a motorcycle fueled by poop

Many inventors are looking to cash-in on the green movement, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  I’m all for lower car emissions and reducing our “carbon footprint”.  But it’s not surprising that some people don’t know where to draw the line between good idea in theory and bad idea in practice.  Hence the Toilet Bike Neo.

Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto has created their own green driving machine.  Actually, it should be called a green driving latrine.  It’s literally a toilet combined with a three-wheel motorcycle.

The Toilet Bike Neo runs on biogas, which is a more scientific way of saying poop.  I’m not against the concept — using excrement for energy is a good idea.  But including the toilet on the motorcycle seems a little odd to me.  Well, let’s be honest, more than odd — more like “that ain’t right”.  I know a few people who might would even use it (where are you, Buck Elvis?), but most people would rather have privacy when taking a dump.  Plus there’s the post-pooping customs to deal with, which I shouldn’t have to explain.

It appears to have a giant roll of toilet paper on the back, but that doesn’t seem plausible.  Surely there’s some bidet-type system installed.  The bike even has a little toilet hood ornament, in case the driver wasn’t embarrassed enough by sitting on a giant toilet.

A commenter at CNet calculated the motorcycle would need about 218 pounds of poop daily to create 2 gallons worth of gasoline.  And supposedly it takes about 18 days for the poop to be converted into biogas, so you’d need to carry around about 2 tons of poop to keep the process flowing for daily usage.  That would increase the weight of the bike so much that you’d need much more poop because your gas mileage would be so bad.  However you figure it, that’s a big load of crap!

antelope tackling bicycle rider & bread helmet man

Apparently the viral video of the day is a bicycle rider getting knocked down by an antelope during a race in Africa.  It is quite unusual and unexpected. It was also unexpected to see it on TV twice already in one day.  But since it’s so popular, I’ll post it here for you, so you can tell all your friends and co-workers that you saw it and they should watch it too.  After all, this is what’s popular.  Maybe it’s even the cat’s pajamas

Now don’t you feel cooler?  You are now in the know.  Although, by the time you’re reading this, this video might be old news.  There’s probably another video already gone viral that everyone is talking about.

Sometimes you can’t predict what will be viral next.  For example, someone can just show up to a protest with bread taped to their head and become an Internet meme.  He was just trying to “protect” himself against makeshift projectiles, so some protesters made makeshift “armor”.  Now this guy is known as Bread Helmet Man, and he’s appeared in “photographs” all around teh internets…  A few examples…

I wonder if he has any idea of his 15 megabytes of fame…

FYI, I already know the Bread Helmet Man meme is old (in Internet years, anyway).  But it was never referenced here, and it certainly is random, and the post just needed something else…  Was it worth your time?  Wait, don’t answer that.  Keeping up with viral videos and memes often isn’t worth your time, which is why they aren’t closely followed here…  And my rambling about wasting your time might not be worth your time, so I’ll stop typing now.

Obama Fried Chicken

Someone in Beijing, China, created a restaurant called OFC, which stands for Obama Fried Chicken, except they copied the KFC logo and might some slight changes.

And apparently KFC has made commercials in China with an Obama-lookalike.

At first, it looked like they were implying you could change from Obama to a chicken sandwich.  I know some people who would make that trade…

While verifying the story online, I saw where someone had opened a restaurant called “Obama Fried Chicken” in Brooklyn in New York City.  That took some courage…  There was a public outcry, but the owner said 4 out of 5 customers were okay with the name.  I’m sure the owner knew what he was getting into — lots of controversy, which also means free publicity.

National Doughnut Day

It has come to my attention that today is National Doughnut Day.  It is the first Friday of June each year.  Given how many special holidays there already are, you might think the day was created solely because donuts are awesome.  While that is sufficient reason, it goes even deeper.  The holiday was started in 1938 to honor the tradition of the Salvation Army providing donuts to soldiers during World War I.

Some doughnut shops give away a free donut on this day, so that might be worth checking out.  Even the cheapest of donuts — typically a simple glazed one — is great.  And while you’re there, you might as well pick up a chocolate-filled donut.  (It still boggles my mind that Krispy Kreme doesn’t sell a chocolate-filled donut, which is the best kind!  It’s stupefying!  It’s inconceivable!)

In case you aren’t aware, Krispy Kreme stores that make the donuts will sometimes give away a free glazed donut fresh off the assembly line, and that alone might be worth the trip.  The donut almost melts in your mouth with warm, yummy goodness.  (It’s probably a good thing the closest one is 30 miles away for me, or I’d be there too often.)

BTW, if you are a grammar perfectionist who is about to leave a scathing comment about how my spelling of donut changed, realize I chose to use both spellings interchangeably.  It’s my prerogative.  (And it’s also a good strategy from a search engine perspective.)

There are a number of special days and holidays each month, which have been discussed here at Buffet o’ Blog.  For example, here’s the one for June.