While not judgine others’ wierdness (toys are pretty easy to come by):
-a 195? Grundig Majestic radio. FM doesn’t work, SW and AM do
-A plastic engine cover from a 1997 Corvette, signed by various designers, engineers, and racing testers
-We’ve got a catgoyle and gargoyle hanging on the walls. (Gaston the gargoyle gets bunny ears for Easter, a pumpkin pail for haloween and a Santa Hat and wreath for Xmas)
-TI-99/4a with documentation, and data recorder
-Apple Newton 110
-Atari 2600 and 80+ carts.
-Brass WWI compass
-Pachinko + Skill Slot full size machines
-Jackalope
-Turkey foot, glued into the shape of the middle finger
-Anamatronic Witch (Wife’s a Ween Freak)
-Four post car lift in the garage (I won’t bother with the esoteric tools, but I have several)
Item #1. Two standard rolls of ‘Scotch tape’ or ‘Sello tape’, both about 5 inches diameter and 1 inch wide. Permanently linked together, like links in a chain, with no clue as to how the linking was achieved.
Weird. Utterly unique. And seemingly impossible (until you think about it for a long time).
Item #2. A plaster cast replica of my own face and head. This was made the way the special make-up FX guys do it for the movies… by having dental alginate poured and smeared over my entire head (I was allowed to breathe through straws) until it hardened and could be separated, forming a mold into which the plaster was then poured.
Item #3. Mounted for display and framed, a ‘preserved’ specimen of a really huge tarantula spider, leg span about 12 inches. (I don’t think ‘stuffed’ is quite the right term for a specimen such as this.)
A full sized mannequin.
A parachute (for decoration)
statue of David
set of easter island heads
a box of 5 1/2" disks of logs from a psycho chick I once knew (labeled “lesson learned”)
an old microphone like the made school announcements with
an honorary lesbian bongo drum.
A very cool shadow box thats about 3ft heigh by Micheal Garmond, we bought on our honeymoon in New Orleans.
2 steamer trunks
my first positive pregnancy test
The ashes of my grandfather and greyhound on the piano (not mixed)
The shirt I wore the day I gave away my horse.
Belizian coins
A very ratty set of books by charles darwin, dated in the 1800’s
The Popol Vu
4" book on radiocarbon dating
1936 websters dictionary
Way, way too many old books I bought because they were “neat”
commodore 64 with the phone cradle modem thingy
15 tombstones, a mechanical ghost and an awesome 5’ skeleton that looks rotten.
A Hattie Carnegie jacket that is awesome.
my daughters DNA (in my wallet)
Sand from Miami beach.
Camel bells and a chunk of obsidian. They’re family heirlooms. Seriously.
The remains of a Springfield A3-03. It was in a fire and we’ve never quite got around to getting a new stock and putting it all back together (not sure if it’s safe, either). An ancient vacuum tube tester, complete in a nice purple-velvet lined box. Oh! A copy of Dr. O Phelps Brown The Complete Herbalist -or- The People Their Own Physicians (1872). My best friend gave it to me, and it has the most amusing article on scabies. I’ll do an excerpt in spoiler tags for the excessively sqeamish:
Like the mole, he makes a channel many times his own length, at the end of which he takes his siesta, and from whence he saunters forth in search of provender. As age approaches, tired of the home of his youth, he digs onward, scoops out another, in which he ends his days, beloved and respected by all his neighbors.
That passage never fails to crack me up. A lot of the book is actually very useful, but it’s still got that old timey Victorian snake oil feel about it, too. It’s one of the awesomest things I own.
The oddest thing I own by far is a tiny figurine of an elephant that is made up of chewed-up tissue. When I was in Norway a few years ago, some random person (a performance artist, I assume he was) walked up to me on the street, motioned for me to extend my palm, covered my palm with a tissue, stuffed some more tissue into his mouth, vigorously chewed it up and then proceeded to spit it out into my hand. At first glance it looked like a spitball, but closer examination showed it to be a tiny elephant. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe that experience.
Nothing really weird in my home (well, nothing inanimate), but a few of our more unusual things;
A Halloween/Rocky Horror/Budwiser promo…thing (from a bar). It’s has about 30 4"X4" squares connected by a plastic ribbon. The squares alternate between the Rocky lips logo, Bud Light, and Happy Halloween.
A Transformers toy store display of Optimus Prime & Starscream, set up to show their electronic lights and sounds at the push of a button.
A 20mm shell (with the powder drilled out.)
A manicurist’s rubber practice hand cut and painted to look like it has bones sticking out of the wrist.
I use to have a vial of Berry Gordy’s blood in my refrigerator.
A nurse friend who worked in a hospital where he was being treated simply withdrew an extra vial and gave to me. I kept it for several years, but threw it out when I realized it would be hard to explain if it was ever discovered. Not the sort of thing you can put on eBay anyway.
Sorry, it’s only a peace desk when the kids are napping and I’m at the PC. The rest of the time, it’s a no-peace desk (“Can I watch the llama song again, PEEAAAASSE?!?!?” or “I wanna go to the Nickelodeon site!!!”)
We have a “Fire Bomb” no, not that kind, one to put out fires.
Except, the chemical is deadly poison, so we keep it packed in a large, rigid, padded container. It’s very thin glass, without any obvious opening, sort of like a net float.
Someone found it at a garage sale and gave it to Hubby, the fireman.
We’ll probably take it to the Haz-Mat receiving site when we move. I’m not interested in moving it.
We also have a 5’ inflatable Corona bottle.
I have a number of transparancies that were used to make movie posters.
