When you wish...

Bart's Blackboard

I will not re-transmit without the express permission of major league baseball

in Lady Bouvier's Lover, Episode 102, Season 5

Alentejanos...

Agora sim, está tudo explicado...

Bart's Blackboard

There are plenty of businesses like show business

in The Boy Who Knew Too Much, Episode 101, Season 5

Strange Buildings - Part VIII: Cube-Houses - Rotterdam, Netherlands

The cubehouse (or polehouse or treehouse) is a design of the Dutch architect Piet Blom.He thought of his design as an (abstract) tree and of the total complex as a wood (=village).

So Blom's idea was to create a kind of village within a town, a safe oasis where several functions could take place: smallscale business, shops, a school and a children's playground downstairs (promenade level) and living in the cubehouses upstairs.The strong interaction between the private (upstairs) and the public (downstairs) is characteristic for this situation.The inhabitant has a great view because of the sloping windows.

The complex is in fact a pedestrian bridge crossing a traffic artery.This was an idea of municiple town-planners at the time.Piet Blom was asked to "furnish" this bridge.

The cubehouse could be called an architectonic experiment, in which Blom has considered form, aesthetics and spatial effects of greater importance than functionality and pratical purpose.Living in a cube (the top) reminds of a treehut which is accessible through the pole (the trunk).

Bart's Blackboard

I will not celebrate meaningless milestones

in Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song, Episode 100, Season 5

Darwin Awards - Hot Buns

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.
Here's one of the most recent stories:


Hot Buns 2009

Honorable Mention - Confirmed True by Darwin
(February 2009, Sweden)

Welcome to Sweden. Home of Swedish massage, Swedish cuckoos, and one Swedish meatball who decided to warm himself in an industrial strength oven.

The incident took place in freezing February at a facility operated by a maker of kitchen cabinets and fixtures (Ballingsl'v.)
The heating system in the loading area had ceased to function, leaving a shivering truck driver defenseless against the frigid winter.
Looking to escape the cold, this driver wandered toward the shrink-wrap oven and asked the operator if he could take a spin on the conveyor belt to get warm.

Although the driver was freezing his umlaut off, the operator hard-heartedly denied the man's request.
Undaunted, the driver waited until no one was looking and managed to hoist himself onto the conveyor belt for a blissful toasty ride.
But all those Swedish meatballs took their toll.
The massive (cough) trucker was too heavy for the belt and the motor shut down, leaving him stuck in the 360-degree oven.

Luckily, the oven operator noticed the stoppage and was able to drag the man out of the searing heat before he sustained serious injuries--except, perhaps, an industrial-strength tan.
Following the incident, Sweden's Work Environment Authority offered the oven operator counseling to work through the shock he suffered, and intends to carry out a risk assessment of surveillance around the shrink ovens.
Apparently they are too tempting to leave unguarded.


More stories in www.darwinawards.com. Don't miss it!

Bart's Blackboard

The pledge of allegiance does not end with hail satan

in Burn's Heir, Episode 99, Season 5