Street View has caught the aftermath of some merry mirthmakers’ acts of defamation: the classic prank known to the sages as ‘TPing’. In the US Mountain West, we’ve found at least two instances of houses engulfed in bathroom towelling (although the folks who did the deed in the second picture could really take a cue from the job done in the first picture, which was far more thorough).

Of course, if you really wanted to get someone good, perhaps you should just use something like this: a giant toilet paper roll the size of a small building. In actuality, it is a small building, namely the public toilet facilities at the Design Museum Gent in Ghent. Clever ones, those Belgians.

You never know when you’ll stumble upon a random toilet lying in the road. Plenty of North American households have mailboxes at the foot of their driveways, but how many have a toilet¹? Over in Paris, this toilet sits by itself at the foot of a tree. Let’s hope it’s being installed at the public toilet next door, because if it isn’t, then the city government has a rather poor sanitation strategy.

Then again, even when provided with the proper facilities, some people would rather just chance it, evidently. Dude, LOOK BEHIND YOU.

While not as outright weird as doing your business in a giant toilet paper roll, this public toilet building in Washington is rather unique, for it is built in the shape of a volcano. Perhaps due to the ‘eruptions’ going on inside.

If you’re not a fan of uniquely-shaped facilities, how about ones that are just plain big? We’re fairly certain that it was not the intention of the International Train & Trolley Museum outside of Orlando, Florida to be housed in a building that looks like it could be the world’s largest toilet, but that is indeed exactly how it appears.

A parting word of advice for when you do manage to find a public toilet nearby: for heaven’s sake, close the bloody door.

Locations: Belgium, Florida, France, Idaho, Ontario, Utah, Washington / Categories: Buildings, Rudeness, Street Views, Structures, Weirdness

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There are many types of radio beacons that are still in use today, but the majority are called VHF omnidirectional radio range or VORs. There are VOR stations all around the world, and given how widespread they are, you may well have passed one by without realising. The most common shape of the ground station resembles something of a bowling pin on a circular building. Pilots use the signal which is broadcast from these towers to fly to and from stations, therefore navigating across the sky.

© Copyright ZabMilenko and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Most beacons are located either at the airport, or placed out in far-away regions to avoid any interference on the signal. Some examples of these remote beacons include the Mitbee VOR in Oklahoma and the McComb VOR in Mississippi.

Take a look at the Babylon NDB (Non-directional beacon) on Long Island near New York. This beacon is situated right in the middle of a densely packed neighbourhood, and since it is only used as a directional beacon and not an omnidirectional range, it doesn’t have the classic bowling pin shape like the VORs. Due to the congestion around this beacon the FAA has declared its signal unusable beyond 15 nautical miles, which isn’t very far at all from a pilot’s point of view.

It’s not unusual to find beacons in very remote and rugged areas of the west of the US as well. Remember, some of the aeroplanes flying over these sparsely populated areas still need beacons to navigate, and thanks to this we see some interesting locations for these VORs. Out in the barren desert we can find beacons like the Sod House VOR in Nevada and the Peach Springs VOR in Arizona.

If you start looking deep in the mountains however, beacons like the Salmon VOR in Idaho and the Red Table VOR in Colorado (which is almost completely buried under the snow!) can be found. Notice how the Red Table VOR is painted in dark colours to contrast with the snow.

Pilots use these different types of beacons to navigate across the sky when they can’t see the ground. For example, let’s say we were going to pilot an aeroplane from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Orlando, Florida. If we chose to use radio beacons for navigation, we could depart to the north using Fort Lauderdale’s own VOR as an initial direction (flying away from it), then switch over and fly towards the Palm Beach VOR as our initial waypoint.

After we cross over the Palm Beach VOR, a slight turn to the west and radio beacon frequency change would allow us to lock onto the Vero Beach VOR, then another shallow west turn and switch would take us directly to the Orlando VOR. During this entire flight, we would not need to see the ground at all (until we land anyway) just as long as we have functioning navigation equipment in the cockpit.

Aviation beacons are all around us, but the reality is that radio navigation is quickly becoming a thing of the past. With technological advances like GPS navigation, existing radio beacons are more commonly being used as a waypoints rather than actual navigation aids. For more information on aircraft instrument navigation, be sure to check out Wikipedia. If you would like to try and fly to a VOR yourself, try this free web based simulator.

Thanks to Runway Finder for helping me locate some of the above beacons.

Locations: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma / Categories: Aircraft

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No point in wasting time. Let’s get Spread Eagle and dive right in…

We hope this Naked Baker is at least wearing a hairnet.

Is there anyone in Southern California who’s up for a Nude Wash¹?

There are five different creeks in the southeastern United States that are Naked. Along Naked Creek in Virginia is Naked Creek Road, which happens to lie across the creek from Moose Bottom Road. What that symbolises, we have no idea.

Leave it to the Netherlands to take things to the next level. The city of Wageningen has an entire Nude street, replete with a Nude auto shop!

Our own Noel Ballantyne brings us this wonderful Muff from Country Donegal²:

Don’t worry, ladies; we’re keeping your interests in mind, too. In fact, we know a place in Sint Maarten specifically geared toward many of your tastes:

If all of this nakedness and nudity is a bit much for you to handle all at once, perhaps we should tone it down and focus on Ass Allround:

Not to get too lewd, but we did uncover a prominent Nipple Knob while compiling this entry. As well, we also caught a Wanker in broad daylight directly on Street View.

Thus concludes what is undoubtedly the most Sexey post ever on Google Sightseeing.

Locations: California, France, Germany, Idaho, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin / Categories: Buildings, Natural Landmarks, Street Views, Weirdness

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• Albany and Schenectady, NY
• Boise, ID
• Juneau, AK
• Kansas City, MO
• Manchester, NH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill), NC
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT

And presumably just for today (because today is Valentine’s Day in case you’d forgotten), it seems the little Street View guy is standing on a little love heart.

Aww, puke.

Locations: Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin / Categories: Site News, Street Views

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Thanks to DDA and Brad.

Locations: Idaho / Categories: Large Type

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Locations: Idaho / Categories: Large Type, Stadiums and Sport

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First up is the world famous Old Faithful Geyser, it’s in the middle the concentric walkways you can see in our thumbnail. Old Faithful was so-named because of the reliability of its eruptions, which are currently happening about every 65 minutes, unfortunately it’s not erupting in our picture. Of the 1000 or so geysers in the world, about half of these are in Yellowstone. If you look closely on the walkway, I think you can actually see people watching for an eruption.

Next up are these fantastic waterfalls at the mouth of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, whose yellow-coloured stones gave the park its name.

Finally we have the awesome Grand Prismatic Spring which is the largest hot spring in the United States, and the range is colour shown here is incredible. The blue-white pool to the Northeast is Excelsior Geyser, although it’s been dormant since 1990.

The colours in the spring are produced by different species of thermophilic bacteria that live in the narrow temperature ranges formed as the waters of the hot spring naturally cool farther from the heat source. The reddish bacteria at the outer edge survive in the coolest water with the yellowish and greenish bacteria living in progressively hotter water. The water in the central blue area of the spring is too hot to support any of the bacteria.

Lots and lots more information about Yellowstone National Park is available on Wikipedia, and the official Yellowstone site even has a webcam of Old Faithful .

Thanks to (and this may be our longest thanks list yet!) Brian Ralli, Rick, Tom Gula, Balazs Ganszky, MIke, dx, CosmicPenguin, Chris Prince, Rosewood, Jeff, spaz, Ballard, Brian, JasonRene, Corey Vilhauer, Benjamin, Peter Szabo, Kyle, Tim, Chris Shinkle, Dick Nielson, Wayne, Ray Bellis, Zoltan Horvath, Jens Kilian, mark, J. Gable, Kimon Berlin, Laura Vance, Sparky Treewaller, Matt, Don S, Jared Roberts, Fakus Namus and last but by no means least Rebecca Ray. Thank you everyone!

Locations: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Weirdness

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Thanks: Andrew

Locations: Idaho / Categories: Islands, Stadiums and Sport

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Thanks: Josh H

Locations: Idaho / Categories: Large Type, Structures

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