What's out there that it didn't occur to you even existed?

[Tara57]

@Ken001

The Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands who have aggressively resisted all contact with civilisation. An untouched people - I hadn’t realised there were any left on the planet.

http://excitingearth.com/tag/andaman-island/

Could someone braver than me Google Sentinelese porn?

[Baron_Greenback]

@Tara57

Could someone braver than me Google Sentinelese porn?

Just did - your post is the first result. Damn, google is fast.

[monstro]

It’s possible to have visible panty line on just one cheek, if one butt cheek is larger than the other.

Which apparently I have.

[MaxTheVool]

@psychobunny

Grapples. I thought my sister was pranking me when she offered me one.

What do you think happens when an apple gets graped by the grapist?

[JKellyMap]

This 240-year-old writing automaton surprised me.

Also, doesn’t quite fit the OP because I was always pretty sure they existed, but I’ve been surprised that we’ve found exoplanets several decades before humans land on Mars. If you’d asked me around 1980 (when I was ten years old), I would have predicted the latter would occur long before the former.

[fuchsiagroan]

@EmilyG

It exists, as does apple pie flavour.

There’s also grape flavored and pina colada. It all tastes like fruit punch.

[Siam_Sam]

@knel3030

Camouflage condoms.
If you think about it really is the inevitable pinnacle of techno-societal evolution, but no one saw it coming.

There are also glow-in-the-dark condoms, so you can see it coming.

Durian-flavored too, which squicks me out no end.

[handsomeharry]

@Dewey_Finn

And before you cringe in horror, it’s done with a laser, not a clothes iron.

That’s reassuring! Good to know that all I have to worry about is having a laser pointed at my scrotum.

[chappachula]

And on a lighter note:
There’s a thread over in IMHO right now about snow globes. (Somebody broke one that has nostalgic value, and wants to repair it.)
And yes, it turns out that there is a whole industry out there of snow-globe repair services.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@handsomeharry

That’s reassuring! Good to know that all I have to worry about is having a laser pointed at my scrotum.

My husband does not want to be in any situation in which having a laser pointed at his scrotum is the GOOD option.

[BurglesHams]

Got a lot of legitimate “LOLs” from this thread.

Here are 5 things others might not know about yet…

• Heated indoor pools specifically for dogs.

• An abandoned, unused airport in Spain that cost 1.1 billion Euros to build.

• An algorithmic “ex back quiz” that calculates the odds of you being able to get back together with an ex.

• A store in Canada called “Pirate Joe’s” that legally sells only Trader Joe’s merchandise in Canada, without permission from the ‘real’ Trader Joe’s company (they sued the owner and lost)

• A rooftop grass tennis court near the top of the Burj Al Arab skyscraper in Dubai
  Keep it comin’ so I can continue to defeat boredom by reading this thread and exploring uncharted Wikipedia territory, lol

[terentii]

@vontsira

The Mars bar (nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate); originated in the UK, but I understand that the US has a sweetmeat of the same name – similar but not identical.

When I lived in England in the '70s, a Mars was the equivalent of a US Milky Way; a Milky Way was the equivalent of a US Three Musketeers; a Marathon was the equivalent of a US Snickers; and a Curly-Wurley was the equivalent of a US Marathon. Dunno if it’s still that way, but I suspect so.

[Superhal]

USB Humping Dog.

I started collecting coins recently, and I’m getting surprised all the time what is out there, this is this week’s coin surprise: a $600k penny.

[Kobal2]

@Sunspace

That’s nothing. I made the mistake of looking for a picture of a tentacle for an assignment, and not turning my filters on. Brain Bleach Time. There is a sector of porn involving women being swallowed whole. Right next to this, there is a subsector involving giantesses chowing down on on tiny people. Connected to this is a subsubsector of giantesses stepping on people. And there are recreations of that last involving high heels and green plastic army men.

The universe is not only weirder than we imagine; it’s weirder than we can imagine.

I’ve found that most of this stuff is too incomprehensible to be disliked. The reaction is not ‘ick’; it’s ‘bwuh?’.

Well, the thing is, I can sort of understand tentacle porn. Not to the point of popping a boner over it, but it makes a weird kind of sense to me. It has rape vibes, degrading undertones, bondage parallels, yet *could *conceivably be pleasurable… yeah, I can see how a subsection of males would be turned on by it, even discounting the historical reasons why it exists so prominently in Japan. Same about vore (which, when you break it down, is really just penetration/oral sex taken to the extreme) or being crushed by giant women (same, but with femdom). I don’t dig it, but I grok it.

Balloon popping is incomprehensible to me because… how do you even *connect *that with sex in the first place ?!

[outlierrn]

Butter scuplture

[madrabbitwoman]

@Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament

Grape-flavored (scented?) cigars.

don’t know about grape but i was smoking port soaked cigars about 15 years ago.

[madrabbitwoman]

@purplehorseshoe

Yeah, there’s fried butter at the Texas State Fair as well, in addition to both chicken-fried bacon AND pig races. Bonus points if you attend one while eating the other. (“Go faster, you stupid pig, or you’ll end up nom like this snarfnom bacon in my mmmm hand!”)

They had deep-fried cheesecake a while back, too, not sure if they’re offering that this year.

I remember going to local shows when I was a kid where they had a greasy pig competition. They would get a largish piglet (pigteen?) an grease it up real good and then you pay to have a go at catching it. The prize was the pig. I cringe at the thought now but I was desperate to have a go as a kid.

[gracer]

Teacup pigs.

@Dewey_Finn

That’s old hat. The new “in” thing is “ball ironing.” George Clooney had this done. Some men apparently don’t care for wrinkles down there.

And before you cringe in horror, it’s done with a laser, not a clothes iron.

Brain bleach at the ready, I googled for before and after pictures and got… nothing. How disappointing

@vontsira

Further re strange Scottish fried eatables: this involves the Mars bar (nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate); originated in the UK, but I understand that the US has a sweetmeat of the same name – similar but not identical. Info all about them: www.marsbar.com

I learnt a few years ago, that fish-and-chip shops (where everything is deep-fried) in Scotland, had started serving Mars bars, dipped in batter and deep-fried. To someone not a Scottish chip-shop connoisseur, this idea initially seemed nauseating; but I gather that many former sceptics of the notion have ventured to try deep-friend Mars bars, and found them delicious. I’m quite a long way from Scotland; but my brother who lives in the south of England, much closer-to, has heard of a chip-shop in a town not far from his, which has these things on its menu. Must summon up courage and give it a try…

Honestly, it reminded me of having a forgotten Mars Bar in your pocket and sitting on it by accident for a long train journey. At the end of the journey you gleefully remember the Mars Bar, and there is great joy in eating the squished, warm thing.

It’s like that, but with batter. And less surprise.

[Crafter_Man]

Fresh Frozen Baby Eels. Yum!

[Scribble]

And chili oil soda.

On Thursday, I found out that Trader Joe’s has kimchi chips–i.e., dried kimchi meant to be eaten as a snack, like potato chips. (For those of you to whom this sounds tempting–I’ve discovered that kimchi chips are AWFUL.)