Tell me about a novelty item you have in your home.

We were at a Ren Faire a few years back & they had various ceramic jars for sale, “Wing of Newt”, “Eye of Bat”. I got the one that says “Toenails”; it’s in the kitchen (but holds matchbooks instead of it’s labeled purpose.)

We have devotional candles featuring Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, and Nick Offerman.

We are horrible people with a front seat on the bobsled to Hell when we die. :smiley:

The bathroom has

A bottle of holy water bubble bath

A Fearsome Flush action figure (it’s a toilet with wheels. When you push it, it opens to a monster face)

There’s also a Weekly World News article on the bathroom door “Haunted Toilet Kills Third Plumber In Eight Years”

Too many to count, but the one I get the most fun out of is my Barrel Man. I love to see the surprise on people’s faces when they lift the barrel.

a real dead bat in a bottle of formalin

A large Ball & Claw Bitters bottle containing a plastic skeleton

3 or 4 gargoyles

A plush Cthulhu

A small ceramic Cthulhu statue I made

several different Rasputin figurines from the film Anastasia

a variety of monster models and toys

several Zoids (cleverly designed robotic looking dinosaurs and animals)

a few small, squishy foam brains.

a ceramic squid

several key rings of odd keys- one turned out be a cruciform safe deposit box key. Another turned out to be the key to diner napkin dispensers.

a lava lamp

A lifesize ceramic bust of a man with a large flame coming out of his head

a Bonsai Potato altar

I have a music box that plays “It’s a Small World” and little children dressed in traditional clothing from different countries turn on little platforms.

I have a music box that plays “Winter Wonderland” and displays Garfield and Odie spinning around on ice. Odie is sitting in his dog dish and Garfield wields a hockey stick.

One whimsical item that I don’t have but wish I did was a genie bottle that my grandfather had. He liked goofy items like that. It was in the style of the bottle from “I Dream of Jeannie” (not like Aladdin’s lamp) but was a sort of dull olive color and had a little window in the side that would give you little sayings sort of like a Magic 8 Ball. I wish I had that thing!

I’ve got all sorts of crap, particularly out the rumpus room.

Apart from the Air Hockey table, I’ve got the full collection of Talking Boony’s Shop by Category | eBay including the Warnie and Beefy ones, with them is a small female doll that makes very “innapropriate” sugestions when squeezed (perfect for Warnie)

I also have a slushie machine on the bar and a back scratcher made out of a fresh water crocodile’s foot.

A small, plastic, Stanley Cup trophy. (Remember that beer promotion, anyone?)

Also an old Niagara Falls trinket. Plastic, in the shape of an old console TV, hold it to the light, look through the peep hole and see one of 12 views if the falls! It’s so old even the photos in the viewmaster thing are dated with old cars and fashions!

I have a small collection of Chinese snuff bottles. The collection would be bigger if I had more space to keep them.

One of them I bought for US$5 from a street vendor in Beijing who, at no additional charge, used a small tool to write my wife’s name on the inside side of the bottle. He wrote her name in the Roman alphabet (I supplied the spelling), and since he was writing inside the bottle had to do it backwards. Very impressive. From the link above: “Without doubt, the class of bottle that arouses most interest in the non-collector is that known as inside painted. These are glass bottles which have pictures and often calligraphy painted on the inside surface of the glass. These delightful scenes are only an inch or two high and are painted while manipulating the brush through the neck of the bottle maybe only a quarter inch across, and also painted in reverse.”

I also have an unopened can of Singha beer from 10 years ago. It was a special series that advertised the upcoming Rolling Stones concert. (Singha was a sponsor.) But it was never held, because after the Sars epidemic broke out in Asia, the Stones canceled all their remaining Asian dates.

Actually, looking over at the cabinet where the snuff bottles are on display, we have a number of artifacts we’ve picked up in various countries, among them a ceramic tiger-painted opium pipe I bought in Cambodia, a terra-cotta water buffalo from Laos, a couple of small vases from Indonesia including one made from bits of eggshell, a papier-mache fox from outside a fox-themed temple in Japan, a pair of decorative elephants from Sri Lanka (the wife had attended a conference in Kandy), a ceramic Vietnamese-coffee maker obtained in Hoi An. And many more. There’s even a small menorah the wife obtained in Jerusalem, where she spent several weeks on two occasions due to working on a project here in Thailand that obtained partial funding from Hebrew University. There are even some shot glasses from various Hard Rock Cafes and Planet Hollywoods.

Are you sure it’s not the head of a Subanahongsa, the golden swan of Thai lore? See here about halfway down.

No, a hongsa would at least look somewhat dignified. This is grey, with painted-on “scalloped” feathers and a pop-eyed look. It’s small enough that I think it’s meant for a child.

I’ll try to remember to take a picture tonight.

I have a Mount Fuji Walking Stick. I only made it to station 9 before the weather turned me back.