(via Bad Newspaper)
Monday, June 30, 2014
ISS World Cup Wager
The astronauts aboard the International Space Station now consist of two Americans and one German, so they were particularly interested in the World Cup game between the US and Germany. Alas, Germany won the game, although because of a strange formula involving other games, the US did advance to the final 16. But a bet is a bet. And while I would have liked to have seen Alexander Gerst with a US flag painted on his head, watching Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman get their heads shaved, with the help of a vacuum hose, is a sight to see. (via Digg)
Then and Now
Princess turned 17 a couple of months ago. That means my cat Gogo is now 15 years old. She's still a small carpet scrap, just not a young one. I noticed she's been very affectionate with me more than anyone else, and I suppose it's because I am the only constant in her life. Since I brought her home 15 years ago, the house is a different one, the pets are all different, and the people are all different, except for me.
Well, Princess was there when Gogo was a kitten, but she's changed an awful lot in 15 years ...more than I have! So we decided to try a "then and now" pic, with 2-year-old Princess and kitten Gogo, and a recreation we did last night.
Gnarly in Pink
This is a short documentary about three 6-year-old girls. They like pink. In fact, they wear pink crash helmets and call themselves the “Pink Helmet Posse” as they shred through the skatepark. They fall, they cry, they get right back up and try it again. Bella, Sierra, and Relz want to someday be professional skateboarders. Read more about the Pink Helmet Posse at The New York Times, and check out their website, too. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Ain't No Mountain High Enough Bass Line
About a year ago, we saw a graphic visualization of James Jamerson’s bass line in the song “For Once in My Life.” Now we have another visualization of the late bassist’s talents on Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s 1967 version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” thanks to musician Jack Stratton.
James Jamerson was a member of the Funk Brothers, a group of jazz-oriented session players who played on most of the songs produced at Motown Studios. Jamerson laid down the bass lines for 30 #1 pop hits and more than 70 #1 R&B hit songs. (via Digg)
Miss Cellania's Links
What’s the Matter With Eastern Kentucky?
For the first time, a troop of chimpanzees have been observed participating in a fad, a meme, or actually a fashion statement. The trend is to wear a blade of grass or two sticking out of one ear. (via reddit)
Kathleen Hale wrote a great piece on finding her power after rape. (via Metafilter)
The Tragic, Heroic Women of World War I. They did their part, and ended up alone because too many men died in the Great War.
This Shredder Can Mulch Entire Trees in Seconds. A forest would only take a day or so to destroy.
Facebook is like a megaphone for stupidity. Here are 39 screenshots to prove it -some text is NSFW.
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Mel Brooks. His influence on comedy will be felt for generations.
21 Red, White & Blue Desserts To Eat With Pride. Plan now to impress everyone at the Fourth of July picnic.
The curious linguistic history of pineapples and butterflies. It’s about word origins, but the Americans still had to be different.
How to Make Glass Disappear
Ross Exton of the Live Science team shows us a magic trick, with a science lesson on how it really works. You can put completely transparent glass in completely transparent water, or completely transparent air, of that matter, and still see it. But some materials, like completely transparent glycerol, can change that effect in a totally weird way. (via Laughing Squid)
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Can Can
A performance by Ballet Zoom, the Spanish dance troupe of the 1970s. See another performance here. (via Everlasting Blort)
Glove and Boots Take on Clickbait
Writing a good headline is hard. You want to describe what the post is about and make it interesting, or even funny, if possible. But it’s easy, even natural, to avoid headlines that don’t tell you anything at all. Too bad clickbait headlines work so well for the sites that use them. (via Neatorama)
How to Make the Muscles Strong
Doesn't work that way in real life. It's quite a hike to the nearest subway station. (via Mostly Forbidden Zone)
Like A Girl
Telling someone they do something “like a girl” has always been meant as an insult, and we internalized that at a very young age. No kid wants to be compared to a girl -even the girls! When I was young, we didn’t like it, but we just took it as the way things are. If we said anything about it, we were laughed at and labeled a “women’s libber” when I was young, or a “feminazi” today. This lesson in inferiority still goes on. Running or throwing badly has less to do with sex than it has to do with experience, training, and most of all, encouragement. Why bother to practice throwing a ball if you’re cursed with inferior ability?
Here we see kids acting out the familiar trope, and then being made aware of how wrong it is. Just knowing that someone sees through the poor choice of words is encouraging to young people. Always (a division of Procter & Gamble) is sponsoring a campaign to change the language we use when raising both girls and boys. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Paying the Hit Man
A man hires a killer to get rid of a business associate in this sketch from Fancy Boy, a comedy TV show in Australia. As the plans are negotiated, each tries to outwit the other. Or, to be exact, they aren’t trying all that hard. Someone didn’t think the plan out well enough ahead of time. (via Tastefully Offensive)
The Ultimate Escalator Fails Compilation
I feel really sorry for people who fall on escalators, especially elderly people, but most of the clips in this compilation are young people trying to pull stunts that just plain backfire. You could say they got what was coming to them, although I hope there were no broken bones as a result. Maybe they’ve learned their lessons by now. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Friday, June 27, 2014
Sean and the Groomsmen Put on a Show
Sean Rajaee and his friends surprised his bride Ariana with a choreographed production number at the wedding reception last weekend. Some of the groomsmen flew across the country to attend the wedding, and had to learn their parts by video and a banzai rehearsal right before the wedding. The highlight is the Persian dance interlude with epic mustaches for all (and one awesome unibrow). (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
8 Sensational Female Murderers from History
When someone tells you that female murderers are rare, keep in mind that means “relatively” rare, as in less common than male murderers. It also means that women who are found to be killers can become quite famous for it, as the media sensationalizes their crimes. A hundred years later, these cases may be mostly forgotten, but the stories are still there for those who want to learn about them, in an article I wrote for mental_floss. Be warned that these tales are disturbing.
Peeling Potatoes by the Bucket
Leo Morten Lund shows us the fast way to peel a lot of potatoes. A Google translation of the original Danish explains.
The Facebook user Leo Morten Lund from Roedekro is behind the trick, as he has great success. In a video showing Morten how simple potato cleaning can be done.I’m not all that sure how accurate the entire translation is, but you get the idea. The concept is quite close to how industrial potato peelers work. (via Digg)
- Rather lazy than stupid, writes Leo The shit Lund about his trick on Facebook.
Miss Cellania's Links
Black Glamour Power: The Stars Who Blazed a Trail for Beyoncé and Lupita Nyong’o.
Remember, America: Inheritance leads to princes, serfs, and not much else.
The 7 Deadliest Fashion Trends Of All Time.
10 Beautiful, Completely Made-Up Words That Describe Obscure Sorrows.
Meet Obie, The Dachshund That Lost 54 Pounds! The formerly-obese pup is one third the dog he used to be.
The 10 Greatest Fictional School Principals. These long-suffering professionals are almost always buffoons in movies and TV.
6 Books That Tell The Villains' Sides Of The Story. Each have their own rationalizations and/or excuses.
10 Ways Television Has Changed the Way We Talk.
13 ways to make your ice cream even more delicious. Try theses recipes as an excuse to go get another gallon of vanilla.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
14 Highly Intellectual Jokes You Probably Won't Understand
Despite the title, I believe most of you would get the majority of these jokes, culled from reddit and illustrated by Max Knoblauch. See the rest of the 14 at Mashable. (via mental_floss)
Frolicking Robot
Redditor Galactus177 posted this picture and said, “For no reason whatsoever, my brother-in-law made this for his kid. An amazing picture was born today.” I’ll agree that it is an amazing picture, but what does he mean “For no reason whatsoever”? I can think of many reasons!
Because it’s awesome.
Because his kid loves it.
Because it’s fun.
Because he/she will consider his/her Dad to be the greatest ever.
Because it makes a great picture.
Because robots.
Because it’s awesome.
Because his kid loves it.
Because it’s fun.
Because he/she will consider his/her Dad to be the greatest ever.
Because it makes a great picture.
Because robots.
Triumph Watches The World Cup
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog travels to different bars around New York City to join soccer fans to watch the World Cup. Colombia, Greece, Uruguay, everyone gets insulted -but the game itself gets insulted more than anything! (via Viral Viral Videos)
In part two of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s coverage of the World Cup in New York City, Italy is happy, England is not, Japan is subdued, the Ivory Coast is ecstatic, and everyone gets insulted. (via Warming Glow)
Miss Cellania's Links
How to Define a Date. How dating got so complicated that women are often not sure if they just went on a date or not.
A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son. Atlanta, and now the rest of us, are in an uproar.
31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From. (via the Presurfer)
Flying Foxes Are Real And They Are Terrifying. The grey-headed flying fox has a wingspan that can reach more than three feet!
Do we really get wiser with age? Why yes -just ask any old person.
Could Google become Skynet? Here are eight products that show the company is -or could become- that powerful.
Eight lessons on premature celebrations. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, and don’t wave before you cross the finish line.
Colonel of Truth: The KFC Hoax and the Idiocy of Crowdfunding for Bullying Victims. Can we learn to help those in need without getting scammed?
80 years of Hollywood technophobia. Technology is unfeeling, amoral, and often incomprehensible, which makes it the perfect villain.
Grizzly Bear Chews on a GoPro Camera
Chris Weston conducts wildlife photo safaris. He was in the Katmai Peninsula of Alaska recording bears with Monique Brignoni for a documentary and set out a brand-new GoPro camera in the water to see what would happen. It didn’t take long for a 500-pound grizzly to get curious. He chomped down a bit before deciding a camera wasn’t good to eat. What was really surprising is that the camera was barely damaged, and yielded this frightening footage of what it’s like to be eaten by a bear! (via Caters News Agency)
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Pugs of Westeros
Roxy, Blue, and Bono are used to dressing up for photographs. Here they star in an ad for Blinkbox as the cast of Game of Thrones. They’d cause some real mayhem if 1. they could remember their lines and 2. the video were longer. As it is, they’re just cute -and that’s enough, really. You can see the still portraits of this series here, and a making-of video here. (via Gamma Squad)
Miss Cellania's Links
26 Magical Facts You Probably Never Knew About Labyrinth.
Read about laser-scanning China’s huge caves at National Geographic. Then take a look through the caves yourself, with the 3D model created from the team’s laser scan.
20 Yard Sale Signs That Are Advertising Gold.
Amazing Vintage Photos of Everyday Life in New York City from the 1890s.
Who Died and Made You Khaleesi? Privilege, White Saviors, and the Elusive Male Feminist Who Doesn’t Suck.
Is It Time for a Classroom Cellphone Ban? A study says even smart students are often distracted by messages and social networking.
A four-year-old crime fighter tells how she busted her babysitter. The teenagers who robbed the house underestimated this little girl.
Stephen Colbert Asked If John Green Is A Cult Leader. The answer: only as much as Colbert himself is.
The 4 coolest science experiments happening on the International Space Station right now. One involves astronauts training their own robot replacement.
An Honest Trailer for Forrest Gump
Screen Junkies has another Honest Trailer for us, this time going back to 1994 for Forrest Gump. Sure, there were a lot of goofy, unbelievable things about this movie, but that’s why we liked it. It was just over the top. But the Honest Trailer makes it even funnier for that. (via Neatorama)
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Great Ads for Cat Adoption During Adopt-A-Cat Month
June is almost over, but there’s still a week left in Adopt-A-Cat Month
from the American Humane Association. The spring crop of kittens are
old enough to go to new families and there are plenty of mature cats who
need a place to call home. To this end, many animal shelters are going
the extra mile to grab your attention and many offer special discounts
on pet adoptions. They also come up with clever and enticing ads to
pique your interest, in an article I posted at mental_floss.
TV's Greatest Catchphrases (Part 2)
A lot of folks enjoyed the video TV’s Greatest Catchphrases a couple of weeks ago. We were told it would be part one of two, which makes plenty of sense to me, as any such list will draw many
McKenzie and Her Dad
Twelve-year-old McKenzie Carey (warning: autoplay music) suffers from mitochondrial disease. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to do the same things other girls do, like enter beauty pageants. Mike Corey, her truck driver father, lends a hand by dancing on stage with Kenzie to the Miley Cyrus song “The Climb.”
“Pageants give her the same opportunity as other children and show people that she can accomplish anything with a little bit of help,” says her mom, Tammy. “I just want the judges to look at her, not her wheelchair.”McKenzie has won quite a few pageants, and cash prizes go towards her medical expenses. The biggest prize -for all of us- is seeing the smile on her face. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Mitochrondrial disease is classified as terminal, and most children diagnosed do not survive past their teen years. “We were told it would be a miracle if McKenzie made it to age 5,” Tammy says.
Miss Cellania's Links
If Game Of Thrones Characters Were On Reality Shows.
22 Humans Who Went Beyond The Call Of Duty For Animals.
Juergen Horn and Mike Powell spent a few hours observing the athletes at the Kitanoumi Beya Stable as they go through their morning training routine.
15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Tim Burton’s Batman. Casting Michael Keaton was a brilliant move that no one understood until they saw the finished movie.
A 16-year-old made a browser plugin that reveals where politicians get their cash. Nicholas Rubin isn’t old enough to vote, but he might make a difference in upcoming elections anyway.
“Kramer, meet Feldman”: 19 TV Bizarros. Shows are always up for a meeting between similar but weirder versions of their regular characters.
It’s Time to Turn Off TV Doctors. Credentialed or not, they are trying to build an audience, not a clientele.
Would you quit your job for $25,000? Such an offer would make you think hard about how long it would take you to find another.
The Gory New York City Riot that Shaped American Medicine.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Breaking Bad Gets the Mr Men Treatment
Eager Beaver Films combines the story of Breaking Bad (just the beginning, so really there’s no spoilers) with the world of Mr. Men, a series of British children’s books and a TV series. The result is downright silly, considering Breaking Bad was never for children. Contains some mild NSFW language. (via Warming Glow)
Miss Cellania's Links
Fifty years may seem like a long time ago to an individual, but in the history of a nation, the murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney in Neshoba County, Mississippi, are still shockingly recent. (via Metafilter)
Spiders Can Catch and Devour Fish.
Bonnaroo Proposal.
Meet Peanut, the Ugliest Dog in the World. He won the title honestly, but his story will touch your heart.
30 Facts About The Karate Kid.
How Russia's Shared Kitchens Helped Shape Soviet Politics. (via Boing Boing)
4 Bad Side Effects of Reading Fiction According to the 19th Century. Horrors! They might enrich your imagination!
The Essential Wedding Registry Checklist For Your Kitchen. Somebody throw me a wedding shower, because I’ve cooked forty years without all the basics!
Online daters: Think twice before bragging about your six-figure salary. Would you prefer responses from gold diggers, or no one at all?
Future Batmen
Casting decisions for Batman sometimes surprise people. But that’s always been so. Those who scratched their heads over the casting of Ben Affleck for the next film are those too young to recall the uproar over comedic actor Michael Keaton as Batman before the 1989 Tim Burton film was produced. And now Keaton will always be “the” Batman to me. Who knows if future casting decisions will work out as well.
Animation Domination High-Def (ADHD) drew a few names out of a hat and imagines them as future Batmen in movies spanning the next thirteen years. Which would you like to see in the role of Batman? (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Reeling in the Years
Donny and Marie Osmond perform the Steely Dan song “Reeling in the Years” on their variety show in 1978, complete with an ice-skating chorus line. As we had few TV channels to select from in the 1970s, this is one of the reasons I watched so little TV. Also, I didn’t have a TV in college. (via Laughing Squid)
