Friday, January 31, 2020

Dinner with Loopholes

Human Test For People Who Work In An Office



Ze Frank takes another sideways turn from his True Facts series and gives us a test to determine if you are in fact, human, and you have retained your humanity in spite of a dull office job. He released this as the weekend approached, in order to cause minimum depression. This video contains a more-than-a-minute ad in the middle, but it's easy to skip. I learned a couple things from this. I learned that some ball-point pens come with a plastic guard, which I have never seen in my life. I am also reminded once again of how fortunate I am to be able to work from home. 

Rebellion

(via reddit)

Test Footage of Star Wars: Underworld



Between 2005 and 2010, George Lucas worked to develop a TV series in the Star Wars universe. Star Wars: Underworld was shelved in 2010 because of the production costs, but 50 episodes were written. According to Wookieepedia:
Star Wars: Underworld is said to be set primarily in the Coruscant underworld (which was briefly glimpsed during Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones), in the time period between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.[11] It is during this period that the Galactic Empire rises to ultimate power throughout the galaxy.[12] In 2005, George Lucas told Celebration III audiences that the show would not focus on any characters from the films, but that some of them could appear;[13] "A lot of the issues from the films are connected, but you won't necessarily see a lot of the people that are connected."[14] He later described the show as "bare-bones" and "action-heavy,"[15] and explained that it would depict what the inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy do for entertainment.[16]
The five-minute scene above, which is following by some behind-the-scenes clips, is enough to make me rather curious about what else still exists on film. (via Digg)

The Painful Truth



The question is, how bad do you want it? This scenario is from After Death Comics. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

YOLO

1917 : The SpongeBob SquarePants Version



Who knew Bikini Bottom was such a dangerous place? YouTuber Carnage-Boy mixed the audio from the 1917 trailer with video footage from Spongebob Squarepants to create this masterpiece. If you want to compare the two trailers, they are together here. The movie 1917 is up for ten Oscars. (via reddit)

Miss Cellania's Links

Start your day right with the 40 Most Wholesome Rescue Pet Photos Of The Month.

What Happened After the Liberation of Auschwitz.

The Art and Science of Kashmir’s Pink Tea.

Rock, paper, scissors. More fun than you imagined.

Are You Good Enough at Paperwork to Be a Poor American? Take this quiz to see whether you make the kinds of mistakes that can cost poor families food or health insurance.

Watch Out, America: John Oliver Is Officially a U.S. Citizen Now. (via reddit)

New Valentines by PJ McQuade for 2020 include Larry David, Keanu Reeves, Pennywise, and Ellen Ripley. That's in addition to all his previous pop culture cards that send a message.

Facebook Won’t Remove This Woman’s Butthole As A Business Page. They did, after the article was published.

This Could Be America’s Most Expensive Home Ever- If It Can Find a Buyer. (via Digg)

Unicode has approved a set of new emoji icons you can use to dress up your text messages and social media posts. (via Kottke)

A blast from the past (2007): 9 Really Cool Aquariums.

Outside

(via Fark)

Otter Fashion

(via Fark)

Near the Egress



A film by Antonio Martinez.
Over 800 modern dryplate tintypes were made from b&w film to produce this experimental stop-motion video of a circus.

Antonio Martinez created this video to serve as a desired childhood memory of the circus, but through the mind of an adult.

The project began in 2005 and was completed in early 2009 with the help of sound designer, Ramah (Malebranche) Jihan, and assistant, Sarah (Lathrop) Midkiff. The video has been successfully exhibited in over 23 video art and film festivals since December 2008.
(via Metafilter)

Tweet of the Day


(via Bored Panda)

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Yeah, Right

Unique Paradise City Cover



You heard the Finnish band Steve'n'Seagulls' version of "Thunderstruck" a while back. Now enjoy them doing "Paradise City" by Guns 'n' Roses. This was recorded in Austin during SXSW in 2016.

The Physics of Sound

Just the other day, my family was walking under a concrete bridge, where the pigeons roost. Their coos were well-amplified by the infrastructure, but that doesn't make this joke any less funny. (via reddit)

Albino Raccoon



Have you ever seen an albino raccoon? Jjak-Jjek is such an animal, even though he looks like an opossum at times. I don't know what kind of facility this is, but they went through some missteps before figuring out how to house him, with space, away from other animals, except for one kindred spirit as a companion.

Crime Drama



The "quirky tech girl back at the office" is used on so many shows now that I started to do a Mental Floss list about them. It never happened, but they include

NCIS
Criminal Minds
Warehouse 13
Lucifer
American Pickers


This comic is from TragicGlee.

Perspective

(Thanks, WTM!)

Cat Rescued from Wall



Supposedly, this stray cat has been trapped inside a wall for two years, while one of the building residents had been feeding her through a small hole. Her rescue is heartwarming story, but I suspect that the cat had another exit somewhere and chose to live in the wall because it's a warm enclosed space with an occasional rodent -and cat food. If she were really trapped, she would have walked out of the hole he was feeding her through. Still, it's good that she has a proper home now. (via Digg)

Miss Cellania's Links

In Which Mr. Adamski Weirds Everybody Out. He'd tel us about the aliens if he weren't already dead.

Lunch with grandma.

Trump's defense: If he did it that's okay, the other guy had it coming, and also you can't prove it.

The Most Common Language in Each State, Excluding English and Spanish. (via Boing Boing)

The Last German Surrender. Soldiers in a faraway Arctic weather station were stranded for four months before the Norwegians picked them up.

CollegeHumor Helped Shape Online Comedy. What Went Wrong? (via Digg)


Portion of US border wall in California falls over in high winds and lands on Mexican side. Here's the punch line. (via reddit)

Sex so good you forget you're in IKEA. You might want to watch this alone. (via Everlasting Blort)

In April 1917, President Woodrow urged the “world must be made safe for democracy.” A. Philip Randolph, the co-founder of the African-American magazine The Messenger, would later retort in its pages, “We would rather make Georgia safe for the Negro.”

A blast from the past (2012): 10 Excellent Bookstore Cats.

Limited Resources

(via Fark)

Saying Grace



Three-year-old Makhi Martin puts his heart and soul into the lunch prayer for his nursery school class at Transformation Christian School in St. Louis.

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Except for That

Country Roads



No, you didn't mistake the title. This is the John Denver song, rendered in "electro cyberpunk industrial synthwave sci-fi futuristic metal" style, by the Melodicka Bros. 

Textbook Illustration

(via reddit)

Meta Filming


Redditor dadwithtowel recorded a time-lapse video of his daughter, while she was making a time-lapse video herself. What kind of video was she making? A video of LEGO minifigs ...making a movie. Here's her finished product.


(via Twisted Sifter)

I'm On Fire

The treasures of the Earth are way more than the monetary value of what we extract from it. The pleasures of a functioning environment, beginning with, but not limited to survival, mean we can never give up the fight. This comic is from Chris at Lunarbaboon.

A Star in His Time

The craftspeople who worked so hard on the Bayeaux Tapestry are probably rolling in their graves at the many things we've done to it in the internet era. (Thanks, WTM!)

5th Graders at the School Talent Show



A goofy idea that turned out to be really cute and fun!



Miss Cellania's Links

The Chocolate-Brewing Witches of Colonial Latin America. They got a beatdown from the Spanish Inquisition.

Horror Stories From Inside Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

Fashion as Literature. Louis Vuitton's Pre-Fall 2020 Look Book has taken the form of book covers.  (via Metafilter)

The History of a Condemned Prisoner's Last Meal

The Republican Jury Room: 53 Angry Men. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.

1909 Kitten Rescue.

Studio portrait of Istvan Reiner, taken shortly before he was killed in Auschwitz. Discussion here.

Her New Fingers.

Donald Trump songs "Don't Stop Me Now." With apologies to Freddie Mercury.

A blast from the past (2007): It Ain't Easy Being Geisha.

Group Shot

High Tech Noon



Darryl Gold re-edited the classic western High Noon to include killer robots. (via b3ta)

Tweet of the Day



Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Seasonal Crime Report

Today You, Tomorrow Me



Nine years ago, I read (and linked) a story from redditor rhoner. It's the kind of comment that stays with you, and it became a legend at reddit and beyond. Now Chris A. Neal has made that story into a short film. (via Metafilter)

Creative Thinking

(via reddit)

Milk: White Poison or Healthy Drink?



Milk has a peculiar history. It's baby food for mammals, but humans continue to drink it way past infancy. We've learned to make cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream with it. And we drink milk from species other than our own, which is all kinds of weird. Is there any harm in that? the answer of course, is "it depends." Which s the answer to pretty much all dietary controversies, it seems. Kurzgesagt gives us the state of the research about drinking milk. (via reddit)

Craigslist







Even if you don't sell things on the regular, there's been a time when you said, "I have too many things. I don't need them all. But they are still good things; maybe someone else can use them." Kevin McShane illustrates how that process goes in a series of comics. See more of his work at Instagram.  (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Math is Hard

(via TYWKIWDBI)

The New Adventures of Takeo Ischi



We know Takeo Ischi as the Japanese Chicken Yodeler. Three years after his viral Chicken Attack! video, he's back with two new adventures. Chicken Pig Attack is a musical action sequence in which Ischi, along with his trusty pig and chicken warriors, battle a gang of villains. It does not end the way you expect. Both the English and Japanese are subtitled in English. The sequel is out, too.



Rat Attack begins with Takeo-san as a captive of the villains. Can his yodeling or his animal-charming talents save the day? While the rat is an obvious nod to the new Year of the Rat, it's a little unnerving to hear how they are always watching over us from less then 20 feet away. Contains NSFW language. Both videos were made by the Gregory Brothers (which now include a sister). (via Metafilter)

Miss Cellania's Links

Manhattan Bystanders Lift SUV to Free Trapped Woman. (via reddit)

Something Advantageous. A tale of revenge from the grave. (via Strange Company)

The History of the Two-Day Weekend. (via Damn Interesting)

The story of Franca Viola. She made history in Italy for refusing to marry her rapist. In 1965.

The Dad Joke Cat.

How A War-Torn Country Became the World's Second Largest Producer of Coffee. It's not who you might think. (via Nag on the Lake)

The Economics of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets. (via Damn Interesting)

Stannard Rock Light: The Loneliest Place in The World. (via Strange Company)

Artist Gives The “Woman Yelling At A Cat” Meme A Deep Twist.

A blast from the past (2012): 10 Artists Who Work in Trees.

Postman

(via Fark)

Why People Don't Walk Cats



Because they melt into the floor. (via YesButNoButYes)

Tweet of the Day


(Thanks, WTM!)


Monday, January 27, 2020

Step One and Step Two

Sliding Through the Monte Carlo Rally 2020



In a regular traffic video, you might feel a little guilty gawking at drivers slipping and sliding on ice. These drivers live for this sort of thing. And the photographers recording their antics might have a death wish, too, or a need for adrenaline. At least they don't encounter drivers coming from the opposite direction. This video was recorded at the 2020 Monte Carlo Rally held in France over the weekend. The course is deliberately designed to cover wet and dry roads, snow, ice, and twisting mountain routes. This video is from just one curve; there are plenty more from the rally at YouTube. (via Digg)

Smile

(via reddit)

White Guy Orders in Perfect Chinese



What do they call people who speak two languages? Bilingual. What do they call people who speak three languages? Trilingual. What do they call people who only speak one language? American. That's the stereotype, and it holds true for most of us. So the exception is exceptional. YouTuber Xiaomanyc freaked people out when he ordered food in Cantonese and Mandarin. But it's a good kind of freak out. Commenters joked that he studied for ten years just to make this video. Xiaomanyc has quite a series of videos about language and culture. (via Digg)

Lovecraft's Muse

Now you know how that all came about. Too bad Howard didn't live long enough to see what his nightmares would become. This comic is from Oppressive Silence.

That's Cold

How To Survive A Plane Crash



We think of plane crashes as long dives from high altitudes that leave no survivors. But plane crashes, as rare as they are, happen in all kinds of ways, and many are survivable. In fact, 95% of those involved in plane accidents survive. So you may as well learn what to do in that situation instead of assuming you're a goner. (via Digg)

Miss Cellania's Links

The World's Worst Cat?

Baking Cookies in Space. They managed to successfully bake two cookies, which took two hours each. (via Boing Boing)

Can you point to Ukraine on a map? I did. (via Kottke)

The False Dmitris; or, When the Russians Call a Period in Their History the "Time of Troubles," You Know Things Were Really Bad.

Elephants escape circus in Russia to play in the snow. (via Neatorama)

From Windsor Castle to North Dakota. Marie Downing Williams was a dresser and confidant of both Queen Victoria and exiled Empress Eugenie of France who became an American settler. (via Strange Company)

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village. (via Metafilter)

Was the Star Wars Galaxy Better Off After Return of the Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker?

The Dolly Parton Meme Spreads Laughs.

A blast from the past (2007): The Legacy of Sadako.

Kitten Gossip

A Short Epic



A knight goes on an epic quest that has all the elements you'd expect, without wasting two hours like a feature film. In fact, it's quite brief! From Lee Daniels at LeeDanielsART.  (Thanks, Brother Bill!)

Tweet of the Day



Sunday, January 26, 2020

Duh

Swing Dancers vs. Street Dancers



A troupe of swing dancers faces of with a group of street dancers, but at times it's hard to tell which is which, since they are all talented, and their music's swapped! This took place during Montreal Swing Riot 2015. (via Everlasting Blort)

Accurate but Useless

(via reddit)

Slow



This week's SNL music video turned out pretty good. Apologies in advance, because this song will be stuck in your head for some time after watching this video. Plus you won't be able to say the word "slow" without laughing.

Attitude


There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.

"Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today!” So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.

“H-M-M,” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.”

So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.

“Well,” she said, “today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.”

So she did and she had a  fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head.

“YEA!” she exclaimed,  “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”

(via Bits and Pieces)

Responsive Ads

Medieval Times



Medieval Times is a dinner theater chain, which took me a minute to recall, as they don't exist everywhere. Saturday Night Live imagined how easy it would be for everything to go off the rails during one young boy's birthday dinner out.

Particular Cat

(via Fark)

The New Cat



Avery Ellis' cat has some trust issues. Watch the video first, then highlight the blank area for a comment from the YouTube page that will make you feel a bit better about this.

yeah, i had just come from the set of my drummer's movie "interplanetary" (there's a temp trailor in my faves) in which i was a character who died and instead of washing it off on set, i drove home with it... freaked a few other drivers out!


(via Arbroath)

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Duck Season

Or maybe it's wabbit season. (via Bad Newspaper)

Toy Story 3 IRL



In the summer of 2011, brothers Morgan and Mason McGrew had an idea to shoot their own stop-motion version of Toy Story 3. They were just kids then, but they jumped in and never gave up on the project. Joe magazine tells their story.
And yes, these were toys that Morgan and Mason had played with when they were young. “We had some of the toys from when we were kids,” Morgan tells me over email. “Others we found elsewhere - school, day-cares, parks, etc.” It gives the film a whole extra level – when the Woody and Buzz memorably face the existential crisis of their owners growing up and no longer being played with, some of these are real discarded toys that have actually had that happen to them.

Their film is a combination of various techniques, and has all been shot on iPhones. Woody, Buzz and the rest mostly move in stop-motion, with the brothers having customised and modified the off-the-shelf toys to be poseable for their animation needs.

The human characters are played by their friends, family and school teachers. Morgan plays Andy, and Mason is grown-up garbage man Sid. Kids from a local day-care fill in as extras.
The result of that work is a shot-for-shot recreation of the Pixar film. The eight-year production was completed about a month ago. McGrew and McGrew sought permission from Disney before releasing their movie on YouTube today. (via reddit)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(via reddit)

Creature Repair Expert



Keep reading them long enough, and eventually Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet will touch a subject close to your heart. Gothgrrl is busy getting into veterinary school, which is just as long and expensive as medical school, accepts fewer students, and results in lower pay with more varied and difficult patients.

Lost Phone

(via The Chive)

School of Fish Working Together as One



This isn't a sea monster walking the bottom of the ocean- it's a school of juvenile striped eel catfish working in unison to look menacing enough to ward off predators. This was filmed off the coast of Bali. The Kid Should See This has more:

Try rewatching the video, picking one fish and following it the entire time. Then pick another fish and watch the video again. The juvenile striped eel catfish seem to cycle through positions within the school as the entire swarm moves forward.

I was captivated by the ones at the bottom, that seem like pixels in an animation of a creature walking on thick legs. (via Kottke)

Tomayto, Tomahto

Love's Lines, Angles and Rhymes



The Fifth Dimension from 1971. For this TV show, Marilyn McCoo appeared by herself, lip-syncing to the group's recording.

Tweet of the Day


(via Bored Panda)

Friday, January 24, 2020

Memorable Crime Report

Le Silence de la rue



An overwhelmed city resident dreams of some elbow room, fresh air, and a bit of nature in this artfully-animated short. (via Laughing Squid)

Perfectly Placed Ad

(via reddit)

Robot Consciousness

Not only is this robot self-aware, it can think fast, too. This comic is from Zack Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Enough

Miss Cellania's Links

The Making of the Cowboy Myth. It was nothing like Hollywood made it out to be. (via Damn Interesting)


That Time Mississippi Banned Sesame Street.

Port Sherry's Ever After, a fairy tale told in two parts. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Kate Wagner is taking on the project of writing the history of the McMansion year by year. The first installment focuses on 1970, and a "proto-McMansion" built that year. (via Metafilter)

A lesson in physics he won't forget.

A Black Man Had The Cops Called On Him At A Bank While Trying To Deposit A Racial Discrimination Settlement Check. The cycle continues.

Our modern pop culture stories are about good vs. evil in that every character must pick a side, and we are supposed to root for good over evil. It wasn't always that way.

When a Man Took a Joke in a Pepsi Ad Seriously. The company was caught by surprise, because they didn't do the math. (via Digg)

A blast from the past (2012): 7 Extreme Bugs and Creepy-Crawlies.

Horses

(via reddit)

Career Day



Saturday Night Live returns tomorrow night, with host Adam Driver. SNL has been all over YouTube this past week promoting the first show of 2020 as hard as they can. It's an opportunity to rewatch Career Day, a skit from 2018 in which Driver is the only one who can keep a straight face. This was gloriously funny the first time around, but the clip has only grown in popularity since then, and is now considered a classic. 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Imagine That

Unique Thunderstruck Cover



What we have here is a bluegrass version of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." It is performed by the Finnish band Steve'n'Seagulls, which explains why that weasel on the one guy's hat is white. The top comment at YouTube: "I dont know if I should bang my head or my cousin."

Misfortune Cookie

(via reddit)

Frisbee on a Frozen Lake



For maximum benefit, play this with the closed captions on. Trust me. (via Metafilter)

Thirsty



Click to the right to advance the comic. The moral of the story is... don't be distracted by others' stupid arguments. This comic is from Pet Foolery.

Cocarettes

How do you make nicotine less harmful? Combine it with cocaine! This product was sold in the 1880s, back when both nicotine and coca were considered medicinal. (Thanks, WTM!)

Who Really Invented Valentines Day?



Valentines Day came about like other holidays: an ancient pagan festival was rebranded by the Catholic Church in honor of a saint, after which it turned into a celebration that had nothing to do with that saint. Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out explains the many details around that bare bones outline.  

Miss Cellania's Links

These guys have refined the term "dumb crooks."

In 1851, a Maryland Farmer Tried to Kidnap Free Blacks in Pennsylvania. He Wasn’t Expecting the Neighborhood to Fight Back.

Nathan Yau made an interactive tool that will guess your name. This thing guessed both my first and middle name (which begin with the same letter) on the first try. (via Digg)

The Nihilism of Mitch McConnell. "And if you don’t know anything else about McConnell, know this: He’s arguably the most ruthless political operator in American politics and has almost single-handedly broken the Senate."

5 Temper Tantrums That Spiraled Out of Control.

This album is an attempt to demonstrate that classical music can indeed be performed by a computer. But the amount of work that goes into programming the computer will never be less than the work that a traditional performer would put into studying the same piece of music. (via Metafilter)

I taught at a 'for-profit' college. They're predatory disasters. (via TYWKIWDBI)

Mourning a Dead Houseplant. While it's not as devastating as losing a pet or a family member, the death of a plant can produce a sense of loss that may be confusing.

The Kiev Conspiracy: "How High Does This Go?" The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.

A blast from the past (2007): Ugly Jugs.

Of all the places he could have picked to sit.


(via reddit)

Krazy Kat Bugologist



Notice how Krazy Cat and Ignatz Mouse's mouths move, and then quite belatedly, the words appear in balloons afterward. This can be distracting for modern audiences, but it was 1916. Remember how long the intertitles in silent films are, to allow for people who don't read well, which was most people at the time. This is not the first Krazy Kat cartoon, but 1916 was the first year they were produced. This cartoon is in the Library of Congress.

Tweet of the Day


(via Everlasting Blort)

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Burglar Alarm

Mountain Dew Cheesecake



Mountain Dew cheesecake might seem like an abomination if you don't drink Mountain Dew, but to those who consider it the nectar of the gods, it could be your new favorite dessert. James Lamprey shows us how to make No-Bake Mountain Dew Cheesecake. The recipe is close to mine, although I use lemon juice and berries instead of the soda pop syrup. Also eggs, because I bake mine. A baked cheesecake tastes a little more traditional, doesn't need to set for several hours, and most importantly, doesn't require a springform pan. Laughing Squid has a second video showing a different way to make Mountain Dew Cheesecake, using cheesecake and Mountain Dew Jell-O in a separate layer. While I am not inclined to put either Mountain Dew nor Jell-O in a cheesecake, I am intrigued by the swirling colors. That I might try!


What Would Boba Fett Drive?

(via reddit)