere with a bunch of cats. The hairy car was the plan from the beginning.

Apparently committing to this act after a friend bet her she wouldn’t do it (I wonder what THAT conversation was like), Lucia spent 150 hours sewing human hair imported from India to put on her small Fiat. And hey, now she holds a distinction few do: a Guinness World Record for the World’s Hairiest Car. I somehow doubt there was a record holder before she came along. But she drives it around regularly, which I’m sure causes more than few folks to wig out.

Hair extensions aren’t cheap either; the car is estimated at $100,000, in case you’re interested. Lucia keeps it in great shape too, brushing it regularly. Heck, she just added optional wings…

I’m thinking we should really up the danger meter to Brony Defcon 2 (because Cloppers are already Defcon 3) because it’s only a matter of time before they hear about this story and start selling “My Little Pony” branded versions of this equipment. But who am I to judge this lady?

This is Leanne, a normal seeming enough, rather introverted, 40 year old woman from Australia who makes her living as a website designer. Like most people, she needs a way to unwind after a stressful day. Whereas yours truly makes do with a craft beer and a good flick. Leanne has more specific (and expensive) needs to truly feel relaxed. She becomes a horse. Named Shyanne. Erm.

Now Leanne isn’t a were-horse (although that’d be supah-cool). She owns multiple horse costumes, that cost between 8-16,000 dollars each, and pulls her friend behind her in a specially made carriage. “When I’m in the pony gear, I feel freer,” she said. “It’s about who you are, it’s about expressing yourself. I become me.” I wouldn’t even know how to respond to that. But Leanne says people react generally pretty well: “I think when the world looks at me as a pony, they see something that makes them think ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing.” Leanne, I think you might be mus-interpreting those looks.

To be fair, it’s not like she’s harming anyone or herself (aside from probably getting some weird calluses) and I see more harmful stuff people do to themselves almost every day that Leanne’s hobby. Sexologist and sociologist Dr. Carol Queen says about it, “It is very understandable that a shy person might love animal play,” said sexologist and sociologist Dr. Carol Queen. “Taking on a new identity or even just new garments can take you out of the cage of your own shyness. There’s something about the way she must feel in her pony finery with her mane and her tail and her ears and her beautiful bridle, the whole nine yards, that liberates her and gives her a more fabulous field in which to gallop.”

“For me, it’s spiritual,” Leanne says. “It’s a different realm. You’re not worried about bills, you’re not worried about going to work. I’m very introverted and I do express through being a pony girl. And that’s a wonderful place to be for somebody. That’s a great place to be.” If nothing else, I now feel less awkward about my nightly visits to downtown Austin as Batman. Thanks, Leanne. You keep on trotting.

You gotta ask yourself: how bad-ass do you want your Walking Dead premiere party to be? How far are you willing to go? Would you serve human flesh canapes? Then you should be arrested, but a collaboration between chefs in London have created a burger that has been carefully engineered to taste like human being.

Studying the testimonies of famous cannibals. the expert chefs designed a patty that might taste like, in the words of journalist William Seabrook (who’ve actually has had it): “…good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.”

And here I always thought we were supposed to taste like sweet pork. Isn’t that why our meat has popularly been referred to as ‘long pig”? Maybe the islanders of Polynesia, where the term originated from, have a different taste.

Eventually, the culinary adventurers decided on, with the help of taste-testers, a mix of pork, veal, chicken livers and bone marrow, which presumes that other accounts of cannibals must have had some amount of variation to them. And what they handed out free to 250 contest winners in a restaurant in London was, to all accounts, a very tasty burger. Maybe the Donner party was onto something after all.

Sure, we’ve all ended up in some relationships with dogs (well, I have anyway) but this is a pretty literal interpretation of the word.

18-year-old Mangli Munda was lovely in her full wedding attire The groom was escorted in style, chauffeured no less, to the ceremony, himself decked out in full attire. But he’s a dog. Mangli wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but that’s what ya do in rural India when you’re born under a bad planetary alignment.

“I am marrying a dog because the village elders believe that my evil spell will be passed on to the dog,” she explained. “After that is done, the man I will marry will have a long life.” Apparently, the alignment in question that Mangli was born under can lead to her spouse having a shortened lifespan. “My villagers say that many girls like me have followed this ritual and they have gotten rid of their evil spells and are living happy lives now,” she said. “I will marry a man one day. It is the dream of every girl to marry a prince charming. So I am also waiting for my prince.”

This isn’t an uncommon ritual. “Many weddings like this have taken place in our village and also the other neighboring villages,” said Mangli’s father. “This is a custom we thoroughly believe in.” They even treated the marriage completely seriously, following all marriage customs and spending a traditional amount of money on it. “We respect the dog as much as we would respect a normal groom,” Mangli’s mother explained, “But that is the only way we can get rid of her bad luck and ensure the benevolence of the village.”

No worries for the dog; he’ll continue to live on as the family’s pet, probably a little baffled about the big day but no worse for wear. Mangli hopefully will go on to find a man who isn’t intimidated by her dating history.