Insane Bollywood Scene



This bizarre number is “Idhi Oka Nandanavanam” from the 1985 movie Adavi Donga. If the voices are too annoying, you can turn them down, or I’ve heard that the song “Mickey” by Toni Basil works just as well for this video. (Thanks, Tracey!)

Mark Hamill Autographs with a Bonus



Mark Hamill has been signing Star Wars photos and memorabilia for 38 years. I’m sure what he puts on them depends on the situation and how much time he has. Some of the bubblegum cards have surfaced with great jokes to go along with the autograph. Hamill no doubt has heard every Star Wars joke ever made, so there are more of these to be found. I particularly like this one. (via reddit)


Cat vs. Shoes



It’s an epic battle between the common house cat and its natural enemy: the shoe. Why do cats hate shoes? When they’re not fighting them, they are using them as a litter box or a vomitorium. Could it be the smell? No, because they even hate new shoes.  Enjoy this compilation of cats establishing domination over various shows from The Dodo. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Miss Cellania's Links

William Ellsworth “Dummy" Hoy: Baseball's Greatest Deaf Player. Eddie Deezen pays tribute to a breakthrough player.

The Seven Actors Who’ve Played Batman. You thought you knew them all, but can you name the one in the picture? 

10 Outrageous Experiments Conducted on Humans. They will never be repeated; instead there will be something horrible and new to study that hasn’t been ethically vetted yet.


What It Feels Like to Go Viral.

Top 10 Medieval Butt-Licking Cats. (via Metafilter

Brits Tried To Guess The Cost Of American Healthcare And Got Really Confused. They are confused as to why we put up with this system.

Toddler Obsessed with Personal Injury Lawyer Gets a Birthday Surprise. See pictures at Buzzfeed.

Legendary Filmmaker and “King of the B’s” Roger Corman talks about Feminism, Poe, and the State of Independent Filmmaking.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Most Controversial Bodybuilding Competition. He entered the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest on the spur of the moment and still won.

Why Americans workers are becoming less productive. You might naturally blame the internet, but the answer is a bit more complicated.

The High Voltage Ejector Bed



Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? Are you tempted to go for “five minutes more”? Inventor Colin Furze has the ultimate wake-up experience for you! He built a bed that has a horrid alarm with lights and sound, but if you don’t jump up immediately, the bed will do that for you, too!

Of course, it works the first time, but Furze cannot help himself -the power is adjustable, so he has to crank it up. See a video of the process of building it at Sploid.

8 Strange and Wonderful Festivals and Events in August

You might think of August as the dog days of summer and back-to-school time, but there’s still plenty of summer fun to be had if you look. Hobo Days? Potato Days? Throw your cell phone? Here are some ideas for a getaway for the upcoming month of August, in a list I posted at mental_floss.

Men React to Their Girlfriends Getting Catcalled



What does it take to convince men that catcalling is a problem? Maybe showing them what it looks like when it happens to their girlfriends. When we just talk about it, men’s reactions often fall into two categories: they don’t see it happening and don’t think it’s a problem, or else they think women should take it as a compliment. A commenter at YouTube explained why it’s threatening rather succinctly:
I don't mind someone telling me they like my tattoos, but here's the thing; a lot of the time, it's just a way in. If I ignore the compliment and walk on, I get called a cold bitch, a f***ing c**t, etc. for not responding. If I say thank you, the guy tries to start further conversation, and when I'm not into it, I get called names again. Just last week a guy asked me the time and I told him; he then tried to put a hand around my waist, and when I pushed him away, he sneered, "If you don't want some, why did you even talk to me, bitch!"
Happens all the time. (via Viral Viral Videos)

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Nano-Pasta: Thin Film Realization of Ultra-Fast Cooking Pasta Using Glancing Angle Deposition.

The Death of Patient Zero. Stephanie Lee was on the cutting edge of cancer research, but she was also a suffering patient.

Colin Woodard’s new book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America divides North America into districts that have no bearing on state borders, but are identified as unique cultures. (via mental_floss)

The 7 most dangerous myths about the fight for $15 minimum wage.  

Some rituals that astronauts perform before going into space are traditions bordering on superstition. Russians pee on a bus tire, and others are just as strange.

 19 Charts That Will Help You Be An Actual Adult. How to rent an apartment, nail an interview, store your groceries, and more.

U.S. Government On Robot Military: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?! The Terminator was just a movie!

Don't listen to William Shatner- Star Trek is totally political. Gene Roddenberry wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Four Cats With Fewer Than Three Legs. They’ve developed ways to get around that will inspire you.

An Honest Trailer for the Mission: Impossible Movies



Screen Junkies takes on all four Mission: Impossible movies at once. Considering how alike they all are, this isn’t the most difficult assignment -and they chose to accept it. The impression I get from this is that all the movies exist mainly to see Tom Cruise in stunts that should kill any mortal human. Otherwise, it’s Scooby-Doo all over again. -via Tastefully Offensive http://www.tastefullyoffensive.com/ 

A Ride on the World’s Longest Water Slide



Action Park in New jersey is famous for their history of crazy and dangerous rides. The newest is a water slide that’s 1,975 feet long. That’s a third of a mile! The folks at Guinness agree it is the world’s longest water slide. It’s not open to the public just yet -the state of New jersey has to approve it first. However, park employee Jason Mulder strapped on a GoPro and went down the slide for a media day event. (via Boing Boing)

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MASH Notes: The Story Behind "Suicide is Painless.” An unforgettable hit started out as “the stupidest song ever written.”

The Insecure World of Freelancing. The gig economy doesn’t use “employees,” so those workers have no basic labor protections.

23 Things All Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Fans Will Find Funny.

The Secret Nazi Tunnels Under a German Vacation Town.  

A Hillside of Rainbow Homes. (via Daily of the Day)

There are labeled maps of Pluto and Charon now, with place names of famous people and fictional characters. Almost all the visible features of Charon are named for science fiction terms.

10 Obscene Hand Gestures From Around the World. Learn how to offend people everywhere you go.

There’s a Nosferatu Remake in the Works. The first movie version of Dracula is still the most horrifying, so I’m all for a new one.

Reddit Disasters Pile Up: Are The Trolls Running the Site? This is why we can’t have nice things.

A complete guide to the minimum wage. Raising it doesn’t have to be a nightmare; it's been done before.

Alka-Seltzer in Space



In this new video from NASA, astronauts aboard the International Space Station play with a ball of water by adding Alka-Seltzer. Oh, it bubbles, alright, but those bubbles really don’t have anywhere to go, so they just float around inside the orb. One occasionally explodes from the surface, but there’s not enough gravity to force it upward, because there really is no “upward.”

NASA is excited about their new Red Dragon camera, which captures images in 4K resolution. You can read more about it at their website. It will enable scientists on the ground to observe experiments on the ISS as well as the crew does. If you want, you can change the YouTube resolution to the highest level under the settings button, and see each bubble clearly.

9 Ways to Use All Those Jalapeños

Shown above are the jalapeño peppers I picked last night. Do I need this many jalapeños? No, but I picked them anyway before they started to wrinkle, because they are hard to handle after the skins become tough. I’ve already packed away a two-year supply of diced peppers in the freezer, and there are plenty more in the garden that haven’t reached full size. So I went looking for a way to use them. Crab cakes? Ice cream? Read about nine jalapeno dishes in a list I posted at mental_floss.

Carol has Never Been Kissed



Carol was a mermaid who longed for human legs, like many mermaids. But that required a kiss, and Carol had never been kissed. Why? She was ugly. She not only had a fish tail, she also had a fish face. This bizarre cartoon is not for children. (via Digg)

Inside a Dog Retirement Home



In 2006, Joe and Sher Polvinale turned their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, into a pet sanctuary. Joe has since passed away, but Sher continues to run House with a Heart Senior Pet Sanctuary, a retirement home for elderly and special needs dogs. These dogs have a permanent and loving home for the rest of their lives. With the help of volunteers, the dogs get proper care and lots of affection. (via Metafilter)


Bohemian Dancers



These young folks look so happy about being featured in a newsreel! They are the counterculture of London in 1960. The hipsters of their day, they wore vintage clothing and did whatever it took to be different from what came before. Maybe they would eventually grow up to be mods, or rockers, or even (gasp) hippies! By the way, I wonder how much “lemonade” they drank when the cameras weren’t there to record the festivities. (via Boing Boing)

Miss Cellania's Links

28 Facts You Might Not Know about The Munsters. For a show that only lasted two years, they sure left a big impression on us.

Check out 'Trump Force One' — Donald Trump's personal Boeing airliner. It has all the necessities for luxurious travel and conspicuous consumption.

What It Was Like to Seek Asylum in Medieval England. You could save your own neck if you followed all the obscure rules for Sanctuary.

You know those two-word blurbs from critics you see on movie posters and home video? Sometimes they are taken ridiculously out of context.

The Hunger Game of Thrones. It’s Jon Snow versus Katniss Everdeen in a fantasy mashup of fantasy worlds.

Those Magnificent Ladies in Their Flying Machines. Even in the early days of aviation, some women refused to stay grounded.

College Living: Expectations Vs. Reality.

7 Lesser-Known Members of the Batman Family.

‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen.

Mandatory Minimum Sentences



My John Oliver video was late today because I forgot it was Monday, I guess. If you’ve been reading my links, you know that America’s prison system is doing more harm than good. Mandatory minimum sentences are part of that. They often have no relationship to the actual case they are applied to. This is from last night's episode of his HBO program Last Week Tonight.

Miss Cellania's Links

Myers, Briggs, and the World's Most Popular Personality Test.

Even Early Focus Groups Hated Clippy. (via Metafilter)

The Murder Trial of Lobster Boy. (via Digg)

12 Sci-Fi and Horror Shorts Turned Into Feature Films. If a good idea works in ten minutes, a two-hour treatment may get you a studio budget.

The 9 People You'll Date, According To Simone De Beauvoir. Here’s hoping you eventually find a #9.

The Arcade Superstars Of Saturday Supercade.

19 Tips For Studying Abroad That Aren’t Complete Garbage. They come from people who’ve been there, done that.

Guy's Attempt To Take a Rattlesnake Selfie Ends With $153,000 Bill. You can’t win when you tempt Mother Nature or the American health care system.

7 ways to make people like you, courtesy of an FBI behavior expert. Like every other relationship, it all boils down to unselfishness.

11 Ways Advertisers Make Food Look Delicious. After all, you wouldn’t want to see billboard-sized goop.

Oh Deer

My Mom's house has apparently become a daycare for fawns. I hear that the mother drops these three off in the morning and picks them up in the evening. Mom watches them from the window, but doesn't interfere. I think it has something to do with the apple trees. (via Brother Bill)

Katamari Damacy in Real Life



The wind picks up, the inflatable slide travels down the beach, and it looks like nothing else more than Katamari Damacy.

A Nice Dip in the Pool



A hot summer afternoon and a backyard pool. That’s nice, but when you take too much time to clown around for the camera, something unexpected might happen. The laughter from behind the camera only egged him on. Like they say, pride goeth before a fall. (via Viral Viral Videos)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Story of "Hey Jude.” Eddie Deezen reminds us how awesome this song is.

The Incredible Shrinking Movies. If you enjoyed Ant Man, here are twelve such films where less is more.

A Week In The Mysterious Sleeping Villages Of Kazakhstan. No one knows what illness is causing the residents to sleep for days at a time.

Cringeworthy (But Gorgeous) Images of Vintage Photos Sunburnt Onto Subjects’ Skin. Would you risk pain and skin damage to become an art medium?

George R.R. Martin Died in Sharknado 3.

21 Potato Chip Flavors That Have Absolutely No Right Being a Thing.

Wyatt Earp and the ‘Fixed' Heavyweight Title Fight.

How to Tell the Difference Between All the Dudes Running for President.  Someone got tired while trying to write the entire list.

15 Things You Might Not Know About Yellowstone National Park

Why Is This Wild, Pea-Sized Tomato So Important?

Thursday, July 23, 2015

8 Niche Blogs to Liven Your Day

With millions of people keeping blogs on the internet, I am faced with a never-ending treasure hunt for the strangest and most specific ones. If a topic is interesting to one blogger, it will probably be iterating to some readers. Or maybe none at all, but that never stopped us from posting them anyway. Here are the latest blogs focused on very specific subjects that are updated for your pleasure, in a list I posted at mental_floss.  

The Lucky Few



The Lucky Few is the story of the USS Kirk and its role in the evacuation of South Vietnam in 1975. These stories will have you on the edge of your seat. More at Metafilter.

My Guy!



This Russian guy comes home after six weeks away, and his dog is glad to see him. That’s a good dog. (via reddit)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Influence of Coriolis Force on the Growth of Body Hair. Do cowlicks twirl the other way in the Southern Hemisphere?

20 Recreations of Decades-Old Family Snapshots. It takes a lot of work to make them this detailed, but worth it.

Donald Trump: POW. This satirical documentary shows the presidential candidate was brainwashed as a Prison of Wharton.

Siblings sent to prison for murder when they were 12 and 13 years old are now completing their sentence at ages 30 and 31. They will be returning to a world they know nothing about.

To Save Or To Sever. Is it better to go the extra mile to save an arm or a leg, or go ahead and amputate?  (via Digg)

Six Weeks As An Extra On The Set Of Robert Rodríguez’s Machete.

Why "All Lives Matter" instead of "Black Lives Matter" is such a stupid thing to say.

Every time Tom Waggoner’s ranch hands dug a well to bring water to his cattle, they’d find oil instead. That was 100 years ago. Now Waggoner’s descendants are selling the Texas ranch that comprises over a half-million acres.

The Legends, History, and Lore Behind Game of Thrones Locations.

Healing Spas and Ugly Clubs: How Victorians Taught Us to Treat People With Disabilities.

Miss Cellania's Links

12 Great Ronald McDonald Cosplays. It’s best if you mashup the fast food mascot with a more attractive character.

14 Absurd Things Tumblr Can Teach You About The English Language. Wandering minds can get very introspective at times.

Math Food for Pi Approximation Day. That’s today!

A Glimpse Inside Hawaii's 'Forbidden Island.’ Niihau is privately owned, and reserved as a home to those who were born there.

The Gift America Didn't Know It Wanted: Florida. The state has some strange history.

The Hippie Town of Christiania. (via the Presurfer)

Could The Walking Dead Have a Happy Ending? It would certainly be a turnaround for the series so far, which has already given us five seasons of of violence, despair, and death.

Diner Owner Has Had Enough. She screamed at a two-year-old and doubled her business.

10 Weird Features of Old Cars. (via Everlasting Blort)

Inside the Secret World of Russia’s Cold War Mapmakers. (via Metafilter)

11 Delightful Bento Artists and Their Creations

Bento is a Japanese term for a box lunch. Kyaraben or charaben is the term for a box lunch that is styled to look like people, animals, pop culture characters, or something else besides food. However, in American usage, the term bento has become an umbrella term to mean an artfully sculpted and arranged lunch. These came into being to get children excited about eating a packed lunch. As parents became more skilled at making these boxed lunches, they became an art form that appeals to those who never need to pack a lunch or eat a packed lunch. See some of the modern artists who excel at bento in a list I posted at mental_floss. 


Don't Stay in School



British singer Boyinaband recorded this song about what he learned in school and what he didn’t learn. In a comment, he clarified:
"Don't Stay in School" isn't inferring students shouldn't stay in school, it's saying topics which aren't practically useful shouldn't stay in school. There are obviously a lot of benefits to getting an education, I'm just concerned that the topics are not prioritized well at all.
Now, I’m all for learning things you won’t need in your everyday life, but not at the expense of things you will need to know. You could say that money management, law, politics, first aid, and sex education are things that young people should learn from their parents, but that’s pretty difficult in modern families where everyone’s working or in school, or the parents don’t know that much about those things themselves. Besides, no one explains to parents that they are expected to take up the slack in real world education. Maybe someone should. There’s a lot to be said about building up basic knowledge of how the world works in literature, history, math, and science, so can we really drop those? I don’t know about other countries, but in America, if a subject is not on the standardized tests, schools most likely won’t be teaching it. What do you think? (Thanks, Edward!)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Swat Team. How the flyswatter was developed.

The Sad, Stately Photo Of Nixon's Resignation Lunch. (via Metafilter

Battles, Batman, and Liberace: A Cultural History of Capes.  

This guy makes a video on how to use an elastic hair tie and it gets 14 million views in two weeks. I can’t figure out why.

The History of Creepy Dolls. Or rather, why we were creeped out by dolls.

The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips. You can follow along virtually or in your car.

10 People With Great Tattoos At the 2015 San Diego Comic Con.  

Natural Killer Cells: 'Secret Police' of the Immune System. A cell better have its ID ready to show he belongs in your body.

Building, critiquing, and cheesing the 'perfect' nacho. See, ‘perfect’ is a bit different for each consumer.

The scientists who conquered Pluto. Almost ten years after launch, they finally get credit for their vision and hard work.

John Oliver on Food



Americans love food -lots of it, and not always the best food for us. What’s even more American is how much food we manage to waste, while some folks go without. So what are we going to do with it? In my house, Mom eats the leftovers. Even peels are used, in my compost pile, which produces the world’s best garden and potting soil. But industrial waste is what’s really huge, and we should figure something out about that. This is from last night's episode of the HBO show Last Week Tonight.  

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8 Amazing Volcano Vacations. It will be a one-in-a-lifetime experience!

The Legal Battle Over a $16.5 Million Ferrari.

Here Are 14 Things You Will Say To Your Kids A Million Times. With plenty of NSFW text.

You Just Got Out of Prison. Now What? If it weren’t for people like Carlos and Roby, you may as well turn around and go back in. (via Metafilter)

The story of Kitten Face.

Pro Surfer Mick Fanning Fights Off Shark During Competition. The incident in South Africa was broadcast live on TV.

A Movie Fan's Guide to the Marvel Universe. Get more of your favorite movie superheroes by dipping into the comic books they came from.

10 Essential One-Film Wonders. Some filmmakers said what they wanted in one movie and then never made another one.

23 Ways To Make Your Car Cleaner Than It’s Ever Been. Then maybe people won’t be afraid to ride in it.

Why privatizing marriage would be a disaster. Separating the institution of marriage from government oversight would open up a can of worms that we can’t untangle