MIM
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Details: Don’t speak Spanish? Don’t worry, the waiters don’t speak it, either. In fact, they don’t speak any language at all. That’s because MIM is a mime-themed restaurant, housed in an old theater. Staff communicates through body language, and every few minutes, they put on short mime performances, culminating in a flying trapeze act. (Warning: If you suffer from coulrophobia—the fear of mimes—avoid this restaurant.)
ADAM & EVE’S
Location: Indiana
Details: No shirt? No shoes? No problem. Adam & Eve’s is the world’s only naked restaurant. The waiters are nude, the cooks are nude, and the customers are nude. (Better not order anything hot.)
ALCATRAZ BC
Location: Tokyo
Details: If you’ve ever wondered what life on the brutal, desolate San Francisco island prison was like, go to this Japanese bistro. Uniformed “wardens” (not waiters) cuff patrons at the big steel front door and lead them to “private cells” (not tables). Menu items include chipped beef on toast, pudding cups, and other foods served in a prison cafeteria.
THE NEWS ROOM
Location: Minneapolis
Details: Think reading old newspapers is an exciting way to spend an evening? The News Room celebrates old newspapers and the often-depressing headlines of the 1920s and 1930s. The restaurant is divided into several newspaper “sections,” including “The Sports Page” (old sports footage plays on monitors) and “The Financial Page” (a Depression-era stock ticker hangs from the rafters and continually shoots out ticker tape and imaginary stock quotes). In every room, rolled-up giant newspapers hang from the ceiling.
Mickey Mouse is prohibited from running for office in Comal County, Texas.
RED SQUARE
Location: Las Vegas
Details: When most Americans think of the Soviet Union they think of a cruel, totalitarian government, breadlines, and impending nuclear war. But Red Square—a family-friendly restaurant located in one of Vegas’s grandest hotels, Mandalay Bay—plays up Soviet life as nostalgic and kitschy. The red decor features a headless statue of Lenin, a hammer-and-sickle logo, and propaganda posters that glorify the worker. Naturally, it also has one of Las Vegas’s largest assortments of vodka.
HITLER’S CROSS
Location: Mumbai, India
Details: One of the worst restaurant ideas ever. The menu is pizza; the decor is Nazi, featuring lots of swastikas—“Hitler’s crosses”—and giant photos of Adolph Hitler. Fewer than 3,000 of India’s one billion people are Jewish, but protests led the restaurant’s owner, Punit Sabhlok, to consider changing the restaurant’s name and theme. “We wanted to be different,” he said. “This is one name that will stay in people’s minds.”
TOILET BOWL
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Details: Yes, it’s a toilet-themed restaurant. Diners sit on toilets and eat out of toilet-shaped bowls and plates. The interior of the restaurant is laid out with brightly colored bathroom tile, and the lights are shaped like urinals. The favorite menu item, says owner Eric Wang, is chocolate ice cream—probably because “it looks like the real thing.”
There are 92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea.
SMILE: YOU’RE ON BAIT CAR!
If you’re a fan of YouTube but you’re tired of sorting through millions of uploaded videos for something fresh, interesting, and (of course) odd, here’s a suggestion: Type “bait car” in the search window, press return, and enjoy the ride.
CAR TROUBLE
In the winter of 2001, police in Vancouver, British Columbia, were battling a ring of thieves who were stealing as many as five Japanese sports cars a week from the parking lots of local golf courses, then stripping the cars to sell the parts. Auto theft is a difficult crime to fight: Stolen cars change hands so quickly that even if you catch someone driving one, it’s difficult to prove that they know it’s stolen, let alone prove they’re the one who stole it. You have to catch car thieves in the act, and that’s not easy because they tend to break into cars when there are no witnesses around. And because car theft is a property crime, not a violent crime like kidnapping, assault, or murder, there’s a limit to how much time and money police agencies can spend fighting it, especially when the odds of winning a conviction are so low. How low? Fewer than 15% of all car thefts end with the thief being jailed.
CANDID CAMERA
The Vancouver police department couldn’t spare enough officers to stake out every golf course in the city. If they were going to catch the crooks they’d have to find another way. Phil Ens, a Vancouver police officer assigned to auto-theft detail, had heard about a program in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where police were using “bait cars”—cars wired with hidden audio and video equipment and GPS tracking devices, then left where thieves were likely to steal them. Police could track a car using its GPS signal, then shut off the car’s engine by remote control as they moved in to make the arrest. The video evidence was then used to convict the thieves and send them to prison. The approach was effective: Auto thefts were down in Minneapolis, and prosecutors were winning convictions against longtime car thieves, thanks to the video evidence recorded by the bait cars. Even passengers in stolen cars were going to jail as participants in the crimes. Ens approached the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), which sells auto insurance in the province, and Boomerang Tracking Solutions, which makes auto tracking devices, and talked them into helping fund a test of the bait-car concept in British Columbia.
It’s estimated that about half a ton of Martian material falls to Earth each year.
GONE IN 2,700 SECONDS
Boomerang sent Ens an Acura Integra loaded with GPS tracking equipment and the remote-control device that allows police to shut off the engine. Ens added a hidden camera, a microphone, and a VCR. Then the police department placed the car in the parking lot of a local golf course…and made their first bait-car arrest just 45 minutes later.
ICBC was sold on the program—they decided to back it in a big way, donating recovered stolen cars to be wired up as bait cars and spending more than $500,000 a year to make them bait-car-ready. The provincial government of British Columbia agreed to pick up the rest of the tab, with the program to be administered by an interagency task force called the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT).
The program is still going strong today, and IMPACT continues to develop new and creative ways to put this powerful new crime-fighting tool to use. They have studied which cars are likely to be stolen in which parts of town, and plant the bait cars accordingly. They make the cars even more attractive targets by baiting them with a wallet, a purse, a cell phone, or even an open bag of potato chips left in plain view. Because car thieves commonly abandon stolen cars in the neighborhoods where they live (it’s easier than walking home), if police can figure out where a particular car thief lives, they’ll plant his favorite model of bait car right down the street from his house. Why stop at committed car theives? Sometimes IMPACT even leaves bait cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition and the engine running to tempt opportunists who might not otherwise bother to break into a vehicle.
NOW SHOWING
Most of the time, police agencies keep their crime-fighting method secret to prevent criminals from figuring out ways around them. But IMPACT takes the opposite approach: They hope that by publicizing the bait-car program as much as possible, they can convince criminals (and wannabes) that auto theft is not an easy, low-risk crime—that it’s actually a crime in which arrest is almost inevitable, the charges will stick, and the penalty will be months or even years in jail. They want the crooks to believe that bait cars are everywhere.
Do you have a gap between your front teeth? It’s called a diasthema.
What makes this interesting for the rest of us is that IMPACT has set up a Web site (www.baitcar.com) where they post actual bait-car video clips for you to watch and enjoy. The clips are making their way to other p
opular sites like Google Video and YouTube, too. They’re worth a look: When you watch the grainy hidden-camera footage, it almost feels as like you’re there in person to witness the thrill of victory as punks break into cars and speed off on a joyride, followed by the agony of defeat as they are arrested by police a short time later.
CAT AND MOUSE
Vancouver’s program is working: Since it was instituted in 2002, car thefts have dropped more than 15%, with 6,000 fewer cars being stolen each year. ICBC is saving nearly $15 million a year through reduced payments to auto-theft victims. The publicity campaign and especially the bait car footage are credited with much of the success: As the bait cars themselves pull incorrigible car thieves off the streets, the footage of them being caught and taken to jail is causing less-committed thieves to lose heart and prompting at-risk, “entry-level” youth to reconsider whether they really want to begin stealing cars in the first place. “Auto theft went down right away because of word-of-mouth among the thieves,” Ens told the Vancouver Province in 2005. “It created a level of paranoia and the advertising kept it in their conscience.”
WATCH, LAUGH…AND LEARN
Are you ready to have a few laughs at the expense of ethically challenged Canadian punks? Here are the titles of some classic bait-car footage to look for. (Warning! Bait-car footage contains coarse language and is not suitable for children.)
• I Was Caught By a Bait Car! A mini-documentary featuring bait-car footage and a later interview with the 22-year-old car thief, who describes what it is like to be caught red-handed stealing a bait car (“I knew it was a #*&$ bait car! They bait-carred my @*&!” he says as the police shut off his engine by remote control), and what it’s like for a reformed car thief to view his own bait-car footage for the very first time (“I look like a retard!”).
• The Prayer. Watch as a 19-year-old car thief and his 21-year-old accomplice steal a car, do donuts in an open field and then, with the driver’s hands folded into a steeple on the steering wheel, pray aloud that the car coming up behind them is not a police car. “Please don’t be a cop! Pray it’s not a cop! Pray, pray, pray, just pray!” (Their prayers went unanswered.)
• I Hope This Isn’t Another %$&* Bait Car, Man! (a.k.a. The Nose Picker). Who says car thieves have to be men? View footage of British Columbia’s first-ever arrest of a female car thief. Watch as she and her accomplice pick up a male associate, then tag along as he picks a winner and disposes of the “evidence” in disgusting fashion moments before the police arrive on the scene.
• If My Mom Calls. Three punk kids steal a bait car just one day after one of them has been released from custody (perhaps for stealing another car?). Listen as their fear increases with the dawning realization that they are indeed driving a bait car, that arrest is only moments away…and that Mom is going to be really, really mad when she finds out.
• High-Speed Escape. Rare footage of crooks stealing two bait vehicles at the same time. After the bait car program became successful, the Vancouver police department expanded to bait motorcycles, bait ATVs, bait snowmobiles, and even bait Jet Skis. These dopes stole a bait ATV and threw it onto the back of a stolen pickup truck…which turned out to be a bait car, too.
• So Much for Going Home. The only thing funnier than watching these four kids count the patrol cars as they close in behind them—“Oh yeah, there’s one, two, there’s three! Yeah, it’s a bait car, dude!”—is listening to them being arrested by a cop with a Scottish accent thicker than The Simpsons’ Groundskeeper Willie.
Q: What’s the name of Batman’s dog? A: Ace the Bat-Hound.
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“I’d prefer a smart idiot to a stupid genius any day.”
—Samuel Goldwyn
According to studies, people with schizophrenia rarely yawn.
WEIRD RUSSIA
If you’re of a certain age, you probably grew up being extremely afraid of Russia. Nothing to worry about—Russia is just as kooky as America.
NEVER SAY DIE
Since 1984, Russian chess star Viktor Korchnoi has played an ongoing long-distance chess game with Hungarian grand master Geza Maroczy. What’s so odd about that? Maroczy died in 1951. Korchnoi and Maroczy “exchange moves” by phone or mail with a Hungarian psychic who claims to be in touch with Maroczy’s spirit. Who’s winning? Korchnoi. “The match started evenly,” he said, “but Maroczy got into trouble after losing a piece.”
BOOZE HOUNDS
In 2006, Russian customs officials discovered a secret underground pipeline used to pump bootleg vodka into Latvia. Police in the Russian border town of Buholovo say the tunnel is six feet underground and was used to transport homemade booze with a much higher than normal alcohol content. Why the tunnel was constructed is unclear because homemade alcohol is not illegal in Latvia.
WE’LL GIVE YOU $50 TO READ THIS
To combat the image that Russia has one of the most corrupt governments in the world, the Russian government issued a pamphlet outlining the punishment for giving or receiving a bribe: burning in hell. The weird warning, taken from the Koran, claims that “both the giver and taker of a bribe will burn in the flames of hell.” The flyer was sent to every home in Russia.
BUT WHAT IF THEY USE THAT MONEY TO GAMBLE?
The Russian government is also trying to curb gambling, so the Moscow city council came up with a surefire plan: They hired actors to stand on street corners outside casinos, pretending to be beggars. The actors are instructed to tell people that they were once rich executives but became destitute and homeless after becoming addicted to gambling. The city council also announced plans to give some of the actors accordions to turn their sad stories into sad songs.
Can you? 85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.
LOVE, MARRIAGE,
AND OTHER
STRANGE THINGS
Love makes the world go ’round (the bend).
BREAKING (AND ENTERING) HIS HEART
Nickey Davidson of McMinnville, Tennessee, was arrested in 2006 on charges of aggravated burglary. Police said the 25-year-old woman had broken into several houses and stolen item worth tens of thousands of dollars. Her reason: she’d told her new boyfriend that she had a high-paying job (she didn’t really)… and now she had to keep up appearances. “When we told her boyfriend about what had happened, he was shocked,” Sheriff’s Captain Tommy Myers said. “He was even more shocked to find out that she’s married.”
LOVE, MALAYSIAN-STYLE
Kamaruddin Mohammed of Malaysia got married in 1957. Then he got divorced, and remarried. Then he got divorced, and married again. Then—well, it would take too long to tell the whole story, so we’ll just tell you that in 2006 Mohammed, age 72, got married for the 53rd time. All of the first 52 marriages ended in divorce (except one—one wife had passed away), and wife #53 was also wife #1—the same woman who married him in 1957.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
A Swedish woman filed an official complaint with her local health department in 2006, claiming her neighbors’ noisy love-making sessions were making her physically ill. Jon Persson of the Environmental Health Committee said the woman wrote that she was “distressed, angry and tense all over” because her neighbors made so much noise, for hours every night. “You are my last hope. Please help me,” she said. Health department officials told the woman that there was nothing they could do about it.
Americans eat nine times more broccoli than they did 20 years ago.
THE FIRST STRAW
In 2006 Ruth Meister of Bonn, Germany, caught her husband Georg having sex with his mistress. She threw him out of the house and filed for divorce. “I showed no mercy,” she said. “I just threw him out.” The story made news all over the world. Why? Because the Meisters were both in their 80s—and had been married for 60 years.
AGA GOES GAGA
In 2006 a wild donkey in a Croatian national park was shipped off to a deserted island because he was scaring all the females in the herd. Accord
ing to park officials, Aga the donkey was demanding sex as often as 16 times a day, and the female donkeys were so scared that they hid from him…and couldn’t be seen by tourists. “But now that Aga is gone they have come out of hiding,” one official said, adding that Aga would be brought back “when he calms down.”
HANDKERCHIEF TIME
In 2001 a massive earthquake struck western India’s Gujarat state. Several towns were badly hit; more than 16,000 people were killed. The worst hit was Bhachau, a city of 40,000. Rescue crews worked through the night, into the next day, and the next, removing rubble to locate as many survivors as possible. Five days later, a bulldozer was knocking down the walls of an apartment building when somebody heard something. Crews were called in, and Jayesh and Kuntal Thakkar, newlyweds, were rescued from beneath the rubble of the building. How had they managed to survive for so long? They had kept each other alive, they said, by speaking words of love to each other.
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THREE REAL BOOK TITLES
• Is Your Volkswagen a Sex Symbol?, by Jean Rosenbaum, M.D.
• The Yul Brynner Cookbook—Food Fit for the King and You, by Yul Brynner with Susan Reed
• Satan Burger, by Carlton Mellick III
Sea otters tie themselves together with kelp to avoid being separated while they sleep.
FLUBBED HEADLINES
These are 100% real, honest-to-goodness headlines. Can you figure out what they were trying to say?
Shortage of Brains Slows Medical Research
Hot Lunch Engulfs Man
Well-Stocked Panty Important to Good, Easy Meals
Relief Groups Help Hurt Family
COLLAPSED BRIDGE IN CHINA FAULTY
Sadness is No. 1 Reason Men and Women Cry
BABIES ARE WHAT THE MOTHER EATS
His Humming Rear End Is a Major Distraction
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Page 22