via Tototalk.jp

​In the search for renewable energy, humans have dug through Earth, split atoms, and harnessed the Sun. Have we been flushing the solution to our fuel problems all along? Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto, creators of this remarkable product, have made a motorized tricycle with a toilet for a seat. As TokyoMango reports, the amazing thing about this machine is that it runs completely on the driver's feces. Any poop taken on the machine is directly converted into fuel. The bike is driving from the southern tip of Japan to Tokyo to raise awareness for Toto's efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. This is the rare instance when someone is told not to go to the bathroom before a long road trip.

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www.cafehabana.com

Rainwater collection system for Habana Outpost's toilets.

​Every year, workplace supplies company Cintas holds a contest to find the best restroom in America. This is the competition's tenth year and vying for the prize are two New York restaurant bathrooms: Fort Greene's Habana Outpost and Ninja, a theme restaurant in TriBeCa. The other eight finalists include museums, hotel crappers and a mobile unit made for President Obama's inauguration. Now that Mars Bar is closed, their restrooms are ineligible.

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​What is it about planes and people and August? Was it just last year, in this very month, that flight attendent Steven Slater was grabbing two beers and heading down his JetBlue flight's emergency chute, to certain fame and then infamy and then, well, just now while attempting to Google him we realized we'd pretty much forgotten his name. (Fortunately, the Internet hadn't. And, yes, it was last August.) Will such, that is, forgetting, be the case for Robert "Sandy" Vietze, the kid who might have been an Olympian who allegedly peed on a recent JetBlue flight out in the open, on, it was initially reported and later denied by the girl's family, the leg of an 11-year-old girl? Or, more recently, for Gerard Depardieu, famous Frenchman, who has recently entered the annals of doing stupid things on planes in August?

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​Robert "Sandy" Vietze, the drunk 18-year-old who drank eight alcoholic beverages and then relieved himself on the leg of an 11-year-old girl on the worst flight ever (someone later vomited, in an unrelated incident), has been found to have been a top alpine skier and on the developmental team roster of the U.S. Ski Team. Though his mistake on that flight from Portland, Oregon, to JFK, may have cost him his chance at the 2014 Winter Games in Russia, reports the New York Post. This is yet another lesson in the long list of lessons of why one shouldn't pee on someone on a flight.

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Does not = "pee on chair."

​Good morning. With your coffee, here's a classic What Not to Do! Do not...get on a plane and consume "eight alcoholic beverages." We're all for drinking while flying -- riding, not driving -- for the nerve-soothing purposes, but even on a flight from Portland, Oregon to New York City, eight is a bit...much. (If we are telling you that, you know it's true.)

Then! Do not wait to use the restroom. It will likely be occupied. Go as soon as you have the urge. But do not go until you are safely esconced in a lavatory. Do not go, for instance, after you've stumbled about a bit and ended up five rows in front of your seat, next to an 11-year-old girl who might or might not be sleeping.

And then, do not pee on her leg.

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shop.renovaonline.net

​Renova, a Portuguese paper company, is celebrating Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming trip to Madrid by releasing special edition Papal toilet paper. The yellow and white rolls--representing the colors of the Papal flag--are being released for World Youth Day. The product's description on Renova's website calls them "streamers," yet they come in the same packaging as their toilet paper and can only be found in the toilet paper section of their site. Don't be bashful, for Renova asks you to "Open your windows to celebrate!" when the Pope comes to Madrid. [Forbes]

​The modern-day flush toilet, a norm for those of us in countries that have the infrastructure to support modern-day flush toilets, is actually not affordable in much of the developing world, a situation which leads to general yuckiness, along with diarrheal and other diseases, not to mention, death. What to do about this? Bill Gates is on the case! The Gates Foundation recently put forth a challenge to assorted universities around the world "to reinvent the toilet as a stand-alone unit without piped-in water, a sewer connection, or outside electricity--all for less than 5 cents a day." They're giving $41.5 million to the creation of such. Current proposals include"toilets powered by heat, microwaves or solar panels." [LAT]

Wikipedia

​Coney Island was not all fun and hot dog eating contests this holiday weekend. In fact, there was a silent, misty menace seeping through the crowds (cue Jaws soundtrack): a lack of toilet paper.

In an "exposé" Monday, the Post explained that Parks Department employees were "rationing" toilet paper in the Coney Island women's bathrooms along the boardwalk. And men weren't getting any of the "cheap, single-ply" goods. Can someone please get some Charmin up in here?

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Esther Zuckerman

​The East Village has a new villain dubbed "The Doorshitter." Today EV Grieve posted an email they received from a St. Marks Place resident named Jordy who has a little problem: a homeless man has been pooping on his door for the past six weeks. Jordy told the neighborhood blog that he has started a campaign to "shame" the man. The shame game includes posting flyers that feature a profile picture of the defecator and say, "STOP HIM/ THIS MAN/ SHITS IN DOORWAYS."

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via Asylum/Taylor Derwin

​Old Town Bar on East 18th Street -- whose website proudly proclaims that they've served New York since 1892 -- is celebrating the "birth" of their first flushing urinals tonight. The urinals are officially 100 years old, which means that for 18 years of the bar's life, they had no flushing urinals (thank goodness for progress). And also that the urinals are Libras.

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