Wednesday, December 17, 2025
I Gotta Feeling
The Ein Prat Fountainheads celebrate Hanukkah, which continues all this week. The Fountainheads are the group who brought us Livin' in a Booth And Dip Your Apple. Here's to a blessed celebration!
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Beatnik Christmas Tale
From 1970. That seems strange to me, as the term beatnik was pretty much replaced by the term hippies by then. I mean, my parents were beatniks. I was a hippie. (via Weird Universe)
A WWII Christmas Story
Christmas can be hard when you're thousands of miles away from your loved ones, and especially when you're facing dangers that could prevent you from ever seeing them again. Anything that makes that ordeal easier is a Christmas miracle. Sean of the South relates one Christmas gift in 1943 that no one involved will ever forget.
The story checks out, but there's a small correction that make it even better. The movie that the sailors received wasn't just still shots, but film footage of wives and children opening the gifts from their husbands and daddies and waving "hi!" to them, all arranged by Macy's. The entire project started out in August, or else it never could have been pulled off.
The Reason You Drink
Mary and Paul Sommers of Dayton, Ohio, sent all three of their children through the same Catholic grade school. This is the final year for their youngest son, Jake. To show their appreciation for the patience the teachers showed, they got Jake's teachers bottles of chardonnay for Christmas, with specially-printed labels you can see here. Their older son DJ Tweeted pictures of the gifts. The response was overwhelming, which Mary did not expect. They even made some TV stations and newspapers. The teachers were more appreciative than shocked. (via Buzzfeed)
Bird Cowboy
Remember that story The Ugly Duckling? If you ever wondered what happened to the subject of that tale, this song will continue the story after he rides off into the sunset. Except here, he remains a duck instead of a swan. Except he's more than a just duck- he's a cowboy! Or rather, a Western gunslinger, because there's no cows in sight. Okay, he's a duck gunslinger who goes by the name Bird Cowboy. A story doesn't have to make sense when it's this good. You can almost hear Johnny Cash singing this. But it's from Mummy Joe, and the illustrations are both silly and adorable. (via Everlasting Blort)
The Christmas Closet
The challenge is to concentrate as many Christmas lights into a small space as possible, or so it seems. Why else would you decorate a tiny room with no furniture? Watch as Justin strings lights in a closet and adds extra Christmas enhancements. You know he fell off those ridiculous homemade stilts at least once. And how many plug-ins can one electrical outlet hold? When the big moment comes, you expect a fire instead of Christmas lights. Watch the video before you continue reading.
Miss Cellania's Links
Volcanic eruption triggered 'butterfly effect' that led to the Black Death, researchers find. https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanic-eruption-triggered-butterfly-effect-that-led-to-the-black-death-researchers-find (via Strange Company)
A child bride who was due to be executed this month in Iran over the death of her husband has had her life spared by his parents, who were paid the equivalent of £70,000 in exchange for their forgiveness. (via Damn Interesting)
Truckers Say These Are The Best (And Worst) Highways In The U.S.
Looking Back at the White Man: The story of Julius Lips. His 1937 book on colonialism as seen from the other side rubbed Hitler the wrong way. (via Metafilter)
Hegseth’s New Pentagon AI Is Telling Military Personnel His Boat Strike Was Completely Illegal. (via Fark)
The Lost Forty: How an 1882 Surveying Error Saved a Patch of Forest from Logging.
The Judy Garland Christmas Movie Meet Me in St. Louis Was Surprisingly Spicy Behind the Scenes.
Most radioactive site in US is moving on from the Manhattan Project. And finally dealing with its nuclear waste in a surprising way. (via Damn Interesting)
A Hamilton Hanukkah
2016 was the year for a Hamilton Hanukkah. The a cappella group Six13 was invited to perform at the White House, and they unveiled their 2016 Hanukkah sequence, modeled on the Broadway musical Hamilton.
Not to be outdone, the a cappella group the Maccabeats also did Hamilton for their annual song parody for Hanukkah 2016. "Hasmonean" tells the tale of the miracle of the lights, also in the style of the Broadway musical Hamilton. (via Metafilter)
The Robot Apocalypse
www.smbc-comics.com/comic/rise-o...
— The Fake History Hunter (@fakehistoryhunter.net) December 13, 2025 at 9:52 PM
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Monday, December 15, 2025
RIP Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were killed by a knife attack in their home yesterday. Their son Nick has been arrested. We are all shocked and saddened.
When I was a kid, my family never missed watching All in the Family. In its early years, I wanted to be Meathead, because he knew so much and wanted to make the world a better place. Then came This Is Spinal Tap in 1984, and I was in the perfect place to find it outrageously funny. Reiner's movies that followed were all good -or at least the ones that I saw. This 60 Minutes interview is from earlier this year, ahead of the opening of Reiner's last film This Is Spinal Tap: The End Continues.
RÃu ChÃu
The Monkees may have been a musical group manufactured for TV, but they were all talented musicians. Here they sing the 16th century Spanish Christmas carol "RÃu ChÃu" a cappella on their 1967 Christmas episode. That performance was broadcast live, and the song went over so well that they had to record it later to include in their compilation albums. (via Metafilter)
Red Baron vs. White Death
Nice Peter and Epic LLOYD of Epic Rap Battles of History only release a new video maybe once or twice a year now, but they put a lot of thought into each one. Not only is this one clever, it's so fast-paced that you'll need to see it more than once to reap all the highly-accurate historical details in the rap, and then again to catch all the visual details. It pits two of the world's most renowned warriors against each other.
Simo Häyhä was a Finnish farmer and sniper who racked up more than 500 kills in the Winter War of 1938. He became known to the Russians as the White Death. You don't know dread until the snow begins speaking Finnish. Baron Manfred von Richthofen was a German flying ace credited with 80 air battle victories in World War I. And they can both throw flyting words.
The Red Baron has a lasting reputation that allows them include references to pizza, Snoopy, and Meet the Fokkers. Finnish commenters helpfully explained a few terms used here. "Sisu" is a Finnish term for determination, grit, and courage. "Paskapää" means shithead. This video contains NSFW language. (via Boing Boing)
70 People from 70 Countries Imitate Americans
Condé Nast Traveler asked folks from other countries to show what an American is like. They pulled up US slang, put on their best American accent, and planted a big smile on their faces, because we're known for that. Taken all together, they seem to have the same stereotype of what an American is like. Did they get that from tourists, or from the movies? I would guess movies. Mean Girls, to be specific. The woman from South Africa talking about Texas is my favorite. Or maybe Japan, when she just imitated us eating. (via Tastefully Offensive)
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