Busty, The Jesus Gnome

There is this crazy inborn ability humans have to recognize patterns, and faces, and patterns of faces. There are tons of examples, like the Man in the Mountain or the face on Mars. Sometimes this recognition ability gets coupled with religious fervor, and you get stories like people who find Jesus in their food.

Anyway, the other day, this woman in Tennessee found Jesus again, hiding out in a ceramic garden gnome. Quick, call the Vatican! but, it's not just Jesus inside a garden gnome... it's the head of Jesus, on a woman's body inside a garden gnome. This little transgendered wrinkle will probably nix it from being considered a miracle by the Holy See.

This story appeared on ABC News, in local papers, and on the Huffington Post, among others, I'm sure.

It is a pretty cool coincidence. I find pareidolia to be a cool human instinct and survival mechanism. But, in order to find this thing, the poor garden gnome had to lose his face! What a tragedy. Some pictures are below...

Gnomes are Fables

I enjoy action roleplaying games, especially the open world adventure questing kind. Some embrace the "choose your own adventure" theme, where actions and decisions made in-game have consequences within the game and outcomes may vary. The Fable franchise by Lionhead Studios was one of the pioneers in morality game play.

There have been other action roleplay based games since that have done what Fable did and were better at it, like The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher, but I enjoyed Fable, especially Fable III. One of the best parts in Fable III was a quest chain involving Brian from Brightwall who has a vast collection of gnomes.

Brian with Jonathan, Lionel, et al

The quest starts as a simple delivery. Your character has to find a lost package and return it to Brian. It's a gargoyle statue. But the gargoyle makes all the gnomes come alive and they run away.

The second part of the quest is a scavenger hunt. Throughout the Fable universe are 50 gnomes hidden. They can be found by listening to their mean spirited insults. Collect them all!