Miss Cellania

Saturday, June 27, 2026

The Great Dismal Swamp

My family has spent vacations at the Outer Banks of North Carolina for at least four generations now. You let the kids think it is for fun in the sun, but they learn a lot of history, too. The Lost Colony. Blackbeard's pirate base, The Wright Brothers' first flight. And getting there, you pass through the Great Dismal Swamp, over engineered roads that weren't possible a couple hundred years ago. Full of mosquitos, snakes, choking vegetation, and unstable ground, the inhospitable swamp was a refuge for enslaved people who escaped and hid out for generations.

Angus

(Thanks, WTM!)

"The Power of Disco" by Huey Lewis and the Trammps

Listen to this super nostalgic mashup, new from Bill McClintock! It's a medley of disco hits from the 1970s, set to the tune of Huey Lewis and the News' 1985 song "The Power of Love." The first disco song is "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps. I was a little disappointed there, because it's my favorite disco song mainly because of its tune. But that's just the beginning- you'll also hear "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" by the Commodores, "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix, and "Serpentine Fire" by Earth, Wind & Fire.

The five songs are accompanied by a video that incorporates the music videos from each song, plus the movie Back to the Future, which is where we got "The Power of Love." You'll want to get up and dance, but keep in mind the disco hits are all a little slower to match the tempo of "The Power of Love." But that's okay, because if you recall all these songs, you probably dance a little slower than you used to.

Chicken

(via Bored Panda)

Casually Explained: Moving Out

James from Casually Explained gives young people a honest and detailed rundown on what it's like to move out of their parents' home. You'll only want to share this with your kids if they've already moved out, because it's pretty discouraging. When Baby Boomers moved out on their own, it was for the purpose of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, which kids these days don't do so much of. Also, we could find a place to live where the rent was only a week's income or less, if you weren't picky. Now the rental units are owned by corporations or Boomers, and they demand exorbitant security deposits because they fear young tenants will act like they did at that age. (via Tastefully Offensive)

SNAP Rules

Did you know that low-income Americans are forbidden from purchasing hot food items like rotisserie chicken at their local deli with SNAP benefits? It’s true. There are all sorts of arbitrary rules like this for public assistance programs.
— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 8:50 AM

And yet, when rich people want free money in the form of business grants or tax exemptions, there are often very little strings attached - if any. It’s time to stop policing people’s food choices and start regulating the big businesses that fail to pay living wages instead.
— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 8:50 AM

I can see how this happened. The government doesn't want to pay for restaurant meals, but in defining the terms, they run into the edge cases. Delis and grocery stores offer ready-made takeout meals like a restaurant. But here in the real world, rotisserie chicken from a grocery is often less expensive than buying a raw chicken. It's a great option for single working mothers. But it's an even greater option for people who don't have a kitchen. If you are living on the street, or in a motel shelter, or an SRO, a rotisserie chicken can be the difference between eating chips and eating protein.

Friday, June 26, 2026

Cheese Theft

From 1937. (via Undine)

Celebrate

Three Dog Night performing on the show Soundstage in 1975. The song itself, from their second album, was released in 1970.

Regrets

(via Give Me a Sign)

Every Person With a Bird Feeder

Your first bird feeder seems like a nice gift, but it can lead to some serious lifestyle changes. Suddenly, you are obsessed with the birds that actually come visit. You're taking pictures of them, studying their favorite foods, and that leads to a serious obsession. There's nothing wrong with bird watching, and I'm sure the birds appreciate the food. But you may start to seem a little odd to the neighbors and any friends that visit.

Comedian Matt Lyons noticed this in his own neighborhood. He knows about as much about birds as you or I do- notice that the bird feeder in this video is empty, and no serious backyard birder would let that happen except to give it a good cleaning. You can also tell by the names of the birds, like the eastern bilirobin and the benihana boobies. He's glad to share knowledge with you, because it's all about that symbiotomy in the phylum, whatever that means. (via Laughing Squid)

Challenge

From Married to the Sea.

The Genie's Outtakes and Bloopers from Aladdin

The usual way to make classic cartoons is to record the voices first, and then draw the animation to match. When Robin Williams recorded lines for the Genie in the 1992 film Aladdin, the crew knew that letting him loose with the script would produce magic. Williams recorded hours and hours of sound, playing around with each joke, adding his own ad libs, and doing them all over and over with different recognizable character voices. It had to be a real trip to witness.

Of course, they didn't use all those hours of voice recordings, but they were too funny to discard, so they added artwork to them anyway. In this video, two directors and the supervising animator from Aladdin remember Williams and bring us the Genie treasures we didn't get to see in the movie.

Miss Cellania's Links

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority delivered President Donald Trump a pair of significant affirmations of his immigration policy Thursday, paving the way for the administration to effectively remove more than one million people from the US and keep many others from entering in the first place.

The Seriously Dark Origins Behind Matching Bridesmaid Dresses.

Could You Pass Thomas Edison’s Job Application Test? Fewer than 5 percent of applicants could pass the inventor’s wide-ranging exam. (via Damn Interesting)

A reflecting pool cocktail. With recipe.

Elon Musk and His DOGE Pals, in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.

Elvis Once Tested How Bullet-Resistant Cadillacs Are, Here's How It Went.

When you don't want the tattoo artist to see your nipples.

The Liver-eating Cannibal That Inspired Jeremiah Johnson.

I study the Declaration of Independence, and here’s why the colonists’ grievances are surprisingly relevant, 250 years later.

Cats and Fish

Cats and fish go together like ...well, the cats like it, the fish probably could do without cats. But the combination can be pretty funny! Click the "read more" button for a big collection of funny cats and fish.

Can Loneliness Kill You?

There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. If you are alone because you enjoy solitude, that shouldn't be a problem. But if you feel alone and don't want to be, that is real loneliness. The feeling of loneliness and social isolation can do serious damage, but that doesn't mean you are doomed. For many people, feelings of loneliness come and go as life progresses, and smart folks learn how to change their life situation to meet their required spacial connections. AsapSCIENCE lets us in on the science of loneliness and its effects. (via Laughing Squid)

Prison

Cartoon by @andertoon.bsky.social.

[image or embed]
— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) June 24, 2026 at 8:40 AM