Question Things Found in the Whateley Lost and Found

Several post it notes with names, dates and times written on them. Most are yellow, but there is one pink one...

To go with the above:
A toilet seat from the ISS which has scorch marks from re-entry. And an identified carbonized organic substance which it picked up on impact with the earth.

Cryptic wrote: Several post it notes with names, dates and times written on them. Most are yellow, but there is one pink one...

To go with the above:
A toilet seat from the ISS which has scorch marks from re-entry. And an identified carbonized organic substance which it picked up on impact with the earth.

You'll only get the answer to this if you're Dead!

Like Me.

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Cryptic wrote: Several post it notes with names, dates and times written on them. Most are yellow, but there is one pink one...

To go with the above:
A toilet seat from the ISS which has scorch marks from re-entry. And an identified carbonized organic substance which it picked up on impact with the earth.

You'll only get the answer to this if you're Dead!

Like Me.

Bingo

Sir Lee wrote: The ringed-planet decorations seem like the rank badges in "Schlock Mercenary."

Indeed... but these are specific ones. And related to the items found nearby (the size 500 boots, the roast duck, and the chainsaws).

EDIT: I forgot that Arcanist Lupus already identified which epaulets they were.

I think I need to repost mine outstanding ones to make sure I have them all.

• An extremely large Japanese sword. It looks impressive at first, but seems increasingly disappointing as you get a closer look at it. Wielding it makes you feel like someone has made you their bitch, but somehow, not in the way it was intended to.
  
• A collection of oversized bronze coins, each about 6cm in diameter and 3mm thick, inscribed with Phoenician letters. There is a note from Ms. Grimes stating that no students, nor any faculty from her department, are to ever be allowed to handle these or try to read the inscriptions. It also explains that there is another one of them locked in a safe in the departmental office in case of a dire emergency.
  
• A 3.5m cube. On each side is a sigil or logo showing a series of spiral rays with a solid line going top to bottom through the center of it. There is large display panel on one side, as well as what what appear to be a speaker and a microphone. A chair is set in front of the display. An Galactic Library unit from the Uplift universe (specifically, the Streaker's micro-Library), cross-referenced by Mister D
  
• A portrait of comedienne Judy Gold. The stroke technique seems rather odd.
  
• A section of mulberry bark with Chinese writing in an archaic form of hanzi script carved into it. There are also remnants of several bronze arrowheads embedded in the bark.
  
• A pair of short steel jian made in a particularly early pattern. They seem to belong together.
  
• A pink heart-shaped eyepatch. It's quite gorgeous. Jubei-Chan's Lovely Eyepatch, stealthily eliminated by Rose Bunny.
  
• A flag with 8 red and white horizontal stripes, and in an upper corner, a square field of black containing one large blue seven-pointed star, one smaller red star, and one still smaller white star.
  
• A polearm with two sword-like blades arranged in a fork. Grendel's naginata, wielded by Mister D
  
• A large ceramic wine jug labeled "Cottonwine", sealed in heavy plastic and marked with both biohazard and psychohazard warnings.
  
• A glass containing a drink which could kill a herd of cows at 100 paces.
  
• A letter from a love-lorn woman who met a man once in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.
  
• A larger than life solid gold statue, covered in sea muck, of a couple engaged in mutual oral sex. (This and the previous one about the letter are related, though only indirectly.)
  
• A pair of binoculars which had been mistakenly locked in a cupboard. They're quite waterlogged and rusted after being on the ocean floor for so long. Too bad about the ship, I bet these could have helped. The spotter's binoculars on the RMS Titanic which were left unavailable to the crew by accident, raised from the ocean bottom by Null0Trooper and Mister D

Oh, and these two aren't references to anything specific (not quite, anyway), but

• A meerschaum pipe inscribed with the words "cece n'est pas une image". A send-up of Rene Magritte's "The Treachery of Images", visualized by both Null0Trooper and Mister D
• A wooden silverware chest with the crest of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Inside is a large collection of aluminum fondue forks and runcible spoons, also bearing the Imperial crest in hand-painted enamel. a send-up of Napoleon III's aluminum flatware, revere(ware)ed by Mister D
  

I think I see Jubei-Chan's Lovely Eyepatch.

Indeed you do.

Oh, and near the jug of wine, are two cases of wine bottles, one with a pink fruit wine and the other with a blue one. These have the same psychohazard labels as the jug, but while they seem somehow similar, they are actually quite different.

Also, near the jug is a book in an ancient Fae tongue. And a note from Ophelia Tenant stating that any male student who drinks it will need to be transferred to Poe after they come back from ARC.

Was the Polearm, in fact the Lance of Longinus, from Evangelion?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: [*] A pair of binoculars which had been mistakenly locked in a cupboard. They're quite waterlogged and rusted after being on the ocean floor for so long. Too bad about the ship, I bet these could have helped.

David Blair might know something about that.

I don't know how civilian merchants would have handled it back in the day, but other things being equal, I'd expect a catastrophic lock failure to be logged shortly after seeing a lookout posted without binocs.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Oh, and these two aren't references to anything specific (not quite, anyway), but

That explains my confusion.

* A meerschaum pipe inscribed with the words "cece n'est pas une image".

Potential inspiration for Magritte's "The Treachery of Images"?

* A wooden silverware chest with the crest of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Inside is a large collection of aluminum fondue forks and runcible spoons, also bearing the Imperial crest in hand-painted enamel.

A reference to Napoleon III's cutlery?

Next on the series of reveals, one that has made a lot of people scratch their heads... no wonder, it's fairly unknown in the Northern hemisphere (outside Spain and Portugal, that is):

A globe (yes, the sort used on geography classes) that instead of countries, is covered by thousands of small figures carrying protest signs.

This comes from a classic strip in the (also classic) Argentine comic strip Mafalda , by cartoonist genius Joaquin Lavado a,k.a. Quino . No, I'm NOT overstating things here. If anything, I'm understating Quino's importance. Big-time critics like Umberto Eco consider Mafalda to be at the same level of Peanuts and Krazy Kat. It's THAT good. And, considering the traditional rivalry between Brazil and Argentina, the fact that he's extremely highly regarded here should say something. This particular strip made the cover of one of the collections:


Loosely translated: "Puddinhead! You are having nightmares and on top of it you laugh?"
(It must be said that the strip ran in the late sixties, an Mafalda, the girl on the left, is what today might be called a "Social Justice Warrior" -- while the girl on the right, Susanita (one of Mafalda's best friends, despite their political differences) has a much more "traditional" view of women's roles.)

Still open:

1. A small metal box, with very sophisticated liquid shock absorbing on the inside, containing a small silvery ball a few centimeters in diameter.
2. A box a bit larger than an old-fashioned Walkman, with a strong belt attached. Other than some control buttons of unclear purpose, its only feature is a metal ring protruding from one side.
3. A set of clockwork mechanisms, about the size of a pocket watch. There's one obviously missing, and a note: "do not wind up any more of these until we figure out how they work -- they are irreplaceable."
4. A crumpled piece of paper which clearly has something written on it (parts of the writing are visible). However, when one smooths the paper, it becomes impossible to tell what's written.
5. A plush toy rabbit, colored blue, with its ears tied in a knot. If you open the zipper on the back, you find out that there's a brick inside it.
6. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:
[*] A 3.5m cube. On each side is a sigil or logo showing a series of spiral rays with a solid line going top to bottom through the center of it. There is large display panel on one side, as well as what what appear to be a speaker and a microphone. A chair is set in front of the display.

[*] A polearm with two sword-like blades arranged in a fork.

[*] A pair of binoculars which had been mistakenly locked in a cupboard. They're quite waterlogged and rusted after being on the ocean floor for so long. Too bad about the ship, I bet these could have helped.
[/list]

Oh, and these two aren't references to anything specific (not quite, anyway), but

• A meerschaum pipe inscribed with the words "cece n'est pas une image".

The 3.5m cube- Is it a Library terminal from David Brin's Uplift series?

The pole arm with two blades - Grendel's naginata from "The Devil By The Deed"?

The binoculars - something to do with The Titanic?

The Pipe - This is a commentary on Renee Magritte's "Treachery of Images", but i can't remember who made it...

Mister D wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote:
[*] A 3.5m cube. On each side is a sigil or logo showing a series of spiral rays with a solid line going top to bottom through the center of it. There is large display panel on one side, as well as what what appear to be a speaker and a microphone. A chair is set in front of the display.

[*] A polearm with two sword-like blades arranged in a fork.

[*] A pair of binoculars which had been mistakenly locked in a cupboard. They're quite waterlogged and rusted after being on the ocean floor for so long. Too bad about the ship, I bet these could have helped.
[/list]

Oh, and these two aren't references to anything specific (not quite, anyway), but

• A meerschaum pipe inscribed with the words "cece n'est pas une image".

The 3.5m cube- Is it a Library terminal from David Brin's Uplift series?

The pole arm with two blades - Grendel's naginata from "The Devil By The Deed"?

The binoculars - something to do with The Titanic?

The Pipe - This is a commentary on Renee Magritte's "Treachery of Images", but i can't remember who made it...

All correct, very good! Nicely done. Null0trooper (I keep wanting ti write that as 'troper') also got the binoculars from the RMS Titanic (and even named the person responsible for the mistake, which is arguably a reason why the iceberg was sighted too late - no one knows if they could have seen it sooner with them, but they certainly didn't see it soon enough without the) and the reference to "The Treachery of Images". I know that at least one such pipe exists, as a reference to the painting (rather than the other way around) but I cannot recall who made it.

The Napoleonic utensil set does indeed refers to Napoleon III's prized set of aluminum flatware. In the 1856, a set of aluminum utensils were made for him, and he would reserve them for his most honored guests. This was because, while the metal was discovered at the end of the 18th century (it was known in other forms, but no one realized it was a metal), it could not be extracted and smelted until 1825. Even then, aluminum metal was enormously expensive to produce at the time, making it worth more than gold. This is also why the apex of Washington Monument is made of metallic aluminum - it was intended, like the cutlery, to show off the industrial might and technical sophistication, a sign of progress which both nations wanted to display.

The Hall–Héroult and Bayer processes, which together made it practical to produce in quantity, weren't developed until the late 1880s.

As for why fondue forks and the legendary (or at least imaginary) runcible spoons , well, it was meant to be funny.

Another day, another disclosure of one of my outstanding ones...

A small metal box, with very sophisticated liquid shock absorbing on the inside, containing a small silvery ball a few centimeters in diameter.

This I didn't expect to last very long, and yet, here it is, unsolved. It comes from the classic "robot" stories by Isaac Asimov, I'm pretty sure that this one is in I, Robot. It's the way U.S. Robots & Mechanical Men packs for transport the positronic brains for their robots. Seen in one of the Powell & Donovan tales, when they assemble a new robot.

Still open:

1. A box a bit larger than an old-fashioned Walkman, with a strong belt attached. Other than some control buttons of unclear purpose, its only feature is a metal ring protruding from one side.
2. A set of clockwork mechanisms, about the size of a pocket watch. There's one obviously missing, and a note: "do not wind up any more of these until we figure out how they work -- they are irreplaceable."
3. A crumpled piece of paper which clearly has something written on it (parts of the writing are visible). However, when one smooths the paper, it becomes impossible to tell what's written.
4. A plush toy rabbit, colored blue, with its ears tied in a knot. If you open the zipper on the back, you find out that there's a brick inside it.
5. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

And today's disclosure, like yesterday's, comes from one of the Big Names of the Golden Age of Science Fiction:

A box a bit larger than an old-fashioned Walkman, with a strong belt attached. Other than some control buttons of unclear purpose, its only feature is a metal ring protruding from one side.

Yes, that's Vannevar Morgan's "spinneret", from Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise.

A few hints:

Part of the name of the oversized sword could be translated as 'great', in the sense of either 'large' or 'important'. In the source material it is meant to be the former, but for laughs I went with the latter. Trust me, both the source and its advertising campaign deserve this mockery, from all accounts.

WRT the wine, while I do not consider myself a furry as such, I do appreciate a lot of furry - even yiffy - artwork. But not all, and the source for one of these is too cutesy for pr0n to my tastes.

The painting is a real thing. The artist is obscure, but the TV series it was commissioned for is a good deal better known, if not exactly a household name. The artist was the subject of a segment in one of the show's episodes. Also, as I said before, it was the mention of 'Kickasso' that made me think of it in the first place.

Many military historians and armchair generals have read a version of the story that the piece of tree bark is from. Whether or not it is a true story, it is something that has inspired students of warfare for millennia by its cunning and chutzpah.

The paired swords are old. Really old. Foundational, even. Pity it took a human sacrifice to make them.

The bovine-slaying cocktail is notable less for what it is than for its very familiar name, and where it comes from (both the source and the location).

The letter may not have burned, but the recipient did fnord. The recipient of the statue (one of five, Hail Eris) met an even worse fate, though.

I would have thought that those who recognized the bottle of Old Mink would have also recognized the flag, though they were, admittedly, only related through their publisher. Also, the thing about removing five stripes was not mentioned, but would have made sense in context, and IIRC it is how it appears in the series.

And now, the disclosure many of you are waiting for... the one that confused the most...

A set of clockwork mechanisms, about the size of a pocket watch. There's one obviously missing, and a note: "do not wind up any more of these until we figure out how they work -- they are irreplaceable."

I did say that they come from a work that is very, very, VERY BIG in terms of cultural impact. Bigger than Girl Genius? Oh, hell yeah, no doubt about it. Bigger than Star Trek? Of course, Star Trek drank from it in numerous occasions. Bigger than Oz? Arguably. I mean, it's not every day that a work comes to define a new concept.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... H.G.Wells' The Time Machine. The clockwork mechanisms appeared at the beginning of the book, as scale model prototypes to demonstrate the principle working. And, of course, if you wind up one of them it will go... somewhen... and no longer be available to analyze.

Is this the part where I sputter in embarrassment over the fact that I have never actually read the original? I did read a heavily abridged sequential-art (read: comic book) adaptation, but that was over thirty years ago.

Mind you, I can understand your frustration a lot better now. Though I can also see why no one picked up on it. Even those who did read it would probably not think of that scene, since it is, presumably, greatly overshadowed by the rest of the book.

Also the tree bark? It's related - so to speak - to a work that far more people will have read, both in the modern world and historically, than the entirety of Wells' canon combined. The story is often included with it, though the slender text in question is non-fiction (the biography usually given for the purported author is a different matter).

And, for the last one of my long-time outstanding ones, one that should be easy -- I mean, I have seen the concept discussed in this very thread!

A crumpled piece of paper which clearly has something written on it (parts of the writing are visible). However, when one smooths the paper, it becomes impossible to tell what's written.

Obviously, what's written on the paper is the word "fnord."

The last two are more recent, so I'll not offer the answers this month. I'll just say that they aren't really easy (well, for non-Brazilians in the case of the first one) but neither are they ridiculously hard.

1. A plush toy rabbit, colored blue, with its ears tied in a knot. If you open the zipper on the back, you find out that there's a brick inside it.
2. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

Sir Lee wrote: And, for the last one of my long-time outstanding ones, one that should be easy -- I mean, I have seen the concept discussed in this very thread!

A crumpled piece of paper which clearly has something written on it (parts of the writing are visible). However, when one smooths the paper, it becomes impossible to tell what's written.

Obviously, what's written on the paper is the word "fnord."

The problem with that is most of us are, in fact, illuminated in some form and can, in fact, see the fnords.

Oh, I forgot to add that the story of the two jian is sometimes included in the same book with the story involving the tree bark, as well. That story, however, is much older than that book, which in turn is older than the story that the tree bark is in.

Also, the historical figure the tree bark involves wrote another book, of the same name as the one his story is often told in, though it was lost for a long time. Modern printings often put them together, sometimes alongside two or three other classics.

So, can anyone tell me what the carving on the bark says?

A small collection of bushes and plants, it's in high demand.

Rose Bunny wrote: A small collection of bushes and plants, it's in high demand.

That sounds like a shrubbery.

A large statue of a rodent. Some might complain that it is somehow too effeminate looking.

Arcanist Lupus wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: A small collection of bushes and plants, it's in high demand.

That sounds like a shrubbery.

It is a shrubbery.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A large statue of a rodent. Some might complain that it is somehow too effeminate looking.

My guess is this unfortunate-looking statue of Goldy Gopher.

As it happens, no. I had never even heard of it before, in fact. However, now that II have seen it, I can understand why you would say so...

The tail of a rodent of unusual size.

While the description suggests The Princess Bride, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that this is actually either Maude's or Tyson's severed tail from Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures.

Sir Lee wrote: While the description suggests The Princess Bride, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that this is actually either Maude's or Tyson's severed tail from Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures.

Actually not the tail I was thinking of. This one is a Mouse tail.

Reepicheep's tail, from Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

Rose Bunny wrote: Reepicheep's tail, from Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

Winner!

A whistle in the shape of a little fat pig, made of tin and painted green. The whistle is in the tail of the pig.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: A whistle in the shape of a little fat pig, made of tin and painted green. The whistle is in the tail of the pig.

The Tin Woodman

OtherEric wrote:

Arcanist Lupus wrote: A whistle in the shape of a little fat pig, made of tin and painted green. The whistle is in the tail of the pig.

The Tin Woodman

Yeppers!

A jacket with a stylized lion's head sewn on the back.

Sir Lee wrote: A jacket with a stylized lion's head sewn on the back.

Would that belong to Kirby Hero from Matt Wagner's MAGE?

A clay and blood covered gold wire with wooden handles.

OtherEric wrote:

Sir Lee wrote: A jacket with a stylized lion's head sewn on the back.

Would that belong to Kirby Hero from Matt Wagner's MAGE?

Yes it would. I thought that this would be a little less obvious than Kevin Matchstick's t-shirt, but... oh well.

Sir Lee wrote:

OtherEric wrote:

Sir Lee wrote: A jacket with a stylized lion's head sewn on the back.

Would that belong to Kirby Hero from Matt Wagner's MAGE?

Yes it would. I thought that this would be a little less obvious than Kevin Matchstick's t-shirt, but... oh well.

It would have been... if I hadn't re-read the series a month ago after they announced Mage 3 was finally coming out later this year.

That's... that's probably the best news I have seen since... well, since Heather announced a new story, I guess.

A yellow and blue costume fitted for a petite woman, outfitted with cat ears, and metal claws on the fingertips and toetips. Smells vaguely of brimstone and sweet sweet lovin' (with a hint of co-dependency, desperation, and unresolved daddy issues).

Ooh, am I overdoing this one?

It almost, but not quite sounds like Laura Kinney's Wolverine costume. of course, her claws are her own.

Oh wait... Patsy Walker's Hellcat costume!

Marvel's Hellcat costume

Yes to both of you. Mind you it was originally Greer Grant Nelson's when she was The Cat, but she didn't really need artificial claws (or much in the way of clothing) when Patsy found it in a closet in the Avenger's Mansion.

No, really, that's actually what happened. Turns out the boyfriend she fought so hard to get through most of her own teen-romance series - the one she gave up her modeling career to marry - was an abusive scumbag who got a job for Roxxon and - surprise, surprise - ended up as a member of the Serpent Society. She dropped a dime on him to the Avengers, they had to rescue her, and while she was hiding out in the mansion during the fighting, she got bored and started opening doors at random. Rather than, say, fall into some experiment of Hank Pym's or something, she found Nelson's old costume and - I am dead serious here - decided to model it. While there is fighting going on around her just a few rooms away. Of course, she then ended up having to fight...

Of course, she also met Daimon Hellstrom the next issue, not long after her first husband conveniently got slagged by his employers, so she was good to go on Hubby #2.

No joke. I had that issue of The Avengers years ago (it was in a largish collection I bought around 1985 off of someone who needed to unload it fast), and it was pretty much as silly as it sounds. OK, my memory is bad enough that I probably have some of it wrong, but that's how I recall it being.

A large collection of books, several crates of canned food, and one pair of broken glasses.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A large collection of books, several crates of canned food, and one pair of broken glasses.

Have we fallen into the Twilight Zone?

So it would seem.

A damaged wing from a passenger airplane.

Valentine wrote: A damaged wing from a passenger airplane.

I don't think I have watched a single season in its entierety and yet I am thinking about LOST for some reason.

Valentine wrote: A damaged wing from a passenger airplane.

Was it damaged by gremlins? Did William Shatner witness the damage?

Sir Lee wrote:

Valentine wrote: A damaged wing from a passenger airplane.

Was it damaged by gremlins? Did William Shatner witness the damage?

Why yes he did.

A coin. One would think it pocket change, if not for the fact it has 2 heads on it, and some damage to one side.

Rose Bunny wrote: A coin. One would think it pocket change, if not for the fact it has 2 heads on it, and some damage to one side.

Two faces coin.

NJM1564 wrote: Two faces coin.

yep

Did I overreach with the message in the tree bark? I know there are some armchair generals in this group, so I figured that one of them would have known the story it is from. I would say 'historians', but the historical accuracy is, ah, doubtful...

The two jian, I get, though. Even an expert on Chinese history and legends would be hard pressed to recognize those.

The large Japanese sword? A lot more recent, both in the backstory and in real-world terms. And still very disappointing. When the source of it was back on the market a few years ago, most people bought it just to point and laugh.

A skull, it had laid for 23 years before being picked up and queried at.
Purportedly, it belonged to an entertainer.

Rose Bunny wrote: A skull, it had laid for 23 years before being picked up and queried at.
Purportedly, it belonged to an entertainer.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well?

An old silver coin with some kind of ruin inscribed across it's face.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: A skull, it had laid for 23 years before being picked up and queried at.
Purportedly, it belonged to an entertainer.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well?

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. —Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

A man of infinite jest, indeed.

I wonder if Heather is reading this thread. Probably not, she might have known the carved message.

As for the bitch-generating sword, it is supposed to come from Japan. The story/media it appears in, on the other hand, came from an egotistical auteur with more money than sense and a contempt for both deadlines and customersDallas, Texas.

A fine example of Canadian taxidermy, recently made.

A nice beaver?

a very large square machine, with a upside-down elongated pyramid screen on the top and that has two large colored dials on it's front.

On top of it. Sits a large bound manual that is made up of metal sheets of paper and a long red glass bead that has "Bead condenser (model # AB-619)" stamped on it as a place holder.

Sir Lee wrote: A nice beaver?

Well done, Sir Lee, just the one I had in mind.

With one of those, "laying a four-lane highway at the rate of a mile a minute would be a cinch" (Thereby proving that Meacham is no civil engineer even if he can build an interocitor from a kit.)

A silvery briefcase -sized, very light, seamless metal box with a dull finish and odd runes etched in the top.

Beware of the expiration of the trial period. We still haven't figured out how to send 52,495 Fwirthi Rakburs to the Gemalfi Corporation. I don't think they take Visa, MasterCard, Amex, PayPal or Bitcoin.

A long list of names, the people listed are "skilled workers", and though there are many listed, it was not enough in the eyes of the maker of the list.

Rose Bunny wrote: A long list of names, the people listed are "skilled workers", and though there are many listed, it was not enough in the eyes of the maker of the list.

Pretty sure that belongs to Oskar Schindler.

OtherEric wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: A long list of names, the people listed are "skilled workers", and though there are many listed, it was not enough in the eyes of the maker of the list.

Pretty sure that belongs to Oskar Schindler.

What about the 2nd one though?

OtherEric wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: A long list of names, the people listed are "skilled workers", and though there are many listed, it was not enough in the eyes of the maker of the list.

Pretty sure that belongs to Oskar Schindler.

you are correct

elrodw wrote: A silvery briefcase -sized, very light, seamless metal box with a dull finish and odd runes etched in the top.

Morphic Adaptation Unit?

Sir Lee wrote: Beware of the expiration of the trial period. We still haven't figured out how to send 52,495 Fwirthi Rakburs to the Gemalfi Corporation. I don't think they take Visa, MasterCard, Amex, PayPal or Bitcoin.

That sounds like a Morphic Adaptation Unit, from our very own Elrod! Wouldn't it be nice if he could use one of those instead of having to deal with surgery?

EDIT: Ninja'd

A sealed glass vial containing a reddish liquid.

Valentine wrote: A sealed glass vial containing a reddish liquid.

Was an Easterner supposed to be holding onto it for safekeeping?

null0trooper wrote:

Valentine wrote: A sealed glass vial containing a reddish liquid.

Was an Easterner supposed to be holding onto it for safekeeping?

Yes he was.

This one is a bit twisty.

A watch large enough to belong to someone the size of the universe. On the second largest hand is a small crustacean.

When the hands meet, is it happy land?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: When the hands meet, is it happy land?

That's the first part...

An object not of this Earth. It might not have been the owner's original one, but it was a useful escape contingency. Over its history, it has had many disguises, including a clock, a greco-romanesque pillar, a potted tree, a fireplace, a Super-sonic jetliner, and even his adversary's vessel.

Rose Bunny wrote: An object not of this Earth. It might not have been the owner's original one, but it was a useful escape contingency. Over its history, it has had many disguises, including a clock, a greco-romanesque pillar, a potted tree, a fireplace, a Super-sonic jetliner, and even his adversary's vessel.

The Master's TARDIS.

OtherEric wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: An object not of this Earth. It might not have been the owner's original one, but it was a useful escape contingency. Over its history, it has had many disguises, including a clock, a greco-romanesque pillar, a potted tree, a fireplace, a Super-sonic jetliner, and even his adversary's vessel.

The Master's TARDIS.

You are correct.

Not sure I get the part about the crustacean, though.

A tiger print halter top, some funky earrings, goggles made to resemble visor shades, a pair of open-toe clogs, and a soldering iron.

A print-out of a list of women, rated by dateability.

A female talk show host between two slices of bread. Don't bother berating her any more, she knows what she is.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A print-out of a list of women, rated by dateability.

This could belong to a lot of people. Captain Courage? Peeper? Steve Dallas (from Bloom County)? Dean the Pig (from Liberty Meadows)?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Not sure I get the part about the crustacean, though.

As I said, this is a twisty one.

And strictly speaking, it's not an object.

Sir Lee wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A print-out of a list of women, rated by dateability.

This could belong to a lot of people. Captain Courage? Peeper? Steve Dallas (from Bloom County)? Dean the Pig (from Liberty Meadows)?

I have a particular one in mind, one which is causing the owner a lot of trouble at the moment, now that it's been leaked. Of course, the ukulele music doesn't help, either. Seriously, Hawaiian music in the Great Lakes region? Not a good look for his roommate. That, on top of getting complaints about his descriptions of the girls who wouldn't date him (or whom he wouldn't date again), is not a happy thing - though it is a well-deserved one. At least no dimension-hopping Brits are involved this time, of either the Fannish or Ninja persuasion (no, I'm not talking about Nex).

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A print-out of a list of women, rated by dateability.

That belongs to Joe Rosenthal .

Well, it did... now it belongs to the world. Or at least the World Wide Web.

I think I need to start giving out explanations for some of the ones which are lingering. The one about the disappointing Japanese sword is going to illicit groans.

Also:
A red gown or robe, and a small pouch containing a blue gemstone. The pouch is on a leather strip in a loop and seems meant to be worn around the neck.

A sombrero'ed cactus with a mustachio that speaks in a Scots accent.

A sealed and locked metal box on a pedestal, covered in labels warning not to touch the contents. Inside is a polyhedral die with an unusual number of facets.

The Cutty Wren. Watch out, it's dangerous.

A can of headlight fluid.

A 1 MW flashlight. Next to it is a 1 MW Fleshlight.

A stuffed human cadaver wearing a tuxedo, seated on an opulent but garish throne decorated in pornographic carvings. The throne is in turn on a marble pedestal, and a giant bell jar covers the body and throne.

(Hey, it was the closest thing I could find to something SFW from that series...)

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A red gown or robe, and a small pouch containing a blue gemstone. The pouch is on a leather strip in a loop and seems meant to be worn around the neck.

Sounds like a Keeper's robe (Callista Lanart's?) and a matrix stone.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A can of headlight fluid.

Unsurprisingly, my old Mustang's headlights routinely managed to accumulate fluid. It is safer to obtain than boatswain's punch.

null0trooper wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A red gown or robe, and a small pouch containing a blue gemstone. The pouch is on a leather strip in a loop and seems meant to be worn around the neck.

Sounds like a Keeper's robe (Callista Lanart's?) and a matrix stone.

Yes, though I didn't have hers specifically in mind. Mind you, my suggestions to Atalanta for additions to Things I am no longer allowed to do at Arilinn Tower actually scared her. Also, one of my very, very few pieces of fanart was of Anne Onymous dressed as a Keeper.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A can of headlight fluid.

Is that right next to Sarge and Lopez's tub of elbow grease?

Solutions to some of my old objects:

a hard boiled egg with toast cut into little soldiers, and a sprig of lilac. Vimes/Keel's breakfast, and means of identification on the Glorious 25th of May
The beheaded corpse of a hawk of unknown species with poison sacks on its talons. A scorpion hawk (dead), from The Lies of Locke Lamora
I found a new object! It's green, hangs on a wall, and whistles. A herring


I'm leaving this one open for now. Schol-R-LEA already figured out part of it.

A watch large enough to belong to someone the size of the universe. On the second largest hand is a small crustacean.

Well, let me get this over with:
An extremely large Japanese sword. It looks impressive at first, but seems increasingly disappointing as you get a closer look at it. Wielding it makes you feel like someone has made you their bitch, but somehow, not in the way it was intended to.
The Daikatana, from the over-hyped and underwhelming video game of the same name by John Romero.

A collection of oversized bronze coins, each about 6cm in diameter and 3mm thick, inscribed with Phoenician letters. There is a note from Ms. Grimes stating that no students, nor any faculty from her department, are to ever be allowed to handle these or try to read the inscriptions. It also explains that there is another one of them locked in a safe in the departmental office in case of a dire emergency.

A few more Warlock's Wheels (the first one I mentioned had been misplaced, so we'd appreciate you putting it back with these).

A glass containing a drink which could kill a herd of cows at 100 paces.
A tzjin-anthony-ks, pronounced 'gin and tonics'.

in 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe', Douglas Adams wrote: 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

Ebola wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A can of headlight fluid.

Is that right next to Sarge and Lopez's tub of elbow grease?

Nah, it's behind the spool of flightline.

A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.

A large toolbox. More than half of its capacity is taken by several rolls of duct tape.

Sir Lee wrote: A large toolbox. More than half of its capacity is taken by several rolls of duct tape.

Would that be Red Green's toolbox?

Yes it would.

Sir Lee wrote: A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.

Would they be "Don't cremate me"? I never saw the episode personally, but I did hear about it.

New one: A swamp. No one is quite sure how it got in here.

More answers:

A large ceramic wine jug labeled "Cottonwine", sealed in heavy plastic and marked with both biohazard and psychohazard warnings.

Oh, and near the jug of wine, are two cases of wine bottles, one with a pink fruit wine and the other with a blue one. These have the same psychohazard labels as the jug, but while they seem somehow similar, they are actually quite different.

Also, near the jug is a book in an ancient Fae tongue. And a note from Ophelia Tenant stating that any male student who drinks it will need to be transferred to Poe after they come back from ARC.

These items are from two of the most notorious Yiff comics ever. I won't link to them, and if you go looking for them keep in mind that they are both extremely NSFW. Some would say NSFL, especially in the case of the second one.

The jug is from Jay Naylor's The Fall of Little Red Riding Hood, in which the titular Red is seduced by a humanoid wolf, who tricks her into drink Cottonwine, an aphrodisiac herbal infusion that causes delirium in humans. He then uses it to kidnap her boyfriend Pedro (no idea where this came from, though a similar Pedro does appear in several other stories; the version of Red herself seems loosely based on another Naylor character as well).

It turns out that the drink is addictive, and has the side effect of feminizing human males (while making Wolfen males more virile) and making them docile. It also imprints human females with loyalty to the Wolfen and makes the capable of breeding with them (producing Wolfen offspring). This eventually leads to the Wolfen tribes setting up a Wolf cult that infiltrates human society and nearly topples the human kingdom. The book is a set of field notes taken by an Elf researcher who was reporting on the situation to her own leaders.

The two crates of Boinkberry wine - blue for boys, pink for girls (groan) - are from the webcomic Kit 'n' Kay Boodle, a series which takes being sex-positive a bit too far for even its own fans. All in a cutesy funny-animal art style. While I don't mind it too much, most people are rather understandably creeped out by it.

Boinkberries are unique to Yiffburg (no, I am not kidding with that name, seriously that's the name of the town) and are aphrodisiacs, while also being broad-spectrum STD preventatives and contraceptives. The author is really straining to eliminate all possible negative repercussions of all the sex going on.

And yes, the color scheme applies to the berries themselves - and when a gay couple is shown, the bottom eats a pink berry. I wish this were a joke.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

Sir Lee wrote: A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.

Would they be "Don't cremate me"? I never saw the episode personally, but I did hear about it.

No. Note that the napkin is inside a display case -- like it was a document important enough to be preserved.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: New one: A swamp. No one is quite sure how it got in here.

Why, the Weasley twins left it there.

Not the swamp I had in mind, but that's good enough. However, you might find that she disagrees with me on that point. She might have to break out the shortbread cookies, maybe even the chicory-flavored coffee and the beignets. You should probably get a zombie super-soldier to mediate if it comes to that, but if so she (the super-soldier, I mean) will need a tux, a top hat, a cane, and some rum (some spare body parts wouldn't hurt either).

Answers:
A large statue of a rodent. Some might complain that it is somehow too effeminate looking.
This is the statue Tedd Verres gave to the squirrels in his back yard to try and appease them over him not leaving enough seeds in the bird feeder for them as well as the birds. When he presented it to them, Grace told him that they though it was too girly looking, and that they now were demanding a shrubbery.

A section of mulberry bark with Chinese writing in an archaic form of hanzi script carved into it. There are also remnants of several bronze arrowheads embedded in the bark.
The carving reads, " Pang Juan dies beneath this tree tonight". And he did, cursing the name of Sun Bin for having outsmarted him one last time - when he saw the writing, Pang ordered a lantern brought over so he could read it, which then gave Sun's crossbowmen a target to aim at. To be fair, Pang started it by framing Sun for treason.

A pair of short steel jian made in a particularly early pattern. They seem to belong together.
The swords are named Gan Jiang and Mo Ye and according to Chinese tradition were the first steel swords ever forged. One version of the story goes:

Gan Jiang was the sword of a husband named Gan Jiang; Mo Ye was the sword of his wife, named Mo Ye. Like the inseparable couple, the two swords, one male and the other female, were not able to be separated. The husband, Gan Jiang, a blacksmith, was given a request to make a sword for the king. As the time of delivery drew near, Gan Jiang got more worried, for his fire was still not hot enough to forge the metal, and he feared he could not make the sword in time. Having understood the reason for her husband’s distress, the wife shed tears and knew that her husband would be executed if he could not deliver the sword on schedule. She decided to save her husband by throwing herself into the fire, thereby heating it enough to make the sword. When the husband got to know what she intended to do, he could not stop her, only to hear the wife saying, “we can meet again.”

After her wife’s death, the husband Gang Jiang finally made two swords. He named the two swords Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. Putting the sword Mo Ye aside for him, he gave the sword Gan Jiang to the king. The news that Gan Jiang left the other sword for his own use got to the ears of the king, who was outraged and decided to execute him. “How can we unite?” asked Gan Jiang as he was being arrested. All of a sudden, the Mo Ye sword turned into a beautiful dragon. Afterwards, the Gan Jiang sword possessed by the king also disappeared.

Six hundred years later, in a remote small town, the sword saw the dragon in the lake and immediately turned into a dragon—and they united again! The next day, the people in the town saw a new couple settle there. The husband was an excellent blacksmith, who only made agricultural instruments for people while steadfastly refusing to anyone, whether or not they asked, to make valuable swords. When he was at work, his wife would cool him with a fan and wipe sweat from his body. Therefore, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye were two swords of love.

The swamp, the funky funky mad scientist's clothes, the huggy talking cobras (oh, I forgot to mention those earlier, my bad), and the Anderson Cooper/William F. Buckley hurt/comfort slashfic (wait, I didn't mention that before, either, sorry) are all from the webcomic Skin Horse . The swamp is named The Cypress, and she wishes to have a nice afternoon chat with you, with mint julep and muffulettas, mon cherie.

A portrait of comedienne Judy Gold. The stroke technique seems rather odd.

The portrait was commissioned for the show World's Dumbest Performers during Gold's tenure on the series, and was painted by a novelty artist called 'Prickasso', who uses his penis to apply paint to canvases.

A flag with 8 red and white horizontal stripes, and in an upper corner, a square field of black containing one large blue seven-pointed star, one smaller red star, and one still smaller white star.

The flag of The Plex U.S., the branch of the Plex in the former US.; the Plex being the government founded in 1996 following the Meltdown, which rules most of what remained of the former US and USSR, as well as Mars and Luna, including Chicago until they were expelled from the Midwestern US by former PlexUS Ranger Reuben Flagg in 2035. Its capital is Dag Hammarskjold City on Mars. The missing stripes are in reference to the five East Coast states which were rendered uninhabitable after the Indian Point Nuclear Plant melted down.

New one: model M1928 haversack, modified with a lead lining. Inside it is a leather satchel, also lead lined, with a Wehrmacht insignia on it. Inside the haversack with the satchel is a note in Polish stating that the other half of the contents were sent to Berlin, as well as a WWII era map of the Western US with a series of possible routes from Chicago to Denver marked in differently colored pen marks. Kansas and part of Nebraska are marked as 'Occupied'.

Sir Lee wrote: The last two are more recent, so I'll not offer the answers this month. I'll just say that they aren't really easy (well, for non-Brazilians in the case of the first one) but neither are they ridiculously hard.

1. A plush toy rabbit, colored blue, with its ears tied in a knot. If you open the zipper on the back, you find out that there's a brick inside it.
2. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

Has it been a few weeks already? I guess it's time to disclose another one...

The blue plush toy rabbit is named Sansão ("Samson" in English), and belongs to the world's strongest 7-year-old girl, Mônica . I said that it would be ridiculously obvious to any Brazilian, and I meant it... the "Monica's Gang" franchise is incredibly popular down here.

Now, the outstanding ones:

1. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.
2. A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.

I really doubt this is it, but every time you mention that napkin I can't help thinking of "Snape kills Dumbledore."

Schol-R-LEA wrote: New one: model M1928 haversack, modified with a lead lining. Inside it is a leather satchel, also lead lined, with a Wehrmacht insignia on it. Inside the haversack with the satchel is a note in Polish stating that the other half of the contents were sent to Berlin, as well as a WWII era map of the Western US with a series of possible routes from Chicago to Denver marked in differently colored pen marks. Kansas and part of Nebraska are marked as 'Occupied'.

The bag used to transport half of the nuclear material recovered from the alien invaders in Harry Turtledove's World War series.

Sir Lee wrote:

1. An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

Is that the helmet worn by the mutant kangaroo that is Tankgirl's boyfriend?

No mutant kangaroos involved anywhere in the correct answer. And also, no, nothing to do with Hogwarts on the napkin one.

Valentine wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote: New one: model M1928 haversack, modified with a lead lining. Inside it is a leather satchel, also lead lined, with a Wehrmacht insignia on it. Inside the haversack with the satchel is a note in Polish stating that the other half of the contents were sent to Berlin, as well as a WWII era map of the Western US with a series of possible routes from Chicago to Denver marked in differently colored pen marks. Kansas and part of Nebraska are marked as 'Occupied'.

The bag used to transport half of the nuclear material recovered from the alien invaders in Harry Turtledove's World War series.

Yes.

A copy of The Complete Works of Chaucer, edited by William Skeat. The back cover has a deep impression on it, possibly from the foot of a table leg. Tucked inside is a photograph of two young men in Elizabethan costumes, one holding a shovel. The words "Robin and Nick, Hamlet 1972" are written in pencil on the back.

A letter from a love-lorn woman who met a man once in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

and

A larger than life solid gold statue, covered in sea muck, of a couple engaged in mutual oral sex. (This and the previous one about the letter are related, though only indirectly.)

These are both from Illuminatus!, although the letter isn't from the novels per se, but is a reference to something mentioned in passing (and mentioned again in a different context in one of the Shroedinger's Cat novels). It relates to the last words of the colonel who found the dying microbiologist, which were something like, "Tell my wife that I still insist that there was never anything between me and that woman in Red Lion, PA".

The statue is one of the Atlantean relics recovered by Hagbard Celine and given to Robert Putney Drake and "Banana Nose" Maldonado in exchange for the Syndicate breaking ties with the Bavarian Illuminati.

A Coin collection containing;
(Note these are from different settings)

One silver coin with a glyph engraved on one side with 'angelic script'. Said to be part of a set.

A gold coin with an image of Julius Caesar on one side and a double headed axe and a word on the other

Three coins with lion heads minted on one side, and swastikas marring the other side. testing reveals they are very high in mercury content

A two golden Drachma

A silver Drachma stamped with an owl

A red gold coin

A silver drachma sandwiched between two shards of glass

A different set of gold coins (well, some of them might be technically "medals", but they look like coins), from various eras:
- Ancient Egypt
- Imperial Rome
- Medieval Scotland
- Renaissance Spain
- Florida, during Spanish colonial era
- Confederate States of America
- Klondike Territory during the Gold Rush
- USA, circa 1970

(I have low expectations for U.S. citizens to figure out this one... but Europeans have a good chance)

Crates containing 215 lawn gnomes, weighing in at about 800 pounds. Estimated value: $40,000.

Here's the rest of my outstanding items. I suppose I'll have to start posting answers sometime.

An odd contraption that could be described as two large spherical goldfish bowls (about 40cm in diameter), connected by a transparent tube so that, if you actually used the thing as an aquarium, a small fish would be able to swim from one bowl to the other.

A salt shaker. It smells faintly of alcohol and bears a Mexican brand. - Did Jimmy Buffett lose this?

Valentine wrote: A salt shaker. It smells faintly of alcohol and bears a Mexican brand. - Did Jimmy Buffett lose this?

Yes.

Do the Lawn Gnomes used to belong to Old Man Henderson .

I swear I will work him in as a background character one of these days as he so fits the WU.

An old book bound in green leather. It has two silver clasps covered in small sigils. The last line reads "Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?"

Cryptic wrote: Do the Lawn Gnomes used to belong to Old Man Henderson .

Aye.

Cryptic wrote: Do the Lawn Gnomes used to belong to Old Man Henderson .

I swear I will work him in as a background character one of these days as he so fits the WU.

What!? You mean he's not already. I thought he was Sara and Jades Grandfather.

Another week, another reveal... let me see...

An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

OK, that's Grey Death's helmet, from Yoshihisa Tagami's manga . The reason it's old, battle-damaged and customized with "Lips" is that it used to belong to Lips, Grey's girlfriend -- who was killed on her first mission. See? No mutant kangaroos.

Now, the list of open cases:

1. A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.
2. A set of gold coins (well, some of them might be technically "medals", but they look like coins), from various eras:
   - Ancient Egypt
   - Imperial Rome
   - Medieval Scotland
   - Renaissance Spain
   - Florida, during Spanish colonial era
   - Confederate States of America
   - Klondike Territory during the Gold Rush
   - USA, circa 1970
3. An odd contraption that could be described as two large spherical goldfish bowls (about 40cm in diameter), connected by a transparent tube so that, if you actually used the thing as an aquarium, a small fish would be able to swim from one bowl to the other.

As far as difficulty goes...? The first one is not really that hard -- many people here probably will remember it when revealed, although it's not the sort of material they are likely to think of first.
The second one, as mentioned, is hard for Americans, not so much for Europeans (and people from other regions)
The third one... c'mon, that was easy. I can't believe nobody has figured it yet.

Sir Lee wrote: Another week, another reveal... let me see...

An old, battered, battle-damaged military-issue helmet. It has been customized with the word "LIPS" and a "lipstick kiss" design.

OK, that's Grey Death's helmet,

Huh? Grayson Death Carlysle was never mentioned as having a helmet like that...

Sir Lee wrote: from Yoshihisa Tagami's manga .

Oh. Never mind, then.

Sir Lee wrote: An odd contraption that could be described as two large spherical goldfish bowls (about 40cm in diameter), connected by a transparent tube so that, if you actually used the thing as an aquarium, a small fish would be able to swim from one bowl to the other.

Isn't that Hex's micro-fish storage ? I don't think Ponder Stibbons actually explained it as such, but there's so much about Hex's functions and construction which even he doesn't understand...

I didn't say it is a fish tank, only that it looks like a couple goldfish bowls etc.

Fragments of a musket round. Looks to have crushed into peaces by teeth.

An adult, but miniature, bull. He's adorable! But that rag doll with him has a serious attitude problem.

A hot pink Hummer H1 modified to be a convertible. The floors and back seat are covered in used condoms, half-eaten pizza crusts, assorted beer, wine, and liquor bottles, torn mens' underwear, and empty candy boxes. An orange mask and black cowl is carelessly stuffed into the glove compartment, and behind it is an unlabeled VHS tape.

An odd contraption that could be described as two large spherical goldfish bowls (about 40cm in diameter), connected by a transparent tube so that, if you actually used the thing as an aquarium, a small fish would be able to swim from one bowl to the other.

Chief, I DEMAND THE CONE OF SILENCE!!!

Damn. If you're right then I missed it by... a lot more than 'that much'.

Cryptic is right. It IS the Cone of Silence... the portable version, that is.

Oh my bob the smell! What did you eat. Brush your teeth man!

That's an easy to solve bug -- just put a small diaphragm (like a very thin sheet of plastic) blocking the tube. Sound passes, bad breath doesn't.

Sir Lee wrote: That's an easy to solve bug -- just put a small diaphragm (like a very thin sheet of plastic) blocking the tube. Sound passes, bad breath doesn't.

Might actually improve how it works over all.

Let me repost a few again:

A copy of The Complete Works of Chaucer, edited by William Skeat. The back cover has a deep impression on it, possibly from the foot of a table leg. Tucked inside is a photograph of two young men in Elizabethan costumes, one holding a shovel. The words "Robin and Nick, Hamlet 1972" are written in pencil on the back.

A female talk show host between two slices of bread. Don't bother berating her any more, she knows what she is.

An adult, but miniature, bull. He's adorable! But that rag doll with him has a serious attitude problem.

A hot pink Hummer H1 modified to be a convertible. The floors and back seat are covered in used condoms, half-eaten pizza crusts, assorted beer, wine, and liquor bottles, torn mens' underwear, and empty candy boxes. An orange mask and black cowl is carelessly stuffed into the glove compartment, and behind it is an unlabeled VHS tape.

A 1 MW flashlight. Next to it is a 1 MW Fleshlight.

A sombrero'ed cactus with a mustachio that speaks in a Scots accent.

A sealed and locked metal box on a pedestal, covered in labels warning not to touch the contents. Inside is a polyhedral die with an unusual number of facets.

The Cutty Wren. Watch out, it's dangerous.

A stuffed human cadaver wearing a tuxedo, seated on an opulent but garish throne decorated in pornographic carvings. The throne is in turn on a marble pedestal, and a giant bell jar covers the body and throne. (Hey, it was the closest thing I could find to something SFW from that series... or the magazine it appeared in for that matter.)

a Mysterious suitcase, the contents are very enlightening.

Rose Bunny wrote: a Mysterious suitcase, the contents are very enlightening.

"Does Marcellus Wallace look like a bitch to you?"

I do have to wonder if it was what was in the trunk of a certain repossessed car, though. I guess we may never be sure if it was the soul item to have that illuminating property fnord.

A printout of a WHOIS result for an illegal toy-betting website, headquartered in Jackson, MS.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

Rose Bunny wrote: a Mysterious suitcase, the contents are very enlightening.

"Does Marcellus Wallace look like a bitch to you?"

I do have to wonder if it was what was in the trunk of a certain repossessed car, though. I guess we may never be sure if it was the soul item to have that illuminating property fnord.

What?

What sure ain't no country I've ever heard of.

yes, you are correct.

Another week, another reveal... my list of outstanding ones is getting rather short...

This week's one:

A small display case, containing a white paper napkin with three words handwritten in black ink. No, I'm not telling you the words; that would make it too easy.

The words in the napkin are "Bartlet for America." This is the napkin Leo McGarry used to convince his friend Jed Bartlet to run for President. Years later, Jed had it placed in a display case and gifted it to Leo. After Leo's death, his daughter Mallory found it among his things and returned it to Bartlet when he left office.

Aaand... the last remaining one (if I can't think of anything):

1. A set of gold coins (well, some of them might be technically "medals", but they look like coins), from various eras:
   - Ancient Egypt
   - Imperial Rome
   - Medieval Scotland
   - Renaissance Spain
   - Florida, during Spanish colonial era
   - Confederate States of America
   - Klondike Territory during the Gold Rush
   - USA, circa 1970

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Let me repost a few again:

A sombrero'ed cactus with a mustachio that speaks in a Scots accent.

That's McPedro, the talking cactus from Girls With Slingshots .

Yes. Not sure how he ended up here, and when I asked he refused to talk about it, just muttering something about that salt shaker found earlier and tequila-powered WMDs.

A worn-out pair of cleated golf shoes, with a large amount of blood caked on the bottom and sides, and a stain on the top where some Wild Turkey got spilled. Inside is a dessicated grapefruit skin and a couple of amyl nitrate poppers (for a doctor with a weak heart).

A script for the narration of three television commercials for frozen food (the first vegetables, the second fish, the third hamburger beef). The writing is atrocious.

A medical degree from a diploma mill in Haiti.

A clear glass bottle labelled "The Breakfast Bourbon".

A mallard wearing a Ridgeway cap. Any Baby Boomers who look on it take 1d6 rounds of Pun Damage.

Wow, and I was worried that several of my recent ones would be too obvious. Especially the last one. And the talk show host, which is from only a few years ago. And the Hummer, which is even more recent (in the US, at least).

This one, however, I expect is going to be pretty obscure even for the Marvel fans:

A canister of an unknown metal, with a dent on one side of the top where someone threw it away in frustration. Inside are several pills, which when tested turn out to be vitamins, minerals, and penicillin.

My first thought is that somebody invented a Hulk-proof vitamin container for some reason, and that Hulk was displeased by this.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: A mallard wearing a Ridgeway cap. Any Baby Boomers who look on it take 1d6 rounds of Pun Damage.

By the time canonical Gen-Xers like me were in school, the prevailing opinion was that the closer you were to Ground Zero, the better off you'd be in the long run. I do remember "duck and cover" drills in case of a tornado.

Yeah, that was pretty much the thinking I grew up with. I recall it even being discussed by Professor Falken in War Games in just those terms.


Now, Tobey Faire, in 1952 they were thinking in terms of a few hundred turboprop bombers carrying bombs in the 20-100 kiloton range, and the expectation was that most of these would be shot down by interceptors; the idea was that most of the population would be unaffected initially, and that for those in the suburbs outside of the major targets, the primary threat would be blast projectiles. The assumption up to around 1954 was that fallout would be localized (which is what seemed to have happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; what was overlooked was that the prevailing winds took the majority of it out to sea); it wasn't until after the 'Dirty Harry' incident (the Harry test in the Upshot-Knothole series at NTS, which had the heaviest fallout of any test in the continental US) in 1953 and the Castle Bravo incident in 1954 (where the yield dramatically exceeded expectations, and fallout contaminated several inhabited islands and a Japanese fishing vessel with one fatality on said boat) that the issue was reassessed after public and international outcries.

They had no way of knowing a) that deployable Teller-Ulam-Sakharov cycle warheads would be ready soon, b) that the Russians were pulling a massive bluff with their bomber forces[1], and most of all, c) that the Soviets were focusing on IRBM and ICBM technology as a way of leapfrogging the US[2].

By the late 1960s, things were very different, and they remain that way even today despite the end of the Cold War more than 25 years ago. The risk of THE nuclear war dropped to nearly zero after that, but the odds of a nuclear war occurring somewhere in the world (with India/Pakistan, India/China, and - for a while in the 1990s - Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan being the most likely flashpoints) happening at some point in the 50 years after that have been close to 100% - and while our luck and sanity have held out so far, that's not likely to remain the case for long.

1] They didn't actually have an intercontinental bomber capable of reaching the interior of the US, having scrapped plans for them after they concluded that they could not catch up using the existing methods and that they needed to go in a different direction - while the later bombers could be used in that role, they never saw the point of the three-point strategy the US used, and most of their 'bombers' were used for coastal reconnaissance and ASW.

2] Though they also bluffed there, too - the Strategic Rocketry Force had only one launch site and nine combat-ready intercontinental missiles as late as 1964, and all of those would require several hours of lead time for launch, which was the reason they pushed SLBMs so fast and was the main cause for the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Found

Green glowing stone ball the size of a bowling ball with post it note on it

"Don't touch! Return to Sara when she is found...this was in her Lab locker!"

Would that be The Sum of All Evils ? I wouldn't be surprised to see Sarah has it in her locker, frankly...

Sir Lee wrote: Would that be The Sum of All Evils ? I wouldn't be surprised to see Sarah has it in her locker, frankly...

"Yes!" the ball says, "I am the Loc–Nar!"

Another week has gone by, and I guess it's time to give the answer to the last of my outstanding ones...

A set of gold coins (well, some of them might be technically "medals", but they look like coins), from various eras:
- Ancient Egypt
- Imperial Rome
- Medieval Scotland
- Renaissance Spain
- Florida, during Spanish colonial era
- Confederate States of America
- Klondike Territory during the Gold Rush
- USA, circa 1970

European long-time Disney comics fans might recognize the coins as the plot device in the classic multipart saga published in the Seventies: Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (Italian wikipedia) -- "History and Glory of the Duck Dinasty", written by Guido Martina . Each coin magically tells the story of one ancestor of $crooge McDuck's. I don't think it has ever been published in the U.S., but it's well-known in Italy, Brazil and (I believe) most of Europe, having been republished several times.

OK, let's go for a real oldie.

A small supported metal tank, from it leads a small platinum pipe to a domed apparatus made largely of an insulating material. A little pool of mercury, with small red crystals floating in it, rests in a shallow hollow surrounded by heavy conductors.

I probably should start answering these, so let me start with the most obscure:

A stuffed human cadaver wearing a tuxedo, seated on an opulent but garish throne decorated in pornographic carvings. The throne is in turn on a marble pedestal, and a giant bell jar covers the body and throne.

The body of the late Walter von Kreesus , father of Wicked Wanda (really, really NSFW).

A printout of a WHOIS result for an illegal toy-betting website, headquartered in Jackson, MS.

The site is Pogs4Boglins.com, of course, and the owner is James Stanton . For shame, Mr. Sterling!



And here's a new one: A metal suitcase containing some electronics attached to five glass tubes filled with a red liquid.

Solutions to my outstanding objects!

A watch large enough to belong to someone the size of the universe. On the second largest hand is a small crustacean.

Schol-R-LEA recognized the watch as belonging to Universe Man , but together with the crustacean they make Millennium Hand and Shrimp!

An old book bound in green leather. It has two silver clasps covered in small sigils. The last line reads "Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?"

The Book of the Dead from the Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix.

Millennium hand and shrimp... how did I miss that?

Answers for more of mine:

An adult, but miniature, bull. He's adorable! But that rag doll with him has a serious attitude problem.

The Auroch, in its chibified form, and Loki (who uses the doll to speak to people), from Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki .

A hot pink Hummer H1 modified to be a convertible. The floors and back seat are covered in used condoms, half-eaten pizza crusts, assorted beer, wine, and liquor bottles, torn mens' underwear, and empty candy boxes. An orange mask and black cowl is carelessly stuffed into the glove compartment, and behind it is an unlabeled VHS tape.

See-thru, the car used by Panty and Stocking. The mask is that of Garterbelt's secret hero/gimp identity, Mistah G, and the tape is the sex tape Panty made, and then tried to destroy all the copies of (she didn't succeed) after it got leaked right before her film came out.