Quick quiz: These lavatories, with mannequins in sexy outfits, are…

a) in the Playboy Mansion
b) at the Emperor’s Club escort service
c) in the lobby of the Victoria’s Secret home office
d) at a regular shopping mall in Portugal

The answer is d. I missed it, too. Of course, the real question about these things is, what do you do when your five-year-old child needs to go? “Joey, Daddy doesn’t know why those silly ladies are dressed like that. Listen, can you just hold it in, and we’ll be home in a few hours?”

Public lavatories decorated with mannequins at Sao Joao da Madeira shopping centre in northern Portugal in a March 13, 2008 picture. REUTERS/Jose Manuel Ribeiro

More stuff from Oddly Enough

Hey, Blog Guy, I liked your item about that Naked Cowboy, and I was wondering. Do you think that could be one of those signs of the coming Apocalypse you keep writing about?

Hmmmm. A very good question, and something I should have noticed myself! One sec, let me consult my Nostradamus. Let’s see. Underpants… Times Square… Yokels. Blue candy…$6 million… Yep, it’s all in there, so I think you’re right.

Indeed, with a long weekend ahead of us, maybe it would be good for readers to study some of my other postings about the Apocalypse, so we’ll all know it when we see it. Here you go:

The photo they didn’t want us to see…
Wow, radical new hair style, Tiffany!
Tight security for fancy potato heads…  
Let’s celebrate Father’s Day! Not so fast, Emma!

Actress Milla Jovovich poses for photographers at a news conference to promote her film “Resident Evil: The Apocalypse” in Tokyo in a 2004 file photo. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao 

More stuff from Oddly Enough Blog

I collect carefully chosen signs of the coming apocalypse, as you know from past postings like The photo they didn’t want us to see… and Tight security for fancy potato heads…

The latest such sign is that tasers - those personal stun guns that zap an assailant with enough electricity to make him resemble a twitching skeleton - are now available in pink, red and leopard, with holsters that double as MP3 music players.

I see problems in mixing personal protection with entertainment. It’s dark, you’ve had some drinks, you’re walking home with a taser in your holster, dancing to the music. Your cell phone rings, you mistakenly clap the taser to your ear and fumble for the talk button. What could possibly go wrong? 

Bari Yonkers of Taser listens to music from a holster with a built-in MP3 player at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 7, 2008. REUTERS photos by Steve Marcus

More stories from the Oddly Enough Blog

Young men douse rags in gasoline and hurl fireballs in a blazing night-time inferno. You are watching:

a) Torch-waving villagers chasing Frankenstein’s monster
b) Spartans going after their enemies in the 2006 movie 300
c) An out-of-control 1920s Ku Klux Klan rally
d) An annual church-sponsored festival in El Salvador

Yeah, I got this one wrong, too. But reportedly serious injuries are kept to a minimum, and presumably somebody remembers to tell the small children they shouldn’t try this at home. I still think I’d feel safer with the torch-waving gothic villagers. Lindsay Claiborn reports:

More Oddly Enough Blog

It’s time again for another installment of our very popular feature, “Truth, or Spoof?” in which readers have to guess whether a story is real news, or very clever satire.

It seems a planned Republican fundraising event in New Hampshire is inviting party members and their families to a Machine Gun Shoot, where they can spend a day trying out automatic weapons such as Uzi submachine guns and M-16 rifles. 

The organizer is quoted as saying, It’s a fun day. It’s a family day. Here’s the story:

More Oddly Enough Blog

Tessa Green of Kalamazoo, Michigan shoots a Micro Uzi submachine gun during the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot near West Point, Kentucky April 8, 2005. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Well, they buried Raymond Cornell on Monday, but his daughter Emma wasn’t able to be at the funeral. It’s not that she’s in prison or aboard the Space Shuttle or anything like that. It’s just that she’s a contestant on a TV reality show, and telling her that Dad is dead would have disrupted her shot at stardom.

That’s right. In yet one more sign that Armageddon is quickly approaching, Mr. Cornell’s wish apparently was that Emma not be told, so she wasn’t. There’s even a blog discussion where people can say whether they would have wanted to be told.

“Her dad didn’t want her to be upset or to feel like she had to leave the house to come to his funeral. He didn’t want to ruin the experience for her,” Emma’s boyfriend was quoted as saying. Here’s our story, here’s a video report, and here is a story from Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

More Oddly Enough Blog

Emma Cornell in an undated publicity handout picture. REUTERS/Network Ten/Handout

Signs of the coming apocalpyse are increasing. For those keeping track, we recently had a Mr. Potato Head that needed security guards, and then there was the whole O.J. Simpson If I Did It book and TV show thing.

Now, from Amsterdam, comes news of a new reality show: a dating program for the visibly disfigured. A broadcaster is recruiting candidates for its Love at Second Sight show, due to be launched next month. ”Do you have a visible serious handicap and are you looking for a partner?” says an appeal on the Web site.

Understandably, this Grand Guignol sort of offering is attracting some criticism. The broadcaster’s spin is that the show will be “a platform for people with such problems to share experiences and feelings in a positive way…”

Ah, right. And what was the original title of the show, by the way? Uh, well, it was initially going to be called Monster Love. 
 

Actress Hilary Duff hugs the movie character Shrek during her visit to the Universal Studios Orlando Resort, Florida, in 2005. REUTERS/Sheri Lowen 

Quick quiz: Which of these are signs of the Apocalypse?

a) pestilence
b) wars
c) floods
d) dressing little bitty dogs in Christmas outfits and playing Mariachi music for them

If you guessed all of the above, you’re correct, although d) is the one people tend to forget about, until it’s too late.

A guest at the annual chihuahua Christmas party at a pet resort in New York, December 9, 2006. More than 60 chihuahuas attended the party with performances from a seven piece Mariachi band, numerous canine Christmas treats and Santa Claus.   REUTERS/ Erin Siegal  

I want to be part of the jet set crowd. I want to be a VIP

– Claudia, a teenager

Wow.  Sort of brings to mind the quote from Leo Bloom, the character in ”The Producers,” who confesses, ”I want everything I’ve ever seen in the movies!”  Welcome to Cannes, where Paris Hilton can be a role model.  If you only read one story today, it should be this one: 

Socialite and role model Paris Hilton arrives for a screening of U.S. director Brett Ratner’s film ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ at the Cannes Film Festival May 22, 2006.  REUTERS/Eric Gaillard