Sure, every band geek has heard of the mythic contrabass sax. But I bet you didn't know there were contrabass clarinets and french horns or subcontrabass recorders, flutes, and... uh... this thing. On the other end of the spectrum you've got the sopranino recorder, saxaphone, clarinet, and ukulele.
posted by phrontist on Aug 22, 2009 - 40 comments

RUN! is a single-button flash game. Hold A to run, and let it go to slow down. There are three difficulty settings and five levels. The music, design and sfx are off-putting. You will probably either hate it or play it for about 3 hours, and then hate it. [more inside]
posted by Damn That Television on Jul 27, 2009 - 53 comments

Unusual books. Unusual art made from books. Unusual bookcover. Unusual bookshelves. Unusual bookstore.
posted by desjardins on Sep 26, 2008 - 9 comments

Oddstrument is a blog about unusual musical instruments and other interesting acoustic technologies.
posted by Upton O'Good on Aug 28, 2008 - 15 comments

Framce Trombly creates household goods such as garden hoses, extension cords, and receipts out of cloth and thread.
posted by divabat on Jul 14, 2008 - 7 comments

"I believe that before anything art should bring happiness to the viewer." ~ Adib Fattal, Syrian Painter who infuses his work with bright colours (Titanic), optimistic scenes of places he remembers as a child (Jenin, Palestine), and wild life (Return of the Birds). More of his work here. [via]
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 12, 2008 - 13 comments

Prisoner 547 is a Rabbit in prison. He shares a cell with another Rabbit, a Frog and a Chicken. It is visiting day. In Japanese. One episode of many. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall on Jan 8, 2008 - 23 comments

Odd creativity with sex toys - sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes pretty far-out, and sometimes just unbelievable (all links probably NSFW to varying degrees)
posted by janetplanet on Nov 27, 2007 - 30 comments

Unusual Life Dot Com: Unusual Homes. Amazing Architecture. Strange Places. Fascinating People.
posted by dersins on Oct 9, 2007 - 13 comments

How to regain control of a spooked camel. There really is a guide to everything on the internet, and it doesn't have to be computer-related either. How to get out of work. How to be a girl (for boys), and of course how to be a boy (for girls). How to disassemble a toilet. How to install a new toilet. How to display civic pride without sounding lame. How to set up a threesome (good luck with that one). How to kill your friend and steal his girlfriend. How to survive a long fall (presumably in case one of your friends throws you out of the window so he can get it on with your woman).
posted by clevershark on Nov 13, 2006 - 27 comments

Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 7 An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. Cruel and unusual punishment?
posted by Unregistered User on Aug 13, 2006 - 43 comments

Rummage Through The Crevices (Musical Curiosities, Obscurities and other Unearthed Treasures) is "a weekly community radio segment (Friday mornings, 2SER-FM, Sydney, Australia) devoted to offbeat and outsider music, less travelled paths of global pop, interesting re-issued treasures, music-sharing activists, notable and unusual online mp3 repositories, etc. This webloggy thing is its online companion."
posted by taz on May 30, 2005 - 5 comments

Pornocracies, sterile atomic flies, intellectual property absolutism, and the heavy metal umlaut. Plus an amazing amount of information about people who went up against the laws of thermodynamics and lost. All this and much, much more in the Wikipedia unusual articles category.
posted by ontic on Feb 8, 2005 - 24 comments

Snatch first prize at a Halloween party! There's plenty of, umm, interesting costumes over at Ronjo. The kids' ones aren't of the pimp and ho caliber, but the doggie pimp is excellent. Or you could just become a prophylactic superhero in your spare time.
posted by bbrown on Aug 23, 2004 - 15 comments

Is forcing a prisoner on death row to take antipsychotic medication to make him sane enough to execute cruel and unusual punishment? (NYT link) A federal appeals court ruled that officials in Arkansas can force a prisoner on death row to take antipsychotic medication to make him sane enough to execute. The problem is that the American Medical Association's ethical guidelines prohibits precisely that. To make the case more surreal, a representative of the Arkansas attorney general's office who argued for the state later said: "The ethical decisions involving doctors are difficult ones, but they are not ones for the courts". Does this mean that COs -Correction Officers- are to figure out for themselves which medication to administer? Do they also call the shots when deciding if the "waiting" patient is sane enough???
posted by magullo on Feb 11, 2003 - 58 comments

Today, the balance of nature was restored in the Sambura wildlife reserve when a 15 day old oryx calf that had been 'adopted' by a lioness was fatally eaten by a less forward thinking member of the Panthera leo community. Here's a prior story with a photo.
posted by davehat on Jan 8, 2002 - 6 comments

Cruel and unusual? "Expert witnesses testified that the brief delays give the body time to recover and increase the chance the person will feel pain." What a crock... I wonder if the 3 year old baby he killed and dismembered felt any pain? The punishment should fit the crime. Although the death penalty doesn't deter crime, if we punished those in the same manner that they commited the murder, then maybe criminals would think twice... then again, maybe not.
posted by da5id on May 9, 2000 - 32 comments