Monday, April 12, 2021
Bug School
Miss Cellania's Links
How Do You Give Medicine to Zoo Animals?
10 Juicy Facts About Mary Astor’s Purple Diary, Old Hollywood's Most Infamous Sex Scandal. (via Strange Company)
The Quest for a Floating Utopia. Proponents of the seasteading movement want to get away from laws, taxes, and mortgages. (via Damn Interesting)
Americans Being Unbelievably Clueless.
LeVar Burton steps up his Jeopardy! campaign: "It just makes sense.”
A New Natural Blue for Food Coloring. Believe it or not, it comes from red cabbage! (via Real Clear Science)
Illuminate: Honoring Victims of the Holocaust. Light a candle and find out who it’s for. (via Kottke)
People Who Weren't Fans Of The Way They Were Portrayed In Movies And On TV Shows.
How Do You Acquire an "Acquired Taste"?
A blast from the past (2015): The Art of Schrodinger’s Cat.
Horse and Garbage Can
At first I thought, "Oh no! That poor horse got a garbage can struck on its head!" Then I realized he did that on purpose. What fun! But think, pal, you can't see where you're going! You know, this answers the age-old question -how do you dispose of a garbage can? Next time one wears out, I'll just put it out in the pasture for the horse to play with. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tweet of the Day
🕷 #StarWars pic.twitter.com/LfiHUc1UpB
— Star Wars Culture (@StarWarzCulture) April 8, 2021
Sunday, April 11, 2021
From the Inside Out
This claymation animation by Trent Shy builds a man from the bones up. It’s short, and still has a surprise ending. (via Nag on the Lake)
This Is How A Court Reporter Typewriter Works
If you've ever wondered how a courtroom stenographer keeps up with everything that is said in a trial, Isabelle Lumsden https://www.instagram.com/isabellelumsden/ is happy to explain. It takes special equipment that require a particular technique. After watching the video, I am impressed, but I still don't know how she does it. (via Digg)
Canary
Just keep singing! That’s the orders to a canary in a coal mine. This comic is from Kevin at Birds, with Pants. (via reddit)
Star Trek Spinoff
Society as we know it has no place in the Star Trek universe. It’s supposed to be a vision of a better time. The only proper place for this skit is on Saturday Night Live, where it aired last night.
Her First Duet
Jesse Teeters and his two-year-old daughter unveil their first duet for the public. He calls it "The culmination of 2.5 years of parenting." Adorable! (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
every single night. i try to convince the human. they forgot to give me my dinner. and sometimes. they get so confused. they start to believe me
— Thoughts of Dog® (@dog_feelings) April 7, 2021
Saturday, April 10, 2021
How the CIA Lost a Nuclear Spying Device in the Himalayas
During Operation HAT in 1964, the CIA attempted to put a spring device on top of Nanda Devi, the second highest mountain in India. It did not go as planned. (via reddit)
Observation
We watch the cat cleaning itself, so turnabout is fair play. However, the cat is most likely astonished at our strange way of doing it, and maybe a bit concerned. This comic is from Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet. Click to the right of the image for more comics and other nonsense.
How an Amateur Built the World's Biggest Dome
Filippo Brunelleschi wasn't an architect when he built the dome for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, Italy. As such, he brought a fresh eye to the many problem of the project. (via Nag on the Lake)
Tweet of the Day
(via Nag on the Lake)Ultra badass Tekymeka is Japan’s oldest fitness trainer at age 90 (!) and she started her journey to fitness at age 65 so I guess there’s still time for meeee pic.twitter.com/6pIYdTfcVS
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) April 5, 2021
Friday, April 09, 2021
Brain Implants Enable Monkey to Play Pong
Neuralink, a tech startup owned by Elon Musk, is working on a wireless brain-machine interface to give paralyzed people some control over their environment. They've reached an important milestone in the quest.
Today we are pleased to reveal the Link’s capability to enable a macaque monkey, named Pager, to move a cursor on a computer screen with neural activity using a 1,024 electrode fully-implanted neural recording and data transmission device, termed the N1 Link. We have implanted the Link in the hand and arm areas of the motor cortex, a part of the brain that is involved in planning and executing movements. We placed Links bilaterally: one in the left motor cortex (which controls movements of the right side of the body) and another in the right motor cortex (which controls the left side of the body).Pager was already pretty good at Pong, but now he can play without a joystick! Read more about the research at the company's website. (via Geekologie)
Strong Boi!
Guldies made a cute claymation video of a doughboy-type character lifting weights. It doesn't go as planned. The sequence is only 11 seconds long, but then we get a look at how the sound effects for it were created. (via Laughing Squid)
Explaining April 2021 to January 2020
Julie Nolke has done a series of videos explaining the present to her past self without really telling her what's going to happen. It gets awkward. In this one, she has a whole year and change to prepare her younger self for. (via Laughing Squid)
Miss Cellania's Links
As expensive as daycare is, the people who do it are either starving or looking for another job. It doesn't have to be this way. (via Metafilter)
What Famous Brands’ Slogans Should Be If They Were Honest.
Stop Shaming Vaccinated People for Socializing.
Torture Devices For Your Frat House And Lodge, from the DeMoulin Brothers & Co. catalog of 1908. (Thanks, WTM!)
The Answers That Contestants Gave To This Jeopardy! Question Reveal A Lot About The Dark Side Of American History.
Some of Europe’s Oldest-Known Modern Humans Are Distantly Related to Native Americans.
Disneyland in California will open the new Avengers Campus on June 4. (via Mashable)
How India’s ‘Mango Man’ Grew a Tree With 300 Flavors.
A blast from the past (2009): 7 Animals That Appear to Fly (Besides Birds, Bats, and Insects).
Snow Leopard Cub and Mother
A half-grown snow leopard cub attacks his very tolerant mother, in a video by Ben Eisenkop, also known as redditor Unidan. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Thursday, April 08, 2021
Collaborative Disruption
Every tech company wants to be like Google. According to the discussion at reddit, the open office concept is so that the boss can keep an eye on how much you work, you can't drink the beer until after work, and playing ping pong gets you written up for not working enough. The snacks are so you can work longer hours. None of this really makes a job better. But why are they all in Austin?
A Discovery on Mars
Click to the right to advance the comic. And be ready to groan. This comic is from Marc at mfwdewolf. (via reddit)
100 Car Demolition Derby on a Treadmill
When you have kids and can't go places, you need to get creative about having fun at home. Steve Wilkins and his sons Tyler and Dylan harnessed the family treadmill for some auto racing. They tilted the back end of the treadmill and loaded it up with 100 Hot Wheels cars! Switch on the treadmill, and watch what happens. Wilkins provides the exciting play-by-play narration as we find out which car will survive the race. They've recorded a whole series of these races. (via Laughing Squid)
Zip's Comeback
Zip the border collie had five canine agility championship titles before a hit and run driver left her paraplegic. She spent two week in ICU and several months in therapy, and was fitted with all-terrain wheels to get around. From iReport:
After being away from agility for 7 months, we went to a trial far from home to see how Zip would react to being at a trial but not entered. She played tug ringside and barked at her brother when he ran. That part hadn’t changed. Then one day I brought her to agility practice. It was too hot to leave her in the car so my husband put her on a mat near the field. Suddenly Zip appeared at the base of the AF. She’d crawled 60 feet from her mat; she wanted to play agility. A friend and my husband decided to put the bars down on the course and I was handed a leash attached to Zip’s wheelchair. They said, “Run her.” I had reservations but Zip was gleefully barking by this time. We ran and she did great. She now practices all the time. The Five Flags Dog Training Club in Pensacola held a Glory Run for Retired Agility Dogs on December 3, 2011. The small entry fee was donated to the “Chase Away Canine Cancer” organization.
Even though the bars are removed from the jumps, notice how Zip "jumps" with her front legs anyway. That's a good dog! (via Buzzfeed)
Tweet of the Day
He bends his eyebrows as masterfully as he bends the strings. (via Everlasting Blort)Matt 'Guitar' Murphy at The American Folk Blues Festival tour in Europe (1962-1966) #blues #bluesmusic
— bluesharp (@bluezharp) March 30, 2021
Willie Dixon, bass
Memphis Slim, piano
Billy Stepney, drums https://t.co/P3N53UjYbe
🎶'Murphy’s Boogie' [#live 1963] (Colourised) pic.twitter.com/pKT7j2xPIO
Wednesday, April 07, 2021
World Record Musical Train
Miniatur Wunderland is the magical place in Hamburg, Germany, that has the world's largest model railway. In March, they set up a train to cruise through 2,840 water glasses, playing classical tunes as it passes by. The trip lasted six minutes, and set a world record! The rest of the video is a look at how they did it. (via Digg)
Mario Kart for the Cats
Introducing cats to an augmented reality game is super fun! Well, to the cats, this is just plain reality, but since they are well-behaved pampered cats, it's a treat. For the rest of us, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is rendered in augmented reality. That's an added layer of fun for us, but the cats are truly the stars in this video. (via Neatorama)
Armoire
In my family, it's called a chifforobe; an armoire is a gun cabinet. But explaining the concept of guilt to a cat is a losing proposition. This comic is from Jimmy Craig at They Can Talk.
The 2021 Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team
Even in a pandemic year, the high school hockey players of Minnesota grow their hair in an attempt to make the Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team. This is the 12th annual team. YouTuber Game On! Minnesota goes with the flow and gives us the rundown of the hair situation this season. Hair that was cut, or rather, styled at home ruled this year. Facial hair was rarely seen due to masks. As always, the hair competition supports the Hendrickson Foundation, which runs Special, Sled, Blind, and Military hockey programs. (via Metafilter)
Miss Cellania's Links
Who Was the Most Evil Scientist in History? Your first guess is probably right.
'The Public Universal Friend,' Or The 1776 US History Story You Never Learned In School.
Won’t Someone Please Think of Brazil’s Least-Adorable Marmoset? The buffy-tufted-ear marmoset deserves protection, too.
18 Stories From Americans Who Were Charged Outrageous Amounts For Healthcare.
On Monday evening Fox News aired the first episode of their late-night comedy show. Fark enumerates what went wrong.
I can't stop watching this. Contains NSFW lyrics. (via Everlasting Blort)
The Haunted Tunnel. Building the Hoosac Tunnel costs 192 men their lives, and some believe they still inhabit it.
The Forgotten History of the Western Klan. Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, California vigilantes targeted Chinese immigrants. (via Damn Interesting)
A blast from the past (2015): 9 Flowcharts for Maximum Non-Productivity.
Running Lines
Mixing business with your private life is never a good idea. Especially if your girlfriend is an actress. And a good one. (via Daily of the Day)
Tweet of the Day
(via Laughing Squid)“Lose Control” This video so much energy I was hyping them up through my phone😂🤣 but they SNAPPED Hard!🔥 I Love seeing so many of yall dance to my songs! I loved me some yall🤗💜 pic.twitter.com/RxDBf1OAmC
— Missy Elliott (@MissyElliott) April 4, 2021
Tuesday, April 06, 2021
The Soviet Fellowship of the Rings
In the final days of the Soviet Union, a full-length version of The Fellowship of the Ring was aired on Soviet TV. It was thought lost forever, but now it's available at YouTube. The Guardian tells us more:
The 1991 made-for-TV film, Khraniteli, based on Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, is the only adaptation of his Lord of the Rings trilogy believed to have been made in the Soviet Union.Here's part two.
Aired 10 years before the release of the first instalment of Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, the low-budget film appears ripped from another age: the costumes and sets are rudimentary, the special effects are ludicrous, and many of the scenes look more like a theatre production than a feature-length film.
There are no subtitles, but you can auto-generate English subtitles which are incomplete and may or may not be anywhere near accurate. There are too many ads, but most are skippable. (via Metafilter)
An Honest Trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong
Godzilla vs. Kong has been available in theaters and on HBO Max for about a week, and we've already got an Honest Trailer. It certainly has spoilers, but that that really matter? Will knowing how little sense the plot makes cause you to change your mind about watching the film? Will knowing who wins the battle change your mind? Honestly, the surprises revealed in this Honest Trailer will only reinforce your previous decision to watch Godzilla vs. Kong or not.
Godzilla vs. Kong
Click to the right to advance the comic. We all have our own unique talents. This one is from Trying Times Comics. (via Bored Panda)
It Is Time
It's finally the day that our friends from Tiny Toons made it to Happy World Land, according to this cartoon from 1992. Too bad that when they arrive, they will find it closed due to the pandemic. (via reddit)
Fletcher's First Snow
Fletcher had never seen snow before. He is surprised and puzzled, but immediately takes full advantage of the fun things you can do with snow. Taste it! Dig it! Throw it! Run in it! Jump in it! (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
(via Fark)Politicians told us repeatedly that lockdowns were causing increased numbers of deaths by suicide. We kept asking to see the data. Now, we have it, and apparently, this was not true. In 2020, deaths by suicide were lower than in the previous three years. https://t.co/YbLCmd0c3o pic.twitter.com/PNEshYyQfV
— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD 🏴☠️ (@TheAngryEpi) April 4, 2021
Monday, April 05, 2021
Ted and Lindsey
Randy rainbow is back, with a parody song set to the tune of "Kansas Ciry" from the musical Oklahoma! It's about Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, the Trumpiest Trumpets in the Senate.
It's Like a Spaceship for Sharks
Tom Scott took a trip to The Deep, an aquarium in Hull, UK, to see what goes on behind the scenes. He found out that taking care of sharks in captivity is a lot more complicated than setting up a big saltwater tank. It requires a sophisticated life support system. You might think, "Wouldn't it be better to leave sharks in the sea?" And I would say "Yeah." But what they do is pretty interesting.
Passing it Along
It's not so much the joke, but the way you tell it. This comic is from James P. Sandoval at But a Jape. He also explained that purple was just looking for a henway conversion. (via reddit)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Life and Times of “The Most Intelligent Bird in the World.” See Tina in action at YouTube. (via Metafilter)
Women Are Calling Out The Things Society Deems "Normal" For Them But Are Actually Very Messed Up.
The Cocaine-infused Wine Endorsed by the Pope. (via Strange Company)
The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest. (via Damn Interesting)
Casa Susanna was a secret resort for gender non-conformists in the 1960s.
Servers Are Sharing The Worst Dates They've Ever Seen.
My dog, the paradox. The Oatmeal’s tribute to Rambo. (via Nag on the Lake)
10 years of Nyan Cat: The famed GIF’s creator on hitting the meme jackpot.
The Power of Pink -or not.
A blast from the past (2007): 7 Reasons Frogs are Funny.
Woody Woodpecker's Movie Cameos
The clip is from 1960 film The Time Machine, produced and directed by George Pal, based on the H.G. Wells novel. Yes, you've seen this movie probably more than a few times. But did you ever see Woody Woodpecker in it? He's there, for an interesting reason.
When director George Pal first came to the United States from Hungary, animator Walter Lantz helped him obtain U.S. citizenship. As a tribute to their friendship, Pal inserted Woody Woodpecker into most of his filmsSee a list of these films at Futility Closet, with hints to help you find him. (via Nag on the Lake)
Tweet of the Day
(via Everlasting Blort)😂 Everybody chose violence today and I’m over here like: pic.twitter.com/vLwdGKAV7K
— ♈️: THE DUKE OF HENNY🥃 (@cleverbynature_) March 22, 2021
Sunday, April 04, 2021
Why I got Fired
This is a wholesome and encouraging story that's worth passing on. Dylan Lemay is doing okay for himself. He got a million views for this video in just one day, but his bigger audience is on TikTok. At this point, he just scoops ice cream for fun. (via reddit)
The New Video Game
He's Alive

He's Alive
The gates and doors were barred
And all the windows fastened down
I spent the night in sleeplessness
And rose at every sound
Half in hope of sorrow

And half in fear the day
Would find the soldiers breakin' through
To drag us all away
And just before the sunrise
I heard something at the wall
The gate began to rattle
And a voice began to call
I hurried to the window
Looked down into the street
Expecting swords and torches
And the sound of soldiers' feet
But there was no one there but Mary
So I went down to let her in
John stood there beside me
As she told me where she'd been
She said they've moved Him in the night
And none of us know where
The stone's been rolled away
And now His body isn't there

Then John ran on ahead
We found the stone and empty tomb
Just the way that Mary said
But the winding sheet they wrapped Him in
Was just an empty shell
And how or where they'd taken Him
Was more than I could tell
Oh something strange had happened there
Just what I did not know
John believed a miracle
But I just turned to go
Circumstance and speculation
Couldn't lift me very high
'Cause I'd seen them crucify Him
Then I saw Him die

Back inside the house again
The guilt and anguish came
Everything I'd promised Him
Just added to my shame
When at last it came to choices
I denied I knew His name
And even if He was alive
It wouldn't be the same
But suddenly the air was filled
With a strange and sweet perfume
Light that came from everywhere
Drove shadows from the room
And Jesus stood before me
With His arms held open wide
And I fell down on my knees
And I just clung to Him and cried
Then He raised me to my feet
And as I looked into His eyes
The love was shining out from Him
Like sunlight from the skies
Guilt in my confusion
Disappeared in sweet release
And every fear I ever had
Just melted into peace

Yes He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive yes He's alive
Oh He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive He's alive
Hallelujah He's alive
He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive He's alive He's alive
I believe it He's alive
Sweet Jesus
This video is Dolly's live performance from the 1991 CMA Awards.
Thought for today: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead... 1 Peter 1:3(NIV)
Saturday, April 03, 2021
Examination
Well, at least he's got confidence. But nothing else. Good luck with that. This comic is from Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet.
Predicting the Future
Oh, I loved watching Northern Exposure. In this episode from 1993, Chris has the year 2020 pegged: "No more schools, no more bodegas, no more tabernacles, no more cineplexes.” While it's good that we had the option to work around all those things to deal with a deadly pandemic, I'm looking forward to a time we can get back to annoying each other in person.
A Juggling Otter
Watch the otter on the left put on a show with his personal pebble. Spotted at Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tweet of the Day
(via Bored Panda)10-year-old: Why do people eat salads?
— James Breakwell, Exploding Unicorn (@XplodingUnicorn) March 25, 2021
Me: They want to be healthy. Do you want to try one?
10: No, I want to be happy.