Sunday, November 30, 2014
The Human Show
The Muppets get their revenge in this video, in which the Muppets are the puppeteers, and the “puppets” are human corpses. It’s tres creepy, for sure. (via Laughing Squid)
Cyriak on Adult Swim
Animator Cyriak Harris made four bumpers for Adult Swim in 2014. Here they are, “presented in order of strangeness.” I think he should do full-length regular features for them, don’t you? (via reddit)
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Friday, November 28, 2014
Miss Cellania's Links
The Collegiate Raccoon Coat.
Your Relationship With Your Mom In Your Teens Vs. Your Twenties.
The 25 Biggest Box Office Bombs Of All Time.
America’s Oldest Political Insult.
The Illogical Fighting Style of James T. Kirk.
Walmart Again Holds Food Drive for Own Underpaid Workers.
27 Things You Might Not Know About Home Alone.
On Being a Black Male, Six Feet Four Inches Tall, in America in 2014.
Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Song Parodies 2014
Jimmy Fallon continued his annual tradition of making the year’s biggest polo songs into holiday song parodies last night on The Tonight Show. Fallon and Rashida Jones put holiday cheer into “All About That Bass,” “Stay With Me,” “Turn Down For What,” “Wiggle,” “Anaconda,” “Bang Bang,” “Let It Go,” and “Fireball.” The modified lyrics are at the YouTube page. (via Warming Glow)
Mary, Did You Know?
Pentatonix, the awesome a cappella group, gives this song the mystery and sadness that it really needs. It’s from their album That’s Christmas to Me.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Dressing the Turkey
See more Thanksgiving cheesecake pictures at Buzzfeed. Not the kind of cheesecake you serve for dessert.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 1935
Go ahead and watch the 2014 edition; this video will be here when you get back. It’s quite short in comparison. (via mental_floss)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Ultimate Thanksgiving Weekend TV Guide.
The 17th-Century English Who Settled in the Southern U.S. Had Very Little to be Thankful For.
7 Intriguing Turkey Recipes From the 1800s.
The Best TV Characters Who Never Actually Appeared on Screen. (via Neatorama)
How the World’s First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap. (via Digg)
What it Really Feels Like to Get a Vasectomy.
Why People Keep Trying to Erase the Hollywood Sign From Google Maps. (via Metafilter)
The Secret Life of a Crime Scene Cleaner.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Batman vs. Darth Vader
It’s the ultimate showdown of badass fictional characters in black! Never mind the odd crossover of the Disney and DC universes -at least there’s no problem with the style of music for these two. Who will win when the Caped Crusader goes after the Sith Lord with light sabers? Enjoy this Super Power Beat Down video from MachinimaPrime. (via Gamma Squad)
Teddy Bear on a Treadmill
Munchkin is an adorable Shih Tzu puppy who has a teddy bear costume. He was a hit at Halloween with his costume, but watch him walk on a treadmill! It honestly looks like we’re being chased by an Ewok. (via Laughing Squid)
10 Artsy and Attractive Calendars for 2015
A new year is coming, faster than you thought, and the new crop of calendars is ready to keep your 2015 straight! Calendars make great Christmas gifts, due to the timing, and due to the fact that they come in so many different flavors. Here are a few new ones that might make a meaningful gift for someone you know, even if it’s yourself, in a list I posted at mental_floss. Prepare yourself- many of them feature cute animals and/or attractive people showing skin.
Black Friday: Then and Now
When did people start losing their minds over Christmas shopping? Maybe it was a gradual process. Thirty years ago, shopping centers promoted Black Friday as a good day to get your Christmas shopping done, and a lot of folks listened. Here are a couple of news reports from WLOX, on Thanksgiving Day and then on Black Friday in 1983. The money quote: “It gets a little crowded.” People were happily enduring the crowds, and indeed, at least one shopper just wanted to join the crowds for holiday cheer.
Compare that with what we’ve seen in the past few years, as shopping has become a competition to see who can score of those “limited supply” electronics at half price. Here’s a supercut posted last year.
The money saved on items we really don’t need does not justify the time, hassle, and danger of injury to oneself or others involved in the modern version of Black Friday. There’s still a month left to shop, smaller stores to visit, online sales that involve no hassle at all, and one’s sanity to consider. (via Uproxx)
Miss Cellania's Links
Celery and Olives Dominated Thanksgiving for Nearly 100 Years—Until They Didn’t.
What Kind Of Woman Won't Report Sexual Assault?
Fun With Guns: The Art of the Arcade Target.
Here Are A Bunch Of Puppies Dressed Up Like Disney Characters Because You Deserve It. Presented in slow-motion before they managed to fling their wigs off.
Satellite images were stitched together to create a time-lapse video of Mother Earth. Can there ever be another planet so beautiful?
7 of the Finest Apocalyptic Novels. They may be depressing but they make the here and now look relatively nice.
Seth Rogen's Jewish-Canadian-American Thanksgiving. Some parents don’t reveal the whole truth, for their own strange reasons.
Demanding cats go crazy for canned whipped cream. A can of Reddi-Wip would be the perfect Christmas gift for a dairy-craving cat.
18 Library of Congress Photos From Thanksgivings Past. Fashions and customs may change, but we all love our celebrations.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Miss Cellania's Links
18 reasons that songs give thanks. It’s a Thanksgiving playlist of gratitude, with videos
The 25 Highest-Paying Jobs In America. In case you’re wondering whether years invested in medical school will really pay off.
When Buildings Attack: Melted Cars, Ruined Art, and Other Troubles With Solar Convergence. There are ways to avoid the solar death ray, if we’d learn to pay attention.
A Visual Guide to All 37 Villains in the Batman TV Series.
When My Mom Was an Astronaut. Infinite parallel universes in the mind of an adopted child. (via Metafilter)
Eleven-year-old Sally Horner was abducted by a man who passed himself off as her father. She eventually was immortalized in the novel Lolita.
Research into how dogs think is yielding some amazing results, although a lot of it just confirms what we already thought from behavior observation, but did not know for sure. What’s amazing is how its done: putting a dog in an MRI machine.
The Worst Soccer Mom. She eventually finds out she is not really so alone.
The case of Poon vs. Tang. I am not making this up.
Monday, November 24, 2014
A Thanksgiving Rant from John Oliver
His show, Last Week Tonight, isn’t even airing the rest of the year, but John Oliver had to weigh in with his two cents about that strange American tradition of pardoning a presidential turkey. Just add that to the many weird American traditions that make no sense. (via Uproxx)
Miss Cellania's Links
23 Facts About Steel Magnolias.
6 Movies That Got Banned by Countries for Hilarious Reasons.
Requiem for Rod Serling. The TV genius often used boxing as a metaphor and motif.
24 struggles that only people working from home understand. This captures so much of my life.
Stop Trying to Save the World. A little reality check on big ideas and third-world development.
The 2014 Supreme Cat Show.
The 8 People You Meet in a Screwball Comedy. You can still find examples of these in contemporary films, because they still work.
21 Truly Upsetting Vintage Food Advertisements. You don’t have to eat them; looking at them is bad enough.
Eat Like the Pilgrims. They didn’t have sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie, but that had plenty of lobstah and beer!
Sunday, November 23, 2014
How They Did That Van Drop Scene
This video probably contains spoilers for last week’s episode of The Walking Dead. But you probably don’t care; you’re either not interested or you’ve seen it already. It’s got details on how they did the scene without killing anyone important. It vindicates my objection: the van should have landed on its nose or roof. The way it actually landed in the show didn’t make sense and should have broken a spine or two anyway.
Maple Leafs Fans Sing the U.S. Anthem
We make jokes about Canadians, and Canadians make jokes about Americans, but deep down, we love each other. Kind of like siblings. Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Nashville Predators. Considering all the snow between here and there, the crowd was overwhelmingly Canadian. The U.S. national anthem was being sung when the microphone pooped out. That’s when the Canadian crowd jumped in the finish the song themselves! It was a lovely moment. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
The Thanksgiving Film Festival
Besides all that wonderful food, Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family, to watch football, or to shop, but some folks are not into any of those things. You can still enjoy the long holiday weekend by curling up with some Thanksgiving movies. Take your pick from a list I posted at mental_floss.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs is a 1928 silent film from German Expressionist director Paul Leni, starring Conrad Veidt in the title role. From Wikipedia:
Taking place in England in the year 1690, The Man Who Laughs features Gwynplaine, the son of an English nobleman who has offended King James II. The monarch sentences Gwynplaine's father to death in an iron maiden, after calling upon a surgeon, Dr. Hardquannone, to disfigure the boy's face into a permanent grin. As a title card states, the King condemned him "to laugh forever at his fool of a father."[3]
This verson has been overdubbed with music from Tim Burton’s Batman. (via Metafilter)
Carol
You know, I have a bad feeling that carol might not make it out of season five. I hope I'm wrong.
Friends of the Galaxy
Robert Jones brings us a mashup of the TV show Friends and the film Guardians of the Galaxy! Yes, it’s the every-so-familiar intro to Friends re-edited with selected appropriate clips featuring Peter, Gamora, and Rocket celebrating their friendship, despite how different they are. (Thanks, Robert!)
Friday, November 21, 2014
Ride the Skyscraper
A new theme park in Orlando, Florida, called Skyplex is scheduled to break ground in 2015 and open in 2017. The signature thrill ride will be the tallest roller coaster in the world, the Skyscraper, that will plunge from more than 500 feet above ground. So far, it’s in the planning stages, but this virtual depiction of the ride will give you an idea of what to expect. It smells like NOPE to me. The only way I’m getting on a roller coaster of any kind is to watch it on YouTube. You may want to see this in full screen to get the full effect. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Miss Cellania's Links
The one basic thing men still don't seem to understand about women.
14 Things You May Not Have Known About SpongeBob SquarePants.
For the Public Good: The Shameful History of Forced Sterilization in the U.S.
In Defense of Indiana Jones, Archaeologist.
Do not get married unless you ask your partner these 39 questions.
The Paleontologist’s Wandering Skull.
Top 10 Things You Should Not Share on Social Networks. I would have included photos of your medical procedures and forwarded jokes from Grandma.
Manly Ways to Prepare Turkey. Why carve a Butterball when you can show off how you did it the hard way?
Thursday, November 20, 2014
The Empire
What if the BBC remade The Office using Star Wars characters? That’s the premise of this parody by Carl Whiteley. You’ll see the best-known scenes from The Office as they would be portrayed by Darth Vader, Luke, Leia (and forget they are related; this is the workplace), Chewbacca, C3PO, and more. It’s long, but worth it to see Leia twerking and security video of Storm Troopers in the toilet. And yeah, all your favorite Office tropes and catchphrases are there somewhere. (via Laughing Squid)
Miss Cellania's Links
A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA. (via Metafilter)
The Whiskey Wars That Left Brooklyn in Ruins.
The 7 most mindblowingly stupid arguments against net neutrality.
How The Man Behind Motown’s Sound Conspired To Kill His Family For Money.
Dog Joins Swedish Adventure Racing Team. That's a good dog.
The snowstorm in Buffalo trapped people in their homes and on the roads, and seven people have died in western New York state. After more than five feet fell Tuesday, there could be a couple more feet to come today.
Catch up with The Hunger Games movies in 3 minutes. Then you’ll be back in the groove and ready for Mockingjay Part 1 on Friday.
The Walking Fred is a new series that recaps episodes of The Walking Dead. The host is a zombie, who sees things from the dead’s point of view.
Mattel Apologizes for Making Barbie Look Incompetent in Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer. It only took a couple of years and a snarky blog post.
The Hole
There’s a hole in the floor. No one knows why it’s there, how deep it is, where it goes, and what’s lurking down there. But as time goes by, we get a slight idea …and what we find out isn’t pleasant. What fool thought it would be a good idea to just put a rug over it? This story from Thomas Ridgewell (TomSka) wastes no time and leaves you wanting more. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy Dance-Off
The movie Guardians of the Galaxy really should have had more dancing in it. It could have! In this clip from the film’s blooper reel, the characters don’t fight, but instead have a dance-off. The pros have nothing to worry about from these guys, but the movie, as goofy as it was, could have used this bit of goofiness well. (via The Mary Sue)
Covered in Paint
They got paint in on their faces, in their hair, all over their clothes, and apparently, all over the downstairs. These boys are in big trouble. Dad tries his best to be stern, but it’s hard to look at them without laughing! At least he quarantined the boys in the bathtub before he started rolling the camera. Who’s going to clean it up? (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
Know Your Citrus
As winter approaches, you might notice that peaches and plums are disappearing from the produce aisle, and berry prices going through the roof. But look! The new citrus fruit is here to give us a taste of the tropics in time for the winter holidays. Citrus fruits all belong to the genus Citrus, and can be hybridized with each other. The citrus fruits we know were developed from just a few that occur in the wild, including citron, pomelo, and mandarin. The variety of citrus fruits we encounter at the grocery store in the winter months are mostly hybridized from those species and their descendants. Read about the various citrus fruit in a list I posted at mental_floss.
