It’s one thing if a car company produces autos with gas tanks that explode, or a pharmaceutical firm sells medication with grotesque side effects, but this time, big business has gone too far. 

In Japan, two prominent makers of fancy toilets that have seat-warming and blow-drying functions for, you know, your butt, have admitted they are aware of a number of cases in which their toilets began smoking, or even caught fire.  

Sure, if you’re into adolescent physical humor then seeing this could be kind of funny, but if it happened to you, not so much…. And you would kind of rely on the manufacturers to warn you, because other people aren’t going to admit it. ”Dude! The grossest thing happened to me today while I was…” 

Oddly Enough Blog

An employee of  Toto Limited demonstrates a control unit for the company’s toilet seat “New Neorest” series at their showroom in Tokyo in a 2005 photo. REUTERS/Issei Kato

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

This is a new outdoor urinal being used in China, and it seems like one tiny step up from having nothing at all. No fancy frills like doors, which are for sissies. Just a thin band between you and the rest of the world.

Would you use one of these? It’s easy to say no, but after a big lunch with three cups of tea and a couple of Tsingtao beers in you, your priorities may change. Especially if the alternative is that bar where the urinal was recently stolen for a souvenir.

Let us know what you think of these things via Post a Comment, before they show up in a city near you.

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A man uses a controversial outdoor toilet in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, February 23, 2007. REUTERS/China Daily

As you may recall from a posting here a few days ago, this guy walked out of a pub with its urinal, which he had hidden in his rucksack, leaving some pretty uncomfortable drinkers in his wake.

Good news. The guy turned himself - and the urinal - over to police, saying he had taken it as a souvenir. 

I don’t even want to know how he displays his other “souvenirs” back home, or what his house smells like, but I bet he describes himself as a “collector of fine porcelain.” Here’s the story: 

The suspected thief is seen leaving the toilets in these undated closed circuit television images. REUTERS/ Handout/ Hampshire police

Gosh, just when everybody is talking about what a glamorous, enjoyable experience fllying is these days, it gets even better.

A Chinese airline has calculated that it takes a liter of fuel to flush the toilet at 30,000 feet, so they’re urging passengers to get in the airport bathroom line before they get in the boarding line.  Or,  you might say, “mind your pees and queues.” 

The energy used in one flush is enough for an economical car to run at least 10 kilometers, one pilot was quoted as saying.  

This is going to be fun. On the one side you’ve got harried flight attendants trying to keep passengers from wasting the sanitary facilities,  and on the other you’ve got a plane full of people who have been drinking coffee and beer for three hours.  Who do you think is gonna win?  
 

Men use a public toilet equipped with television monitors in Beijing in a 2004 photo.  REUTERS/Claro Cortes IV