Exciting New Summer Treat - Pizzaghetti Sloche!

We all love pizza and spaghetti here. We probably eat at least one helping of each every week.

In the Canadian province of Quebec, they take these classic favorites to an all new high. A decadently Italian meal combines pizza and spaghetti in a popular dish called pizzaghetti. To top this, the Quebec-based Canadian  convenience store chain, Couche-Tard, recently introduced a new pizzaghetti-flavored "Love in a Cup" sloche (a word the chain uses for slushie-type frozen drinks)!

Food bloggers and Tweeters around the globe immediately began spreading warnings and highly uninformed opinions about this new flavor. Some of the more dramatic tweeters went so far as to suggest you would "vomit in your mouth" upon tasting such a creation. It seemed the new flavor was doomed to fail before anyone ever tasted it.

It turns out the foodies could not be more wrong! The convenience store is known for its playfulness. They pulled a great gag on the world. People who actually tried the frozen concoction reported the flavors are remarkably similar to strawberry ("pizza" red) and kiwi ("ghetti" yellow). Apparently, the company pulls this kind of stunt often. Past flavors include gadoue (cow pie)/wild berry, sang froid (cold blood)/cherry, poussin frappe (whipped chicks)/berry, ouananiche (salmon)/ and wontong (wonton soup)/iced tea.

Many locals seem to enjoy the promotional gags, and even join in on the fun. Fans sent tweets such as, "Ummm... this is surprisingly good... :P Pizza and spaghetti flavour... #Pizzaghetti #Sure" by Allison Wonderland and, "So glad summer is here = New flavor from #Sloche #pizzaghetti" by vanbat10. Here is the 30-second television commercial. Enjoy!

Folks in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Missouri might be happy to know they will soon have their very own Couche-Tard stores. The convenience chain giant owns over 13,000 stores, and just bought 29 more in those states. No word yet whether they will also feature pizzaghetti sloches.

Thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for turning us on to this wacky company! We can't wait to find out what their next flavor will be.

Clever Highway Technology Passively Assists Drivers

Beginning in mid-2013, select roads in The Netherlands province of Brabant will begin featuring what we hope will catch on and become popular new techniques in building roads. Developed jointly by Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure, these roads actually provide drivers with some rather clever assistance that promises to save public money, conserve energy, and even save lives. The concept video below shows what the roads will do and how they will work.


HIGHLIGHTS
Special glow-in-the-dark and temperature-sensitive paints ensure lane markers will gently glow for several hours after sunset.

Snowflakes will appear when temperatures dip below freezing, cautioning drivers of the potential for ice on the road.

Electric-powered cars can use a special lane to recharge the battery using induction technology.

Wind-powered lights along the shoulders provide roadside lighting to passing cars, which provide the wind to power the lights.



The special paints will be applied this year (2013). The more involved applications, wind-powered lighting and induction lanes, will take longer to implement and may take a few years to put into production.


Thanks to The Presurfer, who actually lives in the Dutch province of Brabant, where these roads will first appear.

Pepper Tears

Can peppers really cry? As wacky as it seems, apparently they can. A Spaniard named Mike snapped this picture when he noticed something remarkable about this bell pepper as soon as it was sliced in half. The pepper appears to be crying! That's truly wacky!

We came up with some possible reasons a pepper might cry.

- Wah! I'm not a habanero !!!
- Wah! I'm sleepy! I need a nap !!!
- Wah! I don't want to be eaten !!!
- Wah! I wanted to be an apple !!!
- Wah! Some guy just cut me in half !!!
- Wah! I thought I was in the line to become a "Pepper" soft drink !!!
- Wah! I got pepper juice in my eyes !!!

All corn aside, it made the Wacky List. Maybe that will make it happy!

Thanks to BitsAndPieces and to the contributor, Mike from Spain.

Wacky Oral Hygiene System: A Water Fountain in a Toothbrush!

Here's a wacky invention designed for anyone who has a problem rinsing after brushing or just can't keep track of their rinse cup. Simply hold your toothbrush under running water and it redirects part of the stream into your mouth. The package includes a replacement head, too.

It's a cool idea for a cool $22 US. Preorder now (Summer 2012) for November delivery. Order 900 and get 70% off - just in time for Winter Holiday gifts for 900 of your closest friends! Better still, you can get the original (one of one) prototype for a mere $3800 using your PayPal account. Wacky!
Be sure to watch this video of the toothbrush in action. There's even a wireframe mockup of it! Nobody shows how well it handles brushing your teeth, but there is a real person using it to rinse. This is definitely one for the Wacky List!

Thanks to The Gadgeteer for bringing it to our attention.

Paper Airplane First - Space!

This is definitely one for the Wacky List! Three wacky British guys in a pub came up with a plan to launch a paper airplane into outer space. Unlike most pub-conceived ideas, these men carried through with their idea. Over the next several months, they put together a very impressive paper glider. Paper straws provided structure and support.

The team then crafted homemade electronics for tracking and to take some outstanding video footage, recording an hour and a half of the record-making voyage. They then recruited an American paper pilot, whose name was not released.

As seen in this video, the three realized their vision when their creation glided gently down to Earth from an altitude of around 80,000 feet. Equally impressive, it landed a mere 100 miles from the launch site. Their plane captured some impressive video footage on its descent.

Wacky Fact or Wacky Hoax?

... as seen on Gizmodo, BoingBoing, FailBlog and many more ...

Below is a video of a working hand-held phaser a la Star Trek. Watch carefully, then decide if it's a fake or a true, working model. According to Laser Point Forums, it's not only REAL, it's a DIY. Anybody up for giving it a try? If you build one, post your snapshots or a videos here. We'd love to see someone prove (or disprove) this wacky video! What do you think?

Sledding Crow is an Internet Celebrity

We enjoy cleverness, especially when it's unexpected. This wacky video shows a very clever crow playing in the snow on a rooftop somewhere in Russia. Thanks to some clever folks, some quick thinking, and a handy video camera, the action was caught and immortalized on YouTube.
Enjoy!

The Smallest Train Set

A 1-35200 scale of the real thing and smaller than a thumbnail, this functioning 1/35200th scale miniature train set features 5 train cars, a tunnel, a waterfall, and a bridge, a lit train depot, and two houses. Named "the Sceniced and Ridiculously Small Railroad," it was designed to star as an HO-scale model train set in a shop window in a larger train set called "James River Branch," a fictitious N-scale village. Yes, for the geeks in the audience, it's a train set embedded in a train set!

Creator David K. Smith, a New Jersey model train enthusiast, built the entire set out of moldable plastic using a craft knife. It took him over two-and-a-half years and under $10 to build. A World Record was not his original intent, and Mr. Smith's train set has not yet attracted the attention of the list-keepers in Guinness, UK, but it has definitely made The Wacky List!

How'd he make it? Get the nitty-gritty details here.

For more model railroad how-to's, visit his website.

Making Green Fun!

There are several creative forces out there, including several of Volkswagen's Fun Theory projects, encouraging people to do something good for the environment (and themselves) by making it fun. Here are some outstanding examples.

Scratch Mat - Makes wiping your feet a lot of fun!



Garbage Bin - Encourages people to pick up and toss in litter



Bottle Bank Arcade - Collects bottles for recycling



Wall O' Shirts - Kids will want to clean their rooms!


Musical Staircase - You've already seen this one, but it's also part of this project, and so much fun to watch, we didn't think you'd mind seeing it again.

It's a staircase. It's a piano. It's piano stairs!

A college social experiment in Stockholm, Sweden, attempts to encourage people to use the stairs rather than adjacent the escalator. See how people reacted.



We want one of those!!!