Hungry Hungry Hippos

Grumpy Cat

Doesn't want to wake up. (via Unique Daily)

Friday Fun Links

Of all the ways a carefully-staged proposal can go wrong, this seems the silliest. It bet it tasted pretty good anyway.

Whack-a-Kitties. Videos of the five best whack-a-mole games involving cats, either as player or as the mole.

The Kindle 3 makes reading easier than ever. Even illiterates can use it!

Baby Asian sea otters will make you go "Awwww." But it's Friday, so say it out loud!

Cold you pass 6th grade sex education? Take the quiz. I passed, but my score was nothing to write home about. (via Neatorama)

The Pygmy Jerboa looks like an adorable cartoon character. Maybe a cross between Speedy Gonzalez and Tweety Bird.

Olympic gymnast Damien Walters shows some jaw-droping moves. This is what a lot of training and talent can do.

Edward Leedskalnin and his Coral Castle

Eward Leedskalnin was born in Riga, Latvia in 1887. He was a small man, around five and a half feet tall and barely 100 pounds, but he built a castle by himself completely out of coral. It took him decades, but he did it… and he disassembled, moved it, and built it all again! Read about it in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Informative Links

Jellyfish aren’t fish, and they aren’t made of jelly. What they are is strange enough.

NPR has an excerpt from Brent Jeffs' book about growing up in a family of one father, four mothers, twenty children, and more cousins than he can count. There's also an audio interview. (via Metafilter)

Achieving Fame, Wealth And Beauty Are Psychological Dead Ends. This news will make it much easier for us to sit around the house in our jammies all day.

The top 10 species found and described in 2008, according to The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. I'm assuming "top" means the most interesting new species, because they are.

Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read. The science of decoding ancient languages is both tantalizing and frustrating.

7 Famous People Who Died During Sex. They say there's no better way to go, but how guilty their partners must have felt!

10 things you probably didn't know about Mt. Rushmore. Like how they "moved" Thomas Jefferson.

A mathematical oncologist says we can learn to live with cancer by keeping it under control instead of seeking to destroy it. It's an entirely new way of thinking about the dreaded disease.

Workout with Man's Best Friend

It's much easier to do your squats when your dog is doing them with you! (via Unique Daily)

Links for Fun

LOLcats recreate your favorite television shows.

Top 15 Weirdly Specific Animal Blogs. (via Gorilla Mask)

The first draft of Star Wars was pretty awful. Bad enough to make you wonder what difference it would have made if George Lucas had rewritten the prequels a couple more times. (via Metafilter)

An extraordinary solution to an ordinary problem with one's love life. Remember all the details, because this will only work once, if ever.

The Terminator movie timeline by the staff at Cracked. They tried to make some sense of it, but it's impossible.

See how Barbie can afford that Dream House and Corvette.

Have you considered holding your bachelor party at a paintball facility? Yep, we sure do.

Let's Muscle!

Let's see what kind of video games they're playing in Japan. (via Fuzzytopia)

7 Lifelong Personal Projects

All through history there have been people, mostly men, who devote years and years of their lives building something very unique and personal. Lucky for us, these erections are built to last. For the most part. See seven of these in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Good Reads

40 years ago, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world. Due to human intervention, all that's left is a few small lakes.

Now that a program designed to attract girls to science are working, some are starting to worry about the smaller percentage of boys participating in science fairs. What really matters is that more kids are interested in science overall.

Some airlines are going the extra mile to become more environmentally-friendly. If you're going to fly anyway, you might consider how these four are going green.

The Six Creepiest Abandoned Places. They gave me the willies, and all I did was look at the pictures.

Five Famous Felines. Most cats are content to stick close to home and family, but some have made a name for themselves by taking on other employment or pastimes.

New York Magazine has an eight-page story about how new technology contributes to our short attention spans. If you read all of it, it apparently doesn't apply to you.

How a Civil War Amputation Was Performed. This is a graphic and detailed description, and definitely not for those with weak stomachs.

Susan Boyle looked a whole lot better on the Britain's Got Talent semi-final round. We knew she would sing well.

Jožin z bažin

The Czech classic by Ivan Mládek. (via b3ta)

How to tell the movie 9 from the movie Nine. Plus other films they couldn't think of a name for.

A Man's Conversations With His Penis Through 3 Stages of Life. (via Bits and Pieces)

The Amazing Spider Cat! When Charlie wants in, he doesn't have to wait -he just shimmies up the wall to a second-story balcony!

Ten of the Most Unusual SPAM Cans. Just when I thought the internet had exhausted itself of new topics. (via Gorilla Mask)

The Science News Cycle. Almost like the game of telephone, except the stakes are much higher.

The Snuggie has been such a hit that several spinoff products are already available. A great gift for the person for whom you just have to buy some gift.

The Problem With Young People Today Is... a blog for curmudgeons and the teens who hate them. (Thanks, Mike!)

Only in Canada, eh?

The Lynch Treatment

If David Lynch had directed Star Wars, it probably wouldn't have been such a hit.

Maru and the Tunnel

The world's cutest full-grown cat has his own cat toy now! (via Arbroath)

Information Links

Memorial Day weekend means TV marathons. Here's a list; see if any of your favorites are there to suck up your holiday time.

What Does Your Credit Card Company Know About You? More than you'd suspect, and they use it for one purpose -to get you to pay your debts. (via Boing Boing)

Watch as the galactic center of the Milky Way passes over Texas in this time-lapse video. Luckily for us desk jockeys, the camera sees better than the naked eye.

40 years ago, the Apollo X lunar mission crew named its modules Charlie Brown and Snooopy. Charles Schultz considered his NASA connection one of the highlights of his life.

Facts and discussion on evolution fills many books, but when you condense it down to four basic points, those volumes will be much easier to understand.

Meet Ida, the most complete fossil of Darwinius masillae found in Germany. Some Scientists believe this may be the common ancestor of apes and humans that they've been waiting for.

The High Cost of Poverty. Rich people don't understand that the poorer you are, the more you pay for just the basics.

The weirdest news stories of the week.

The Mom Song

(via Everlasting Blort)

8 Virtual Tours You Can Take at Your Desk

Lots of folks are cutting back on vacations this summer, and some are staying home completely to save money. With the help of the internet, you can take a virtual tour of many tourist destinations, and also places you can only visit online. Find eight of these in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

Look who's been made into a bobblehead!

20 Fat People Dressed as Super Heroes. (via Gorilla Mask)

The wit and wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt, rendered in motivational posters. Whatever you think of his politics, the man illustrated his philosophy by living it.

All they needed to get me to want to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie is to cast Robert Downey, Jr as the lead. Due in theaters this Christmas.

Advanced Cat Yodeling. All you need is some basic instructions and a mildly annoyed cat.

One day there will be an entire literary category for Amazon product reviews. The gems written for the Three Wolf Moon Shirt are leading the way.

Brian and Eileen's wedding video. They have the coolest family and friends on the planet.

Worst Side Story. It's the recession version. (Thanks, Holistic CPA!)

Orb of Cat

Someone argued once that cats were liquid, because they take the shape of their container. I present to you evidence that cats are actually gaseous, as they take both the shape and volume of their container!

Good Reads and Information

A Scientist's Guide to Finding Alien Life. The concept is a lot more plausible now than ever in history.

How an economics reporter for the New York Times became a typical victim of the mortgage crisis. Should the lesson be: a) it could have happened to anyone, or b) don't take financial advice from newspapers?

5 Pieces of Junk That Turned Out to be Invaluable Artifacts. Excuse me now, I feel the need to go clean out my attic.

25 logos with hidden messages. Some are well-known, but others will make you wonder how you ever missed it.

Rules for Time Travelers. Real-world facts may lead to amazing breakthroughs, but they tend to take the fun out of changing history.

The story behind the soldier in Afghanistan photographed in his boxer shorts. (via Neatorama)

Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever. Actually this list addresses ten types of big explosions, so you'll for sure learn something new.

The Many Sides of Shel Silverstein. He was a lot more than a children's poet and illustrator.

Desenho Aquarela do Brasil

From the 1942 film Saludos Amigos. (via Metafilter)

Better Late Than Never

Is it ever really too late to complete unfinished business? Last week, a 78-year-old woman in Lynwood, Washington was arrested for beating her 84-year-old husband over an affair he had (or at least that she suspected) 35 years ago. The story reminded me of several other instances of unfinished business that took years to resolve. Read about them in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

This is why you pay attention to warning signs. Don't let these things happen to you!

Sound-activated piglets! They're cute and cuddly and just learning how to use their ears, possibly as windmills.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. This brings new meaning to the term "jumped the shark" both literally and figuratively.

Caption your LOLcats in Cyrillic letters at this Russian site. Or see them in Engish (with no consideration for actual translation) at Яolcats. (Thanks, Bairman!)

Have you ever wondered what goes on inside a bird house? This ad has a glimpse into the private life of our feathered friends.

5 Cases of Unwanted TV Fame. Some actors land a career-making role, only to spend the rest of their lives complaining about it.

Redditors describe their sex lives with movie titles.

The origin of the Vulcan salute.

Piano Duet

Mario and Fran Cowen, who have been married for 62 years, play a duet in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic. I bet you can't watch this without smiling! (via Neatorama)

Recommended Reading

The World According to Monsanto. A documentary on the chemical company and their global domination of agribusiness.

Failure can be traumatic, but it can also be an opportunity for learning, growth, and wisdom. If it doesn't kill you, it just might make you stronger.

10 Things We Hate About ISPs and Cable and Phone Companies. You are not alone, but you still have no power.

The winners of the annual World's Best Illusions competition have been announced. The top three are posted for your edification and amazement.

Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River and everyone escaped OK, but how did they get that plane out of the water? One photographer recorded the process for posterity.

Dan Coulter managed to get Moby Dick in its entirety on Twitter. It took 12,849 Tweets over nine months, but it is complete. (via Boing Boing)

The Cannes Film Festival is in full swing and runs through May 24th. Keep up with the festivities at the official site.

6 Crimes Solved by Facebook. If you're dumb enough to brag about your illegal activities online, internet sleuths will find and identify you.

Blazing Saddles Theme

(via Bits and Pieces)

Seven More Zombie Animals

Last week’s post Invasion of the Zombie Animals proved to be “interesting” for many, even those who were grossed out. Further research has yielded even more interesting parasites that take over and change the body, mind, and life of their victims, profile in this new article I wrote for mental_floss. On the left you see what one parasite does to a spider's web-spinning abilities.

Fun Links

Awkward Family Photos are a hoot until you see your own picture in there. Don't think that it can't happen.

If you can't picture what a Yoga Ball Flip is, it will only take five seconds to find out. And then you'll want to try it yourself.

The Society for Geek Advancement is not just a social networking site, it's a movement to put the power of geekiness to work to improve the world. They help fund Room to Read, a charity that builds schools, libraries, and computer labs for children in Third World countries.

From preschool to college, someone always seems to fall at graduation. Here are 15 of them caught on video, so you can watch and learn. Or laugh.

The Ninja Seaweed. I heard this is actually an animal, but I don't know what kind.

Star Trek or Star Wars? Warning: Spoilers. Hollywood should know by now what we like to see.

Real life spy gadgets are every bit as good as something from a comic book. And they get smaller and more affordable all the time.

Carousel is a video of one still scene, but what a scene it is! If you didn't hate clowns already, you will now. (via Everlasting Blort)

Ko to tamo peva

The opening scene from the 1980 Yugoslavian film Ko To Tamo Peva, or Who's That Singing Over There? by Slobodan Sijan. (via Metafilter)

Recommended Reading

The Top 25 Star Trek Characters. This is a trip down memory lane for life long Trekkers, and a valuable resource for young fans just getting familiar with the franchise.

Summertime in the Arctic Circle means 24-hour daylight. As you can see in this video, the sun doesn't go down, it just bounces along the horizon.

The Haunted Hospital. Waverly Hills Sanatorium has been a TB hospital, a nursing home, a failed religious monument, and now a paranormal investigation site.

Bioengineered Moss Can Produce Human Proteins. This process may someday lead to simpler and cheaper ways to produce insulin and other lifesavers.

The economy is leading some folks to downgrade from restaurants to fast food. Before you try out the value menus, check out this review of the cheapest foods at five leading franchises.

In 1926, the Ku Klux Klan faced the Hebrew All-Stars in a baseball game. The KKK won that one, but elsewhere similar teams were taking their lumps. (via Metafilter)

4 Terrifying Theories in Astronomy. We could all be wiped out in a heartbeat, but don't let a little thing like that ruin your day!

What Makes Us Happy? Harvard researchers followed 268 men for 72 years to find the answers. (via dd">Metafilter)

Dry Bones

Performed by the Lennon Sisters. (via Metafilter)

Five Strange Ways to Post a Twitter Feed

We were delighted to follow the Mars Phoenix Lander Twitter feed, even though we knew that the data collected from Mars was interpreted by NASA before it was sent to Twitter. We also got used to automatic feeds that post articles and blog posts from elsewhere on the internet. Now some enterprising folks have taken the automatic Tweet to new and decidedly strange places. Read how cats, toilets, and brains Tweet in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun Links

Female body builders and the men who love them.

33 Sore Butts in 35 Seconds. Most of these look like the fun was worth it!

What if an outlet like PostSecret had been available to people throughout history? Eventually people would have figured out who sent these postcards in.

Songs from the Cast of the Original Star Trek.

Klingon is a sophisticated, extremely complex invented language. How it came to be is quite a story in itself.

President Obama and Wanda Sykes both had plenty of fun to poke at everyone at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. Human beings fall into four basic categories, and one of them is stupid. (via Cynical-C)

Next Halloween, I want to dress as a stick man. Getting this costume is much cooler and easier than dieting.

What's My Age Again?

A choir sings the Blink 182 song. From the BBC TV show All the Small Things. (via Cracked)

Good Reads and Info

America's first full face transplant recipient reveals her story. Five years after she was shot in the face, Connie Culp speaks about the pain of being called a monster. (via Neatorama)

It took decades for geologists to get used to the idea that the dinosaur extinction was caused by a space objects crashing to earth. They may have to think that one all over again.

A British man has been hired for the Best Job in the World. 35,000 other applicants can tell themselves that at least they tried. (via Arbroath)

Travel by boat is more ancient than you imagined! Evidence of our ancestors Homo erectus have been found on islands, leading to speculation that they may have been the first mariners.

Six far-out geo-engineering and biological ideas for saving our planet. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men...

The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean with an average elevation of four feet. Its president has proposed packing up and moving all 300,000 citizens before global warming raises sea level.

The Weirdest News Stories of the Week.

Richard Pryor, 1964

A young Richard Pryor on a Kraft Music Hall TV special. A lot of these jokes will only be funny to those who were around in 1964. I remember opening cans with a key, but you probably won't. (via Fuzzytopia)

Hey Jude

From A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Shine

Collective Soul with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Invasion of the Zombie Animals

Mother Nature is not usually kind. There are creatures, usually tiny creatures, that will take over a member of another species. They will invade their host’s bodies, their brains, and even their will. They turn their much-larger victims into zombies! Take a look at eight zombie scenarios from nature in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Links for Fun

It's possible you've seen Keyboard Cat lately; I've seem him in at least a dozen videos. Here's where they come from. (via Metafilter)

6 People Who Secretly Ruled The World.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Emoticons :) It's amazing what you can say without words, the internet way. But will anyone understand you?

Learn to catch snapping turtles from an expert. Why you'd ever want to do this is your business.

No Asians. A homeowner in Adelaide (land of thick accents) must defend his racist classified ad to an investigative reporter.

Make your own multi-tiled video presentation using any YouTube video and this application. Maybe you'll come up with something this good.

A video of earth over a 24-hour period, shot from an EchoStar/Dish Network satellite. Imagine how impressed those spying aliens in their UFOs are! (via Dark Roasted Blend)

Let's Boogie Woogie!

(Thanks, Duke!)

Recommended Reading

An author contrasts the Dutch social welfare system with the US. Sure, they pay 52% income tax, but then the government pays them for health insurance, schoolbooks, daycare, or even vacations -and they don't pay other taxes. (via Metafilter)

Where Are They Now - Project Greenlight Winners. Did the series produce another Spielberg, or is it too soon to tell?

Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can't Crack. But they're not too worried about it because it was put there to honor the agency, not to fool them.

The Supreme Court says it's OK for the school to strip search your daughter without calling you first.

What it's like to climb the last leg to the summit of Mt. Everest. You might also want to read the rest of this journal from a team of doctors.

The Top Ten Supreme Court Battles. There's very little compromise when a president nominates justices because the stakes are so high.

The Six Flavors of White Supremacy. The Department of Homeland Security makes it easy for you to distinguish which group you may have spotted.

Scottish Sobriety Test

Looks like he flunked.

6 Unforgettable Movie Mothers and the Real Moms They Depicted

Some women are more extraordinary than others. They raise children, start businesses and schools, write books, and even advise kings and presidents. A few get their life stories turned into movies, but sometimes a bit of truth gets lost along the way. As Mothers Day approaches, let’s look at six mothers who were immortalized in film in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

If you could travel in time, wouldn’t you travel back to show yourself how to time-travel? This scenario is bound to turn out very different from anything you could imagine.

With a name like that, he has to be tough.

Why Having Wolverine's Claws Would Suck. (via Gorilla Mask)

Watch half a dozen cute videos of pets discovering their reflections in a mirror. The breakdancing kitten had me smiling for hours.

The best "I Hit Your Car" Note ever. Or worst, depending on which car YOU own.

What do you do when your music practice is interrupted by a fire alarm? Find the key!

7 Clearly Fake News Stories That Fooled The Mainstream Media. The first day of journalism school should teach that you don't use email forwards as a source.

How A Phantom Oil Leak Will Ruin A Motorcycle Race (but make great TV). There goes another one! And another!

Single Mom Stress Reliever

Good Reads for a Monday

Scaramouch from YesButNoButYes attended his first Kentucky Derby. Read the entire series for a great story.

Why you should buy your mom a Kindle for Mothers Day.

The Biology of B Movie Monsters explains why giant monsters can't exist.

Ten Tips to Prepare You for Final Exams. I would add: clear your calendar of everything not exam-related. (via Interesting Pile)

Dracula Feed is blogging Jonathan Harker’s journal (as it appears in the novel Dracula) in "real time", publishing each journal entry the day it would have happened. You might want to follow along.

8 awesome things you can implant into your body. With the right technology, even you can be a super hero!

There are many things a baby's brain cannot do, but it does one thing extremely well -it learns. Scientists are only recently exploring how baby's brains are different from adult's brains.

This is a really cold way to lay people off.

Purina Presents The Grand Ole Opry

Yip Yips

Meeting a telephone!

Hamster in a Wok

With appropriate music.

Attic Construction Week Three

Wednesday, two and a half weeks after construction began, I finally got the money to pay for it. The loan went in, the materials payment came out, and my first installment is due in a month. According to the building contract, they were supposed to start work today and finish by August, but they are way ahead of schedule. In my last update, we decided to put a gable in the back of the house to make the back bedroom bigger. Since then, the contractor did some thinking (which is a dangerous thing). He came to Mr. Perfect and me and said, "Since we're not leaving the roof intact, why don't we just raise the entire back of the house?"


They are doing it in a hurry, between downpours. One section at a time. This will make the upstairs almost as large as the downstairs. Now the "little bedroom" will be as big, or even bigger than the "big bedroom". Uh-oh. Of course, I will put two daughters in the bigger bedroom, but I don't really want one child in a room that big by herself. They are already arguing and competing to see who gets to bunk alone. So I told the contractor I wanted a large linen closet carved out of one bedroom for me to store things. And I want each child to have a closet. So they are going to hold off on closets until I see how big each room will be and adjust plans from there. The TV room will be much larger, too. Mr. Wonderful thinks we should retreat up there ourselves and leave the kids downstairs. I'm tempted.

Fun Friday Links

The new Star Trek movie opens May 8. Here are some links to get you in the mood.

6 Random Coincidences That Created The Modern World.

LOLcats groovin' to the oldies.

Weird Origins of 8 Popular Band Names.

The Definitive Collection Of Awesomely Bad Wolverine Costumes.

Why did I never think about placing an ad like this?

6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip Offs.

Ten Pigs We Will Always Love. (via Neatorama)