Share This

One fish
Two fish
Red fish…

Green fish?

Richard, from A Brooklynite on the Ice saw this mailbox in Broad Channel, Queens, NY and thought of me! I’m not sure how I should feel about that.

Thanks for taking the time to take the picture and e-mail it.  ( *hint hint* people! )

Share This

From Kathleen F. - The Junk Drawer

Hi — Found this mailbox in Bethlehem, PA. It’s ugly as sin, unless
you’re a fisherman. Feed me mail!

I am not a fisherman or a fisherwoman. Fisherperson? Regardless, I agree, it’s ugly.

Share This

If you really smoke crack use your imagination , it’s like a tropical fish swimming around a reef.

Share This

The caption and crazy mailbox picture were submitted byMiss Huckleberry at The Berry Patch. Thanks Miss H!

Share This

At the canoe outpost, there was a sign that read, “No Bottled Water”. I panicked a little because it was a three hour trip down the Santa Fe river in the middle of June. In preparation for our weekend at Ichetucknee Springs, Florida we bought a case of Publix Spring Water and had a few bottles with us now for the canoe.

“We can’t bring bottled water?” I asked. The man behind the counter explained that we could, the sign was in reference to the petition that the locals had against plans for yet another bottling plant in the area.

“They say it doesn’t have any effect on the river, but ever since they started taking water from the springs it’s been lower.” he said.

I shook my head sadly, then walked away and quickly forgot about it as we loaded up the canoes and launched.

The canoe trip was uneventful and pleasant for the first ten minutes. Then we hit a shallow spot and had to get out and carry our canoes a few feet.. After a couple minutes we had to get out again. Then again a few minutes later. Our pleasant paddle down river had turned into the chore of navigating shallow spots and praying we didn’t get stuck again. Perhaps fun if you are young and adventurous. Not so much when you have a four year old in the canoe who is whining about the stench of river silt.

Halfway through the trip it seems as if we might be out of the muck. But then we saw it. A very wide expanse of land across the river. It was as if the river just ended and started up again one hundred yards later.

We had a group of three kayaks and six canoes, so we took turns carrying each one across. It took us probably twenty minutes. When we were finally adrift again I was hot, tired and thirsty. I fished a bottle of water out of the cooler, opened it, and just before I took a drink I paused. I read the label. The water was from Ginnie Springs and High Springs. The springs that fed into this river. I decided then and there I would never buy Publix spring water again.

The bottled water phenomenon seems to have sneaked up on me. I never paid much attention to the ever expanding selection of water in the beverage aisle of the super market. I think it has taken over our society in much the same way, in stealth mode. The majority of Americans believe in the bottled water mythology. It’s healthier, it tastes better, it’s more convenient, than tap water. None of that is entirely true and what truth there might be in it does not outweigh the stark realities of the damage the bottled water industry does.

If you want a truly eye-opening look at the bottled water industry I suggest… no I beg you to read Charles Fishman’s article that was published in this month’s Fast Company magazine. The online version is here: Message in a Bottle.

I know when you are confronted with that wall of text some of you will shut down, maybe crawl under your desk and roll into fetal position, shivering in fear of the lost minutes you will incur if you *gasp* read a long article. Trust me though, it’s worth missing the gossip about Paris or Britney at the Superficial, the article about Sim City at Something Awful, or the latest lolcat at ICHC.

Just in case, here’s a couple excerpts to entice you to read the whole thing.

24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

And in Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water.

we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year–more than $1 billion worth of plastic.

if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.

In 1976, the average American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water a year, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. Last year, we each drank 28.3 gallons

The bubbles in San Pellegrino come naturally from the ground, as the label says, but not at the San Pellegrino source. Pellegrino chooses its CO2 carefully–it is extracted from supercarbonated volcanic springwaters in Tuscany, then trucked north and bubbled into Pellegrino.

Worldwide, 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water; 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water.

After you finish the article go out and buy yourself a refillable water bottle for each member in your family. Save yourself a lot of money. Save energy. Save our waterways. Save the Manatees!

I’ve always believed in thinking globally and acting locally. Here’s some resources for people in Florida.

Uknown Quanity - The Bottled Water Industry and Florida Springs

Florida Spring - Protecting Nature’s Gems (I’m a little disappointed they don’t directly address the issue of bottled water here)

Captain John’s-Scuba Tampa Fl, Florida Dive Site! Boycott Bottled Water Page

Orange and Blue Online - The Dirt on Bottled Water

Save Our Springs

If you have information about the impact the bottled water industry has in your state please post a comment with details.

Share This

Yesterday, Roclar mentioned Ugly Mailbox on his blog about cool stuff. (See? I knew I was cool) He has a past article about an underwater post office and other unusual mailboxes. Quite a nifty blog with interesting items like superfly sock monkey’s, crazy clocks and kitties in drag.

Share This

I’m not sure if I’ve posted a green fish mailbox like this before or not. How sad is it that there’s that many fish mailboxes that I can’t remember which ones I’ve taken pictures of and posted? I need to keep betta track of these.

Also, grats Artbot, for your prize-winning dog pun “It puts the “arf” in “barf”?

Share This

Let’s see if I can punish you.

People with fish mailboxes need to get a reel life. They have these ugly mailboxes for sailfish reasons.

(if you can think of anymore, drop me a line!)

Share This

Submitted by Cynric

Share This