This is an undoctored photo from the actual lab. Seriously.

This week’s non-movie-related story is a doozy: Japanese scientists have discovered a way to create edible steaks out of human feces.  Juicy, delicious, satisfying poop steaks, especially if the humans are grass fed.  I’m already thinking of a sci-fi script based around the process. Soylent Brown, I call it.

It’s being called the “poop burger”. Japanese scientists have found a way to create artificial meat from sewage containing human feces.
Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, has developed steaks based on proteins from human excrement. Tokyo Sewage approached the scientist because of an overabundance of sewage mud. They asked him to explore the possible uses of the sewage and Ikeda found that the mud contained a great deal of protein because of all the bacteria.

Whoa whoa whoa, buddy, we said find something to do with it, not make food out of it.  We thought you would just sculpt it into a life-like sex doll or something.

The researchers then extracted those proteins, combined them with a reaction enhancer and put it in an exploder which created the artificial steak. The “meat” is 63% proteins, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids and 9% minerals. The researchers color the poop meat red with food coloring and enhance the flavor with soy protein. Initial tests have people saying it even tastes like beef.
Inhabitat notes that “the meatpacking industry causes 18 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, mostly due to the release of methane from animals.” Livestock also consume huge amounts of resources and space in efforts to feed ourselves as well as the controversy over cruelty to animals. Ikeda’s recycled poop burger would reduce waste and emissions, not to mention obliterating Dante’s circle for gluttons.

Just planning ahead here, I think you might need a catchier name than “Recycled Poop Burger.”  Oops, spoke too soon, looks like Jerry Bruckheimer already wants to buy the option.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a documentary series called The Scheme that aired on British TV, brought to my attention by Frotcast listener and Scotland resident Johnny R, who says it’s like the Scottish answer to Jersey Shore.  I’m not sure what the object of this show was, but I think if you can understand more than four words in a row at any given time, you win a prize.  Sweet mother of farts, everyone in this clip makes Spud from Trainspotting sound like Marv Albert.

Okay, the crying mother at the one-minute mark, let’s try to break down what she says:

“It’s is [?] there comes a time, when, eh… cos it’s reassure… that man who’d said he caught him with the Bin Laden bastards… no doubt, the blind kids… he fairly did an echidna.”

I have no idea what it means, but I watched it six times and I’m pretty sure that’s what she says.

I know I haven’t done Friday Free For All in a few weeks, but I’m going to make it up to you today with the 1989 musical video for Angela Winbush’s “It’s the Real Thing.” This video is notable for featuring both a young Don Cheadle and a profusion of sequined baseball hats.  Cheadle would later go on to score an Oscar nomination for 2004′s Hotel Rwanda, but nowhere was he able to display the sense of fun and whimsy he showed here.  All you really need to know about this video is the exchange at the beginning, after Winbush shows up to the car wash in her Ferrari Testarossa.

CAR WASH ATTENDANT: “Hot wax?”

ANGELA WINBUSH: “The hottest.”

Aw, yeah, son, I’m gettin all hot!  So does that mean she’s gonna have to change her name to Angela Waxedbush?  Honestly, I’m curious.  I’m frightened and confused by the 80s.

Read the rest of this entry »

The only sources for this story are the notoriously unreliable WENN and the Sun, but I don’t care. I believe it’s true because I so badly want it to be.  According to legend, aging punk rocker Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon) sat next to hipster/hat enthusiast Jamiroquai on a flight, and according to the latter, the former couldn’t stop farting.

Jay [I'm told the band is named Jamiroquai, the singer's name is Jay Kay. Aren't we all so much richer for knowing that? -ed] said: “He is a f****** nuisance. I was seated next to him on a flight and the whole trip he just kept farting. It was totally foul.
“He kept saying, ‘Oh, that wasn’t me’ or, ‘The meal smells a bit off, don’t you think?’ He drove me insane.”
Things got so bad that Jay said if the pair ever share a flight again he would rather sit in economy.

But Your Majesty, if you abdicate the throne, who will lead us!

He added: “At least I’d be able to breathe a bit. They banned smoking in the air and they should ban farting.”

I don’t care if Johnny Rotten replays the same twelve songs on the Sex Pistols’ one album in 50 increasingly pathetic reunion tours, farting on hipsters will always be relevant.

[With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, this week's Wednesday is kind of like a Friday, so consider this my non-movie related Friday Free For All post.]

I probably would've gone with someone who didn't look like she was actually due for a mammogram, but what do I know.

Today I’ve got yet another sad story about our country going down the crapper.  A woman in Idaho was giving out free breast exams in bars, and what did she get for such selfless commitment to public service?  Some brown shirts from the Fascist League of Mini-Hitlers had her thrown in jail.  Journalists have already dubbed her America’s Aung Sang Suu Kyii.

An Idaho judge has set bond at $100,000 for a Boise woman police say posed as a physician and duped at least two other women into having their breasts examined by her at Boise-area nightclubs.
Kristina Ross, 37, remains in Ada County Jail in Boise on two felony counts of practicing medicine without a license.

She didn’t find any mysterious lumps, but then again, she never checked my pants.

Police say Ross introduced herself to victims — one at a downtown Boise bar and the other at a nightclub in a Boise suburb — as a plastic surgeon named Berlyn Aussieahshowna, a name that turned out to be bogus.
The two women told Boise officers they believed Ross was a physician because of her apparent medical knowledge, and they agreed to undergo what they thought were breast exams, which happened at the bars.

Holy sh*t, that worked?  Where are these bars again, specifically?  I need it for, uh, my notes.  (*draws curly line on finger, holds up to lip to make mustache*) “Well hello zair, ladies, I’m Doctor Hamburg Von Weimar, za board certified p*ssy inshpektor…”

Read the rest of this entry »