Tag: toilet

launching a toilet into space

Speaking of the lottery, I was recently involved in a lunch conversation where some people were talking about being super-extravagant if they won the lottery.  At some point, the conversation somehow gravitated toward toilets.  (I have some friends that get really random!)  I don’t know how the topics merged together, but someone said they’d have toilets that get launched into space when they get stopped up, or maybe even just when they’re flushed.  I don’t think toilets were meant to be disposable.  Also, I’m not sure what they cost, but given how many times a flush is needed for a normal household per day, that might burn through the lottery winnings fairly quickly.

Besides, can you imagine Earth being surrounded by toilets in orbit?  There would be toilets (full of poop) crashing into satellites and burning up on re-entry in the atmosphere.  The more I think about it, the more reasons I come up with for why that’s a crappy idea.

But I do admit that seeing toilets launched from someone’s house repeatedly might be kinda cool… that is, as long as they achieve orbit and don’t come back down.  There’s many obvious flaws in the scenario of them returning to the ground.  As cool as it would be to see a toilet shatter*, it would cause some serious damage if it hit something.

* Mango-Man says he’s seen a toilet fall off a truck and shatter into a million pieces and that it was indeed cool.  Too bad he wasn’t prepared to capture video of it.  It’s not everyday you get to see toilets break.  (Actually, I know someone who says he breaks his toilet on a regular basis, but more in a figurative sense.)

I’ve probably said more about toilets in this post than you care to hear about, so I’ll stop now.  But for the few who want more, there is a popular post here about toilet facts, and there are other posts about toilets (such as the motorcycle that runs on poop and has a built-in toilet).  You can use the search function in the sidebar to find even more toilet-related nuggets.  Hmm, that might not be the best choice of words, but this conversation is already in the toilet, so what does it matter?  🙂

man running from public restroom

The other day I was at Walmart and I saw something unusual.  There was a man running out of the bathroom.  I’m not talking about just walking fast — he was literally running.  I’ve seen people run into a bathroom, and there are obvious reasons for that (though a dubious strategy, in my opinion).  But it seemed odd to see something actually running from the bathroom.  I was scared to go in…  I mean, it’s scary enough to have to use a public restroom, but in this scenario something could’ve went horribly wrong.  What if you walk up on something like this abused toilet?  Would you really want to experience that?  Sure, to some of you who like gross stuff, it would make for a great story.  But keep in mind that seeing that picture is a LOT different from actually walking up to it in person.  (And don’t say I never mentioned the smell!  That might cause problems before you could escape…)

If this has piqued your curiosity and you want to know “the rest of the story”, then I have to apologize, because I did not find out why this happened.  I didn’t want to investigate, and I figure it’s better not to talk to a stranger who is running from a public restroom…  I haven’t learned that from experience, but it just seems like good sense.  However, I have learned that sometimes it’s better to just not know…

Feel free to speculate in the comments, if you must…

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!

caption contest, boy stuck in toilet

Last week’s caption contest was political with President Barack Obama in a room of politicians, looking frustrated.  This week’s caption contest is the opposite — politically incorrect, you could say.  It features a boy in a toilet, also looking frustrated.  Well, maybe it’s not quite the opposite — you could probably draw some parallels.  I’ll leave that up to you.  Or you can make up any story to go with this photo, or even make a pun (if you must).  Just keep it clean and funny.

(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)