Bathing in Pepto-Bismol?

Hi there! Wonderful to see you! Help yourself to a mug of coffee and a virtual treat. Try one of those pink-frosted strawberry muffins. Speaking of pink...

Would you believe it if someone told you Pepto Bismal isn’t manufactured from chemicals, but sourced from the water of a natural lake? It isn’t true, but you certainly might you certainly might be tempted to believe it after seeing pictures of the Lake Hillier, a bright, bubble gum pink body of water located on the edge of Recherche Archipelago’s largest island, in Australia. 

The salt water lake is so striking that airplane passengers passing over Middle Island often get out of their seats just to get a glimpse of it.

The earliest records mentioning the existence of Lake Hillier are the journals of Matthew Flinders, a British navigator and hydrographer. In 1802, Flinders had to climb Middle Island’s highest peak to survey the surrounding waters and came across the remarkable pink lake. Hillier has been pretty much untouched by human hand for a long time, except for a few years when a salt extraction operation was set up in the area. 

The pink lake isn’t just stunningly beautiful, but a also a natural mystery scientists have been unable to unravel. So far, no explanation has ever been found for its unique hue. Some theories state that the color could result from a dye created by the organisms living in the lake – Dunaliella salina and Halobacteria. 

Another speculation is that the pink color might be  attributed to the presence of red halophilic bacteria in the salt crusts. No one knows for sure, but that bright pink definitely is definitely no illusion. When the water is collected in a container, it retains its pinkish tinge. Although the waters are shallow and have been deemed safe to swim in, most tourists are reluctant to go in for a dip in what looks like a delicious strawberry milk shake.

I'd go in, wouldn't you? Go on...be a devil, eh! Of course, you never know what's lurking beneath the pink waves...

See ya, eh!

Bob

Comment from Don F. in Pattaya:
Hi Bob,

Great article on expiration date.  Several years ago, I told my wife that I did not want to be alive for a long time, past my expiration date, so to speak.  I did not want to make doctors even richer.  I wanted to be treated like an old Thai man with little or no money. Just keep me comfortable and let me go when
it is my time.

Bob's reply:
Sounds like a good plan, Don! 

Are we living past our expiration date?

Hi ya! Glad you could make it today. Fill up your mug and wrestle one of those mega muffins onto your plate, why don't'cha? How're you feeling anyway? Aches and pains? We all have them. As we get older, we seem able to find more of them than we knew was possible - and they take longer to dissipate, too, eh! 

Thanks to today's powerful medicines, we are able to keep a person alive purely by feeding them oxygen and keeping their heart pumping, even though the rest of their body is failing.  We can drug people to levels of oblivion to kill pain and symptoms of life-threatening disease so we can keep them physically alive, but mentally dead.  And, law prohibits those who are terminally ill from choosing death over life, even though they are unhappy and living in an undignified and painful state without any hope for change.

Medicine has successfully removed people’s ability to die with dignity.  Instead, medicine forces people to live like vegetables, sometimes not having any idea of what is going on around them.  And, although there are the rare 99+ year olds who have a sharp and alert mind, more often than not, they are extremely limited in their ability to really LIVE life.

Frankly, I’d much rather die suddenly than live to be 100 without very much physical capacity or for that matter, mental capacity.  Living a life that has very little ‘living’ in it seems pointless.  If we could live to 100 and actually partake in what life has to offer, I’d be all for it, but I’m not convinced this is really the case.  Until medicine can extend our quantity of years... and ensure a quality of life that is worth living, I sometimes wonder "Are we living too long?"

I used to say I wanted to live to 100...maybe 200... but pain management for the last 10-20 years of a person's life is not the best scenario. Hopefully the science guys will eventually find answers to all our troubles but I am hearing more and more people beginning to wonder the same thing. With our population living longer, quality of the so called 'golden years' will continue to be an issue. Do you want to live to 100 or beyond? Science seems to think it will happen before too long but...  Do you think medicine keeps us living past our expiration date?

See ya, eh!

Bob

Modern Espressionist Creates Amazing Latte Portraits

Hey there! I was looking in my coffee cup just now and saw your face appear so I knew it was you hovering out there in cyberspace waiting to click on in. Who needs a crystal ball when you have coffee, eh? Coffee's hot, virtual treats are an amazing array of splendiferousness so dig in and feast! Speaking of faces in coffee cups...

New York City barista Mike Breach uses a toothpick as a brush to create beautiful portraits into his tasty lattes. From Albert Einstein to rapper Jay Z, it seems like there’s no face this self-proclaimed “espressionist” can’t draw on coffee.

Today Mike Breach is a well-known coffee artist, with a big following on social sharing sites like Tumblr, but only a year ago he was just another barista working in a hotel kitchen surrounded by espresso machines. He was “so, so bored” that he started drawing things on coffee just to pass the time. Armed with a toothpick he realized he could manipulate the coffee foam and milk to create all kinds of designs.

He started by doing hearts on his cups and people got really excited about it, so he kept on practicing and came up with adorable teddy bears, and even a portrait of the hotel boss. At first he didn’t think he could ever draw faces into his lattes, but his skills gradually improved to the point where he’s now able to create detailed celebrity portraits.

The fact that his artworks only last for a few minutes only makes them more personal. “I kind of want to be like Willy Wonka with coffee- make it interesting and fun for people; take the pretentiousness out of it, take the seriousness out of it,” Mike says.

Jiggle the coffee on the way to the table and it's back to the toothpick, I guess. Hope he's not wearing one of those Japanese girl-friend hugging coats while he's creating, either.

See ya, eh!

Bob

Japanese High-Tech Coat Imitates Girlfriend Hugs

Ah, those clever...but hug-starved Japanese! Hey...pour yourself a mug of Joe and grab a virtual treat while I tell you about their latest invention, okay? Did I mention it's great to see you today? Well it is!

Studies have shown  that hugs can truly make lonely people feel better, so a group of Japanese students from Tsukuba University have invented a coat designed to imitate the feeling of a girlfriend hugging you from behind.

Hugging is all the rage right now. London has its own cuddling workshop for people in need of a hug and a professional cuddler in New York City will wrap her arms around you for a fee. But these solutions don’t work very well if you suddenly find yourself in need of a hug and there’s no one around to give it to you. Yeah, right, eh! For a price, there are ladies (and gents) in every city who will be delighted to partake in a quick cuddle!

Luckily, a team of Japanese students have come up with a more practical, if weird, solution – a special hugging coat that emulates the sensation of a girlfriend putting her arms around you from behind. Called the Raiju Coat (Fulfillment Coat), this offbeat invention features motors attached to its back to operate the artificial “arms”, which are controlled through a computer using a USB connection.

So whenever its owner feels lonely and in need of a fake girlfriend hug, all he has to do is put it on, close his eyes and imagine a cute anime girl putting her arms around him, as the coat takes hold of his waist. To make the experience even more realistic, the Raiju Coat comes with a pair of headphones that plays the sound of footsteps running from behind and pre-recorded sentences like “I’m sorry, were you waiting?”; “Watch your back!”; “Guess who?”; and “Blind side!” With such advanced hugging technology, who needs a real girlfriend?

Ahem...there are a couple points to be made for a real lady sneaking up and hugging you from behind, wouldn't you say?

See ya, eh!

Bob 

Thai Govt offering cash for photos of forest fires

Well, now...great to see you today! Thanks for taking tike to click on by. Coffee's freshly roasted and brewed and the virtual treats are hot out of the oven. So help yourself. Segue...speaking of hot as an oven...

According to a report I just read, anyone in Thailand who takes a photo of a forest fire and sends it to the Thai authorities will be rewarded with Bt500 in cash under the pilot phase of the "Hunt the Smog" project.
"We will take tough action against those lighting fires in forest zones to clear land for farming. Fires cause smog, which endangers the health of others," Science Minister Woravat Auapinyakul said yesterday.

"We have found that most forest fires are started by people," he said during a trip to this northern province to monitor the haze crisis and to launch the public campaign.

If the picture leads to the arrest of arsonists, the reward will jump to Bt5,000. If it is among the first 10 submissions, the reward will double to Bt10,000. ($1=Bt30 more or less)

Well now either I just have an evil, warped mind or I lived in Thailand too long but it seems to me that there are many people who, even though Bt500 is only about $15, might think about starting a fire, taking a picture of it and claiming the reward. Let’s see…Bt500 once a day for a week is Bt3500. For many, that is not bad. 

Of course the government might start getting suspicious if the same person shows up at the same time every day for a week with a photo of a new fire, don’t’cha think? 

Trouble is…some people don’t always reason things out – or worry about the consequences such as destroying forests, killing wildlife…and landing themselves in the Monkey House!

See ya, eh!

Bob

The Ocellated Ice Fish

Hi ya! Great to see you today.  Coffee's on...treats are virtually delicious and I've got a strange creature for you to look at today. Before we get into that, you know I have always had a keen interest in science...odd critters and all such and, if I've said this before, well... just bear with it okay...but with such a myriad of odd inhabitants on our planet, one has to wonder if the creator of our universe, whoever or whatever that might be, isn't using Earth as a testing ground...or a living museum...or maybe even a zoo. Well I wonder anyway. Consider this fish...

Every animal with bones has hemoglobin in its blood, which carries oxygen through its body and gives blood its red color. Every animal except one – the ocellated ice fish which has water-clear blood.

The ocean’s depth have revealed a series of odd life forms in recent years, from giant squid to translucent sea anemones, but scientists say the ocellated ice fish discovered in 2011 is among the most fascinating creatures the world over.  

This unique fish lives in the ice-cold waters of Antarctica at depths of up to 3,300 feet (1 kilometer), and the only specimens in captivity can be found at Japan’s Tokyo Sea Life Park. Apart from the fact that it has transparent blood and no scales, the ocellated ice fish is not much different than most of the fish species living in Earth’s waters.  But its two special traits have researchers baffled. Because hemoglobin is responsible for carrying oxygen through the body of vertebrates, it’s not yet clear how this species can survive without the metalloprotein which binds with oxygen. 

Several theories have been formulated on the subject, with some scientists speculating that the unusually large heart of the ocellated ice fish might help move oxygen using plasma instead of hemoglobin, and others saying that it may be able to absorb oxygen through its scale-free skin from the oxygen-rich waters of Antarctica. But the truth is very little is known about this fascinating creature and there are yet no facts to back up the claims.

We are discovering more and more of these creatures able to live in extreme conditions such as volcanoes, ice cold water and thousands of feet under the sea in deep perpetual darkness.  How many more are out there that we haven't found yet?

See ya, eh!

Bob

Zippity Do Dah...Ouch!

Hi ya! Wassup? Thought I heard you zipping around cyberspace. Be careful that you don't catch anything in your zipper! Fill your mug and grab hold of a tasty virtual treat. Now zip up and listen. You and I aren't the only ones who get some part of our bodies caught in our zippers. Sure, males are more prone to it because, well, you know...bananas and plums and such... though I am sure women get parts of their anatomy caught from time to time, eh!(?)

You may not know this but between 2002 and 2010, according to the March BJU International (formerly British Journal of Urology), an estimated 17,600 patients came to U.S. hospital emergency rooms reporting genital injuries from trouser zippers (presumably by accident, but researchers took no position on that). 

Seven authors (six from University of California, San Francisco) took credit for the report, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, and found that "zip" wounds were only about one-fifth of emergency penile injuries. Too much information...I don't want to know about the other four-fifths, do you? No, I didn't think so. 

Zippers are useful things but there must be something better - like velco maybe. You never get your you-know-what caught in Velcro now do you!

See ya, eh!

Bob 

Snail Mail: There's an App for That

Well hi there! Great to see you. Hey...I forgot to tell you the big news. The population of Cornwall has increased. Yeah, I know... hard to believe. For years the population on the highway sign approaching the city read 46,000. Well, the last time we drove in, there was a brand spanking new sign with a new number...47,000. In fairness, it should have read 47,002 since Nong and I just moved here. But then I guess the local government hasn't heard. Anyway, don't just stand there with that empty mug...fill it to the brim with coffee, grab a virtual treat and let's talk snail mail, okay?

Wait ... What? A startup company in Austin, Texas, also serving San Francisco, promises to take its customers' incoming U.S. mail three times a week, photograph it and deliver it back to the customers via mobile phone app, for $4.99 a month. 

The company, Outbox, provides some value-added services, removing the customer from junk-mail lists and paying bills. Still, Outbox's unorthodox business model assumes that a growing number of people absolutely hate opening, filing or discarding pieces of paper. 

Co-founder Will Davis told CNN in February that at least he does not fear competition: "No one is crazy enough to do what we're doing." 

Right...unless it catches on, eh. Then watch a bunch of others jump on the mail wagon. Me? I have always liked opening mail...except bills, of course. It makes good interesting wallpaper and lining for birdcages, though.

See ya, eh!

Bob 

Cow's Milk Vodka?

G'day to you! Wonderful to see you. Help yourself to a mugga and a virtual pastry, why don't'cha? Say... did you have your milk today? 

Jason Barber, a farmer from Dorset, England, has spent three years creating the world’s first milk vodka. Now, his Black Cow label is the poison of choice for celebrities like Elizabeth Hurley and James Bond star Daniel Craig.

47-year-old Jason Barber, a sixth generation farmer, got the idea for his pure cow milk vodka after watching a TV documentary on Tuva, a small Siberian republic where people make vodka from yak milk. Intrigued by the idea, he set out to make his own, from the milk of the 250 cows on his farm in Beaminster, Dorset. It took him three long years to perfect the process, but the final result is nothing short of impressive, according to food and drink experts. 

Barber starts out by separating the milk into curds and whey. He uses the former to make cheese, while the latter is fermented into beer, using special yeast, to convert the sugar into alcohol. After being distilled, the milk beer goes through a special blending process. The resulting vodka is triple-filtered and hand-bottled. Made from fresh whole milk Black Cow vodka is apparently an exceptionally smooth drink with a distinct creamy character.

Hey...how about Vodka Cheese? Vodka yogurt? Vodka creamcheese? Vodka ice cream? Now you're talking! In fact, any recipe that calls for milk...

See ya, eh! I'm going out to go buy a cow!

Bob

A Welfare Mansion!

Hi ya! A frosty Friday to you. It snowed here overnight but other than that how're you doing? Pour yourself a hot mug of coffee and snag a virtual doughnut while the getting's good! Hey, every once in a while I rant on about one welfare system or another. Well listen to this...

Heather Frost, 36, and mother of 11, is getting a brand-new, specially designed house through the Tewkesbury (England) Borough Council, which deemed inadequate the duplex that the family had been using at taxpayer expense for five years. Frost had complained that she needed larger quarters because one daughter now owns a horse and needs to stable it (and, said a stable worker, had almost acquired two more horses, but that deal fell through).

A local resident had short-shrift for Frost's lifestyle and said it was a slap in the face for hard-working families. He said: 'The benefits system is broken. It should be there as a safety net and to support people who need help, not for people to live on. You should have to work for your money, not work the system like this.
 
'You should only have the amount of kids that you are able to support - if I had more children I wouldn't be able to work as much.'

It was revealed this week how Miss Frost's lavish lifestyle has also extended to treating her current partner, 57-year-old James Martin, to flying lessons, while she even owns a horse and a £1,000 parrot called Jake.

Earlier this week her father waded into the row branding her 'lazy' and saying she needed to 'get off her backside' and get a job.

Royston Frost, 72, is angry and ashamed of his daughter and confessed he doesn’t even know the identity of the fathers of two of his daughter’s 11 children. 


‘Ever since she had her first child, she hasn’t been able to work because she’s had to look after all those kids. ‘She should have got off her backside and got a bloody job like the rest of us. She’s on all the benefits she can get. '

Heather Frost has never done a day's work in her life. It's all in figuring out the system, i'n't it?

See ya, eh!

Bob

The Stinking Rose!

Hey there! How're you doing today, eh? Me? I'm in the pink. We just got cable and Internet connected and will have our brand spanking new gas range connected after lunch. Of course I have gas anyway! While you're here, pour yourself a mug of Arabica juice and grab a virtual muffin, why don'tcha? Sorry...no garlic muffins though I'm working on a recipe.

If your idea of a perfect meal is garlic, garlic and more garlic, The Stinking Rose restaurant should definitely be on your itinerary the next time you’re in San Francisco. Their motto – “we season our garlic with food” – says about everything you need to know about this place.

Located in the Italian North Beach district of San Francisco, The Stinking Rose is probably not the best place to go on a first date, at least not if you plan on getting to first base. The garlic-centered restaurant prides itself on serving over 3,000 pounds of the pungent seasoning every month, so you can expect almost every dish served here to be literally covered in it. 

It does have a few garlic-free foods on its Vampire Fare menu, for “those finding the herb’s folklore and aroma more appealing than its taste”, but if you’re not a fan of the culinary treat, there’s really no point in visiting. 

On the other hand, if you are a garlic enthusiast, all you have to do is “follow your nose” and it will lead you to the door of The Stinking Rose restaurant, on Columbus Avenue. 

As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted by the unmistakable smell of garlic and a gallery of garlic-inspired memorabilia covering the ceiling and walls of this unique establishment. Colorful garlic characters, a mechanical miniature garlic factory and the world’s longest garlic braid featuring 2,635 bulbs of garlic are just some of the whimsical decorations you can expect to find inside The Stinking Rose.

Would you believe I once had an onion sandwich on garlic bread? I did! Delicious. 

See ya, eh!

Bob

Fangweng – China’s Cliff-Hanging Restaurant

Hi there! Hope your day is motoring along. Me? I'm in the slow lane now and enjoying not having to do anything I don't want to...even painting and fixing things around the house, though tiring are satisfactory if you know what i mean. So help your self yo a mugga and a virtual muffin while I tell you about a 'specky' restaurant in China.

Trekking in the mountains generally means having to survive on packaged food; but not if you’re in China. There’s a particular mountain in the Hubei Province, 12 km north of the city of Yichang, where you can actually experience fine-dining on the side of a cliff. Located in the Happy Valley of Xiling Gorge, the Fangweng hanging restaurant offers a breathtaking view of its natural surroundings to adventurers brave enough to set foot in it.

The dull brick building that acts as an entrance to the Fangweng Restaurant simply doesn’t do the place justice, and it’s only after you pass through it that you can give yourself a pat on the back for discovering such a unique venue to experience Chinese cuisine while admiring the natural beauty of Xiling Gorge. Unless you’re afraid of heights, in which case the 30-meter-long narrow concrete bridge hanging on the side of a vertical cliff overlooking the Yangtze River might just be your worse nightmare.

Luckily, there’s a metal railing you can grab on to while you crawl your way to the actual restaurant. The bridge leads to a dining hall carved into the cliff-side, where most of the tables are set. Warmly lit by traditional lamps hanging from the ceiling and decorated with Chinese furnishings, the cave itself is a sight to behold, but the main attractions of Fangwen are the two concrete platforms extending away from the cliff, from where diners can see all the wonders of Happy Valley or watch bungee jumpers as they leap off a nearby bridge.

...And you might not even mind hanging around waiting for your table.

See ya, eh!

Bob

Window Shopping Just Got Expensive!

Hi Ya! How're you doing today, eh? Winter's back with a b-r-r-r today in Cornwall. -14C this morning! Luckily I'm sitting here with a coffee and a muffin. Why don't you pull up a chair and enjoy the same? Say...you window shop, don't'cha? Of course. We all do. Well now it's getting expensive and I hope this idea will NOT catch on here.

Tired of having people walk into her gluten free produce store looking around and asking questions only to leave empty-handed and buy similar products somewhere else, a business owner from Brisbane, Australia, put up a sign announcing would-be shoppers they will be charged a $5 fee for “just looking”.

A photo of the notice in the window of Celiac Supplies went viral on popular social news site Reddit, this week. A lot of people thought it was a joke, but reporters from the Australian Associated Press tracked down the owner of “Brisbane’s only glutenfree and wheatfree store” who confirmed the measure was for real. 

Apparently Georgina felt forced to take radical action after spending several hours each week giving advice to people only to see them walk out empty handed and buying the same kind of products from local supermarkets or online shops. ”I’ve had a gut full of working and not getting paid,” she told AAP. ”I’m not here to dispense a charity service for Coles and Woolworths to make more money.” 

Her frustration is also fueled by the fact that in most cases her prices match those of larger supermarkets, but people still prefer to shop elsewhere thinking they’d find them cheaper. As you can imagine, her $5 “just looking” tax has turned some potential customers away, but Georgina says a few have actually paid up.

Yeah well...you pays your money and you take your chances, right? Due diligence includes checking out the competition before you open your shop, eh.

This is one lady who's making window shopping quite a pane...I mean pain!

See ya, eh!

Bob

Tokyo's Buddhist Bar

Well, hey there! Welcome back to me, eh! How the heck are you? Me? Thanks for asking. Stiff as a board from moving, shifting, walking up and down countless stairs, etc. However, we are ensconced in our new abode and well into rearranging everything... fixing... painting... ripping out... re-electrifying the place, et al. 

Nong started back at Tims today and we won`t get TV and Internet service till Thursday so I still have to go out to Tims to check my email and send out these blogposts. Luckily there`s a Tims at either end of the block. Hey...how`d that happen? Fill your mug and grab a VT while I tell you about a special bar in Japan.

Who says booze and religion don’t mix? That’s certainly not the case at Vowz, a unique Tokyo bar run by two Buddhist monks who serve customers delicious cocktails, religious chants and sermons.

There are over 10,000 bars in Tokyo, but none like the Vowz, in the city’s Yotsuya neighborhood. Opened by Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshinobu Fujioka, this offbeat watering hole has been bringing members of his congregation together for 13 years. ”They become totally different believers here, the distance between them and myself diminishing,”the shaved-head bartender says. “They are more connected with each other.” 

In the old days, people would go to Buddhist temples to socialize and have a drink, but times have changed, and Fujioka decided to adapt in order to remain close to the people. So he opened the Vowz Bar, a place where people could come in and listen to Buddhist sermons and homilies without feeling constrained in any way. 

”At the temple, folks are always well-behaved and attentive, no matter how long or boring the sermon is,” head monk Gugan Taguchi says. “Here at the bar, they don’t like my sermons — they walk out.” But thanks to the friendly atmosphere and the tasty cocktails prepared by the monks themselves, that hardly ever happens.

Talk about a great place to `get religion`, eh!

See ya, eh!

Bob

A Ship in the Middle of the Canadian Prairies?

Well, hi there! Wonderful to see you. Coffee's hot, VTs are warm and fresh out of the oven so dig in! What's strange about a ship in the middle of Saskatchewan? Read on, eh!

Driving down No. 2 highway south of Moose Jaw, bang in the middle of the Saskatchewan prairie, you can see a large ship flying Finnish and Canadian flags. Confused about a ship so far away from the sea? The ship was built there for good reason by a Finn named Tom Sukanen during the Great Depression. His plan was to use the vessel to sail back to his homeland of Finland.

Tom’s story is the stuff that several Finnish and Canadian documentaries and plays are made of. Born in 1878 in the Finnish archipelago, he learned to sail and navigate with a compass and sextant, and also became proficient in steel working and shipbuilding – the only trades available on the coast where he grew up. 

At the age of 20, he sailed to America and ended up in Minnesota, like many other Norwegians, Finns and Swedes. He married a young Finnish girl and managed to make a small living on the farm his father-in-law had left them, raising a family of three daughters and a son. 

It wasn’t the life he had dreamed of when he left Finland, so 1911, out of desperation, he abandoned his family and went across the Canadian border in search of his brother. He completed the 600-mile journey on foot, finally reuniting with his brother in the Macrorie-Birsay area in Saskatchewan.

What happened after that? Sketchy but I guess if was after he finished building the ship that someone told him the nearest ocean access was approximately 1000 miles away. No wonder it's still there, eh! I wonder what the Finnish equivalent of 'Oy Vey!' would be?

See ya, eh!

Bob

Cage Homes in Hong Kong

Hi there! How's life treating you today? Hope it's smiling all around you. Smile your way over to the coffeepot and pour some brown elixir into your mug. Snag a virtual treat while you're there, eh. Say...remember I did a post a while ago about folks in Tokyo who pay $600 for a 4x4x10' apartment? Well, compared to these folks, they've got it good!

Hong Kong is generally known the world over for its material comforts and affluent lifestyle. But there’s a dark  it as well that not many are aware of. Parallel to the wealthy citizens of Hong Kong there exists a community that is unable to cope with skyrocketing housing prices. These people are quite literally forced to live in tiny metal cages.

What’s worse is that the cages don’t come for free either. Stacked on top of each other, the 1.5 sq m enclosure can be rented at a price of 1,300 Hong Kong dollars (about US $167) per month. These cages are crammed into a single dilapidated apartment in a working-class neighborhood in West Kowloon. Believe it or not, these metal living quarters are home to a whopping 100,000 people, according to statistics provided by a social welfare group called the Society for Community Organization. 

Other types of inadequate housing include apartments subdivided into tiny cubicles or filled with coffin-sized wood and metal sleeping compartments as well as rooftop shacks. Only two toilet stalls are available in each apartment and have to be shared by hundreds of single, elderly men, who make up the majority of the cage-occupants. No kitchen as such is provided; there’s only a small room with a sink. 

Almost all the men wash their clothes in a bucket. Instead of using mattresses, the men use thin pads, bamboo mats or old linoleum in their cages to keep the bedbugs away.

We sometimes like to complain about our lot in life. Stories like this remind us how good we really have it.

See ya, eh!

Bob

Billboard Produces 100 Liters of Drinking Water a Day

Hey there! Wonderful to see you! Wassup? Pour yourself a mug of pick-me-up juice. Grab a virtual treat while your over there. Say...you know how they're always on about us drinking more water, eh? Well in Peru they have come up with a novel idea. 

Researchers in Peru have teamed up with an ad agency to provide a viable solution to the problem of potable water shortage in Lima, the world’s second-largest city in the world. Their  creation is a s simple as it is ingenious – a billboard that turns air humidity into drinking water.

Located northern edge of the Atacama, the driest desert in the world, the city of Lima and its surrounding villages get around 0.51 inches of precipitation per year. For a long time, the capital city has relied on drainage from the Andes mountains and runoff from melted glaciers for its potable water needs, but due to climate change, the water supply from both sources is on the decline. 

Out of the 8.5 million people living in Lima, 1.2 million lack running water completely and have to either draw water from wells, which is known to be polluted, or rely on unregulated private-company water trucks, which charge u to 20 time the normal price of tap water. 

Aware of this dire problem, Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology started looking for a way to solve the problem and, at the same time, draw the attention of applicants for 2013. Inspired by the fact that the city’s average air humidity is about 83%, due to its location along the Southern Pacific Ocean, UTEC partnered with advertising agency Mayo Draft FCB to create an eye-catching billboard that produces water out of thin air.

Watch for this idea to spread around the planet, eh. I think this is a good thing, don't you?

See ya, eh!

Bob

London Public Toilet is Now a Gourmet Snack Bar!

Hi ya! How's she going? Ready for your daily java and virtual treat? Of course you are, eh! Now I don't know about you but I've never been one to take a coffee to the toidy with me...but here's a place where you have no choice.

If you enjoy eating in the bathroom, you have to check out the Attendant Cafe, in London. Formerly a 19th century public restroom, the underground venue has recently been converted into a gourmet sandwich shop, but retains many of its original decors, including the urinals…

Rising property prices in London are becoming a big problem for would-be homeowners and businesses looking for commercial spaces. But for the few people who can see beyond the smelly history of the city’s abandoned public toilets, converting them into quirky restaurants and bars is proving to be a very cost-effective alternative. 

One such bold entrepreneur is Peter Tomlinson, who invested most of his savings into turning a 19th century men’s restroom on Foley Street into the Attendant snack bar. Don’t worry, it smells a lot better than it sounds, but patrons looking to enjoy a gourmet sandwich and a hot cup of coffee in this place might be a bit put off by some of the decor elements. 

For example, the old porcelain urinals have been re-purposed as table tops, so you’re basically enjoying your meals in the exact same place where Londoners used to…well, I wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.

Not sure I'd rush over the pond to try it. You?

See ya, eh!

Bob