Clean Shaven Man

A Max Fleischer Popeye cartoon from 1936.

Good Reads and Information

Top 15 USA Winter Olympic Moments.

The Hunting Strategies of Carnivorous Plants. As if we didn't have enough to worry about with lions, tigers, and bears.

30 Astounding Science and Tech Geeks. Ranked by some algorithm I don't understand that will provoke arguments, especially over #2.

Take a look at the Helicoprion, a shark species from 250 million years ago. Its teeth grew in a spiral shape somewhere on its body. (via Metafilter)

Coney Island Freaks of Yesterday and Today. The definition of "freak" has changed, but the name of the game is still entertainment.

Journalist Stieg Larsson became a bestselling author of fiction, but he never knew it because he died before the first novel was published. Now there competing biographies, allegations that he didn't write those novels, and the possibility that his life partner will inherit nothing.

Samuel Arbesman constructed a map of the Milky Way that resembles a subway map. "Hopefully it can provide as a useful shorthand for our place in the Milky Way, the 'important' sights, and make inconceivable distances a bit less daunting." (via Laughing Squid)

The World’s 18 Strangest Tunnels. Whether its their size, usage, history, or construction, each has a story to tell.

Video Game Furnishings for Your Home

There are so many furnishings and household items inspired by video games that you’d think hardcore gamers must be home decorating freaks. I think it’s more likely that almost all of us would like at least one thing in our homes to represent pure fun. Or maybe two things. Here are ten possibilities in an article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun Links

I Can Has History? A timeline, or maybe a family tree, of the most famous LOLcats we all know and love. Scroll around; it's a big graphic.

This cat is no pussy as he defends his territory from a bear. The baby thought it was a great show.

"...just about any classic story can be made into a Disney property when you spiff it up with a little song and dance." Even Hester Prynne, Ophelia, and Jocasta?

When your garage is only 6 centimeters wider than your car, you have to park resourcefully. And then you have to get out of the car!

Pringle of Scotland has been making sweaters since 1815 and has nothing to do with potato chips. Recently they commissioned artist David Shrigley to create a humorous video about the company.

This is a link to a typical incendiary blog post. Followed by a sentence that is supposed to either be a joke or make you more interested in clicking that link. (via Boing Boing)

The basketball coach was told if he made this half court shot blindfolded, he would win tickets to the Final Four. It was supposed to be a prank, so imagine their surprise when this happened.

Uptight Religion

A Stevie Wonder/R.E.M. mashup. See more mashups at Buzzfeed.

Informative Links

The Polygamists. National Geographic takes a in-depth look at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), who still practice plural marriage.

7 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Works of Art (NSFW). You'll pay more attention next time you get a chance to see masterpieces now, won't you?

It’s Always Tea Time Somewhere! Learn the history and some fun facts about the most-consumed drink in the world, after plain water.

4 bizarre businesses run from inside prison. Believe it or not, these businessmen are even cheating people out of money!

Daytripping in Futureville. I finally find out what happened to that self-cleaning house I've been waiting decades for. (via Metafilter)

You've noticed computer screens you see in movies don't resemble real computer use at all. A Hollywood designer explains why they have to be that way.

The Snuggie vs. Slanket vs. Freedom Blanket vs. Blankoat. Gizmodo tries them all out to recommend (all dorkiness aside) which blanket with sleeves will best serve your needs. (via Metafilter)

For the next week or so, Mars will be the closest to Earth it will be for years. Watch for an unblinking orangey star, even if you don't have a telescope.

The Kingdom of Boomeria

The Kingdom of Boomeria is a magical place of just one hectare hidden in the forest in Bonny Doon, California. Students who graduate from San Lorenzo Valley High School go out into the world and tell tales of their adventures in the Kingdom of Boomeria and find that no one believes them. After all, how many people can claim their science education included fighting medieval battles, building a pipe organ, and digging an underground labyrinth? Read all about it in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

Finally, a Funny Clown.

Daddy takes care of a huntsman spider, one of those dinner-plate-sized arachnids they have in Australia. If you aren't afraid of spiders, give this video one minute and you will be.

"General" Larry Platt achieved pop culture fame with his American Idol audition. Here is his performance and the top nine cover versions inspired by the meme.

Smokers Get All The Breaks. Maybe we should all take up a habit that gets us a little time outside and a little solitude away from everyone else.

Sex explained graphically. Not written or drawn out, but using ink pens. (via Buzzfeed)

Get Out, an award-winning French film about Gary, who doesn't want to go through the door. He doesn't know what's waiting for him on the other side. (via Everlasting Blort)

The best TV entertainment comes from those moments that do NOT go as planned. Stephen Fry flubs his lines and pays for it the rest of the show.

My First Boner. Schoolhouse Rock takes a turn for the weird.

Good Reads

Fun Facts About Sloths. Despite sharing a name with the deadly sin of laziness, sloths aren't all that slow and they don't sleep all day either.

Avatar for Haiti. Please don't sue them, Mr. Cameron. (via the Daily What)

Jerry- The World's Most Human Chimp.

15 Of The Worst Experimental Deaths Of All Time. These stories get progressively more horrifying, so stop reading when you get uncomfortable.

If you're in the market for an airplane, here are a couple of real deals: an Airbus with slight water damage, or some super-high mileage shuttles. Good luck getting bank financing for either.

The Late Night Wars have given us plenty to read about, but this sort of thing has been going on for decades. You probably don't know the story of the biggest network talk show bomb ever. (via Metafilter)

We all know that lemurs only live on the island of Madagascar, but how did they get there in the first place? Maybe they rode out to the island on rafts! No, really!

What's the fastest way to write or take notes? Phil Gyford timed the same passage recorded by handwriting, regular keyboard, iPhone, and other devices. (via Jason Kottke)

Twin Baby Pandas

Have your insulin ready, this is sweet!

Friday Fun Links

New airport security rules. You have to laugh, otherwise you'd be crying.

Bozo and the Santa Claus Horror Show.

As juvenile as Fartman's act is, you can't help but laugh. He is the spiritual descendent of Le Pétomane, who did the same thing for Victorian audiences.

Video clips of idiots in the snow. What is it about winter weather that makes so many people risk their safety, and even more so their dignity?

Happy Weird Year: The 10 Strangest and Most Bizarre Calendars of 2010. And just think, they'll all be deeply discounted sooner or later.

Marco Polo Submarine. I think we may have found the origin of the term "war games".

8 Hilarious Brain Farts (That Endangered National Security). Oh yeah, we can laugh NOW... (via the Daily What)

If you get really drunk and redneck, you might consider putting a box of wine in the microwave. Don't -you could destroy the universe, or at least your apartment.

10 Venn and Not-quite-Venn Diagrams

Venn diagrams are used for more than just useful stuff like science and demographics. Diagrams just for fun are still useful in that they make the concept of graphic sorting and labeling of relationships easy to understand and appreciate. See ten quirky diagrams, Venn and otherwise, in this list I posted at mental_floss.

Good Reads and Information

The Truth About Chimps. A group of chimpanzees who have no experience with humans are giving us a new look at what they really are. (via Boing Boing)

A Farewell to Victory. With each war since World War II, it gets harder to tell when a war is over, or even to distinguish who won.

Esther Reed wanted to be someone. She ended up being several people, until the police caught up with her.

Every once in a while, people encounter things on their radio, TV, or interstellar wave detectors that no one can explain. Is it a secret military message, a prankster hacking just to see if it can be done, or aliens trying to contact us?

An experimental community in the New Jersey woods has become a destination for the homeless. As the population goes up and donations go down, idealism goes out the window.

10 Enigmas That Defy Explanation. There are plenty of possibilities -ghosts, aliens, secret government experiments, you know, the usual things. (via I Am Bored)

4 Lost Civilizations (and what might have happened to them). My advice on anything lost is to look behind the dryer, and in the back of the refrigerator.

Genome Study Provides a Census of Early Humans. It turns out that the population explosion is a really recent trend. (via Metafilter)

Funny Links

Wardrobe Malfunction at the Bobsled World Cup. Possibly NSFW.

Charting the Beatles, an exploration of Beatles music through infographics. I look at these and think of the days and weeks of data-crunching, sore eyes, and Mountain Dew that went into the project. (via Metafilter)

The funniest signs from the rally in support of Conan O'Brien. Even funnier is the animated news version of the Late Night Wars from China.

A group of finches and their improvisational guitar work. Many times I've heard worse solos by pros in nightclubs.

Which species is least likely to knock over dominos during a TV show? If you've never seen an armadillo in action, you'll want to watch this all the way through. (via Buzzfeed)

The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters. Super heroes don't usually proselytize, but we can figure out their beliefs through their actions. (via Neatorama)

Fun with Venn and Euler Diagrams. Now that I have a family of six, I should make a new Euler diagram of their eating habits, but it would be too discouraging.

The Top 10 Worst Attempts At Cutting Down A Tree, or at least the worst where someone was ready to record the disaster on video. Enjoy, then review your home owner's insurance.

Banjo's Blues

From 1928. (via J-Walk Blog)

6 More Cannibal Killers

In comparison to the worldwide murder rate, cases of cannibalism are rare, but they stand out because of the horror they instill in the rest of us. In addition to the six cases featured in the post 6 Horrifying Modern Cannibals, I found these six cannibal stories from all over the world for this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

What if Shakespearean costumes were designed by an artist who drew superheroes? It happened in 1969, when renowned comic book artist Jack Kirby designed costumes and a poster image for a Cowell College production of Julius Caesar. (via Metafilter)

The Top Seven Classic Movie Moments You Didn't Know Were Improv. Each has a video clip and an explanation of how the scene came about. (via Unique Daily)

Infographics of the greatest stories ever told. There are a couple I have yet to figure out.

Mario Jumping, new from Retro Sabotage. (Thanks, Tof!)

First-Person Tetris rotates when you do. This gets really difficult just about the time you think you've figured it out.

Worst Life Ever: The Story of Kazuyuki Fujita’s Skull. Even if you're not interested in mixed martial arts, you'll want to read this for the hysterical hyperbole and magnificent metaphors.

German film director Werner Herzog reads Curious George, adding his own spin to the plot. The result is more believable, yet painfully depressing.

Is there anywhere this all-terrain vehicle can't go? This isn't a vehicle, it's a robot mountain goat!

Good Reads

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, watch a 1957 television interview from NBC. What we know as "historical events" were then known as "news".

The Disposable Worker. With job security and benefits fading away, can any job be considered permanent anymore? (via Metafilter)

The top 10 environmental films of all time. Actually 12, since there were some ties, and you'll love what made the number one spot.

American Pie. That's pizza, the world's best food, perfected in the United States.

What Makes a Great Teacher? Teach for America shares their data on what the most effective teachers have that others don't. (via YesButNoButYes)

100 Skills Everyone Should Master (with links for some). Outside of dancing socially and typing, I've pretty much got this one licked. (via Nag on the Lake)

Top 10 Badasses of the World’s Special Forces. No surprise that five of them belong to the United States.

Fictional Drugs in Movies and Television. There will always be a supply of these because they can make any outlandish plot work.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

An Ub Iwerks production from 1934. (via Boing Boing)

We're Going to Make You a Star!

Leadbelly Performs

Recorded in 1945, this is supposedly the only film of the legendary bluesman. (via Metafilter)

Ten Pop Culture Elephants (plus 4 reasonable facsimiles)

You’d have to look far and wide to find a child who doesn’t like elephants! An animal so big, so extreme, and which comes with a nose that can do things was destined to be a pop culture favorite. Learn about some the “biggest” elephant characters, past and present in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Good Reads and Information

A pilot's life is nowhere near as glamorous as the public thinks, and it's gone nowhere but downhill over time. Does more work with less pay affect travel safety? (via Metafilter)

Frankenhuman! 9 Lab Animals That Add Up to 1 Person. People have hearts like pigs, nerves like frogs, and the immune system of an insect.

The Illustrated Mobster: Tattoos of the Russian Mafia. Beautiful, scary, and incomprehensible to those outside the family.

Author Jack London's real life was every bit as interesting as the characters in his books. From writing to prospecting to his own children, he was never afraid to take a chance on something new and different.

25 Famous Thinkers and Their Inspiring Daily Rituals. Do you reckon a little bit of OCD is required to be considered a famous thinker?

What is that weird forest on Mars? It sure looks like there's something growing up there!

Facts about farts. An infographic perfect for printing out to hang on the wall of your office classroom bathroom.

Living in the Future is a 1972 children's book explaining what life will be like in the year 2010. Some parts are laughable, but others are eerily prescient. (via Boing Boing)

Links for Fun

Sex columnist Dan Savage's Weirdest Correspondence.

Why I believe printers are sent from hell to make us miserable. And why your truly does not own a printer -these reasons plus kids who would go through a ream of paper every day.

6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better. When fans have time to think, they think of ways to make sense out of what filmmakers think we don't notice.

Condom Hacks. The amazing other things you can do with a condom.

Seriously Strong Cheddar. Hey, it did wonderful things for this mouse!

Pogo has another movie mashup song (he did Alice and Upular). This time The Terminator gets the treatment. (via Gorilla Mask)

Internet Bridge Troll. Something you should worry about only if you are a billy goatse gruff.

This Too Shall Pass, from OkGo with the Notre Dame Marching band. Drumlines and swamp creatures and when have you ever seen a marching band with an accordion?

Lawn Mower Coffee

Another lesson from Red Green. (via Bits and Pieces)

6 Horrifying Modern Cannibals

Cannibalism, as repulsive as it is, can be understood in cases where consuming the deceased is an alternative to certain starvation. Those who eat human flesh by choice, however, tend to be the kind of people who will torture and murder to satisfy their curiosity. Be warned that some of the links are disturbing in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Informative Links

We looked forward to the promise of video phone calls for fifty years, but now that they are here, no one wants to actually use them. Joel Stein captures the exact reason why video phone calls never caught on, despite the availability of Skype.

On the Ski Slopes With Avalanche Patrollers. This occupation combines recreation, sport, saving lives, and risking your own -and leaves you plenty of stories to tell.

It Beats Rocks and Tear Gas. A serious look at the history and political meaning of streaking. (via Metafilter)

Use Better Tools to Be a Better Student in 2010. A college professor has tips on using your computer to make your life and classwork easier.

You may have stumbled across references to Lukeywes1234 over the past few days. Salon has the short version of how a YouTube kid became 4chan's latest excuse for mischief on the internet.

Movie critic Roger Ebert can no longer eat or drink. He reminisces about tastes in a way that makes you want to savor every bite for the rest of your life.

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when your love life is shared with everyone via social networking. And who gets custody of shared passwords? (via Laughing Squid)

A Yemeni memoir, from bikinis to burkas. How one family went from cosmopolitan to fundamentalist as the culture changed around them. (via Metafilter)

Fun and Funny Links

Why women cry, according to romance comics. It doesn't take much to turn on the fountains. (via Gorilla Mask)

A Beatles tribute band does Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. I can't wait to hear their version of Black Hole Sun or Single Ladies.

11 Most Painfully Obvious Newspaper Articles Ever.

The most useless machine ever. Make your own with a recipe from Instructables.

Can you identify all ten cable connections in the Cable Connector Quiz?

The Retro Fun and Games House. If your home is your castle, you may as well have a great time in it!

What if William Shakespeare wrote The Big Lebowski? It would be just as funny, just a little more highbrow. (Thanks, John Brauner!)

The best fails of 2009. Non-stop mayhem, chaos, and sudden pain, all caught on video.

Abraham's Children

A look at the DNA of the Jewish people. (Thanks, Holistic CPA!)

I Like to Move It

From the movie Madagascar 2. (via Everlasting Blort)

Friday Fun Links

Pop Culture Lunch Atop a Skyscraper gives us 22 versions of the original 1932 photo Lunch Atop a Skyscraper by Charles C. Ebbets. Every one of them makes me a wee bit queasy. (via Gorilla Mask)

Upular is a song composed of bits and pieces taken from the movie Up. No, it doesn't make any sense, it's just a pleasant music video.

E.T.A. is a short animated film about a space traveler. I covet his coffee maker, but not his years-long journey.

6 Real World Food Experiments, Just to See if We Can. It's like Mythbusters: the Home Edition.

100 cupcakes decorated with 100 games you know and love. How many games can you identify from the cupcake version?

There is a natural inclination among humans to take the best videos games and bring them out of the machine and into real life. Going old school in the geekiest way possible, Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has built a non-video version of Pong.

If you've been traumatized by a goat, help is available. The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation exists only as a website, but it just might make your day.

What if you want to put on a Blue Angel-style air show, but you don't have an airstrip available? The Japanese Red Club came up with a novel alternative -use bicycles!

Kung Fu Anteater

(via Arbroath)

6 More Lost and Found Airplanes

When planes fly into deep water, high altitudes, ice, snow, jungle, or desert, it happens more often you’d think. Finding those planes many years later is a rare occurrence, but it happens. After the previous article 9 Lost and Found Airplanes, readers suggested other cases to look up, which led me to even more stories of planes recovered many years after they were lost. Read six of those in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Good Reads and Information

The Vintage Ad Browser can show you hundreds of ads going back hundreds of years, broken down by category and year. Watch the clock; you could lose hours wandering through this! (via the Presurfer)

Which is the world’s hardest language? !Xóõ, a language from Botswana, causes a lump to grow in a speaker's larynx, but that's just one example of the world's linguistic complexities. (via Neatorama)

Darfur has gone from genocide to a not-quite-peaceful stalemate, but no one knows which way to go from this point. There is no peace agreement for peacekeepers to enforce, and refugees no longer want to go home. (via Metafilter)

The Transatlantic accent is neither British nor American, but legible and pleasing to both. This post has tips for cultivating your accent so you can sound like a classic movie star. (via Cynical-C)

In the 1940s, Harry Dubin talked various New York City workers into changing clothes with him, so he could do their job while his son took pictures. Now you can see some of those fascinating full-color photographs. (via Metafilter)

As the pendulum swings too far, unintended consequences pop up. Airport security body scanners may violate laws against child pornography.

One graph shows states that allow same sex marriage, the other shows states that allow first cousins to marry. The difference is striking.

Blind spots in our self-knowledge. Sometimes the only way to find out about ourselves is to ask the people around us.

Drunk Lithuanian Diver

Maybe someone should have told him the water was frozen.

Fun and Funny Links

I need just a few more Diggs on yesterday's feature article to get on the front page! Can you help me out with a vote?

What did you do for New Year's Eve? Maybe you can relate to one of these true stories.

Is there anything in the world cuter than a baby panda trying to climb out of its crib? Wen Li is like a toddler and the toddler's favorite stuffed toy rolled into one. (via Unique Daily)

Fark's top 20 headlines of the year, with special category winners in the first comment. No matter how bad the news was, someone could make a pun out of it.

I guess I don't need to see Avatar since someone's already gone and put the plot on the internet. Oh, wait, no, that's Pocahontas! Or are they the same movie?

A dog dances the merengue! Dancing with the Stars should book her as a contestant -or even as a pro!

Austin Kleon makes poetry from a page of a newspaper. He just blacks out all the words he doesn't need. (via Nag on the Lake)

The 2009 Darwin Award winners have been announced. "The Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool... by removing themselves from it."

Parakeet Shower

In the kitchen sink!

9 Lost and Found Airplanes

You might think that an airplane would be a pretty difficult object to lose, but there are still large areas of wilderness on our planet where planes can be hidden for decades. On rare occasions they are found again, against all odds. Read nine stories of rediscovered planes (plus one still missing) in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Mambo #5

By Max Raabe (the master of odd covers) and Palast Orchester.

Informative Links

Why put off until tomorrow what pleasures you can enjoy today? Because people have the mistaken notion that someday they won't be as busy as they are today. (via Metafilter)

How to Start Freelancing (Without Quitting Your Job). This is the safest way to do it, however I know from experience that desperation is a wonderful motivator.

9 Hollywood Scandals Long Before Lindsay, Paris and Britney. Back in the old days, when a scandal might even hurt one's career!

What Israel can teach us about security. "The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," (via Metafilter)

Most explanations of Darwinian evolution refer to genetic material as the manner in which changes are passed down to one's descendants. Now we find that prions, non-living proteins with no DNA or RNA at all, evolve in response to their environment.

Half Guilty. If one conjoined twin committed a murder and the other was innocent, how would you punish him/her/them? (via Neatorama)

5 Tiny Technologies That Will Doom Us (From The Inside Out). Sure, they were developed to improve our lives, but we've seen too many sci-fi movies to believe it.

The Top 100 Videos of 2009

(via Gawker)

Happy New Year 2010!

I hope this year brings you peace, prosperity, and happiness! I've been busy wrapping up the year of 2009 on Miss Cellania; check out these links.

Lists of the best, worst, and weirdest of everything in 2009.

More lists of everything looking back at the first decade of the new millennium.

My personal end-of-the-year wrapup.

Links for celebrating the New Year holiday.

New Year Jokes.

You now what a New Year's resolution is, don't you? Don't neglect to make yours!

Here's how to make 2010 a wonderful year.

And a lovely song to ring in 2010.

New Years Day

Performed by U2, from their 1983 album War.