George H.W. Bush famously mocked Ronald Reagan's supply-side policies as "Voodoo Economics."  Now someone has designed a Voodoo version of the Monopoly game.  Here's the Income Tax square, complete with a vévé for the spirit of tariffs.  The red lights are candles.  Here's another view of the card.

If Rainbows Were Architecture

What happens when an eccentric architect has the soul of a painter? He drafts a technicolor blueprint and creates elaborate canvasses out of brick and mortar. Portmeirion, the celebrated Italianate village on the west coast of Wales, and famous location of the 60’s cult television series "The Prisoner,” was built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis as a retirement project.

The fairy-tale hamlet he created (30 years before Disneyland) is like a three-dimensional picture postcard exhibiting an unparalleled array of colors. Portmeirion is often cited as an example of "picturesque architecture.” Picturesque simply means that something is proper to be pictured. In the picture that is Portmeirion, foreground and background are the real ground of a rainbow we can walk through.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at Colourlovers.com.]

Finally, someone has taken all the awkwardness out of spontaneous picnics!

The origin of pointillism?

I finally tried to watch the film Perfume.  Perhaps I'd have liked it better had I worn one of these.

A cartoon on the value of fairy tales, from the Jan. 8, 1919 issue of Punch.  The caption reads:

Ever wondered what happens to the coins you throw into a wishing well?

Revealed for the first time: Frogs take the money and spend it unwisely. 

Theory: the Pac-Man video game was inspired by a lily pond.  The lily pads, with their triangular missing pieces pointing toward colorful flowers, inspired the munching mouth who chases ghosts.  When we flip Pac-Man art upside down, the ghost resembles a water lily blossom.

The trapping of garden gnomes is ignoble.

Gnomic genomes?  The picture explains everything!

Here's a fire hydrant gnome.

Do gnomes grow on trees?  Lauri Gröhn offers proof!

What's under a gnome's pointed red hat?

The Gnome Pebble, discovered by Nicolas P. Rougier, preserves a gnome's footprint.

Plaster gnome Danny will never be the same after taking a tumble down a stairway.  He was left tragically shattered down one side of his body, and his face and ear took a direct hit.

A lovely limestone gnome by Dan Brandemuehl.  And one in red cedar by Ray Brooks.

Gnomes placed in out-of-service urinals?

What's the dirtiest water sport on earth?  Bog snorkeling!  Every year, a host of mud-caked competitors get at loggerheads in a sixty-yard peat bog for the coveted "World Champion Bog Snorkeler" title.  The international sporting event takes place every August in the dense Waen Rhydd Peat bog on the southern outskirts of the smallest town in Wales, Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys Mid Wales.

Enigmatic smiles:

Figure 1 (obviously)
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8

Do you know the secret teaching of the Buddha's enigmatic smile? Hint: Hold the image up to a mirror. (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)

The phrase "replicable randomness" returns no Google results.  (At least not until the Google spiders find this blog entry.)

It's been said that everyone secretly wishes for something:

• The gardener himself secretly wishes for a frost, though it isn't quite cricket to come right out and say so.
• Abby secretly wishes for "a hundred rainbows."
• Lisa secretly wishes for real problems, so that she can have something to complain about.
• At one time or another, everyone secretly wishes for more time or an extra pair of hands.
• Every man secretly wishes for a troublesome wife upon which to blame his failings.
• Every mom secretly wishes for a little more time on her side, a stolen moment to relax.
• Every pet owner who has had the misfortune to put down a pet secretly wishes for some sign from above that he or she has done the right thing.
• The fearful ones secretly wish for the entire world to be as helpless as they perceive themselves to be.
• Each of us, at times, secretly wishes for more personal fulfillment.
• Each side secretly wishes for a doomsday scenario in the misguided belief that their side will be proved "right."
• And although everyone secretly wishes for change in one or more bodily features, peace is discovered in a genuine love for one's self.

The secret of the Great Penny Pyramid (see original photo here) is that a roll of quarters is hidden inside the King's Chamber.

"A Sick Dali Egg" by Ken Clinger could be referring to:

This egg near near the London Eye
The Dali Egg pumpkin
These eggs atop a museum in Spain
The Birth of the New Man by Salvador Dali
Fried Egg on a Plate Without the Plate by Salvador Dali

or perhaps something much sunnier

but probably not this giant egg that oversees the folk dancing.

Living Chess

A blog about Emigrating to New Zealand by a British couple, Jonathan and Rebecca

Volcano Camera - White Island crater

Stamps of Antarctic research centers for glaciology, meteorology, geology, and biology, on Kiwi philately

Ancient Maori Kites

Outdoor chess in Christchurch

A proposed new New Zealand Flag

Bed & Breakfast & Four-Wheel Drive combos: Kiwi Housetrucks

"Southern lights" aurora on APOD. New Zealand from space (Click to biggify. Another angle)

Maori liquor made from Ti-Toki berries

Walking upside down on the Southern Hemisphere

World's largest tape ball

Penguin Crossing

This is a post that I am “co-blogging” with Hanan Levin of Grow-a-Brain. Thank you, Hanan!