World’s Strangest

How did Harriet Tubman lead so many slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad? With careful planning, plenty of luck, and a little opium. “I never run my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger”—so boasted Harriet Tubman, the most successful conductor on the Underground Railroad. Tubman ran up her unblemished record while [...]

Sad news, detectives. Donald J. Sobol, the creator of Encyclopedia Brown, passed away on July 11 at the age of 87. Sobol wrote 28 books starring 10-year-old Leroy Brown, with the next one, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, scheduled to come out this fall. In honor of Sobol, here are a [...]

Yum Sugar recently came out with a list of official dishes for each U.S. state. Oregon, for example, is Marion berry pie. My state, California, has Cobb salad listed as the food of choice. Over all, they seem pretty accurate to me, but I haven’t been to every state of the nation. How do you feel [...]

Here’s a little more Canadian history on this Canada Day. Alberta Named in honor of Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848-1939), the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the wife of the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Lake Louise, the village of Caroline, and Mount Alberta are also named after her. British Columbia The name refers to the Columbia District, the [...]

Happy Canada Day! On this date in 1867, the nation was officially born when the Constitution Act joined three provinces into one country: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Canada province, which then split into Ontario and Quebec. However, Canada was not completely independent of England until 1982. The holiday called Dominion Day was officially [...]

Have you ever wanted to speed across a bridge that’s half a mile long and 13 stories in the air, pretending you’re in Tron? Yeah, me too. Good news: the next time you’re in Madrid, Iowa, you totally can. But before we get to Tron, we have to go back a few years. Hundreds of years [...]

(YouTube Link) Gravity Falls is a new animated TV show, created by Alan Hirsch, that will air on the Disney Channel starting June 29th. This surprisingly fun, and beautifully animated, show is about two kids from the big city sent to spend the summer with their uncle in a strange Oregon town called Gravity Falls, where things [...]

Photo: Brad Goldpaint – view more fantastic shots at Brad’s website Photographer Brad Goldpaint captured the northern lights over Crater Lake, Oregon, like you’ve never seen before: [...]

Pedalpalooza is a bicycle festival in Portland, Oregon. Last Saturday afternoon, it conducted a Star Trek vs. Star Wars-themed ride. This tandem bike, though too underpowered for a campaign on Hoth, navigated the city streets with ease. Watch a video of it at the link. Video Link -via Technabob | Official Website

Huzzah! Dull and Boring are together at last! Remember the Neatorama story posted by Miss Cellania that told us the village of Dull in Perthshire, Scotland proposed [...]