(via reddit)
Friday, January 31, 2014
Seal of Approval
Jason Neilus and friends filmed a seal encounter in October off the coast of the Farne Islands in Northumberland, UK. He says of six dives in the area, this is the most interaction they'd had with young seals, which were friendly, curious, and photogenic. They look like they're smiling! The music is "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragon. (via Arbroath)
Sapolio
I had to look up Sapolio. It was a soap, known for its extensive use of advertising. (via Weird Vintage)
Miss Cellania's Links
Cutting a headline down to 140 characters for Twitter can yield some odd gems. Here’s a doozy.
Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” is a Southern allegory.
You may have thought it was ketchup, but the biggest-selling condiment in America is …mayonnaise!
An Absurd Device to Add Dialogue to Silent Films. (via Boing Boing)
The 10 Worst Super Bowl Halftime Shows We’ve Had To Suffer Through. Remember these to lower your expectations for Sunday’s show.
Amidst the traffic jam in Atlanta that trapped some people overnight, many took it upon themselves to help out. Here are 13 stories of true Southern hospitality.
A State-By-State Look At The Future Of Legal Marijuana. Legalize it, and you, too, might send a team to the Super Bowl.
Gorgeous, Digitally Manipulated X-Ray Photographs of Animals and Flowers. Arie van’t Riet’s artworks will make you long for spring.
College football players are looking to unionize. The powerful NCAA is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Tinderella: A Modern Fairy Tale
College Humor takes the classic tale of Cinderella and moves it into the world of iPhones, dating sites, hookup culture, and the bar scene. How romantic! But they lived happily ever after -watch and see how. Possibly NSFW, depending on your office policy. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Bonanza Theme by The Cartwrights
In the original pilot for Bonanza (1959), the idea was to have the cast sing the theme song. After it was produced, the creators changed their minds, and it was never used. (via Everlasting Blort)
10 Horses to Kick Off the Year of the Horse
Tomorrow begins the Lunar New Year Festival, celebrated in many Asian countries. In China, the festival lasts two weeks and will usher in the Year of the Horse. I "rounded up" some interesting horses that deserve to be remembered on this auspicious occasion. This is far from an exhaustive list of famous horses, just ten that you may find interesting, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
Puppy Love
You might be able to figure out where this story is going pretty quickly. You might even know who it’s from if you recognize the actor, because you saw him in a Super Bowl ad last year. The ad has nothing to do with the product; it’s just supposed to make you go aww. Yeah, the puppy gets what he wants in the end, but also notice who’s in the lower right corner in the final scene. Just the way you wanted it to end.
Honest Movie Trailer: Robocop
In the off chance you’ve forgotten how violent and gory the 1987 movie Robocop was, this Honest Movie Trailer will remind you. I’d also forgotten how much it relied on defenestration. There’s no way the remake, which is rated PG-13, could ever live up to the original, except that it will be legal for teenagers to see it. Thanks, Screen Junkies, for making the new movie something we might just avoid. This trailer contains blood, gore, and NSFW language, just like the movie. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
In Atlanta, everyone tried to leave, but many ended up abandoning their cars. Was it two inches of snow, or the zombie apocalypse?
The site of a Dutch fort built in New York in 1614 may be covered up by a new crude oil plant. The historic structure might be saved, if preservationists can find exactly where it is buried.
8 Hilariously Nonthreatening Monsters from Japanese Folklore. (via Metafilter)
Folk singer Pete Seeger passed away at the age of 94. So naturally, Twitter users mourned the death of Bob Seger.
Everything we know so far about Avengers: Age of Ultron. We’ll have to wait until May of 2015 to know it all.
The Whimsical Art of Boris Artzybasheff.
The Phobia List has hundreds (I don’t know how many, I didn’t count them) of named phobias. If you are afraid of anything at all, it probably has a name here somewhere. (via Buzzfeed)
Think Ink Black Roses for Valentines Day.
6 Shocking Realities of the Secret 'Troubled Teen Industry.’ (via Metafilter)
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Catbomb
This is adorable. A mother cat has eight little kittens that all look like her (I counted). The mama cat misses a jump and we find that the kittens have perfected the art of reacting to a novel situation. For a 25-second clip, this video pretty much has everything. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
The crisis in Ukraine explained in simple terms.
Rob Cockerham was determined to make perfectly clear ice. It was far from easy. (via Metafilter)
6 Insane Easter Eggs Buried in Famous TV Shows.
Police Violence In India Drives A Gay Couple To The U.S. — And A Detention Cell.
Scientists Strap Tiny 'Backpacks' To 5,000 Bees for Science. Is this the job you thought you’d end up with as a biologist?
This is how they test tank brakes in the Netherlands. The nerves of the testers were also thoroughly tested.
Enjoy nine new clips from The Lego Movie. They’re only a minute each, so you can still look forward to seeing the whole thing.
Man Repairs Fiancée’s Childhood Teddy Bear and Her Reaction Is Priceless. She’s crying because a man that thoughtful is a definite keeper.
A Massachusetts State Trooper wrote an obituary for his partner of nine years. The story of K-9 officer Dante will make you want to grab a hankie and hug your pets.
18 Athletes Going to Sochi Alone
None of these athletes will actually be traveling all alone to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as far as we know. When you see them in the parade, they will most likely be accompanied by coaches and officials from their nation. However, they are each the sole athlete participating in competition for their country. Get to know them in a list I posted at mental_floss.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Miss Cellania's Links
Three priests stand up to violence in Kiev. The best picture you'll see all day.
The best way to get a good portrait of 15 US Olympic athletes is to pose them with a puppy.
Portents of Doom from 16th-century Germany.
The Last Days of Blackbeard. An article from Smithsonian magazine covers not only his death, but the entire period in which Blackbeard ruled the seas.
The Jiggly History of Jello.
A Guide To The Great American Pastime Of Celebrities Dressing As Princess Leia. It’s happened a lot more than you knew.
Here’s An Inside Look at Japan’s Best Cat Cafes. A concept that may be coming to America.
Animals who will never win at hide-and-seek. They think they’re hidden, but we see them and how cute they are.
Fan taunts hockey player, receives instant karma. A classic case of coincidence caught on camera.
Monday, January 27, 2014
The Magic of Science
I love this t-shirt by Mike Jacobsen. It refers to a classic experiment in which potassium chlorate destroys the sugar in a Gummi bear with horrifying pyrotechnic effects. You can get the t-shirt at the NeatoShop, along with many other clever puns, references, and mashups by Mike Jacobsen.
Miss Cellania's Links
Ranking the 2014 Grammy Performances from Best to Worst. Those of us who didn’t sit throughout the whole evening can just watch the clips we’re interested in.
Born to Run: 7 Incredible Escape Stories.
Artist and animator Fran Krause has a Tumblr blog devoted to our deepest, darkest fears, appropriately titled Deep Dark Fears.
Antique Jewelry: From Hummingbird Heads to Poison Rings.
CNN's Davos2014 Wage Calculator will let you know how your income stack up against your other countrymen and against the rest of the world.
The police blotter of Atherton is full of mystery and intrigue. Wouldn’t you love to live in a place where these are the biggest crimes?
The latest meme to become a real toy is Sad Keanu. Get one for your forever alone friends so they’ll have someone to commiserate with.
For Working Moms, One Sick Kid Can Spell Disaster. Because there’s always someone waiting in line for your job.
Inside the world of bioflourescent fish. We can’t see them without special filters because we aren’t part of their world.
A Bad Lip Reading of The NFL
The folks who bring us Bad Lip Readings did their magic with the players, coaches, and officials of the NFL. Watching their lips, I cannot imagine them saying anything else than what’s here. Really, have you ever listened to an NFL interview? They don’t make any more sense than this. (via Time Newsfeed)
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Six Years, Twelve Months
The Way All Table Tennis Should Be
Chuang Chih-Yuan and Jean-Michel Saive play table tennis like they’re the Harlem Globetrotters or something. Saive is all over the place, like a wrecking ball. At one point, they “turn the tables” so to speak, and the line judge has to duck down to keep from being hit! She gets back at them, by putting a second ball in play. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What you see here are highlights from their exhibition match at the 2014 Tai Ben Invitational earlier this month in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The full match is nearly an hour long and can be seen here. (via Metafilter)
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Cats vs. TP
A variety of cats do battle against their natural enemy -toilet paper! It seems to me that some of these cats aren't quite domestic. See the cat at :50? I wouldn't try to take the toilet roll away from him! (via Tastefully Offensive)
33 Fun Facts About 33 Colleges
In the newest mental_floss video, John Green, the internet's font of rapid-fire trivia, has some very odd stories about colleges and universities. Both my daughters are looking very closely at schools to determine where they might want to go after high school. Somehow, I don't think any of these fun facts will tip their opinions much, because while they are interesting, they don't give the whole story. Still, alums have some great stories to tell!
Home with Railroad for Sale
Tom Miller is well known among model train enthusiasts. He built a two-mile railroad around his 19-acre property in Oregon, complete with depot, trestle, tunnel, signals, steam locomotives, and dozens of cars he built himself.
Now the property is for sale. Miller says it's not because of health or financial troubles; he has more than one home. Whether the locomotives stay with the property or not is negotiable. Oh, yeah, it comes with a fabulous 4,900 square-foot house, too! (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
One Weird Trick to Mess With Book Titles
Lately, half the internet is using clickbait Upworthy-style post titles, and the other half is making fun of them. A branch of that pastime is to take a classic book and change the title into this style of headline. The pictures here are from the post 16 #BuzzfeedBooks You Have To Read Before You Die (The hashtag is a resurrection of a somewhat different meme that went around a couple of years ago.)
Another list that does the same thing, Read Me! Please!: Book Titles Rewritten to Get More Clicks, actually gives more of the content away than a real clickbait title would. I personally think a post title should give you some idea of what you're about to read, because it's maddening to leave the website you're on to find something you're not interested in.
Metafilter posted links to the two lists, and Mefites added more book titles.
Another list that does the same thing, Read Me! Please!: Book Titles Rewritten to Get More Clicks, actually gives more of the content away than a real clickbait title would. I personally think a post title should give you some idea of what you're about to read, because it's maddening to leave the website you're on to find something you're not interested in.
Metafilter posted links to the two lists, and Mefites added more book titles.
Gilgamesh befriended this homeless man. What happened next was epic.
And You Thought Your Period Was Bad: The Shocking Tale Of A Small-Town Prom Gone Wrong
What This Man Did To Get Home Will Astonish You!
Page 40 Will Completely Change the Way You Think About Green Eggs and Ham
They came up with so many, that divabat made a spreadsheet. Try to guess the real book from the clickbait title before you look at column C. Have fun!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Miss Cellania's Links
To Be Takei Traces George Takei’s Journey From Japanese Internment Camps to Cultural Icon. Read an interview with Takei about his life.
If The Little Mermaid Was A Cat Lady.
Oh God for one more breath. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2014/01/oh-god-for-one-more-breath.html
What’s Your Home State’s Signature Cocktail? The history and ingredients of a drink for each state are listed for your convenience.
Where Are They Now: Checking In on Earth’s 25 Active Missions. We Earthlings are spread out all over the solar system!
The Swedish town of Luleå is becoming famous for its incredible ice orchestra. They play in an igloo, on instruments made of ice!
The Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning. If I ever find a cast-iron skillet I can afford, I'll need this information.
A New Theory May Explain How Life Began.
When Parents Yank Their Kids Out of Standardized Tests. (via Metafilter)
Thursday, January 23, 2014
What the US Olympic Teams Will Be Wearing In Sochi
The 2014 Winter Games will be held in Sochi, Russia, February 7th through the 23rd. Various outfitters have worked overtime to dress the U.S. team attractively, tastefully, and competitively. Here you'll find a guide to recognizing the Americans in Sochi in whatever sport (except curling -we haven't seen the team's uniforms yet). Olympic athletes will be fitted out in uniforms for the opening and closing ceremonies, their individual sports, medal ceremonies, and all are provided with casual gear for wearing in the Olympic Village. See them all in an article I wrote for mental_floss.
Bambi Attacks Woodsman
What gives, little deer? You're supposed to be afraid of humans! Fear would serve you better in the long run. After all, the guy could've used that axe and had venison for dinner if he weren't so kindhearted. This happened just a few days ago in the forest near Tauragė, Lithuania.
I can hear it now: "I don't know, we were out to get some firewood, and this fawn came out of nowhere and heat-butted me. It wouldn't go away! Tiny little thing. It either thought it was defending its territory, or it wanted to be petted and wouldn't take no for an answer. Yeah, I figured you wouldn't believe us, so we took some video."
Yeah, and you should have put "Yakety Sax" behind it. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
Miss Cellania's Links
A Roundup of Geeky Textbook Art.
A theological case for the welfare state.
The Imaginative ‘Faces’ of Victor Nunes.
5 Hilariously Awkward Meltdowns Hidden on DVD Commentaries.
Disney's next princess movie isn't due until 2018, but there's already fan art and fan fiction to enjoy. Get a look at visions of Moana Waialiki, the Polynesian sea navigator.
A German retirement community made a calendar featuring residents up to 98 years old. Each month has them recreating a different iconic movie scene.
Would you recognize the Governator in a fake mustache? Arnold Schwarzenegger went undercover as a Gold's Gym trainer to encourage customers in their workouts.
Star Wars and Marvel got into a Twitter exchange last night and things got weird fast. Was it a fight, or just the geekiest game of one-upmanship ever?
6 Professional Painters from the Animal Kingdom. And their works ain't cheap.
Breaking the Facts of Life
Yesterday morning I linked to a list of actors who didn't know what their finished movie would be like. How could that happen? Here's how: editing, editing, editing, and music. Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Anna Gunn had no idea they'd spent all that time filming an upbeat family sitcom when they did their lines for Breaking Bad.
The clips chosen for this mashup of Breaking Bad and The Facts of Life are perfect. I'd watch it! Edited by Robert Jones, who also brought us We Can Neutron Dance. (via Metafilter)
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
What is Wrong in Ukraine?
Didn't these folks go through this twenty years ago?
In response to two months of protests against the authoritarian government, the country last week enacted a full set of brutal new laws to crack down on citizen's rights to ...almost anything. Overnight, the entire country became a police state. This should get a lot more press than it's getting.
Reports are coming in that several activists have died at the hands of police.
(via Viral Viral Videos)
