A mother and father named their child “Odd”. Because of his unfortunate name, poor Odd had the worst life you could imagine.
In school, he was always picked on and had trouble making friends. In college he never fit in and struggled to gain the respect of his peers. In life he drifted from job to job, unable to find steady work. He never found the love of his life and lived a lonely bachelor.
And so one day Odd decided he couldn’t go on anymore and took his own life. In his suicide note he demanded that his grave be a blank headstone with no mention of his name, so that he could be completely and utterly forgotten.
And yet every time someone walks past his grave, they see his wordless stone and go, “That’s odd…”
A few years back nuts like this would have ended up in a mad house, nowadays they make headlines in mainstream media.
In the list of life’s regrets, this shockingly isn’t one.
A British man decided to legally change his name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger as a show of his undying love of the sandwich.
“I’ve got no regrets at all.”
Sam Smith, 33, told the U.K.’s Standard that the, “Bacon Double Cheeseburger was pretty much the first thing that came up,” after a night of drinking with his buddies who convinced him to do go ahead with the stunt.
“It was the culmination of probably too many drinks in the pub where there was a conversation about names,” he said.
After he sobered up, he still embraced his new identity.
“I’ve got no regrets at all,” he said.
So what do his parents think?
“My mum was furious but my dad thinks it’s hilarious. He’s more than happy to use my new name.”
Another person not too pleased with the name apparently is Smith’s fiancée. “My fiancée is fairly reluctant about marrying a Cheeseburger. That’s something we’re discussing a lot. No girl ever dreams of spending her big day marrying a man called Bacon.”
Who knows? The odd name could have perks. Remember the Burger and Kingcouple who got married? Fast food giant Burger King picked up the tab for their wedding.
For now, Smith proudly signs off his work emails as “B D Cheeseburger.”
The four Shields brothers, of White Rock, Texas, were billed as being between 7 feet 8 inches and 8 feet 0 inches tall, but in reality none of them exceeded 7 feet 0 inches. They were between 6 feet 8 inches and 6 feet 11 inches when they joined a Barnum & Bailey sideshow around 1880. They were also known as The Texas Giants.
Shadrick Archibald Shields (a.k.a. Shade Shields at 6 feet 8 inches), Augustus Orion Shields (a.k.a. Guss Shields at 6 feet 9 inches), John Franklin Shields (a.k.a. Frank Shields at 6 feet 10.5 inches), and Jack Robinson Shields (a.k.a. Jack Shields at 6 feet 11 inches) each made about six dollars a day as ‘The Texas Giants.’ Three of the brothers returned to Texas after 10 years, but Shade trouped on into the 1890s. At one point, he and his tall, Irish wife, Annie (formerly knownn as Annie O’Brien, wife of Patrick O’Brien), were billed as ‘The Texas Giant and Giantess.’ After Shade retired, he and Guss ran a saloon in Greenville. But in his last years, recalling the magic of the big top, Shade spent most of his time on Missouri riverboats with his good friend and fellow circus veteran, 36-inch-tall Major Ray, who had formed one half of ‘the smallest married couple in the world.’
One of the newspaper clippings below writes of 7 real Shields Brothers (with a claimed combined height of over 50 feet!). The 1870 census even lists 8 Shields brothers and their approximate birth years:
James Shields – 1839
Robert Shields – 1842
Thomas J Shields – 1844
Josiah P Shields – 1848
Augustus O Shields – 1851
John F Shields – 1853
Shadrick A Shields – 1857
Jack R Shields – 1859
Only 4 of them were tall enough to tour as giants. The line-up of the ‘Shields Brothers’ varied to include other tall men from that period. Other tall man that regularly posed as one of the 4 brothers were Ben Brown and George Sturgis.
As if a pastry shaped like a fried egg weren’t weird enough already, this Sanrio pastry vomits cream and poops chocolate. The sweet is based on the character Gudetama, an anthropomorphized egg yolk characterized by his laziness and sleepiness,
The Gudetama cartoon character comes from Sanrio, the company that brought Hello Kitty and Keroppi into your childhood. And the exploding pastry is just one feature of a larger, equally weird project: a pop-up Gudetama café occupying Hong Kong’s YATA grocery store for one month, created by Japan-based curry chain Izumi Curry. This strange, highly ‘grammable café also features Gudetama chairs and pillows, balloons, dishes, elaborate wallpaper and all kinds of meals made to look like the character.
