We just blew our dog's mind

He's staring in wonder at our elaborate 

Halloween decorations!

Calabash-Wearers Will Be Prosecuted

As you can see, I’m an enthusiastic supporter of helmet laws. As such, I took particular note of this story from the BBC regarding motorcycle-taxi passengers in Nigeria trying to circumvent the nation’s mandatory helmet law in an unusual way.

They wear pumpkins shells on their heads.

The article (which contains the memorable line “Road safety officials said calabash-wearers would be prosecuted”) reveals that the gourd ruse is not working. Pumpkin-wearing passengers cause the motorcycle taxi drivers to have their bikes confiscated and generally make trouble for all parties concerned. So why do they persist? Are they afraid of being thought of as bumpkins? Pumpkinheads?

Ah, it's superstition! These passengers fear that any helmet provided by the taxi drivers could be used “to cast spells on their clients, making it easy for them to be robbed.”

If this sounds like magical thinking to you, try pushing the button for the 13th floor next time you get on an elevator. Can't do it, can you? Of course not. Nobody wants to be on the 13th floor. (Yes, yes, I know the 14th floor is really the 13th floor. Now go away... I can't get my pumpkin to fit right...)

Pumpkin helmet photo by Ben-Millett.

Pumpkins with Human Faces (and Pumpkin Seeds for Brains...Just Like Us!)

The Modern Mechanix blog has posted an article from a 1938 issue of Popular Science. It's about John Czeski, an Ohio farmer who made human pumpkin heads. That is, Czeski made a mold of the entire human head he wanted to reproduce. He would then set it over a young pumpkin. Once the pumpkin filled in the contours, the mold was removed.

This was so effective, it's almost fakey looking. (Hey, how do you spell that: "fakey"? "fakie"?)

How far have we come in anthropomorphic gourd technology in the following 70 years? Well, this guy grew a pumpkin with Mickey Mouse ears. Humph.