Thursday, January 31, 2019

An Honest Mistake

Lioness Reunites With Her Pride After Being Separated For Days



There's a lotta love in this family group.

Sales Call

(via reddit)

The Super Bowl Isn't About Football



The Super Bowl is this Sunday! That's, like, a national holiday in the US, in which we play the ultimate game of American football to find out which is the best NFL team of the season. However, other holiday traditions have come to supersede the game. For example, the high cost of ads make the Super Bowl a showcase for the best TV commercials of the year. That's the part College Humor focuses on in this video. There are other Super Bowl Sunday traditions that overshadow the game, like the halftime show and whatever controversy comes from it, and the food (because there's nothing more American than extreme food). Come to think of it, we could skip the game entirely and still have a great Super Bowl Sunday.

Kettle

I've been making tea in the microwave since the 80s, which apparently brands me as an American. Back then, the British would heat a kettle on the stove. Now they all have electric kettles, so what's the difference? Hot water is hot water, and a microwave uses less electricity to heat it. But every culture has a right way and a wrong way to do things. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.

Pet Friendly

(Thanks, WTM!)

I Don't Go To USA



German musician Stephan Remmler released this song in 1987. The original German version was about not wanting to accompany his new girlfriend on a vacation to Athens. 

The Ten Year Challenge

People have been doing the "10-year challenge" on social media to show how they've grown up, or how they've improved with time, or how age has not changed them. I decided to be a little more honest. There's nothing wrong with getting older; it's just a fact of life. As time went by, I felt more and more like the only two pictures I used online, taken in 2004 and 2006, were frauds. I also decided not to use this comparison on social media, because of all the talk about how Facebook and other sites are using the challenge to feed data to their facial recognition software. 

There's actually a 12-year difference here, because I do not get a decent picture made often. Both of these were taken by Brother Bill. The first one was taken specifically as a profile pic to use online. The second one was cropped from a group picture, and we did less fussing with it. The bifocals aren't a new addition; I just took them off for the earlier photo shoot. Yeah, I'm still wearing purple.

Miss Cellania's Links

A Bewitching Compendium of Victorians Letting their Hair Down.

Very Special Wedding Gowns. (via Metafilter)

The Curious Case of the Last ‘Wild’ Monkeys in Europe.

How Much Snow Does It Take To Cancel School? (via Digg)

A Funeral for an "Unaccompanied Veteran." A thousand people showed up.

Blair Braverman Gets Undressed.

Puzzle: Can you spot the criminal danger in these three pictures?

19 Pictures That Show Just How Cold It Is.

Scientists Used a 1906 Photo to Find the Center of San Francisco's Earthquake.

Color TV Transformed the Way Americans Saw the World, and the World Saw America.

A blast from the past (2009): Angels of Death: 7 More Medical Murders.

On a personal note, a woman named Anna sent me a gift via PayPal, and I can't find a working email address to thank her. Thank you, Anna!

Editorial Perogative

(via Fark)

The Cue Cards of Saturday Night Live



Saturday Night Live
airs live from New York, of course, with ninety minutes of material that was written just that week. Sketches are changed all the way up until show time. No wonder that cue cards are a big part of the production. Now we get the inside scoop from the people who are in charge of feeding lines to live performers on SNL. We also get to see some memorable scenes from the show and a peek at how they were done. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Cookie Fight

Movie Poster Remakes vs. Originals



Movie poster designer James Verdesoto compares posters for original movies to those for the remake that were made later, sometimes much later. In the case of A Star Is Born, that means four versions. Along the way, we will learn a lot about the design elements that have been used in movie posters over the history of film. (via Boing Boing)

That Song Again

(via reddit)

Living for the Paradise City



Enjoy this mashup of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" and "Paradise City" by Guns 'n' Roses.

Life is Pointless

Sad, but maybe he should make an effort to get out and see if there are any other snakes around. This comic is from War and Peas. (via reddit

Moon Shot

(Thanks, WTM!)

Flamingo Flamenco



I dare you not to laugh. This is a clip from the PBS series Nature on PBS, the episode entitled "Andes: The Dragon's Back." (via Ursi’s Blog)

Confronted with the Evidence


(via Fark)

One Pepperoni Pizza

(via reddit)

2AM in the Subway, NYC 1905



Drunk people just trying to get home, as they have forever. (via Metafilter)

Tweet of the Day


Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Police Blotter

An Honest Trailer for Bird Box



Bird Box is a Netflix movie that everyone is talking about. Or, at least, everyone who has Netflix. It's about an apocalypse terrorized by unseen monsters that are Medusas. That means you can't see them. Screen Junkies has a field day tearing Bird Box apart.

Single-Minded Kid

(via reddit)

Uptown Cello



Alaska Cello Intensive performs "Uptown Funk" completely on cellos. (via Metafilter)

A Huge Disappointment

We looked forward to the 21st century for so long. This comic is from Amazing Superpowers. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Library Display

(via Bored Panda)

Bo-Meme-Ean Rhapsody



The classic Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody" is illustrated in memes. Luke Maynard adapted his viral slideshow to video so the song could be incorporated. The funniness really picks up after the first guitar solo. (via Metafilter)

Miss Cellania's Links

What's the weirdest thing you've done for science? Many scientists tell their gross stories.

This Photographer Captures The Emotional Final Moments Between Pets And Their Owners. Warning: don't click this if you aren't ready to cry.

Makeup Illusions by Luca Luce.

The Vanished Bobby-Soxxer and the Scientist Who Wanted to Reanimate Her Murderer. (via Strange Company)


Hell on Wheels: The Sordid History of Ted Bundy's VW Beetle.

The Worst Bus Stop in North America Gets a Makeover.

Gigi is a goalkeeper!

The Evolution of a William Shatner Face Mask. It was born in obscurity and came to influence other worlds.

The 500-Year-Long Science Experiment. How should the scientists leave a record of the experiment and how to complete it?

Randy Rainbow's new song is "Donald Trump's Cell Block Tango."

A blast from the past (2013): Finding Oz in the USA.

Selection

(via Fark)

American Football Commentary, Animated



American football announcers can get quite excited during play-by-play. That's their job. Nick Murray Willis took some of the things said in NFL games completely out of context and illustrated them with scenes of everyday life. Everything makes perfect sense, but the over-the-top delivery makes it special. (via Laughing Squid

Tweet of the Day


(via Boing Boing)

Monday, January 28, 2019

Yum!

(via Bad Menu)

Apollo 11 Trailer



A spectacular documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week. Apollo 11 relives the NASA moon mission 50 years after the fact, with narration-free archival footage that will bring back memories to those who watched it on TV. Except this film is much clearer than our TV sets were in 1969. 
“Apollo 11” is a cool, meticulous, at times enthralling documentary that captures the Apollo 11 flight in its entirety through raw footage drawn from the NASA vaults. Some of the footage is 70mm and quite spectacular; just about all the footage has never been seen before. We witness the hours before the launch, the surging cataclysm of the liftoff, the flight into space, the orbiting of the moon, the landing of the lunar module, Armstrong on the moon, Buzz Aldrin on the moon, the relaunch from the moon’s surface, the return flight, the re-entry into the atmosphere and the splashdown, all accompanied by the watchful natterings of mission-control analysts.
Read more about Apollo 11 at Variety.

Lists

(via reddit)

Snow Sculptures



Click to the right to advance this comic. Pixie is proud of his creations! This comic is from Pet Foolery.
 

The Art of Violence

Miss Cellania's Links

How a Group of Daring Bootleggers Created NASCAR.

The weekend's best headline: Trump ends government shutdown after realizing unpaid FBI agents can still arrest people.

Are Cats Liquid? A New Perspective.

6 Quirks of Overlapping History.

Texas Border Sheriffs: There is No Crisis and We Don’t Want Trump’s Wall.

The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis. He died of a gunshot wound, but was it murder or suicide?

Toronto's New Favorite Cat. His name is Marshall. (via Buzzfeed)

How Elvis Made the Worst Album of All Time. (via Metafilter)

Do Scientists Ever Name Creatures After People They Dislike Out of Spite? In some cases, it's hard to tell.

Roger Stone’s attorney wrote a political thriller in 2016. So @erinscafe live-Tweeted it.

A blast from the past (2009): Angels of Death: 8 Medical Murderers.

Yewd be sad 2


(via Fark)

What Does Mama Say?



This little pone has all the answers.

Tweet of the Day


(via Buzzfeed)

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Slow News Day

What's the Furthest You Could Travel Without a Passport?



As an American with an expired passport, I guessed that I couldn't go anywhere outside the U.S. I was wrong! But even more surprising, this video from Half as Interesting isn't just about Americans. If you are French, you could technically go halfway around the world and land on an island without a passport -if there were a practical way to get there without going to another country first. And there are other geographical quirks to learn about here. (via Digg)

When You See It

Redditor jonbees posted this picture with the title, "My Father’s chair failing at a Coast Guard change of command." So everyone waited for the video or gif to start, and when nothing happened, they looked for the play button. But when you see it, you realize that a still picture is all you need to tell the story. At least he didn't fall overboard. 

First Shots



The Cut wanted to fill people who didn't drink alcohol for one reason or another and were willing to try downing shots of liquor on camera for one reason or another. They manage to find three such people. They gave them a shot of whiskey, and then a shot of vodka, and then a shot of tequila (this is starting to sound like the lyrics to "Tubthumping"). A high-speed camera shows their reactions in slow motion. We don't know how long they waited between each drink, but I sure hope they gave them all a ride home after the recording was done. (via Tastefully Offensive

Tidying Tips



I've been following the Marie Kondo philosophy most of my life- or at least since my house burned down about forty years ago. The problem is that when you have a family, the number of genuinely useful things multiplies exponentially. Now I'm an empty-nester, but my larger-then-necessary home is the repository for other people's things. Oh well. I still take every opportunity to shed possessions. Dami Lee, on the other hand, is ready to shed everything. This comic is from As Per Usual.

Flare-o-Flame

What could possibly go wrong? However, it's only two dollars to find out. After all, it gives your car "longer appearance." (Thanks, WTM!)

Crimes of Carelessness



You might think this is one of those government sponsored educational films, but you'd be wrong. Let's call it a remix. (via Everlasting Blort)

Waking Up

(via Fark)

Epic Proposal Flash Mob



Last month in Leicester Square, a solo street dancer was joined by other dancers until it became a total performance. Romi, the spectator in the red coat, has no idea is was all arranged just for her. She didn't even know her boyfriend Bharat was even in the UK at the time. But he busted some great moves, which was a treat for the company of dancers he hired, and then surprised Romi with an engagement ring! This is not a unique idea by far, but it sure was enjoyable to watch.

Tweet of the Day


You need to click the picture to get the full effect. (via Buzzfeed)

Saturday, January 26, 2019

A Duck's Day

The Giant Claw



A truly horrifying B-movie from 1957, The Giant Claw is horrifyingly bad. The monster was a buzzard puppet that scared a few young children, but made everyone else giggle. WTM provides a look into the film's background and reception at Neatorama.

Dead Batteries

(via reddit)

Mike Pence is the Hottest Beat of 2019



Leave it to The Daily Show to notice and harness Mike Pence's constant and invariable cadence. I've never been able to listen to him long enough to hear before.

Reading Minds

You don't have to be clairvoyant if everyone is willing to share what's on their minds. And many people do just that. All day long. Everywhere. It can be overwhelming, but it's hard to stop once you've found a forum that hooks you in. I've spent the last year or so trying to keep up with Metafilter's political threads. This comic is from Sarah Andersen at Sarah's Scribbles.

Riverdancing Cockatiel



Just what it says on the tin. (via Nag on the Lake)


It's a Cat Thing


(via Fark)

A Thermal View of a Geyser



Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy are the Slow Mo Guys, and they are in Iceland taking footage of Strokkur Geyser with a serious drone camera. In this excerpt from their YouTube show Planet Slow Mo, they use a thermal camera to give a good look at the temperature difference between Iceland in winter and the geyser itself. We also get a cool explanation of how geysers work. (via Laughing Squid)

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Friday, January 25, 2019

Hedging Their Bets

Dung Beetles Fighting Over Dung



A little ball of poo is a real treasure when you're a dung beetle. And in this little corner of South Africa, there must be a dearth of dung. Two dung beetles are locked in a deadly serious competition over a dung ball. The narrator can't help but laugh, while National Geographic brings us trivia tidbits about the insects in text. This has to be a metaphor for something. You can see a version of this battle with appropriate music here. (via Boing Boing)

Missing Dog

(via reddit)

Screen Time

It's a pity we have to wait so long to get revenge on our kids for making our lives difficult, but it is so, so sweet when we do. I used to curse my children by saying, "May you have children just like you." It took them years to figure out what that meant. Which reminds me, I need to pick up some Werther's next time I go out. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

The Art of Self-Image

Black Cats

(via Fark)

In-Flight Singalong



Students from St. Brendans College in Killarney held a traditional music session while traveling on Ryanair. Their performance made flight a little more tolerable to other passengers who cannot afford to fly on any other airline. (via reddit)

Tweet of the Day


Thursday, January 24, 2019

Good Guard Dog

Extreme Photography

(via reddit)

Twins Take DNA Tests



Charlsie and Carly Agro are identical twins. They mailed DNA samples to five different companies: AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and Living DNA. The ancestry results were fairly detailed, but they varied from company to company. Even stranger, while their DNA is the same, their estimated ancestry didn't match each other! Tests done by Yale University determined that the twins' DNA samples were "shockingly similar," yet that's not what the commercial companies found. Read more about the Agro sisters' experiment at CBC. (via Digg

Finding Things



Click to the right to advance this comic. Pixie is a cute kitten, and Brutus is a retired military dog. They have nothing in common, but are devoted to each other. 
You can find more of their adventures at Pet Foolery.

The Sextant

(Thanks, WTM!)

Universe, a Space Documentary from 1960



In 1960, the National Film Board of Canada produced a film that followed the work of Ontario astronomer Donald MacRae. Universe introduces us to the moon, the sun, nine planets, and further heavenly bodies. Here is what we knew of the universe before Hubble, before Voyager, even before John Glenn's first orbital flight. A young filmmaker named Stanley Kubrick saw the film and was inspired to do a space movie, which became 2001: A Space Odyssey. He even used the narrator of the documentary, Douglas Rain, as the voice of HAL 9000. Read more about how Universe inspired Kubrick at Kottke. (via Nag on the Lake

Miss Cellania's Links

9 Michael Crichton Sci-Fi Movies That Don't Involve Dinosaurs or Wild West Robots.

Why is my Gmail suddenly full? And why do I have to pay to make this problem go away?

Trump’s Lawyer Said There Were “No Plans” For Trump Tower Moscow. Here They Are. 

The historic firsts of the 2019 Oscar nominations. In another milestone, I've actually seen two of the Best Picture nominees, which hasn't happened in more than twenty years.

“Which School Did You Go To?” The Covington Catholic Incident Hits Close to Home.

Baby Does Grown-Up Stuff. Ryan is only six months old, but he's already got experience shaving, fishing, playing poker, lifting weights, mowing the lawn, working on the car, chopping wood, and other adult activities. (via Boing Boing)

Vacationing at the Edge of a Giant Hole in the Earth. Welcome to Mirny, a company mining town in Siberia.

The MAGA Hat Goes Beyond Politics, It’s Become A Symbol Of Hate.

Gemologist Finds Insect Trapped in Opal. Opal would have taken a very long time to form, so how did this happen? (via Gizmodo)

A blast from the past (2013): When Gamers Decorate: 7 Awesome Video Game Rooms.

Pretend


(via Fark)

Cubed



A man with a Rubik's cube for a head tries to fit in with other men with the same head, but they really aren't the same unless they are exactly the same. It's a super weird analogy for individuality and inclusiveness, but it eventually works. Cubed was Xue Enge's award-winning graduation film at Nanyang Technological University. (via Laughing Squid)

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

You Don't Say

That Time Stephen Colbert Covered a Klan Rally



Stephen Colbert tells the story of when The Daily Show sent him to cover a KKK rally in Tennessee. He was awfully young then.

Seatbelt

(via reddit)

Cool School Principal



Xi Guan Primary School principal Zhang Pengfei (in Shanxi province, China) learned to shuffle and shared it with his students. They sure are having some fun! Older folks are enjoying the shuffle, too.



(via reddit)

Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I ran across this picture from several years ago. It was in a publicity package I believe was about Shark Week. Thought you'd get a kick out of it. "One of the most respected voices," ha!

MIB: Men In Blues



Men in Black is a treasure of science fiction comedy. The Blues Brothers is the ultimate in comedy plus cool. So what if Men in Black were recast with Jake and Elwood in the buddy cop roles? Master mashup artist Fabrice Mathieu has crafted a short film with best of both worlds: the cool vibe of The Blues Brothers and the aliens from not only Men in Black, but a variety of other movies you know and love. Oh yeah, you better believe there's a chase scene! (Thanks, Fabrice!)    


Miss Cellania's Links

People can get really creative in memorializing the dead, so much so that many large cemeteries, parishes, and churches in ages past would appoint a censor to make sure that grave markers were proper. (via Strange Company)

School restrooms are a public health problem. The problem is that kids don't get to use them.

The Trump Administration Quietly Changed the Definition of Domestic Violence and We Have No Idea What For.

I Needed A Hysterectomy At Age 31. Doctors Fought Me Every Step Of The Way. (via Metafilter)

Beware of Coyotes.

Before Black Lung, The Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster Killed Hundreds. Yet the company that did the project denied any cases of silicosis. (via Digg)

Herd Immunity in Action. A new study shows that the vaccine against HPV has caused incidences of human papilloma virus to decline, even among women who don't get the vaccine.  (via reddit)

If you buy an animal embedded in amber for a good price, the "amber" probably refers to the color, not the natural resin.

Is Clutter Also Making You Bad With Money?

A blast from the past (2009): 6 Really Weird Worms.

Cats Don't Beg

(via Fark)

Animals Keep Creating Mysteries by Sounding Weird



These two lynx are having some sort of spat. It could be territorial, or maybe a lover's quarrel, but if you heard that coming from your back yard in the night, you'd get very little sleep. It's just one example of the ways animals surprise us when we hear the strange sounds coming from them. The most famous example is the "sonic attack" on American diplomats in Cuba a couple of years ago, which scientists now believe was the call of the the Indies short-tailed cricket. Ed Yong goes through more examples, like puffins that sound like chainsaws, humming fish, and tortoises having loud sex. Read about totally weird animal noises, with video evidence, at the Atlantic. (via Metafilter)

Tweet of the Day


(via Metafilter)

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Job Opportunity

An Honest Trailer for The Predator (2018)



For some reason, they remade the 1987 movie Predator and put an article in front of it. The Predator was not well-received. Screen Junkies explains why in this Honest Trailer. It apparently lacks the mystery, charm, star power, and plausibility of the earlier film. What else is there? Special effects? Even if the special effects are better thirty years later, the original film used them ever-so-cleverly.

World Record Attempt

(via reddit)

The Expedition

Any time I move furniture, I find a cache of cat toys. That means chopsticks, bread ties, and hair elastics, all batted about by my white cat Marshmallow. I can imagine the angst she goes through every time she loses one of her prized possessions. This comic is from Jim Benton. (via reddit)