Following the $28,000 sale of that Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich, it seems like it's been loony season on eBay (if it was ever NOT loony season on eBay, that is). Among the more memorable Grilled Cheese Mary Wannabes have been the Jesus Fish Stick, the NutriGrain cereal that looks like ET, and the piece of popcorn that looks like the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus. Buck Wolf, in his weekly column on ABC News, points out some miracle foods from years past that have beguiled the public, including the Tennessee Nun Bun (a cinnamon bun that looks like Mother Teresa), the Miracle Tortilla of New Mexico (a tortilla that looks like Jesus), and the Holy Eggplant of India (an eggplant that spells out 'Allah' in urdu script).

For the past week (ever since Nov. 14) Brian has been drinking nothing but Pepsi Holiday Spice. He will continue to drink nothing but Pepsi Holiday Spice until Christmas Day. It's his strange, self-appointed mission for himself, apparently inspired by the movie Supersize Me (as well as the fact that his friend bet him $1000 that he couldn't do it). On his blog he's recording the health effects of all this Pepsi Spice drinking. Now, I've never had the stuff myself (though I plan to get some), but I seriously doubt that any soft drink is so bad that it would cause all the health problems he's experienced in the nine days since he started the project. For instance, he's already gained twenty pounds. He's started sneezing. He's developed a strange cyst on his neck. And his urine has turned red. He's blaming all this on the Pepsi Spice. The red urine... maybe. But I don't understand how anyone could gain that much weight in nine days just from switching what they drink, unless they were consuming huge amounts of the new drink (which he doesn't claim to be doing). So I'm guessing that he's making up most of the stuff on his blog. Either that, or he's allergic to the drink (in which case his health problems should be worse than they are).

Just in time for Thanksgiving, I give you the Turkey Testicle Festival. Actually, it was held on October 9, so it's already over this year. But there's always next year to look forward to. I love the motto of the festival: Come and have a ball. Now I never knew that anyone ate turkey testicles, but I'm assuming this is real (that people really do eat them), since I know that sheep testicles are considered delicacies in various places. This festival should think about partnering up with that Cow Manure Tossing contest held in Oklahoma.

The auction of a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary has been pulled from eBay. The sandwich was put up for sale by Diana Duyser who claims that in the ten years since she made the sandwich and took one bite out of it (before noticing the face of the Virgin), it has miraculously never grown any mold. eBay pulled the auction because it claims that it doesn't allow joke listings (that's news to me). Looking at the sandwich, I can definitely see a face, but it doesn't look like the Virgin Mary. To me it looks more like a movie star from the 30s or 40s. Myrna Loy, perhaps. She should have said it was haunted. Would have been no problems then, because eBay definitely allows haunted stuff.
Update: Here's another virgin mary sandwich on eBay.
Update 2: And here's the original Virgin Mary Sandwich, back up for sale. Most of the bidding must still be a hoax, because who's really going to pay $69,000 for an old cheese sandwich?

Could the makers of Boo Bee Juice Drink really not realize the double meaning of the product's name? Or do they realize perfectly well and are going for the titillation/subliminal advertising thing? I'm sure even kids would pick up on what the name means, especially when they hear the adults giggling behind their backs. I suspect it all could be another Haribo-Fruit-Chews-type marketing ploy. (via Boing Boing)

Here's an interesting piece from a newspaper about the burgeoning market in Coca-Cola Fantasy items. One of the paper's readers wrote in to ask whether their Coca-Cola belt buckle designed by Tiffany Studios and showing a nude woman sitting on a crescent moon was of any value (unfortunately there's no picture of the item). The paper's reply: No, because the item is a fantasy fake:

[This] is what Coca-Cola collectors call a "fantasy," which is a piece that never existed as an old item, was not used in advertising by the Coca-Cola Co. (nor sanctioned by them), but is a modern creation meant to appeal to collectors or to mislead the unwary. There are literally tons and tons of these Coca-Cola "fantasy" items out there, lurking in flea markets and at garage sales. The variety seems to be endless, and belt buckles are one of the favorite items to be made as "fantasies," and many of them feature nude women, including one extremely tasteless and offensive example that has the representation of a nude nun of all things!

Nude Nun Coke memorabilia. I may be twisted, but for some reason that seems more interesting to me than the authentic Coke stuff.

A fire at the only factory that produces Branston Pickle reportedly sparked panic buying of the popular brown relish, spurred on by a comment from Premier Foods (its manufacturer) that within two weeks stock levels would run out. So sellers of Branston Pickle began asking as much as £16 or £25 for the stuff on eBay (a jar usually sells for less than £1). For Americans who don't know what this stuff is, it's kind of like a savory brown chutney, very popular in Britain, and often spread on ham and cheese sandwiches. It's good stuff. But now it seems that Branston Pickle isn't in imminent danger of disappearing from stores. Premier Foods will be able to maintain supplies of it. And this article in The Guardian implies that the Branston Pickle Panic never really materialized anyway. Buyers weren't flocking to the stores to snatch up the last remaining jars of the stuff. The Branston Pickle panic was mostly an invention of the media.

Virgel Fisher owns a hand of corn. He inherited it from his grandfather. But this is the part of the story that I don't understand. He says that when his grandfather found the 'corn hand' two of its fingers were missing, "so his ancestor searched until he found them, using pins to reattach the dismembered digits". Does this mean that the fingers were an artificial add-on? Or had they simply broken off? Either way, Virgel could probably make a bundle if he sold his 'corn hand' on eBay, especially if he claimed that it was haunted. (via The Anomalist)

Can Coca-Cola work as an insecticide? Indian farmers seem to think so. The Guardian reports that many of them have taken to spraying their cotton and chilli fields with the soft drink. The article quotes an agricultural analyst who suggests that this might actually work because the sugar in the drink would "attract red ants to feed on insect larvae". But a Coca-Cola spokesman dismisses the entire story as an urban legend: "We are aware of one isolated case where a farmer may have used a soft drink as part of his crop management routine. Soft drinks do not act in a similar way to pesticides when applied to the ground or crops. There is no scientific basis for this and the use of soft drinks for this purpose would be totally ineffective". I'm not enough of a plant expert to judge on whether Coke would work as an insecticide, though it does seem to me like the sugar could actually attract flies (but what do I know?). Plus, I'm not one to criticize the Indian farmers since I regularly throw banana peels around the flowers in my yard in the (perhaps illogical) belief that the peels will somehow keep aphids away.

Is Walmart really soon going to be offering its own brand of cheap wine? It will if you believe this email that's been circulating around for over a year:

Some Walmart customers soon will be able to sample a new discount item: Walmart's own brand of wine. The world's largest retail chain is teaming up with E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto, California, to produce the spirits at an affordable price, in the $2-5 range. While wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to throw a bottle of Walmart brand wine into their shopping carts, there is a market for cheap wine, said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. She said: "The right name is important."

So, here we go: The top 12 suggested names for Walmart Wine:

12. Chateau Traileur Parc
11. White Trashfindel
10. Big Red Gulp
9. Grape Expectations
8. Domaine Wal-Mart "Merde du Pays" [Kruse, Keith M] (Translated "Shit of the Land") 
7. NASCARbernet
6. Chef Boyardeaux
5. Peanut Noir
4. Chateau des Moines
3. I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar!
2. World Championship Riesling

And the number 1 name for Wal-Mart Wine ..

1. Nasti Spumante

That's obviously a joke (though it is strange that Kathy Micken's name is mentioned specifically... I've emailed her to ask her if she knows anything about this). But here's another strange urban legend involving Walmart and alcohol. It's the Walmart beer and nappy legend, as told by Media Week (I don't think this one is true either):

WalMart did an analysis of customers’ buying habits and found a statistically-significant correlation between purchases of beer and purchases of nappies. It was decided that the reason for this was that fathers were stopping at Wal-Mart – on instruction from her-indoors – to buy nappies for their babies. Since they could no longer go down to the pub as often, beer was being bought as well. As a result of this finding, the supermarket chain supposedly rearranged the store to have the nappies next to the beer – resulting in increased sales of both.

German artist Karl-Friedrich Lentze has applied for a patent on his new invention: a banana-straightening device (thanks to Hairy Houdini for posting this in the hoax forum). Obviously this is just what the world needs. Basically Lentze's idea is to chop off the bent bits and then seal the banana back up with a "biologically safe plaster." Here are some of Lentze's other projects:

• He asked the Bonn City Council whether it would be possible for him to be buried with an inflatable sex doll (the council said yes)



• He wrote to zoos asking them whether they'd be willing to feed his body to piranhas after he died



• He applied for permission to open a restaurant that would serve urine goulash and 'Mommy's Muffins' (muffins made from breast milk)



• He tried to open a brothel service for dogs (he copied this idea from Joey Skaggs)



• He sued the Pope in the International Court in The Hague for opposing the use of condoms



• He tried to ban Santa Claus, arguing that the bearded old man scares children

According to the Independent, researchers have proven that the difference between Coke and Pepsi really is all in your head. Apparently the popularity of Coke's brand image causes people to think Coca-Cola itself tastes better, even though it really doesn't taste very different from Pepsi. As the article says: "When asked to taste blind, they showed no preference. However, when the participants were shown company logos before they drank, the Coke label, the more famous of the two, had a dramatic impact: three-quarters of the tasters declared they preferred Coke." I've long suspected this. Personally I can't taste any difference between Coke and Pepsi, but I have a friend who swears passionately that there's a huge difference. Now I can show him this research to prove that he's simply been brainwashed by advertising. Oh, and the Pepsi Taste Test also turns out to be nothing but hot air: "The findings suggest there is no scientific basis for claims made during the Pepsi ad campaign in which testers purportedly chose Pepsi over Coke when they were not told what they were drinking."