(via Bad Newspaper)
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Jinx's Night Out
A lonely little ghost wants to go trick-or-treating on Halloween, but he doesn't know what to dress up as. If you haven't watched this video already as today's Google doodle, it's just plain cute.
Halloween Levitating Star Wars Speeder Costume
Imagine walking on the street in New York and seeing Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia driving by in one of those levitating speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi! YouTuber Jesse Wellens and model Carmella Rose took a ride around New York in their Star Wars Halloween costumes and delighted everyone with their speeder bike. Well, everyone except a stormtrooper (Casey Neistat) who thought they were going too fast. And then a NYPD officer. Oops. See how the speeder bike was built in this video and how the stunt was filmed in this video. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
When Halloween Was All Tricks and No Treats. Before World War II, holiday mischief was serious and rampant.
19 Delicious Things To Make For Día De Los Muertos. Sugar skulls are fine, but there's so much more to enjoy.
After I Adopted Two Black Babies, I Realized My Church Was Full Of Racists.
9 Horror Movies Inspired by Real-Life Events.
How to Sign Up for Health Insurance This Year.
The maternal death rate in the US more than doubled between 1987 and 2013, and black women are dying at the highest rates of all. (via Metafilter)
The Long, Strange History of People Filing Flying Saucer Patents. Believe it or not, none have made their inventors rich.
Google’s CEO Says the Company Will Drop Everything to Fix its Appalling Burger Emoji. Users are upset that its not stacked correctly.
These Are The Driving Rules That Everyone Ignores. A little consideration for other drivers would make the world a much better place.
Monsters
A mashup of movie monsters by Eclectic Method. I think I've seen every one of these films! (via The Daily What)
Monday, October 30, 2017
Stranger Felines
Cat owners know that weird feeling of seeing their cat watch something that isn't there. Can they see ghosts that we can't see? Cole and Marmalade seem to. Watch these two go ghost hunting around the house. There must be a lot of ghosts hanging around, so good luck sleeping tonight. (via Laughing Squid)
Halloween 1910
This just goes to show that no matter how realistic our modern Halloween masks are, they aren't nearly as creepy as the unrealistic ones from 100 years ago. (via Weird Vintage)
A Modern Horror Story
The President Show from Comedy Central places our president and vice president in a scary place: the Donald Trump State Park. There, thy encounter an evil force that threatens their existence.
They have reason to be frightened of the Muellerman.
Miss Cellania's Links
Zombies in the Real World. The Lost Children of Tuam. In the Irish home for unwed mothers, the children paid the price.
Forgotten Romantic Rituals of Halloween’s Past.
How Martin Luther Changed the World. In honor of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the New Yorker has a relatively short biography of Martin Luther, warts and all, and a simple explanation of the beliefs that led him to revolt against the Catholic Church. (via Digg)
The Ultimate Halloween Candy Power Ranking. Walt Hickey crunches the numbers to determine why we like the candy we like.
The Best Horror Movies of the 21st Century. Update your watch list for new and expanded thrills.
Why Clocks "Falling Back" Are Good For Your Brain. There are practical reasons we don't stay on Daylight Saving Time all year long.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story about a country doctor who found that a second doctor had set up shop in his village. Dr. Ripley is shocked to find that Dr. Smith is a woman!
Burials Unearthed in Poland Open the Casket on The Secret Lives of Vampires. An archeological excavation of a cemetery in Drawsko, Poland, reveals some of the lengths that the villagers went to to make sure the dead stayed dead when they were buried.
Who Was Dr. Frankenstein? Meet the many men who influenced Mary Shelley's novel.
Tweet of the Day
this is the craziest eight-word story i have ever read pic.twitter.com/Xk72Yr5Nxe— Rebecca Tucker (@RebeccaTee) October 25, 2017
(via Buzzfeed)
Sunday, October 29, 2017
The Zombie Song
This infectious song by Stephanie Mabey tells of a zombie in love. Warning: it will be stuck in your head all day. (Thanks, Steven!)
"This Is Halloween" Light Show 2017
Tom BetGeorge always goes all out for his Christmas light shows. This year, the neighbors are being treated to the same attention to detail in a Halloween light show! This house in Tracey, California, tells the story of The Nightmare Before Christmas, starting with the song "This is Halloween."
I have two ceramic pumpkins with a string of orange lights stuck inside each. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Elephants vs. Giant Pumpkins
Elephants and giant pumpkins come together in an orgy of destruction during the Oregon Zoo's annual Squishing of the Squash! The crowd was impressed by both the huge elephants and the huge pumpkins. The elephants like the pumpkins as both playthings and a snack. And they know smashing pumpkins is a crowd-pleaser. The Squishing of the Squash kicks off a series of 'Howloween' events at the Oregon Zoo. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Saturday, October 28, 2017
The Kiss of the Vampire
The Kiss of the Vampire is a 1963 Hammer film. From Wikipedia:
Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel), are a honeymooning couple in early 20th-century Bavaria who become caught up in a vampire cult led by Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman) and his two children Carl (Barry Warren) and Sabena (Jacquie Wallis). The cult abducts Marianne, and contrive to make it appear that Harcourt was traveling alone and that his wife never existed. Harcourt gets help from hard-drinking savant Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans), who lost his daughter to the cult and who finally destroys the vampires through an arcane ritual that releases a swarm of bats from hell.
Mark Hamill Talks to Himself
Mark Hamill is almost as famous for being the voice of The Joker as he is for being Luke Skywalker. In this Justice League Action short from Cartoon network, Hamill does all the voices: the Joker, Trickster, and "famous actor Mark Hamill," which is a younger and somewhat steroid-enhanced version of Hamill -as you would expect in a comic book character. The plot proves to be weirdly meta when "famous actor Mark Hamill" saves the day by using his unique superpower- his voice acting skills! (via Laughing Squid)
Analyzing Time Travel in Fiction
Time travel is fiction, unless you are referring to traveling ahead in time at the rate one one minute per minute. As fiction, you can so pretty much what you want with temporal displacement, so science fiction stories treat that ability in many different ways. What causes a paradox doesn't necessarily cause a paradox in a different story. Our friend at Minute Physics gives us an overview of how time travel varies between stories. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
MEOW
The zombie kitties are rising from their graves! Cyriak Harris made this video back in 2009, but it's certainly appropriate for this time of year.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Kitten Eating Corn
This is just what it says on the tin, but it's always cute when a cat enjoys corn on the cob this much. I would bet there's butter on that corn. The little girl is enjoying it, too. This video is from Orehovo-Zuevo, Russia. (via Tastefully Offensive)
News Anchor's Contagious Laughter
Jack Williams of WBZ in Boston had a news story with a ridiculous punch line back in the 1970s. It took him a split second to picture what he was reading, and then he cracked up and could not stop laughing. Eventually, he is laughing at his own laughing on air. It wasn't that funny! But it is a classic. (via Boing Boing)
Miss Cellania's Links
Halloween in the City of Bones. Derry, Northern Ireland, takes the ancient Gaelic Samhain festival to a new level.
Epic Ink: How Japanese Warrior Prints Popularized the Full-Body Tattoo. Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi started it all in the 1820s.
Raëlism has a Strange History, and an Even Stranger Leader. Claude Vorilhon was abducted by aliens, and then became a prophet for a new cult.
Ted Bundy Abducted And Nearly Murdered Me: How I Survived.
Cosplayer Alyson Tabbitha Can Transform Herself Into Anyone. Her costumes are impressive, but the real secret is the makeup.
The Most Mind-Boggling "Sexy Costumes" of Halloween 2017. It doesn't have to make sense to sell.
How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America.
8 Historic Accounts of Werewolves. Wolves and people who acted like wolves were so dangerous that they spawned a legend.
Simon's Cat Logic Celebrates National Black Cat Day
In the US, we celebrate August 17 as Black Cat Appreciation Day. In the UK, October 27 is National Black Cat Day, so Simon Tofield and veterinarian Nicky Treverrow of Cat's Protection made a video about black cats. In Britain, black cats are not considered particularly unlucky -or else the populace is not particularly superstitious. However, black cats in shelters still get the short end of the adoption stick. Why don't people select black cats for adoption? Because it's hard to see their facial expressions compared to brightly colored cats. A cat's personality come out in body language anyway, so don't write off the possibility of a wonderful pet when you see a black cat. Tofield lets us in on a secret: both the cat and the kitten in his cartoons are based on real black cats. As usual, this Simon's Cat Logic video is followed by a classic Simon' Cat cartoon.
The Gawper
A movie by Large Evil Corporation, The Gawper is a throwback to the animated Halloween specials you loved as a child. But scarier.
Tweet of the Day
I've been picking apples in the autumn since before it was cool to post about it on Instagram. pic.twitter.com/9hJLCwV6Fc— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) October 22, 2017
(via reddit)
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Simon's Cat in Off to the Vet
The good news is that Simon Tofield has given us a full-color 12-minute Simon's Cat cartoon. The bad news is that that cat has been stung by a bee, and must go see the veterinarian. The cat does not want to go, so the struggle to get there is half the fun. This plays out like every cat owner's experience, from getting the cat into a carrier, to the waiting room full of strange animals, to the painful bill, to realizing that when a cat is asleep in your lap, the TV remote will be out of reach. While the film has just been uploaded to YouTube, it has already been shown at films festivals and won the McLaren Award for Best British Animation at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2016.
T-rex Family Waits for School Bus
Kimberly White and the rest of her family were there at the bus stop to see her eldest daughter get off the school bus. Can you imagine what the rest of the students had to say? They'd say that's really weird, but at the same time, they'd wish their families were that much fun.
"My family and I decided to dress up in costumes as our oldest daughter came home from school. We encourage our children to work hard, play hard, and not take life too seriously as shown clearly in this video."This definitely shows Brooklynn that even dinosaurs will band together to watch your back. (via Digg)
Simone Giertz Has Pumpkin Soup
Simone Giertz is famous for building robots that aren't good at anything besides entertaining us. This time she attempts a robot that serves soup. Pumpkin soup, which she hates for reasons she will explain. But the robot stole the show, once it was finally in service. It did its job.
Giertz needs to try some really good pumpkin soup. My daughter made pumpkin soup from my mother's recipe and it was nirvana. Lots of onions, heavy cream, and a bit of curry powder. The she turned vegetarian, and the next time she made it from vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, and coconut milk instead of cream. It was not that good. I noticed Giertz using coconut milk, so she may have the same problem. (Thanks, Edward!)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Giant Frog Farms of the 1930s Were a Giant Failure. The demand was real, but producing the supply was harder than it looked.
10 Real Animals That Seem Make-Believe. Mother Nature has given us some odd mashup versions of more familiar creatures.
What Happens When A Troubled Police Department Refuses To Reform? We're finding out in Albuquerque.
Unconventional Domino Tricks by Hevesh5 and Kaplamino. Keep your cursor on the pause button, because you'll want to see what just happened again.
How Carnival Games Scam You, According To Science. Former NASA engineer Mark Rober selects the ones you might have a chance to beat.
You Should Thank Maurice Hilleman for Helping You Live Past the Age of 10. He developed more than 40 vaccines for childhood illnesses.
The Mystery of Kathryn Scharn. Her murder case had too many suspects and not enough unbiased investigation.
The Body Trade. If you donate a body to medical science, you may be fueling a gruesome but profitable business.
And somewhat related: The Era of the Body Snatchers. When medical education butted up against the concept of eternal rest.
Oh My Gourd
Here's a delightful stop-motion animation in which the frames are carved pumpkins. Sean Ohlenkamp and Rob Popkin carved hundred of pumpkins over several years to make this video. They made many sequences and discarded most of them. What's left is a brightly colored pumpkin that dances as its carving change. The thumping music in the background? That's also made with pumpkins, in process they called "pumpkin orchestration" under the guidance of Igor Correia. You'll get to see what that looks like at the end of the video. (via Laughing Squid)
Tweet of the Day
i wish this video never ended pic.twitter.com/6J3U0zLccd— spooky fer (@hecsrevenge) September 24, 2017
(via Buzzfeed)
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
How Southern Socialites Rewrote Civil War History
They say history is written by the victors, but that ain't necessarily so. In the United States, the education of children is a responsibility of the individual states, and this shows up most obviously in how the history of our Civil War is taught. If you are of a certain age, what you learned was largely dependent on which state you were in.
I grew up in Kentucky, a border state, meaning it was a slave state that did not secede with the Confederacy. In school we had textbooks produced for nationwide use that addressed slavery as the main reason for the secession. But teachers made it clear that if we wanted to pass the test, the reason for the war was "state's rights." Still, we knew better. It was an early lesson in political disconnect from reality.
Vox takes a look at how a deliberate push for "The Lost Cause" affected educational materials that have shaped opinions for decades and left effects we still feel 159 years after the war.
Attaching a Balloon to Cats
Sury, Noel, Raon, Iz, and Soul are a family of Scottish fold cats in South Korea. One particularly static-y day, their human decides to annoy them with balloons that stick to their fur. The cats are somewhat bumfuzzled. And a bit annoyed. Can you imagine how bumfuzzled they'd be if they knew about the speech balloons, too? (via Tastefully Offensive)
AHHHHH
Australian musician Kirin J. Callinan's song "Big Enough" was released in September. It quickly piqued the attention of the internet, thanks to the sequence above. Fourteen seconds into it, I knew it had to be shared, even before I knew anything else about it. The whistler is Molly Lewis, and the raging cowboy is Jimmy Barnes. This audio interlude has been remixed into many familiar video sequences for maximum comedic effect. Check out some of them in this video.
If you enjoyed that, check out compilation two here. There will likely be a volume three soon. (via Metafilter)
Miss Cellania's Links
Dracula 1979: Celebrating Frank Langella's Rock Star Count. The overlooked Dracula is still the sexiest.
Slashdot Tech Headlines Written by a Neural Network. Some are hilarious; others are evidence of the robot uprising. (via Metafilter)
The American Reporter Who Rode With Pancho Villa. Jack Reed took great risks to get the story and to live the adventure.
Japan's Infamous Halloween Trains. In the 1990s, the subway became a place for Halloween partying, much to the annoyance of officials and regular commuters.
This Three-Story Tiny House Fits In the Footprint Of A Parking Space. Behold a house called Tikki that needs only a little more than 8' x 16'.
Grace Spelman moved to a new apartment with her cat Pierogi. Pierogi has found plenty of wonderful new places to hide while Grace gets things organized. (via Metafilter)
The IQ Test has a Dark History. It has been used to sort the worthy from the unworthy in many different ways.
How A Two-Person Montana Company Ended Up With The Biggest Energy Contract In Puerto Rico. It helps when you know the Secretary of the Interior.
Tweet of the Day
The 100th episode paying homage to the pilot! 😱😍 #TheWalkingDeadpic.twitter.com/p86KZHIrtV— #TWD Fan Page (@FTWDFans) October 23, 2017
You might have noticed something familiar about the opening scene in The Walking Dead's season 8 premiere. Now see the two side-by-side and marvel at how close they were. (via Uproxx)
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Trompe-l'œil Crosswalk
Imagine driving downtime road and seeing a zebra crossing floating in the air. Maybe that would make you pay attention to the road! Or at least, that's the idea. This Trompe-l'œil illusion was painted on a crosswalk in Ísafjörður, Iceland, for the specific purpose of grabbing the attention of distracted drivers. And it's pretty cool looking, too. An illusion painted on the road is not a new idea- it's been done in Vancouver, Canada; Ahmedabad, India; and somewhere in Kyrgyzstan. And yeah, it only works in one direction.
Swan Reunion
A female swan came down with a case of botulism. She was hospitalized by Dierenbescherming, an animal rescue group in Dordrecht, Netherlands. Three weeks later, the swan had recovered well enough to return to her mate in the canal. He was right there, waiting for her. It was a lovely reunion.
Swans usually mate for life. It would have taken longer than three weeks for either of them to give up hope. This is one of those love stories in which only the end is worth watching. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
An Oral History of David S. Pumpkins. The SNL sketch was barely ready by showtime, but the audience loved it. (via Metafilter)
In 1963, Félicette became the first cat to fly into space. She returned to Earth unharmed, and may finally get a monument in Paris.
Women Face Unfair Standards When Dressing for Work. A uniform would make thing much easier.
Hilarious Photos Of People Getting Spooked By a Haunted House. Nightmares Fear Factory catches patrons in full terror by flash photography.
How Jane Goodall Became Jane Goodall. The new documentary on her life is fascinating, but there's more to her story.
Here's What My Parents's 1974 Wedding Would Cost In 2017 Dollars. Even after adjusting for inflation, the price of wedding components has quadrupled in the past 40 years.
13 Secrets of Halloween Costume Designers.
10 Obscure Cult Horror Movies Everyone Should Watch (and Re-Watch).
Equifax Deserves the Corporate Death Penalty. They did one thing, and screwed it up so badly the rest of us have to pay the price.
Curse of the Dancing Mummy
Have you seen the dancing mummy on your local weather report? He's a CGI mummy doing the twist, and he's the star of a very popular Halloween graphic that appears to be used at least once a year in every television market. What wasn't included in the graphics package was a warning that this mummy has a supernatural power. He makes every meteorologist who looks at him start dancing. Badly. News Be Funny made a compilation of clips using this same graphic at dozens of TV stations. Maybe your local weather forecaster is in there! (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tweet of the Day
Tfw ur a bug but u are also Helena Bonham Carter pic.twitter.com/Ex33MIwNyT— 🔪Slashie Stabmaldi (@CassieGrimaldi) September 26, 2017
(via Buzzfeed)
Monday, October 23, 2017
How Do You Use A Jar of Peanut Butter?
BesidesPDX posted this picture of a peanut butter jar at reddit and said, "I know I'm not the only one." I must have missed that Calvin and Hobbes strip, although I read it most days. And I have never heard of anyone using peanut butter like this. While most commenters also had never heard of such a thing, a few said they always tried to eat as much peanut butter as possible without disturbing the smooth surface on top. Megamanfre does the same thing a slightly different way. He's not the only one.
Have you ever done this? Have you even heard of it? Will you start doing it now because of this post?
Miss Cellania's Links
6 Utterly Terrifying Unsolved Mysteries No One Can Explain.
How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump.
4 Reasons The Walking Dead Hates Humans More Than Zombies. That's not the way an apocalypse works.
All The Good Dogs At the 2017 Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade. It's where New Yorkers take their dogs every year to show off their Halloween costumes!
What Happened at Nikola Tesla's Secret Experimental Station? He worked on some really big ideas in Colorado Springs.
George Lucas owes the look and feel of Star Wars to one key collaborator. Ralph McQuarrie also had a hand in your other favorite science fiction tales.
The Meanings Behind 19 Classic Sailor Tattoos. Those who travel the world in ships have souvenirs inked in their skin to show where they've been, what they have done, and their hopes for survival.
The Minister Who Invented Camping in America. William Murray was the catalyst of many factors that led Americans to embrace the great outdoors in the 1860s.
Ten Years of None Pizza with Left Beef. Steve Molaro gave us an icon of our modern automated world.
The Elevator Horror
The Brazilian TV show Programa Silvio Santos pulls an elevator prank that would have lawsuits flying in the US. It's terrifying to watch, and even worse for the unsuspecting elevator riders. (via Uproxx)
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Truck vs. Bridge
The infamous site 11foot8 monitors the underpass on Gregson Street in Durham, North Carolina. Last weekend, another truck driver did not heed the sign warning of the 11 foot eight inch clearance, nor the flashing lights. They ran the red light, too, so the driver may just be blind, or at least oblivious. You get to see the carnage from two angles, plus slow-motion. And it's a rental truck, so the driver will have some 'splainin' to do. (via Boing Boing)
Laughing at His Misery
Have you ever done something so stupid that you didn't want anyone to know, but you had to ask for help anyway? This guy has to out up with laughter and humiliation to get his problem solved. The real punch line is that this comic was inspired by a real life story. But instead of one trusted geek, he was the target of hundreds of laughing geeks. At least he used a throwaway account for this one post. Maybe he imagined that those who laughed the hardest would one day face their own kind of embarrassing mistake. This is the latest comic from CommitStrip.