“Dagnabbit! Looks like the engine’s stalled! We’re stuck here awhile.” Quick quiz: the place you least want to hear that sentence is…

• a commuter train
• an elevator
• a roller coaster, just as you’re at the top of a huge loop

Yeah, roller coaster has to be the answer. Some poor folks got stuck like that with their legs in the air for 30 minutes on New Year’s Eve. They were treated at a hospital for “dizziness,” which I think is a euphemism meaning plastic surgeons had to sandblast a look of pure horror off their insanely frozen faces.

“We’re sorry about that, people. Let us make it up to you with free tickets to the Skywalk or the gyrocopter.” Here’s the story and here’s a photo:

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Not the one that stalled… Chinese soldiers ride on a roller coaster at a Beijing amusement park in a 2005 file photo. REUTERS/China Newsphoto

Blog Guy, some of your postings  offer vacation  tips.  Are you a travel agent? Can you help plan my holiday?

Sorry, my travel blogging involves  advising folks where NOT to go. It is hard to make a buck in the fast-paced travel game by telling folks to stay home, so I wouldn’t do very well.

“Here you go, sir, this envelope has no airline tickets, no hotel coupons, no restaurant vouchers or day passes. It’s everything you need to not go anywhere.  Enjoy, and don’t send me a postcard!” Still, if it helps, here are five so-called tourist destinations where you won’t find me:

“You must be joking”  tourist site opens

Hostel environment: gloom with a view  

Travel to Hannibal’s home! Lock up the fava beans, boys!   

“Stick my arm WHERE?” tourism

 Here’s me at a former power station, here’s me at…  

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Blog Guy, you’re always saying to be careful in choosing a career. I just got a brochure inviting me to check out the world of homemade submarines, and I just don’t see the downside.

See, the words homemade and submarine don’t naturally belong together. Kind of like chainsaw and dentistry, or gyrocopter and, well, whatever. I know Colombia just found a “rudimentary” sub built to smuggle tons of cocaine, but that part actually makes the deal even less attractive! Are you following any of this?

Bottom line: If you’re actually enticed by a chance to “Enter the exciting world of drug-smuggling, rudimentary homemade submarines,” then I could use some help in getting this prince’s money out of Nigeria. Here is our story:

Homemade sub in Colombian Navy handout

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As the song says, kicks just keep getting harder to find. The amusement park industry is having its big convention, and the hot new thrill seems to be dining 165 feet above the ground, at a table suspended by a crane.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I wondered, too. Who cares? It’s not like you can’t go to the Rainbow Room if  you want to dine high up. Heck, you could even sneak a sausage pizza aboard a gyrocopter. It doesn’t take Isaac Newton to guess what’s going to happen when you eat raw oysters and some linguini,  washed down by a few beers, and then sit there swinging back and forth, back and forth…

The promoters of this suspended table thing say it’s available for business meetings, too. We’ve seen those “meetings” in James Bond movies. “Uh, sorry Mr. Blofeld, I don’t want to join your evil scheme, so I guess I’ll just be goin’ home now…”

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The attraction ‘Dinner in the Sky’ is demonstrated at the amusement industry’s international convention in Orlando, Florida November 13, 2007.  REUTERS/Nicholas Wolaver/Handout

Dear Blog Guy,
What’s it going to be today? More pictures of people eating bugs, and frogs in blenders and stuff like that? You must look hard for the very grossest pictures you can find. That’s why I keep coming back.
Photo Fan

Thanks, but you’re not even close. If only you knew. In the past few days alone I have opted against using newsphotos showing:

- A crocodile with a human arm sticking out of its mouth, from Taiwan
- Two guys wrestling naked in chocolate pudding, from Canada
- A semen sample being collected from a bull elephant in Singapore
- A medical technician holding an 85-pound tumor removed from a patient in Serbia

The tumor shot alone would have put you off red meat for the rest of your life, so you should be thanking me. But do keep coming back.

Oddly Enough Blog

Ai Baorong, who raises flies and yellow mealworms, tastes maggots to check their quality, at her small farm in Jiyang County, east China’s Shandong province April 11, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer

As I was saying just a couple of days ago, on the subject of worm-filled tacos in Mexico, icky food has become a common theme of this blog. And now, here we are at a market in Bangkok, where customers flock like moths to a flame when the insect sellers arrive with fried grasshoppers, water bugs, giant flies, larvae, mealworms and red ant pupae.

Mmmmmm, them’s eats! According to the bug-sellers, insects are low in fat and high in calcium. I guess it turns out I’m looking for more than that in my food, like maybe a lower gag reflex rating. If this all sounds great to you but you can’t make it to the market, you may order this stuff online:

By the way, I couldn’t help noticing an interesting facet of human nature. We have a video report today about the anniversary of the decadent chocolate Sachertorte, in which the reporter announces that she is going to eat a slice right now. But in our report about the insect market of Bangkok, the reporter just tells us water bugs “apparently” are delicious. Kind of a double-standard.

Oddly Enough Blog

An insect vendor packages silkworm pupae for a client at a Bangkok market April 4, 2007. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Apparently just serving great food is no longer the preferred way to attract patrons to a restaurant, and don’t even think about presenting a tasteful, romantic decor. If you can’t bother making your place disgusting beyond belief, some other restaurateur will do it instead.

We’ve already seen our share of bizarre restaurant themes in this blog - toilets, Hitler, total darkness, animal heads - and now, welcome to death’s door.

Aurum, a controversial eatery in Singapore, features a morgue, surgical steel tables and gold wheelchairs, and the food is even stranger. Wee Sui Lee reports:

Oddly Enough Blog

A dinning table is seen at the Aurum restaurant in Singapore, March 15, 2007. REUTERS/Tim Chong

Call me old-fashioned, but maybe there is such a thing as stars sharing too much information with their fans.

Just as a for instance, Elton John was performing in Australia today when he abruptly left the stage.  When he returned minutes later, he told the audience he had gone off to throw up.

“I thought I’d better chunder (vomit) in the toilet than all over the front row,” he was quoted as saying.  Wow. I guess that’s what makes him a superstar.  Here’s the story:

Elton John arrives for the world premiere of the latest James Bond movie “Casino Royale” at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square in London November 14, 2006.  REUTERS/Alessia Pierdomenico

Jones Soda, the people who make all those vile flavors you’d never put in your mouth, have announced green pea-flavored soda just in time for the holidays.

I’m just hoping the person who thought this up put it in a written memo, because actually saying, “Boss, let’s make pea-flavored soda” out loud sounds, well, even worse than it really is.

Remember, these guys already make flavors like fish taco, Brussel sprout, turkey and gravy… Even the head of the company won’t drink the stuff. The Jones chief executive says he drew the line at making chicken curry soda, adding, “That was just wrong.”  Here’s the story:
 

Jones sodas in an undated photo. REUTERS/Handout

This U.S. Marine is enjoying a Bloody Mary, minus the vodka, lemon juice, Worcester and Tabasco sauces, and celery stalk. In other words, he’s drinking - well, you do the math.

This is the latest in our series of postings on times when you probably would rather starve than eat.  For more details, check out cricket cuisine, worms on the menu, the animal head restaurant and my favorite, frogs in a blender.   

U.S. Marine staff sergeant Rex Borsil drinks cobra blood during a jungle survival drill in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija province, north of Manila October 19, 2006.  REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco