Associated Press This is amazing. Archaeologists digging on Rome's Palatine Hill have unearthed what they believe to be Nero's revolving banquet hall, which has been referenced in ancient biographies of the Roman emperor. The room was likely built "to entertain government officials and VIPs": The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure. The hall, situated as it was, would have had one of the best views of Rome even without the rotating razzamatazz. Nero ruled from 37 to 68 A.D.—about 1,900 years before the first modern-day revolving restaurant would be...
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[Photograph: Punxatawneyphil on Flickr] The New York Times has a quick piece on Berlin's grillwalkers, who sell sausages from portable grills that they wear—gas on the back; hot, hot bratfest on the front. The innovative apparatus sprang up in 1997, when inventor Bertram Rohloff devised it as a way of skirting city street-vendor permits in the city. Without permits, "neither the grill nor the sausages could touch the ground." As he worked on the invention, Mr. Rohloff considered everything from burning charcoal to hooking the grill up to a car battery — which he rejected because it would run down in just 10 minutes — before settling on propane. He designed it with an automatic cut-off mechanism for the...
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Photograph courtesy of Cia_B The OctoDog is a zany little plastic contraption that converts ordinary everyday hot dogs into octopus-lookin' works of ... edible art? Blogger Cia_B recently got her hands on one and puts it to the test here. I especially like the photo she took (above), comparing an octofied wiener to the real thing. Brilliant. OctoDog, $16.95 plus shipping, from OctoDog.net...
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Tea time! We can't think of a better way for you to start your week than with this amazingly awesome video from British rapper
MC Elemental. The man loves his tea. Best call-and-response ever: "When I say 'ooh,' you say 'long.'" What are you waiting for? The kettle's whistling!
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Saw this on Boing Boing, where the sentiment seems to be that the talking R2D2 ice bucket is a near-sighted scrap pile but that the Han Solo–frozen-in-carbonite ice mold that comes with it stone cold awesome. One commenter there laments that the shape of the Han Solice would limit it to highball glasses but another envisions pressing it into duty as a chocolate mold. Unfortunately, the set, which was only available by pre-order in the U.K., now appears to have been removed from websites there....
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