(via Bad Newspaper)
Sunday, July 31, 2022
Hip-Hop Tango
Can you mix modern hip-hop music with ballroom dancing? A video of Sara Grdan and Ivan Terrazas has gone viral because they do just that. Watch them dance a sultry tango to Eminem's song "Lose Yourself." It's more than just finding a beat; they incorporate modern dance elements seamlessly into the choreography. I can imagine trying this and getting my feet hopelessly tangled, while they make those intricate moves look simple yet beautiful. (via Digg)
Everybody Loves Freya
If you hang around the ports of Oslo, Norway, this summer, you might encounter a large, destructive walrus lounging on a boat as she would an ice floe. This is Freya, and she's become a star in Norway. Everyone loves Freya, except owners of small boats that can't handle her weight, estimated to be up to 1500 pounds. Freya is 1,200 miles south of the nearest walrus herds this time of year, and wildlife officials don't know why she is so far away from her normal hunting grounds. People are coming from all over to see her, but are warned to keep their distance. While Freya may be a gentle soul, she is dangerous to people as well as boats because of her weight. (via Metafilter)
Pass the Wine
We've come to expect the most ridiculous Rube Goldberg contraptions from Joseph Herscher of Joseph's Machines, but this one takes the cake. In many of the stunts, nothing happens that would advance the sequence the first time around, but maybe the second or third time around. In some places, you are sure you knoew what's going to happen, but you are wrong. And then you find yourself becoming more invested in one little piece instead of the overall process, like wondering when that wine glass is going to break, or worrying about the welfare of that mouse. Joseph gets his wine in about four minutes, after wrecking the entire table. The rest is Patreon credits. (via reddit)
Black-Footed Cat Kittens Play with Crickets
Zoos find themselves in the strange position of buying animals for other animals. In this case, the Philadelphia Zoo got a shipment of live crickets for the Black-footed Cat kittens to play with. They’ve grown a lot since we last saw them, and now are almost as big as their mother! Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal are three months old now.
It seems weird to call them Black-footed Cat kittens, instead of just Black-footed kittens. But “Black-footed Cat” is the species. It’s like saying “Sand Cat cubs” instead of just Sand cubs. But wait- at what point do you classifying wild cats as cubs instead of kittens? Black-footed cats are smaller than domestic cats, but they are still wildcats! And Sand Cats are almost as small. (via Uproxx)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)Meow Ali..🐈🐾🥊🥊😅 pic.twitter.com/1cSDx6knBi
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) July 28, 2022
Saturday, July 30, 2022
If Home Buying Ads Were Honest
The latest installment in Cracked's Honest Ad series is about buying your own home. This video mocks every part of a home buying experience, from real estate agents who don't know what they are doing to the TV shows that make it look easy. But what Roger is really carping about in this video is the system that prevents people from being able to buy homes they can afford.
Whale Shark Approaches Fishermen for Help
We must be careful about assigning human motives to animals, especially fish. However, whale sharks are known to interact with humans occasionally, and this fellow had a good reason to approach a fishing boat. The shark had a rope wrapped around its midsection. The fishermen drew the shark close enough to saw the rope loose, and lovingly told the whale shark to take off. The whale shark even seems to wave to them as it realizes the rope is gone. (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
Living their best lives.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/CFuI7bLMjo
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 28, 2022
Friday, July 29, 2022
Tomato Theft
My daughter had all of her tomatoes stolen last week. We suspect rabbits. Maybe groundhogs. Terrapins are bad for this, but they are easy to catch in the act. (via Bad Newspaper)
Famous Wedding Show
Norwegian dance crew The Quick Style show off their stuff. Not only do they have skillful and varied moves and choreography, they illustrate the joy of movement wonderfully. In other words, this video is fun! (via Metafilter)
Cats Can Sleep Through Almost Anything
While it appears that Oscar is dead to the world, there's a part of his brain that is still working, filtering the sounds around him into important sounds and unimportant sounds. Paul Klusman titled this video Cat Audio Filtration Technology, as you would expect an engineer to do. (via Laughing Squid)
The Uphill Slide
This slide with a ball bearing is an optical illusion, and no, t's not just filmed sideways. Struck Duck, who made this illusion, has an Etsy store https://www.etsy.com/shop/StruckDuck where you can buy this and other illusions. Or if you have a 3D printer, you can buy the STL files and make your own. (via Digg)
Miss Cellania's Links
Yes, There’s A Reason Why You Cry On Your Birthday Every Year. It doesn't have to be this way. (via Digg)
Seeing double: Near-identical films that came out at the same time. (via Metafilter)
A Calvinesque and Hobbesian look at January 6. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Painless Parker, the Showman Dentist.
Turning Dead Spiders into Grabbing Tools.
How Lactose-Tolerance Evolved So Quickly. It's not necessary for human survival, but it happened to Europeans.
Applying Gypsum Wallboard in the 1950s.
Modern Surgery is Nothing Short of a Miracle. A lot of patients died to get us where we are today. (via Damn Interesting)
Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables
While the price of fresh fruits and vegetables goes up, vendors regularly toss out tons of produce because it’s not pretty. Perfectly good food in irregular shapes, sizes, and colors, is too often just wasted. French grocery chain Intermarché began a program of buying those “unacceptable” fruits and vegetables and selling them to the public -for 30% below regular prices! They call these products “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables.” Shoppers get a bargain, and much less of their crops are wasted. I would love to buy ugly but fresh fruit at a 30% discount, instead of the way I do it now: saving 30% because the pretty fruit is overripe and about to rot. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Tweet of the Day
Wait for it.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/EYBC0RwMB3
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 24, 2022
An unexpected but lovely outcome. My mother divided things between my brother and me by one of us cutting it and the other selecting his share. That's supposed to encourage equal division, but I always let my brother do the cutting because he was younger and not that good at equal division. Things change when you have kids.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Gun Regulations Actually Becomes More Lax After Mass Shootings
We think that nothing happens after a mass shooting. New federal gun safety laws are proposed, but don't pass, and then are forgotten until the next time. But when you look at the state level, things are happening, and those thing are sometimes frightening. (via Digg)
A Good Day Through the Eyes of a Cat
A cat with a camera goes about his day wandering the countryside doing important cat things. This one has a lot of friends, as he encounters all kinds of cats along the way. They greet each other, chat a little, and go on their way. Experts tell us that cats don't meow around other cats, only around people, but these cats are quite vocal with each other. Maybe they picked that up from living with people, I don't know. Our POV cat gets excited when seeing a bird, a hole someone else has dug, and places to jump into. All in all, we can assume he had a good day. (via reddit)
This Dollhouse is a "Punk Rock Flophouse"
Haley Herrington of Calgary, Alberta, is a set painter for TV and movie productions. She came across an unopened 1981 dollhouse kit. Instead of recreating the house as it was pictured on the box, Herrington made it into a ...slum of sorts. She calls it a "punk rock flophouse," but a better description would be a drug den. She entered the house into the crafts competition at the Calgary Stampede, where she won two first place ribbons! The judges were impressed with the unique idea, and by the incredible realistic details in the tiny rooms, no matter how disgusting they were. (via Boing Boing)
Cat Uses Water Cooler
This is why we don’t have a bubbler water cooler in our house. The towel on the floor is a clue that these folks have just figured out where all that spillage is coming from. Peaches the cat has figured out how to entertain herself by making her own waterfall! (via Neatorama)
Since I first posted this, we have acquired a cat fountain, though. It's not a mess at all.
Tweet of the Day
(via Nag on the Lake)My energy levels today: https://t.co/00fXdzIzBT
— Peter Anthony (@FrPeterAnthony) July 18, 2022
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
The Giant Festival Dragon
Almost every town has a festival, and its theme is important to drawing tourists. Who wouldn't want to attend a dragon-slaying festival? It happens every August in the town of Furth im Wald, Germany, for more than 400 years now. They re-enact a classical dragon tale, with a huge dragon, once operated by people, then mechanical. Now they have an 11-tonne remote-control robot dragon! The dragon is named Tradinno, and for a while it held the record for the world's largest robot. Tom Scott gets a look at the dragon ahead of the festival.
Guinea Pig Tricks
We are impressed when a dog learns a complicated sequence of tricks for an agility competition or freestyle dancing. But Coco is a guinea pig that will give them a run for the money! The above video shows off many of the tricks Coco has learned to do for his owner, Gwen Ford. And now Coco is a Guinness World Record holder! The Abyssinian guinea pig from North Carolina broke the record for the most tricks performed by a guinea pig in a minute, at 16 tricks. Since Coco knows about 70 tricks, he and Ford worked out a couple of dozen that could be done quickly in sequence for the world record stunt. (via Boing Boing)
The Most Deadly Virus Ever
If you were to guess the deadliest virus on earth, the odds are good that you'd guess rabies. The only reason you wouldn't is because you don't think of rabies as something that would affect you or someone you love. We've done a pretty good job in isolating people from the Rabies lyssa virus, by living in houses, having our animals vaccinated, and using vaccine treatment immediately upon being bitten by an animal. Gothgrrl, who is a veterinary student, has been vaccinated, thank God. But lyssa is still a deadly virus because it works its way around your immune system. If it gets to the brain without treatment, you're a goner. And it's a horrible way to die. Kurzgesagt explains how lyssa works inside one's body, whether that body belongs to a wild animal or a person. This video is only nine minutes long; the rest is an ad.
Miss Cellania's Links
Why We Wouldn't Want to Eat the Lovely Smell of Rain.
Oklahoma Threatens Librarians: ‘Don’t Use the Word Abortion.’ (via Wonkette)
The First Exercise Machines. They were built on solid principles that gyms still use today.
50 pictures that are accidental photographic illusions. Make that 49 accidental illusions and one at the very bottom that is a real deliberate illusion.
Monarch Butterflies are Now on the Endangered List.
Fossil of ‘earliest animal predator’ is named after David Attenborough. (via Damn Interesting)
Los Angeles, Home of the Dingbats.
The Magic of Baking Soda. You can use it in the kitchen for a lot more than baking.
Introduction of the Fallout Shelter Sign
A public service announcement from 1963. You can read the complete history of the fallout shelter sign at Conelrad Adjacent. (via Nag on the Lake)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)The perfect wave.. pic.twitter.com/Vq0GN1PJtG
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 19, 2022
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
The Crime of Being Hot
This reminds me of a billboard in my town that says "Your wife is hot! Get her some air conditioning!" (via Bad Newspaper)
Joni Mitchell at the Newport Folk Festival
Legendary songwriter and performer Joni Mitchell made her first concert appearance in 20 years at the Newport Folk Festival this past weekend. She joined Brandi Carlisle and friends for a full set of songs that you'll find linked at Metafilter.
Social Etiquette: Britain vs. America
In his latest video, Laurence Brown contrasts how Brits and Yanks do social occasions. The subject came up after the viral discovery that families in Sweden don't find it necessary to include guests in their meals. Brown says that varies from home to home in Britain. The joke used to be that if someone offers to serve British food to you, you should run away. But since Brown has moved to the US, the British national cuisine has shifted to takeout curry, so the old jokes about awful English food have faded away. Still, he has a lot of wry observances about how Americans and the British differ in the way we socialize around food and drink.
This Batter
#佐賀 大会 準決勝
— バーチャル高校野球 (@asahi_koshien) July 23, 2022
🆚#東明館 × #有田工
有田工、3回裏 8番・山口洸
1球ごとに右打席と左打席を入れ替えるスイッチヒッター！
執念の出塁！ #バーチャル高校野球 でライブ中継中❗️
📲💻PC・スマホで視聴する▼https://t.co/b6vu58Pk51#高校野球 #地方大会 pic.twitter.com/k7aJR2JCot
Baseball players push the envelope when they can, but that will eventually lead to new rules. Observe Japanese high school batter Ko Yamaguchi playing in their national tournament. He makes no effort to swing, but instead does everything possible to draw a pitching violation. He crouches to shrink the strike zone, he wobbles back and forth, and he changes hands for each pitch. Yamaguchi eventually gets on base by being hit by pitch, which we suspect was his goal all along. Sportswriter Larry Brown dubbed Yamaguchi "the most annoying batter of all time." (via Boing Boing)
Tweet of the Day
He shows us how simple it is, then proceeds to do something incredibly complicated with it. (via Everlasting Blort)Ghanaian musician Moussa Diarra demonstrating how to play the kush-kosh. pic.twitter.com/v4dXqy10Qk
— Dust-to-Digital (@dusttodigital) July 19, 2022
Monday, July 25, 2022
Hospital Cat Greets Patients
Bea was pretty much raised in a veterinary hospital after she was brought in as a stray kitten. She just liked it there so much, they let her stay! Bea and her assistant Peggy now run the place (in their minds) as they greet every new patient. Cats, dogs, pigs, goats, chickens, it doesn't matter, they get the welcome treatment from Bea. (via Fark)
Miss Cellania's Links
Mary Edwards Walker and the Queer Suffragists Who Changed History.
The Video Game Stray is a Hit with Cats! Reports are coming in from all over of cats who follow the stray on the screen, even to the point of imitating its actions.
Veltini: The Velveeta Martini.
The Mystery of Bessie Little's Death. The trial hinged on the question of whether someone could shoot themselves in the head twice. (via Strange Company)
Penguins May Find It Genetically Difficult to Survive Climate Change. (via Damn Interesting)
For The Love Of God, Do Not Make Your Wedding Guests Use Puppets For The Entire Event. We may have reached peak wedding nonsense.
MCU Phase Five Releases Announced. And Phase Six!
These 28 Modern Wash Basins are Works of Art. You have to wonder how hard they are to clean.
Disney Princess War
You have to admit that some Disney Princesses are more badass than others. Which ones are well illustrated in this sequence from Robot Chicken (sure, you could easily guess which princesses would hold a gun backward). Honestly, who in their right mind would think you could possibly put this many young ladies of royalty in one room and not expect it to get extremely catty in no time? It’s a good thing this was written before Frozen, because a war like this would be over in a second if one of the participants actually had superpowers! (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)Kitty party..🐈🐾🎊🎉🎇 pic.twitter.com/vF0K8E6mIA
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) July 22, 2022
Sunday, July 24, 2022
AI Illustrates Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon is a bestselling children's book that is supposed to be soothing for young children, but some parents found it creepy. The book was written in 1947, but somehow I never heard of it until about ten years ago, when my kids were already teenagers. I suppose my parents found it too simplistic. They only bought me books they liked, which meant all of Dr. Seuss.
Joris Bax used the text-to-image artificial intelligence program Midjourney to generate illustrations for the book. The collection was so creepy he had to use a voice changer and a creepy soundtrack behind them. The result is a real nightmare that no child should have to endure. (via reddit)
It's So Hot, the Squirrels are Splooting
"Splooting" is a legitimate term for animal behavior. It means the act of lying belly-down and stretching out the limbs. Dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals sploot for a nice stretch or to cool themselves off against the cooler floor or ground. So many squirrels in Texas have started splooting that people are noticing it. These squirrels aren't necessarily dead, or even near death. It's just a technique for cooling their midsection. In other news, it's hot enough out there for people to be surprised at how animals deal with it. (via Fark)
The "Perfect" License Plate
There's an internet saying that no matter what the subject is, there's an xkcd comic for the occasion. A Virginia license plate was posted at reddit, so this rather old comic was pulled out as a response.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The first teaser trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was revealed at Comic Con yesterday. It is quite epic. Every frame looks like a work of art. Wakanda is beautiful. Everyone is in mourning for T'Challa. Queen Ramonda is stretched to her limit. A baby is born. A war is on. Someone wears the Black Panther suit. Watch it in full screen mode.
Director Ryan Coogler credited the late Chadwick Boseman for the love and effort the cast and crew put into this sequel. “I promise you, I feel his hand on me right now,” he said. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theaters November 11.
Nuclear Blast
A song from the game Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, sung by Craig Stuart Garfinkle. The lyrics are at the YouTube page.
Tweet of the Day
All my cats and dogs over time have loved babies, whether they were human infants, puppies, or kittens. They are not so happy about new adults of any species. (Thanks, WTM!)Kitty loves baby so much..🐈🐾👶😘😍 pic.twitter.com/1Izp97frlr
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) June 6, 2022
Saturday, July 23, 2022
We Will Rock You
This was recorded during a Queen concert in Montreal in 1981. It's not the radio version.
Food Delivery from the Customer's Perspective
Ryan George acts out what it's like getting food delivered through an app like Grubhub, DoorDash, or Uber Eats. He may be exaggerating just a little. Yeah, it's a bit pricey, I've heard. But these services also offer work for delivery people. No vetting, no contract, no training, and local shifts are snapped up immediately (it's gig work, after all), so a friend of mine drove to the next town for a shift just to try it out. Made $3 in pay that night, plus a $5 tip, which barely covered his gas. So where do all those fees go? You guessed it- investors. But only after the startup folks get their salaries. (via Digg)
Tweet of the Day
(via Boing Boing)NEW SONG PARODY pic.twitter.com/zLBwK60AH4
— Roy Zimmerman (@IamRoyZimmerman) July 20, 2022
Friday, July 22, 2022
Blackbird
Enjoy a thoroughly entrancing a cappella version of the Beatles' "Blackbird" sung by the Swedish quintet The Real Group. (via Boing Boing)
Ectoplasm
This comedy collaboration between Droodle and Joel Haver brings up some questions about our modern conception of ghosts. The original idea of ghosts is that of disembodied souls who wander the earth due to unfinished business. As such, they can be pretty scary. But they have no corporeal form. They can't lift a finger to actually do anything to us, so why are we scared of them? Yeah, yeah, I know- a ghost's abilities are defined by the needs of a ghost story's plot. In this video, we have an everyday conversation about the ghost's abilities that seem to be suspiciously convenient as far as cleaning goes. (via Geeks are Sexy)
How to Make Friends
Aww, after all, he's there because he's admitted to himself that he doesn't know how to make friends. At least he's willing to learn. And maybe he will someday. This comic is from dinosandcomics. (via Geeks are Sexy)
Miss Cellania's Links
What’s the Biggest Bird in the World?
Maulings, Scaldings, and Murder in Yellowstone National Park. (Thanks, Anonymnous!)
Some tense moments, and a happy ending.
When Authorities Dunked Outspoken Women in Water.
The Tour de Turtles Marathon. And the juvenile who overcame multiple tumors to compete. (via Fark)
Here’s Why So Many Republicans Just Backed Marriage Equality.
The Extreme Sport of Mensur. Technically, you can't call Mensur a sport, because there's no way to win, even though it is an offshoot of sword fighting or fencing.
A Souvenir of Florida.
Ray Harryhausen Mixed Monsters and Actors the Old Fashioned Way
Ray Harryhausen didn't invent stop-motion animation, but he advanced the technique so much that his name has become forever intertwined with the art of stop-motion. Harryhausen pioneered techniques for mixing stop-motion skeletons, dinosaurs, and monsters with live-action actors. It was not any easy thing to accomplish without computers. Harryhausen had to line up all his shots by hand and time then frame-by-frame to get what he wanted. The finished product was a mind-blowing and surreal experience for the audience. (via Laughing Squid)
80-odd Years of Happy
Residents and staff of the Diana Isaac Retirement Village in Christchurch, New Zealand, dance to Pharrell William’s song “Happy.” This is special. These folks know what happiness is. (via Neatorama)
Tweet of the Day
(via Fark)Treat yourself to three straight minutes of dogs taking baths 🐶 💦 pic.twitter.com/O1b1oUDwDE
— The Dodo (@dodo) July 16, 2022
Thursday, July 21, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
The trailer for the new Dungeons & Dragons movie dropped today at San Diego Comic Con. Yeah, there was a trilogy of D&D movies a few years back, but they were so bad that the third one never made it to theaters. But now a new film is taking on the tabletop role-playing game, serving as a reboot to the franchise. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has a star-studded cast, plus you'll see all kinds of D&D touchstones for those in the know. Reaction among gamers around the internet is cautious, however. It's hard to tell the quality of a story from a two-minute trailer, and they've been burned before. (via Metafilter)
Ex-Employee
Since he's no longer an employee, he should charge a consulting fee. Those are enormous. Kudos for the use of "bless your heart." (via reddit)
Jealous Frog is Green with Envy
Piyo has lots of frogs, but Ruri Green Frog loves Piyo very much, to the point of wanting to eat her up. When Piyo tries to take a video of another frog, Ruri is so jealous that she/he videobombs the project in a most spectacular way. Ruri makes his/her feelings very clear! It's really cute. (via Metafilter)
Miss Cellania's Links
The 50 Greatest Fictional Deaths Ever. (via Fark, where you'll find plenty of other contenders)
The Hotel-Spirit. Bringing back a grand American institution could transform society. (via Digg)
Lucky Ducky solves inflation. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
How Aerosmith and Run DMC's "Walk This Way" Forever Altered the Landscape of American Music.
An Old TV Cabinet Makes a Delightful Cat Bed.
Norway's 2019 Death Diving Championship. Contains NSFW language, diving. (via Digg)
Arizona communities would 'collapse' without cheap prison labor, corrections director says. (via TYWKIWDBI)
Five Scenes We Are Glad Were Cut from Classic Movies.
