Recommended Reading

All about that strange cap that Jughead wears. (via Metafilter)

People Ferment The Darndest Things. You can make alcohol out of almost anything, which is a challenge to some.

The Worm Within. This short story tells of Vincent Eaton's experience with a tapeworm. This is not for hypochondriacs or those disturbed by bathroom scenes.

Strange items from the Michael Jackson auction.

Why freeing Willie was the wrong thing to do. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17039

Andrew at Southern Fried Science tell the story of how he made beer with limited resources while at sea. Your results may vary. (via Terra Sigillata) http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/

Why The Golden Girls was sitcom genius.

Should you get your baby boy circumcised? The question bothered one mother so much she made a movie about the decision.

Elephant on Water Skis

At the Pittsburgh Bicentennial regatta in 1959. (via Neatorama)

Fun and Funny Links

The obituary of a car salesman. (via Arbroath)

10 Divorce Stories Too Strange to Make Up.

How sex in the movies compares to sex in real life.

Aha! At least I have one person fooled.

The smallest man in the world dances with his cat.

Imagine the reaction when people see you taking a sip from a urine specimen container! Formula P and Blood Sample are sour candy liquids packaged in specimen bottles. Guess which one is lemon and which is cherry. (via Unique Daily)

25 pictures of a man and his grizzly bear.

Look at this Lovely Hamster. (via Metafilter)

What Makes You Happy?

Family, sex, and ice cream, according to these folks. I can't really disagree. From John Rawlinson. (via Neatorama's Upcoming Queue)

Good Reads and Information

Puijila, the walking seal. This new transitional fossil from 20 million years ago will help us understand how pinnipeds evolved from land animal to sea creature.

Can science determine the age of a Somali pirate? The legal difference between 16 and 18 is enormous.

5 Super Powers You Can Have Today. The wisdom to use such powers for good instead of evil will cost you extra.

$25 billion dollars in bailout funds could be paid back to the government by the end of this year. Where will that money go?

17 Cool Magnet Tricks. Plus a discussion in the comments about magnets in your hard drive.

Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization? World grain production is not keeping up with consumption, which will eventually spell trouble with a capital T.

How to Get Started with Solar Power. It's not difficult if you know some basics, and it's no longer fringe.

Geographers from Kansas State University have plotted the seven deadly sins of the nation. (via Metafilter)

Links for Fun

What if The Muppets had starred in Ocean's Eleven? It would have been an even bigger hit!

What font are you? This this silly quiz to see how you stand out. I'm Helvetica, which is about as boringly normal as you can get.

Cake Wrecks has a delightful collection of cakes that look like classic board games, from chess to Operation.

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, played on an accordion. Forget it's an accordion and enjoy this virtuoso performance by AccCam.

The Amazing Adventures of Little Batman. The cutest super hero of all!

The Longest Way. This guy spent a year walking across China; he remembered to take plenty of pictures along the way but forgot to shave.

5 Massive Hit Songs That Almost Didn't Get Released. The people that make these decisions should remember that they can't always be right.

How to get up and ready for work in only five minutes. I can applaud any man who can put on his pants with no hands while brushing his teeth.

Bob Hope and James Cagney

From the 1955 movie The Seven Little Foys. This was back when you had to sing and dance as well as act to get a job on Broadway or in Hollywood. (Thanks, Duke!)

Black Hole Sun

By Soundgarden. At one time I thought this was the creepiest video ever. Now that I work on the internet, it seems rather tame!

Powerhouse

By The Philharmonicas, a part of Larry Clinton's Orchestra. From 1939. (via Metafilter)

Friday Fun Links

Everyday people in super hero costumes fight crime and save lives when the situation arises! 

7 Reasons Frogs are Funny. Not that you need a reason to laugh at frogs, but there are plenty of them. Reasons, that is. 

An easy-to-use wristwatch -if you follow the directions!  

Sneezing in slow motion. This PSA from Australia is gross, but effective -it made me want a flu shot. 

Why Tech Support Sucks. There's a reason for the pain you go through when you call, and it's not personal. 

Honestly. It's that season again- here are the kinds of people you might meet at Ye Olde Ren Faire. 

Change this ad from NOM to this slightly different variation from PAE and see just how ridiculous both are. 

Reddit won an award for this. 

How to fix Star Wars.

She's Got Me Dancing

By Tommy Sparks. Video by Eric Wareheim. (via Everlasting Blort)

Recommended Reading

President Nixon had a speech prepared in 1969 to use in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts were marooned on the moon. Or on the sound stage where the moon landing was faked.

Every scientific post should begin with a fun little quiz like this one. Then continue with a lesson on how some people have an amazing ability to recognize faces.

My Students. My Cellphone. My Ordeal. A teacher who was investigating "sexting" students preserved the evidence on orders from his boss and was charged with possessing child pornography. (via Boing Boing)

Josephine Cochrane was tired of her servants breaking dishes, so she invented the dishwasher. I always thought that what kids are for.

Two new extrasolar planets have been found that resemble Earth in some ways. In other ways, they are very different.

How to Spend Less and Get More. Seriously reorganizing your household can save you big bucks over time -and now is the time to do it.

The Tallest People Around. 15 videos of really tall folks who are alive today, including a dozen over seven feet!

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ax Murders. The architect's lover and six others were killed while trying to flee a fire.

One Wing Landing

An Israeli pilot lands an F-15 with only one wing after a mid-air collision during a training exercise.

Fun and Funny Links

When you need a goat, just press the Goat Button. But why wait until then?

The FBI has a new way of tracking what terrorists (and everyone else) does on the internet. See a demonstration here. (via Phil's Phun)

Kids' Letters to Michael Bay. (via Pajiba)

5 Geniuses Who Were Massive Assholes.

It was a Dark and Silly Night, a Gahan Wilson animated version of a story by Neil Gaiman. The coolest place to have a party is in a cemetery. (via Metafilter)

What was the worst car of the 70s? You can add a suggestion to the list, but it's pretty long already.

Here's a slow loris being tickled. Have the insulin ready for your overdose of sweetness.

Super slow-motion video shot at 1,000 frames per second. Awesome footage from a rugby competition, but don't leave before you see the Jello.

Raccoon House Party

Just haging out, making out, dancing a bit, you know... (via Buzzfeed)

Recommended Reading

How To Colonize a Nation. Just remember, if you break it, you buy it.

The Big Picture has a roundup of signs of spring, including the many ways people around the world celebrate the vernal equinox. Well, at least those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Debit Card, Credit Card, Charge Card, what's the differences? And which one works best for you?

18 Ways Attention Goes Wrong. That seems like an awful long list for people who may have attention problems.

A expedition in 1930 hoped to find gold in New Guinea. What they found was thousands of people who had no concept of a world outside their island, and they had a movie camera with them to record the event.

America Becomes a Thrift Nation, sort of like we were in the 1930s. Even when money is tight, people tend to look at the bright side.

The story of X -- evolution of a sex chromosome. The male Y chromosome keeps deleting genes that are detrimental to males, while the female X chromosome is busy putting them back in.

The Florida School for Boys was created to reform delinquent teenagers. What it accomplished was to scar them for life.

The Car of Tomorrow

A classic Tex Avery cartoon from 1951.

Friday Fun Links

12 Pictures That Give Superheroes A Bad Name. (via Gorilla Mask)

Top Ten Celebrity Perverts.

Tone Matrix is a play pretty that plays music! Click the tiles to not only make designs, but listen to them as well. (via Bits and Pieces)

Rush Limbaugh's 10 Dumbest Remarks.

Wolf Loves Pork. A very complicated video tells a very simple story with a surprise ending.

The craziest car chase you'll see today. A woman in Orange County, California messed with police for over an hour and is now charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Pregnant Women Are Smug. Two women who aren't pregnant say what the rest of us won't in a song.

French prankster Remi Gaillard creates havoc with a real-life version of Pac-Man. And somehow makes a golfer way too angry.

6 of Your Favorite Local Characters

The fifth, and I believe final post in the series I wrote for mental_floss featuring local characters from all over is now up. In 6 of Your Favorite Local Characters I profile people you've seen in Seattle, Austin, Madison, WI, Jacksonville, NC, and one you are too young to have ever met from San Francisco.

The rest of the series:

How to Be a Local Character had characters from Memphis, New York City, St. Petersburg, FL, Lexington, KY, and Maggie Valley, NC.

7 Fascinating Local Characters brought you profiles from New Orleans, Boston, Toronto, Austin, Ann Arbor, MI, Anderson, SC, and Wellington, NZ,

9 Wonderful Local Characters featured folks from Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, St. Louis, St. Cloud, MN, and Adelaide, Australia.

7 More Unforgettable Local Characters has colorful characters from Peoria, IL, San Marcos, TX, New Haven, CT, Wheeling, WV, Ocean City, MD, Omaha, NB and Montreal.

Good Reads

How inbreeding killed off a line of kings. Scientists say isolated cases of incest are genetically no big deal, but over 16 generations it bred disaster in the form of Charles II of Spain.

A lot of what your were told about the Columbine killings is not true. It took years to sort out the real story behind the 1998 school shooting. (via Metafilter)

50 Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know. I wish I had all this spelled out for me when I was young.

How Our Salaries Are Changing. Parade Magazine's annual look at what people earn sees security trumping job satisfaction.

Tooth enamel is barely stronger than glass, but doesn't shatter easily. The reason may surprise you.

How It`s Done: Laser Eye Surgery. After watching this, you're probably going to stick with wearing your glasses.

What happens if I don't file my tax return? Maybe nothing, maybe your eyeballs will fall out, so I'm not taking the chance.

15 Film Production Credits Explained.

The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains. We can survive with only half a brain, so why do we need both sides?

Magic Star Traveler

Weirdness for the children! (via I Heart Chaos)

Fun and Funny Links

We Didn't Start the Flame War.

People talk about the "misconceptions" they had as children concerning sex and reproduction in the film Kinda Sutra. Cute and funny, but probably NSFW unless you wear headphones. (via Metafilter)

The Home Made Wall of Death, cobbled together from 850 recycled wooden pallets. It's all fun and games until the inevitable wreck.

10 Examples of Royal Weirdness. Strange things happen when no one dares to tell you that you're starting to spin out of control.

Susan Boyle surprised the crowd (and the judges) in the TV show Britain's Got Talent. That's what they get for judging a book by its cover.

My home remodeling project has started, and I'll not be able to take an afternoon nap for another three months.

The Tweeting Office Chair. Follow it on Twitter, if you like. (Thanks, Emily Farris!)

What Type of Web Commenter Are You? An old-style journalist marvels at the growth of anonymous feedback.

Good Reads and Information

The ways people dealt with summer heat before air conditioning also helped us get to know our neighbors. They don't build homes like that much anymore.

Discover Magazine has a video contest called Evolution in Two Minutes (or less). Your task is to create a short video that will get the idea and significance of evolution across to an educated lay audience.

Crazy racist commercials. Throughout the creative process, no one stopped to say, "Hey, think about this!"

Try No Dig Gardening for Your Backyard Vegetables. Treehugger has an overview with links to other resources. (via Boing Boing Gadgets)

Top 10 Ridiculously Common Science Myths. Of course, YOU already know the truth about these, don't you?

Food stamps and child nutrition programs are expected to cost up to $900 million more this year because of increased ethanol use. Diverting the corn crop away from food affects the price of corn, corn syrup, corn starch, animal feed (and therefore meat) plus other crops that are displaced to grow more corn.

LED clock made from an old hard drive. Groovy colors in recycled geeky goodness!

There are more people claiming VA benefits as former POWs than were ever taken prisoner. Many more. Isn't someone keeping up with this?

Parkour Cat

(via Arbroath)

Links for Fun

It's not so easy doing a Mike Wallace when your target refuses to take you seriously.

BallDroppings is a little physics-based music game. Draw lines to catch the bouncing balls and enjoy the music they make. Bonus -no inertia! (via Buzzfeed)

Getting the inside scoop on Cadbury Creme Eggs. They're only available around Easter, but the factory cranks them out all year.

Gadget Grand Prix. Who will win the race in this stop-motion video -the digital camera, the mouse, the PDA, the remote control, the cell phone, or another hand held gadget?

5 Public Health Campaigns that Made Things Worse. The best of intentions can lead to unintended consequences when you don't think them all the way through.

Kacie Kinzer designed small cardboard robots with smiling faces that will move only forward and left them running around New York City. The question: would passers-by help the cute little Tweenbots get to their destination?

These guys have to repossess a Prius from somewhere between Camelot and Middle Earth. Is that any way to treat a princess?

Will You Be Here Tomorrow? This is the goriest safety video ever, still in use for industrial training. I had to laugh -and cringe.

The Wizard of Speed and Time

Spooks

Another Flip the Frog cartoon from 1932.

Robot Commando

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

Recommended Reading

Scientific explanations for the parting of the Red Sea, the 10 plagues, and the burning bush. Just because you can explain something doesn't mean it's not a miracle.

In an update to a story we brought you earlier, Allison the triple-amputee sea turtle has a new swim suit.

You may be shocked at this page from a children's book of the 70s, but this sort of thing was par for the course when I was a kid. Some of us just refused to go by the book.

The Smithsonian By The Numbers. The most awesome collection of museums that you can get in for free!

A significant number of kids experiment with a vegetarian diet as a way to mask an eating disorder. After all, vegetarianism is not only acceptable, it's socially conscious. (via My 2 Second Shelf Life)

The Dark Side of Dubai. Never move to a foreign country without checking out the laws, or you may end up in one of these horror stories. (via Cynical-C)

10 Winning Science Fair Projects That Will Make You Feel Dumb. But that's OK, these kids will make the future better for all of us.

Ana Rodarte was born with neurofibromatosis, which caused tumors to cover half her face. She was in her twenties when a team of doctors performed a series of operations that transformed her life. Part one and part two.

Lost on Gilligan's Island

This is how Gilligan's Island was originally meant to be. They finally remake the concept in 2004, but they just called it "Lost".

More Local Characters

People all over are proud of their town's local characters. In this fourth post of the series about local characters, we'll take a look at some colorful citizens who are well known in Peoria, San Marcos, Montreal, New Haven, Wheeling, Ocean City, and Omaha in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Links for Fun and Entertainment

Bananas will make you smile. At least I think that's the point of this weird Japanese ad.

Don't you just love it when people break into song at the train station? Oh, right, that never happens. Except at this station in Antwerp.

Cynical-C has a series of posts featuring one star Amazon reviews of classic books, movies, and music. Sure, you can't please everyone, but some folks' opinions will make you cringe.

In honor of the new baseball season, here are the worst opening pitches ever. Don't quit your day job!

See the similarities in these Disney movie clips? No, they didn't just trace the earlier cels; they used the same motion-capture videos as guides.

When Passover is through, what do you do with the leftovers? This song gives you 20 ways to use all that matzah.

An ad from Think Family that will make you laugh, then cry, then think.

Yeah, they're faking it.

Black Death Metal

From The Richard Pryor Show, 1977. (via Unique Daily)

Goos Reads and Info

Two Europeans rode a train into North Korea without notifying the official tourist agency of their entry point. They took a route that was not accessible to tourists, so no one bothered to stop them.

Four suicides in one class, and the school doesn't think there is a problem? Here's how one school deals with bullies.

A novelist spends time in a hospital ward for digestive problems along with chronic alcoholics. You don't want to read this while eating.

6 Geniuses Who Saw Their Inventions Go Terribly Wrong.

Scientists Who Put Their Lives on the Line. Quite a few made the ultimate sacrifice for their work.

Do humans have a moral thermostat? A study finds that people who are primed to think well of themselves behave less altruistically than those whose moral identity is threatened.

10 Swoon-Worthy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Your childhood treat gets all dressed up gourmet style. (via Geek Like Me)

Wisdom is way different from intelligence or education. Now scientists think they may have found the part of the brain where wisdom lives.

Laughing Twins

You look funny! No, YOU look funny! No YOU!

Peeps Imitate Life

Many, many creative people have taken a stab at making whimsical dioramas using our favorite marshmallow chicks and bunnies. They illustrate scenes from movies, books, songs, and TV shows, but I’m very impressed by the many that recreate real life scenes from history, the news, and just plain life. See eleven of these dioramas in this article I posted at mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

Car Talk's Official Staff Credits. They manage to hire the most interestingly-named people. (via Bits and Pieces)

The Ten Funniest 911 Calls of All Time. (via Gorilla Mask)

Can you believe this? A blog dedicated to pictures of non-porn boners.

Pop Tarts in the News.

If Homer's Odyssey Was Written On Twitter.

DeepLeap is like speed Scrabble. Make words out of the letters you are given, but hurry before they disappear! (via BuzzFeed)

Mankind Is No Island. An award-winning short film shot entirely on a cell phone.

What a colonoscopy is really like. A sense of humor about it is the best way to get the job done.

Cats on an Exercise Wheel

Bengal cats taking their turns at the wheel. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

Recommended Reading

Weird and Wonderful Images found in old (or even ancient) books from all over. A small taste will make you want to seek out and read the entire source!

I'm From Driftwood. True short stories by gay people published with the intent of helping young people who struggle with coming out. (via Buzzfeed)

Only three years after the Challenger disaster, NASA almost lost the shuttle Atlantis. At the time, news for the public made it seem minor, but the astronauts knew better. (via Bad Astronomy Blog)

The origins of some of your favorite foods. You have to wonder why people say “as American as hot dogs,” when the hamburger has a better claim.

11 Extinct Animals That Have Been Photographed Alive.

Surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases our concentration levels and helps make a more productive workforce, according to a new University of Melbourne study. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

There are only around 1,000 Bonobos left in the world, all in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now a flu epidemic has hit their only sanctuary.

Study: Housing Homeless Drunks And Letting Them Drink Saves Millions. And savings might not be the only benefit.

The Devil's Ball

Remember this from Night Flight? An excerpt from "The Mascot" by Ladislaw Starewicz, 1933.

Friday Fun Links

The 11 Best Cat Puking Videos on the Internet.

10 Different Timelines From The Terminator Universe. When time travel changes everything, it makes writing scripts for sequels easier.

If you want to feel better about your own writing skills, take a look at this book excerpt. There, now you feel like Mark Twain, don't you? (via Metafilter)

A Life Without Left Turns. A lovely family memoir about living and driving. (Thanks, Andy!)

How can we advertise a razor without every using the words "razor" or "hair" or even "grooming"? Like this.

Mock Duck is “a delicious assortment of thrift store cookbooks”, with scanned pictures and descriptions that will make your mouth water… NOT. (via Everlasting Blort)

When Superheroes Go Bad. Eight incidences where we like our good guys even better when they're more human.

A Compilation of UFO Footage.

Amazing People

(via Azur,fr.nf)

Good Reads and Information

10 Excruciating Medical Treatments from the Middle Ages. You'd have to be pretty desperate, or near death, to submit to any of these. (via Gorilla Mask)

A Big-Ass List Of Student Loan Resources. With links. Students may want to bookmark this page.

Why do mummies often look as if they are screaming? Surely they aren't all cursed! (via Metafilter)

The 10 Craziest Diets in History. To try these, you must really hate eating less and exercising more.

Marine biologist Sheril Kirshenbaum confronts the sexist remarks that accompanied her welcome to Discover magazine's site, and the general sexism in science.

AskMen ranks The Top 29 Cities to Live In. One of the criteria was the ratio of men to women, but the rest of what they considered would make these good cities for women, too.

A long-term study finds strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory. This may be where the term "vicious downward spiral" comes from.

A Brief History of Spring Break. Build an Olympic-size pool and they will come.

Kinetic Sandwich

Get up close and personal with your lunch! A 2002 film by Eric Dyer. (via Everlasting Blort)

Fun Links

Strange Headlines Today.

A slideshow of Google's April Fool pranks. (via J-Walk Blog)

The Five Best Pranks Ever Filmed and Posted to YouTube.

The 15 Stupidest Puns from the New York Post Front Page.

Star Trek Character of Erectile Dysfunction Pill?

The Slide Aquatic. Should a dead pet fish get a respectful burial or become dinner? The water slide will decide!

The Electric Dark Side. Vader should've offered this to Luke!

The 6 Most Depressing IMDb Pages.

Babies Eating Lemons

It happens the same way every time. A baby tastes a lemon, makes a face, then reaches for it again!