Thursday, September 03, 2026
Wednesday, September 02, 2026
The H-Man
The H-Man (美女と液体人間) is a Japanese science fiction horror film from 1958. It begins as a police procedural, with detectives investigating gang members who traffic in drugs. But the mysterious killers turn out to be "Liquid Men," suffering from nuclear radiation that turns them into liquid. But they are also killers, and can turn other people into liquid, too! (Thanks, WTM!)
Never Look Down in a Duel
We've been to enough movies to know that the likelihood of dying quickly is inversely correlated with how much the movie stars are paid. In Westerns, nobodies will be shot quickly and never seen again, while the higher-billed actors will have a drawn-out dramatic demise. When rivals confront each other in a Western shootout, we sometimes aren't sure who's actually been shot, and neither do the characters, until they themselves become aware of their injuries. You may have never noticed this consciously, but you know it happens.
But what if the characters become aware of this cinematic convention? If you don't look down and notice the bullet wound, have you really been shot? If a fatal gunshot only becomes reality when it is observed, then refusing to observe the wound keeps the character in a state of quantum uncertainty. Or at least it should. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Is Moldy Food Safe to Eat?
I once knew a woman who owned a small grocery. When the food expired, she would take it home to eat, and it could be moldy by the time she consumed it. I never ate at her house, but she lived to almost 90.
If you see food in your home that shows evidence of mold, should you throw it out? If the answer is always "yes," then you are privileged to be able to pay for a replacement. Not everyone is in that position. Mold can cause health problems, depending on the type of mold, that may show up immediately or way down the line. But the answer to the question is "usually." There are some foods that can be salvaged even if there is evidence of mold.
On the other hand, if you discover a loaf of bread that has been in your cabinet for six months and still shows no signs of mold whatsoever, you may want to reevaluate what's really in the food you're buying.
Miss Cellania's Links
What's the real retirement age in America? Here are 4 guesses. (via Fark)
23 of the Most Ridiculous Reasons People Have Called 911.
UFO Sightings by 17th and 19th Century Jesuits in Paraguay. (via Strange Company)
The Real Women's Labor Movement That Inspired Dolly Parton's "9 to 5."
In case you didn't know what those lines on the floor in Germany are for. A comment underneath led me to the wonderful Be My Eyes program.
Lake America, and other new geographic names for the Trump era. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
MapQuest Refuses To Rename Lake Ontario, Asks The Internet For Better Ideas Instead.
Life is better on eight wheels. Here's another.
Firefighters and Cats
Firefighters are heroes, no doubt about it. They are sacred defenders of life, even when the victims they save are not so grateful. This one was rescued from a burning home by the Boulder Fire Department.
But some are very thankful. Continue reading for more cats and firefighters.
Toni's Boys
In 1980, the TV series Charlie's Angels was riding high, so ABC decided to clone the show by making a version featuring three good-looking young men working for a woman boss. It was called Toni's Boys. As you can see, other than the '80s version of good-looking young men, it didn't have much to offer. Why would you recruit an athlete and a cowboy for a private detective agency?
Charlie's Angels were all trained cops. Here's the 1980 show opening so you can compare. The music and the graphics are the same, but Toni's Boys just looked like ABC was trying too hard. The pilot aired in a Charlie's Angels time slot near the end of season four, but the network never picked it up. (via Weird Universe)
The Vasectomy
A little valued-added minor surgery. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Tuesday, September 01, 2026
The Brain Song
A new song from Weird Al Yankovic! It's not a parody, but it might help you in your Anatomy and Physiology class. It's not exactly a new song, but a piece of lost media from 2009. Yankovic made an exhibit about the brain as an educational exhibit for the Orange County Fair in 2009, and this song is part of it. You can see the creepy introduction at YouTube, and the whole eleven-minute presentation in this video. Use your brain!
Imported Flour Ingredients
This is what happens when you rely on machine translation. The Russian word for protein can also mean squirrel. (via reddit)
Where Star Wars REALLY Came From
You think you know where Star Wars came from, but there's always another source, because it was a conglomeration of all the pop culture available.
The Forgotten Castaways of Tromelin Island
In 1761, the French ship Utile was illegally transporting Malagasy men, women, and children to be sold as slaves. The ship wrecked on a small sand bar in the Indian Ocean called the Isle of Sand, later renamed Tromelin Island. They were 280 miles from the coast of Madagascar. The crew and the Malagasy people spent the next two months building a smaller boat from the wreckage of the Utile. but when it came time to sail off, there was not room to take everyone. The 122 surviving French crew members sailed off and left 60 Malagasy men and women behind, promising to send a ship for them.
But that never happened. Those left behind had no choice but to do the best they could while waiting for rescue. Fifteen years later, a ship managed to dock at Tromelin Island and found the survivors, seven women and a baby, still making do every day.
Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue
You may know Scott Bradlee from Postmodern Jukebox. Here he gives us a piano mashup of two of my favorite songs. (via reddit)
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