2020 has been an lousy yr. So it goes when the realm receives hit by a deadly pandemic, a devastating recession and a toxic U.S. presidential campaign.
nevertheless it's additionally been a deeply bizarre 12 months, and weirdness now and again will also be superb.
To be clear, this specific roundup of the 12 months That changed into will offer nothing about politics. all of us be aware of our politics has become very bizarre -- and very divisive. We're going to concentrate as an alternative on the kind of weird that unites us, the quirky and goofy form that elicits a collective, Say what now?
under is our excellent 10 listing of strange information. The checklist, like 2020, may have gone on and on and on …
bird-brained voter fraud
The loved kakapo -- viewed here on a mural known as "From So simple a starting," on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology -- won the vote, however not without controversy. (photograph courtesy of Ink Dwell)
Voter fraud rocked New Zealand's annual hen of the 12 months competitors, with the little-noticed kiwi garnering some 1,500 dubious votes.
"it truly is a terrific fowl … however lamentably these votes had to be disallowed, and they've been taken out of the competition," pointed out a spokeswoman for forest & fowl, which runs the avian contest.
The chook of the 12 months election is closely adopted in New Zealand, a land of birds and birders.
The winner ended up being the kakapo, a.k.a. "night parrot," which edged out the Antipodean albatross. The colorful, waddling kakapo is severely endangered. It's the primary fowl to win the 15-yr-old election twice.
an extra hen story? Yep
The race is on -- for the most high priced racing pigeon. (Staten Island advance/Anthony DePrimo)Staten Island develop
Pigeons are on occasion known as "rats of the sky," as a result of they're typical to be sickness spreaders and they poop everywhere our automobiles, balconies and public paintings.
but some pigeons are tremendously coveted -- specifically, the ones that can fly in reality speedy.
That's as a result of pigeon racing, lengthy an vague, fringe hobby, has become very large business. So massive that in November a chinese language man paid $1.9 million for a single Belgian-bred pigeon.
It changed into proof, CBS information wrote, "that an age-historic pastime in Western Europe identified with working-class men now has a brand new, elitist overseas rent on existence. suitable breeders relying on generations of family unit event can now promote their birds for expenditures unprecedented simply a decade in the past."
The upswing in expenditures has surprised even a hit, long-dependent breeders -- such as Gaston Van de Wouver, who currently sold his 445 birds at auction for $7 million. spoke of Van de Wouver after the sale:
"The handiest aspect i will be able to say is we are in complete shock."
Mr. Peanut meets a violent, fiery loss of life
Mr. Peanut turned into a healthy 104 when tragedy struck. (Kraft foods)HAR
Mr. Peanut and his highway-tripping friends, actor Wesley Snipes and "Veep" alum Matt Walsh, have been tearily belting out the 1980s traditional "(I just) Died to your palms" as they cruised along a winding mountain highway in the Nutmobile.
suddenly an armadillo loomed forward of them, and the Nutmobile swerved.
Messrs. Peanut, Snipes and Walsh were thrown from the car. the two people survived, but the monocle-wearing, suitable-hatted Planters mascot fell into the valley below together with the Nutmobile. They exploded on affect.
The weird advertising and marketing video surprised viewers when it landed on social media in January. even more excellent turned into the Planters tweet that followed:
"it is with heavy hearts that we verify that Mr. Peanut has died at 104."
Peanut's Planters mascot successor is Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe, or Bart. Bart's information for those struggling with grief over the dying of the iconic legume changed into about what you'd are expecting.
"have fun the lifetime of Mr. Peanut," he mentioned, "with a salty snack in his honor."
The adventures of Florida Man (and Florida girl) proceed
Maguire Marie McLaughlin, a.okay.a., "Florida lady." (photo: Indian River County Sheriff's office)
Florida is familiar for its wild and unusual denizens, giving upward push to the "Florida Man" meme -- it's, the international sharing of precise news headlines about extraordinary goings-on in the Sunshine State.
In 2020, Florida girl got things all started, incomes the January headline: "Florida girl arrested for threatening to get McDonald's sauce via 'any ability vital.'" The coronavirus pandemic soon hit the nation, however that didn't slow down Florida Man. truly, it inspired him. thus the headline: "Blowing a hair dryer up your nose gained't kill coronavirus, regardless of what a Florida commissioner stated."
not to be outdone through a mere county commissioner, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in April declared pro wrestling an "standard enterprise," exempting the spectacle from pandemic restrictions.
Whoops, have we by chance broken our no-politics rule for this annual roundup? well, Florida gets an exemption.
The certainty is obtainable
here's a "flying saucer" photographed in 1990 by way of a Swiss man. The "unidentified aerial phenomena" spotted by using Navy pilots in 2004 apparently have been extra brilliant. (enhance local archive)
Do UFOs exist? Of route they do -- and now we have formally-sanctioned proof. In April, the U.S. department of defense, famously secretive about such things, launched three movies of "unidentified aerial phenomena." The images, shot via Navy pilots in 2004 the use of infrared cameras, were leaked years ago.
A Pentagon spokesperson noted the department determined to declare credit for the videos "with the intention to clear up any misconceptions by way of the public on whether or not the photos that has been circulating turned into true, or even if or now not there's extra to the video clips."
The photos is definitely real, says one of the vital pilots who encountered the UFOs.
Retired Navy squadron commander David Fravor informed CNN that as he approached the object seen in a single of the movies "it abruptly accelerated to the south and disappeared in lower than two seconds. This changed into extraordinarily abrupt, like a ping pong ball bouncing off a wall."
Smells like core-aged spirit?
Critics say Goop's pleasing scented candle is proof that Gwyneth Paltrow is out of control. (Goop.com)
This needs to be a web prank.
That become a natural reaction when the information all started making the rounds, however Gwyneth Paltrow's "This Smells Like My Vagina" scented candle is a real component.
ship 75 bucks to Paltrow's company Goop and you can own a "funny, stunning, attractive and beautifully unexpected scent," the product description exclaims.
"The actress's notoriously over-the-right way of life company currently began selling a vagina-scented candle," the site Pop Sugar wrote in February, "and if that fact by myself doesn't make you query your religion in humanity, the undeniable fact that it was sold out on-line for weeks and is now returned in stock after generic demand actually will."
The Guardian's style-and-subculture columnist Hadley Freeman became even more direct in her evaluation of this building:
"Gwyneth no longer has just her head up her vagina; she has crawled the entire way internal."
food for ideaAre you hungry? Are you ravenous? good enough, then escape the steak starter equipment where the meal is made from the diner's own human cells.
Don't get too grossed out. The chunk-sized servings aren't competent for your local grocery store -- yet. They had been commissioned for the Designs for distinct Futures exhibit on the Philadelphia Museum of paintings.
"For the assortment of sample steaks on monitor within the museum, the crew used human telephone cultures purchased from the American Tissue lifestyle assortment and grew them with donated blood that expired and would have otherwise been destroyed," Fox news stated in November.
a group of scientists and artists created "Ouroboros Steak" as a essential response to the starting to be, although nonetheless-in-development, lab-grown-meat movement. The theoretical consumers of Ouroboros kits theoretically could be capable of use their personal cells -- taken from inside their cheeks -- to grow steaks.
"individuals suppose that ingesting oneself is cannibalism, which technically here's now not," said Grace Knight, one of the vital artists who worked on the task.
big name trek
An animation of what the disappearing celebrity looks -- or looked -- like. (YouTube)
an immense celebrity in a galaxy 75 million gentle-years away, studied through astronomers for two decades, all of sudden disappeared.
What happened? One tantalizing probability, referred to scientists once they introduced in June that the "luminous blue variable" celebrity had long past missing: it had "collapsed into a black hole without producing a supernova." the sort of fate for a "monster celebrity," they said, has by no means been detected.
on account of the megastar's distance from Earth, astronomers can't see it at once, simplest its signatures. That ability it nonetheless could be available, all at once dimmed from a protracted lifestyles neatly lived and now hiding in the back of space filth.
however the possibility that the megastar simply slipped away on little cosmic cat ft can be so 2020. pointed out Andrew Allan, an astrophysics researcher at eire's Trinity school:
"it would be highly atypical for such a large megastar to vanish with out producing a bright supernova explosion."
A Spike Lee joint
Director Spike Lee has a track in his ... coronary heart. (strengthen native archive)
Spike Lee has made loads of outstanding videos, from "Do the right element" to "BlacKkKlansman."
So whereas the field of his next movie task is just a little of a shock, who're we to question it?
In November, news broke that Lee goes to direct a movie concerning the discovery and advertising and marketing of the erectile-dysfunction tablet Viagra. Oh, essentially forgot: It's a musical. (The web page time limit Hollywood, bless them, dubbed the upcoming film a "tumescent tuner.")
Lee's remark about the mission:
"So eventually Going Into My 4th Decade As A Filmmaker I might be Directing A DANCIN', ALL SINGIN' MUSICAL Spike Lee Joint and that i Can't Wait."
A month of monoliths
The monolith that started all of it. (Utah department of Public safeguard by the use of AP)AP
On Nov. 18, a helicopter crew flying over a remote part of Utah's barren region seen a "flash of steel" in a canyon. They headed for it -- and discovered a ten-foot-excessive slab of steel stuck into the floor. "What the heck is that?" asked one of the men within the helicopter. first rate question. right here changed into one more one: How did it get approach out within the center of nowhere?
Cue the theme music from the sci-fi movie classic "2001: a space Odyssey," whose large black monoliths are cinematic cultural icons.
photographs of the actual-world monolith right away became a hit on social media, and so people began heading out into the pristine Utah desert to look it for themselves. They hiked in and even flew in -- unless finally four guys showed up in the middle of the night on Nov. 27 and dismantled the large metallic plank, calling the structure "litter."
however there's no maintaining an outstanding monolith down. The equal day the Utah piece fell, one other one popped up in Romania. The mayor of a city near the brand new monolith jokingly blamed extraterrestrial teenagers who stole "their parents' unidentified flying object." This 2d monolith disappeared four days later.
Then, the equal day the Romanian monolith become removed, Monolith III arrived on the facet of a California mountain. It additionally didn't last long. On Dec. 3, a gaggle of younger guys pulled it down while chanting "Christ is king during this nation. We don't desire illegal aliens from Mexico or outer area." They replaced it with a picket move, which in flip was quickly eliminated.
were the disappearing monoliths proof that nothing, now not even 2020, lasts always?
Nope. more monoliths continue to pop up: outdoor a sweet shop in Pittsburgh, in a nature reserve within the Netherlands -- and, who knows, possibly day after today someplace on your neck of the woods …
-- Douglas Perry
dperry@oregonian.com
@douglasmperry
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