Inspired by this thread where someone is asking about the possibility of buying a shrunken head I thought I would see what strange items my fellow dopers have picked up along the way. In that thread Hide Thine Eyes says that he owns a chewed bullet used in surgery (!?) and a shark in a jar, two items that would definitely qualify as being strange in my boook.
Unfortunately I don’t anything particularly odd so I can’t start the ball rolling but I would be interested to know what you tiddly peeps have hiding in the cellar (preferably with pics :))
A shellfish fossil I found at Everest Base Camp. A banjolele. A Roman coin.
A friend of mine has a Tibetan votive bowl made out of the top of a human skull. I had the opportunity to get one myself, but decided it was just slightly too macabre.
I have a small collection of histology slides which I made myself. I did every step in processing the tissues, from embedding them in wax blocks, cutting 3-micron slices, getting them onto slides, and then staining them to show different things.
My favorite is a longitudinal slice of a tiny finger removed from a baby who was born with one too many.
Piece of coal from the Titanic. Pieces of rock from (places I now decided I shouldn’t post). Piece of space shuttle heat tile. Motorcycle tire with 14" rusty spike driven thru it and folded over twice on itself (only trophy I got at THAT race). Other various odd stuff I can’t think of now.
I have a piece of rock that I got from St Peters Cathedral that was ‘blessed’ by me and a former girlfriend. My wife loves the fact that it was blessed and it sits on a table for everyone to see.
A Timex Sinclair 1000 computer with 16k RAM and a 16k RAM extension pack, and its user manual which is bigger than it. It is used with a cassette player to load programs and a tv set to monitor.
It measures 6 1/2" x 7" x 1 1/2" and has a full qwerty keyboard (7" wide).
It’s getting uniquer and uniquer every day.
I also have small chunks of lava that I retireved from Mounts Etna and Vesuvius.
I used to own a copy of a fabrication of a first version DVD case was going to look like, before DVD had been released. It had the Usual Suspects as the cover. And as it turned out, DVD cases ended up looking different from it.
My uncle wanted to see it, so I let my dad take it to show him, and I haven’t seen it since. :rolleyes:
An “Ampelmannchen” pedestrian crossing signal from the former East Berlin, as shown in the upper-right of this page. It still lights up. Great conversation starter whenever anyone visits.
:eek: Good Og, I honestly never noticed that before, although that would explain the spring in his step. I think I’ll only light the “don’t walk” signal from now on…
The paperweight on my office desk. It appears to be a metal casting of a turkey leg bone judging by its size. It was made of melted nuts, bolts and screws and is chrome plated. Sometimes I like to wierd people out and tell them it’s a casting of an infant’s leg bone.
I’ve also got a crossbow-style blowgun which uses two lengths of surgical tubing to operate a plunger that launches the blowgun dart. The dart can penetrate through the back of an inch thick phone book. Neat!
