Man in Cave



My father was a geologist in Kentucky, so I grew up familiar with the story of Floyd Collins, but I was an adult before I read the book and realized how very horrifying it was. Internet Historian tells the story with cheap animation, but gripping narration, in this hour-long video. (via Digg)

Lego Pancake Factory


 

Watch this incredibly complicated factory break eggs and mix flour, milk, and the other ingredients, mix it together, ready the frying pan, pour batter, turn the pancake (yes, it's one at a time), and transfer it to a plate. This has to be the most complicated method ever devised to make breakfast, but it's fascinating to watch. If I had been the one to build these machines, I would open a diner to make the time and effort pay off. But LEGO bricks are toys, so the point of this whole project is to have fun doing it. (via Laughing Squid)

Rotisserie Truck Halloween Display



Cleverness is repurposing things you already have for Halloween, and you'll have a unique display that way, too. Wild Bill Knowles did just that for his spectacular 2022 holiday diorama at his home in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. A group of skeletons are roasting a 1999 Chevy S-10 pickup rotisserie-style over a fire! Meet the skeletons: Crankenstein, Frick and Frack, Klinger, Bonita, and Hacked-Up Hank! Don't miss Smilin' Sam in the lawn chair to the right. Is this band of miscreants planning to eat the truck? Does it really matter? The purpose is to make the neighbors smile ...or make them nervous. (Thanks, xoxoBruce!)


Miss Cellania's Links

The 35 Greatest Westerns of All Time. Your opinion may vary.

The Double Life of New York’s Black Oyster King. Thomas Downing served rich white men in his restaurant, but they didn't know about the people he was hiding in the basement.

What’s so scary about a transgender child?

Home For Sale is an Art Funhouse.

An Update on the Next Planet of the Apes Movie. This will be the tenth film in the series.

The CIA declassified these 11 Russian jokes about the Soviet Union. (via Fark, where you'll find more jokes)

Inside the Disneyland of Graveyards. How Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, a star-studded cemetery in Los Angeles, corporatized mourning in America

Taco Bell Is Letting Fans Choose One Of Two Menu Items To Bring Back. Sadly, neither option is the MexiMelt.

They were turned away from urgent care. The reason? Their car insurance.


A Marching Band tribute to The Wizard of Oz



The upside of sitting in the nosebleed section of a football stadium is being able to see the formations of the marching band, especially if it’s the Ohio State University marching band. Saturday, they played the tunes from The Wizard of Oz while forming animated formations of the principle characters. Awesome!

Tweet of the Day

(via Everlasting Blort)

Husky and Wolf



I have known huskies, and they are really big dogs. But they are tiny compared to a wolf. (via reddit)

American Food



It's hard to appreciate "American" food. Some people don't even recognize American food outside of a Thanksgiving feast, because we've always taken cuisine from immigrants and made it our own. But don't knock it until you've tried it. I'd say the same about food from other cultures. You're going to like some of it and hate some of it, but either way there's no reason to put down people who eat it. This comic is from But a Jape. You'll find more commentary at the link. (via reddit)

Lizzo Plays a 200-year-old Presidential Flute



Before pop singer Lizzo played a concert in Washington Tuesday, she was invited to the Library of Congress to check out the world’s largest flute collection. Lizzo, who is a classically trained flautist, was eager to see the collection. And Monday, she got the chance to play them, too!

One of the flutes was made for President James Madison by renowned flute maker Claude Laurent. The leaded crystal flute is one of the few items saved from an 1814 fire at the White House started by the British during the War of 1812. The rare instrument hasn't been played in 200 years. The Library also arranged for Lizzo to play the flute at her concert Tuesday night, but only for a few notes, for security reasons. Read about Lizzo's adventure at the Library of Congress blog. (via Metafilter)

Miss Cellania's Links

Authorities Investigating Gender Reveal Waterfall. It's an environmental crime. (via reddit)

Neptune in its real glory.

Deadpool and Wolverine Together Again.

Which Jack-o-Lantern Doesn't Have a Nose?

Nikola Tesla Made an X-Ray of His Own Foot With a Machine He Designed in 1896. (via Damn Interesting)

A Calvinesque and Hobbesian look at declassifying documents. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.

The Pumpkin Spice Latte Engagement Ring. Nice, if all your clothes are orange. (via Fark)

Five Pseudosciences That Fueled the Nazis.

The 10 Best Horror Comedies of 2022.

Curious Owls



When you set up a camera to capture wildlife, you hope they don’t know they’re being recorded. It turns out that you can’t fool critters all the time. Someone attached a GoPro to a tree just beneath an owl’s nest. The owls, being eagle-eyed, immediately noticed something new in their environment. The camera gets a thorough inspection, which leaves us with the image of an entire family of owls staring directly into our souls.

The owls don’t care, once they’ve determined it’s something they can’t eat and won’t eat them. I got a little nervous when one owl chick hiked his leg, but I guess he was just stretching. Next, someone will give them funny dialogue. (via Everlasting Blort

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Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Jim Before the Drugs



A scene from a very memorable 1982 episode of TAXI. I'll never forget Christopher Lloyd's face at the end. However, I had forgotten that Jim Ignatowski's college roommate was Tom Hanks. If you want to see the whole story, you can in part one and part two

Celebrities



Tom Arnold is photobombing the Star Wars guys at Cincinnati Comic Con. That's the real Tom Arnold, but in front is George Flucas (Allen Stephenson) and Fluke Skywalker. Skywalker posted this and answered questions about how he got into this line of work.

I've been a volunteer for charity most of my life, starting with riding my bike to raise money for the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon. My family and I have been volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati since 2006. They hired a professional chef in 2016 so that opportunity changed. By 2017, I lost 90 lb and started hearing how much I look like Mark Hamill from a lot of different people. I decided I would use the look to continue to help out charities. This coming Christmas will be my fifth year of not only raising money for donations but donating toys to their toy closet every 3 months non-stop since Christmas of 2017. I suck at golf so this is my hobby.


Ninety pounds! I am impressed.

Skeleton Rides Horse for Training



Rebecca got creative in training a horse named Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi is a nine-year-old Morgan mare, and Rebecca is desensitizing her and giving her a feel of what it's like to be controlled by a human rider. But instead of a human, she placed a lightweight plastic skeleton on her back! Rebecca is calling out orders and controlling the skeleton's movements with ropes. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the same thing that could go wrong with an inexperienced rider... the horse proved to be a little more powerful than the skeleton, and yes, there were definitely bones broken. It's a good thing they were the skeleton's bones! (via Laughing Squid)

Underwater Welding is Dangerous



Welding and diving are hard enough alone, but when you put them together, you have an astonishingly hazardous career. I hear it pays very well, yet the contents of this video are more than enough to turn you off the job. In the YouTube comments, quite a few people have known an underwater welder at one time or another in their lives. Some of those welders died on the job, some were permanently injured, and the rest will just try to convince you not to go into such a line of work. Besides what is outlined in the video, they relate tales of being in the dark water and suddenly encountering a massive sea creature who came over to get a look! (via Nag on the Lake)

Celebration



Kool & the Gang, from 1980. Guaranteed to get folks out on the dance floor, throughout the 1980s. And maybe even today, I don’t know.


Tweet of the Day

(via Fark)

Suicide Trombone Deluxe



You've seen the suicide trombone routine. It's kind of scary, but you've never seen it like this! The Liberty High School Trombone Headchoppers of Frisco, Texas, do the regular stuff, but then they get complicated, using irregular cadence, spins, and blindfolds. One misstep could mean stitches. They must have practiced diligently, and suffered for their art along the way.
 

The Making of The Shawshank Redemption



The Shawshank Redemption was a sleeper hit. It didn't make much stir when it was released in theaters in 1994, but on home video and TV, it grew to be a cult classic, and a generation of viewers love it. As such, we didn't have a lot of trivia articles about it on the internet. We now get tidbits of trivia, and a breakdown of the film's special effects. What? You didn't know The Shawshank Redemption, a prison period drama, had special effects? Yes, and before CGI became so ubiquitous they had to get creative for them. See what went into the filming of The Shawshank Redemption, including a small detail that bugged the director for ten years before it was corrected, in this video.

Cat Confused by Escalator



People in Istanbul love cats and go out of their way to help the city's numerous street cats. This cat hasn't learned to distinguished the up escalator from the down escalator, and doesn't understand why he's not making any progress. The lady going up notices him, and then goes back down to help out, but another human is quicker. Notice the little look back, as if the cat is saying "Thanks." Both humans were being way more helpful than whoever shot the video. That said, cats and dogs shouldn't be on escalators at all because of the danger of their paws being pinched at the end.


Treadmill Crane



Imagine the folks who built the Roman Colisuem, and all those beautiful medieval cathedrals. How did they get all that stone way up on the upper floors? For the larger stones, it would have taken a whole team of men to carry each one to those heights. But that wasn't necessary, because they had machines. GuΓ©delon Castle is being built using 13th-century technology to build it. That includes a treadwheel crane, also called a treadmill crane. Using a large wheel with a person walking inside, they transfer the distant walked into lifting power through pulleys. Tom Scott demonstrates the treadmill crane at the GuΓ©delon Castle construction site.  

Miss Cellania's Links

Nuclear Tourism: When atomic tests were a tourist attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s. (via Damn Interesting

Eight Bedroom "Home" Comes with Stained Glass, Steeple, and Organ. It's described as a "church converted to mansion," but if you take a closer look, you'll see that the conversion consists of putting beds in various rooms and adding Jacuzzis to two of the bathrooms. (via Fark)

How One Food Stylist Creates Otherworldly Dishes for Your Favorite Sci-Fi Show. (via Nag on the Lake)

Counterpoised Cranial Support for Eyewear. Why didn't this invention catch on?

Netflix and Chills: New Offerings for Halloween 2022.

Name That Tune with Mandy Patinkin.

The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. If you are out of free articles at Rolling Stone, the titles are listed at Metafilter.

How the 1980s Became the Golden Age of Spoof Movies (And Why It Couldn’t Last). 

Snoop Dogg on Wheel of Fortune.

Birthday Mouse



Today is my birthday. I usually don't mention how old I am, but this year, the Beatles wrote a song about it. (via Fark)

28 Birthday Traditions From Around the World



 John Green celebrated the anniversary of Mental Floss's video series by examining birthday traditions around the world. We make a wish and blow out candles on a cake, but while cakes are common, that’s not a universal custom. Some countries have other tasty treats, and a lot of places have customs involving smearing food on the honoree. I saved this video for my birthday! 

Tweet of the Day

(Thanks, WTM!)

Roshklahoma!



Congregation B’nai Israel's High Holy Day Choir in Sacramento wishes you a happy Rosh Hashanah by repurposing the anthem from the Western musical Oklahoma! The soloist is Robert Vann. (Thanks, Marco McClean!)   


Orphaned Mountain Lion Find a Home



Remember the orphaned and starving mountain lion found back in April? The Oakland Zoo nursed Rose back to life, but had no room for more mountain lions. Rose was later joined by a rescued male mountain lion they named Sage. They both have been taken to their new permanent home at The Living Desert, a wildlife park in Palm Desert, California. (via Zooborns)

Tweet of the Day

Yes, we are proud of you. This takes real bravery, because they are risking their lives for dignity and freedom. (via Everlasting Blort)

How Movies Wreck Cars


 

Okay, here we will see a bunck of cars banged up real good without anyone being hurt. Modern cars are more crumple-resistant than ever, and even when they are damaged, it's not always as dramatic as a movie requires. So film crews have to rig everything ahead of time to get the visuals they want. The company JEM FX specializes in making vehicle destruction look exciting in movies. They've got all kinds of tricks ready so a chase scene or car stunt gets the desired results. (via Digg)

Miss Cellania's Links

This Horse Cake is Fancy, But Funny-Looking. 

Giant Pumpkin Breaks Pennsylvania Record. by 46 pounds. How they managed to get a 2405-pound pumpkin to Ohio without breaking it is a miracle. (via Fark)

Sniffing Out the Science of Smelling.

Restoring painted furniture to its original glory. See 50 very satisfying projects.

A Time-Travel Engineering Pyramid Scheme.

20 Best Picture contenders for the 2023 Oscars.

Cattera, the Heavy Metal Band with a Feline Singer. (via Fark)

A Tale of Two Times: Edo Japan Encounters the European Clock. (via Strange Company

Meet the Santa Clara Cross Country Team.

Dip Your Apple



The Ein Prat Fountainheads welcome the High Holidays with a parody of Shakira’s World Cup song "Waka Waka." Happy Rosh Hashanah!

An Elephant Story



Pocha the Asian elephant has lived most of her 55 years in a small concrete enclosure at the Mendoza EcoParque in Argentina. She and her daughter Guillermina finally got to leave the zoo in May of this year and were taken 2,092 miles (3,366 kilometers) to Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, where they can roam through grasslands and the rainforest and meet other elephants. Their joy in their new home is easy to see.
   

The Crispiest Onion Rings



Kent Rollins is a real cowboy. He grew up wrangling cattle in Oklahoma and became a chuck wagon cook. Here, he shares his secret for crispy onion rings. You'll find the printed recipe here. 

You might think that watching someone cook onion rings pales in comparison with eating onion rings, but this video is not only informative, it will inspire you to make some onion rings yourself. There are enough ingredients involved in Rollin's recipe that you have to make a lot of onion rings to justify it. Save some for me! (via Digg)

Rosh Hashanah Rock Anthem




From Aish, we have parody of "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO to welcome in the New Year beginning at sundown. The lyrics are at the YouTube page.

Tweet of the Day

(via Boing Boing)

Bookman vs. Seinfeld



Jerry is confronted by a library detective over a book he didn't return to the library 20 years before. Mr. Bookman is played by Philip Baker Hall. You have to wonder how many times they had to do this skit since you know Jerry kept breaking up. He still can't keep a straight face in this take, but it was probably the best one they could do.

If you are young or from a different culture, this is hilarious because Mr. Bookman is doing a parody of Joe Friday's lectures in the old cop-centric series Dragnet. (via reddit)

Trail Cam of a Playful Kitty cat



A charming trail cam sequence from Colorado shows that mountain lions are not all that different from house cats. Thaddeus Wells built a wooden swing in the forest and set a camera nearby, hoping to catch bear cubs in action. But a young cougar chose that area to sleep in. When she touches the swing, she's startled at its movement. But then that movement becomes intriguing to her, and she bats it back and forth like a cat playing with a piece of string. I wonder if she ever knocks objects off a cliff just for the fun of it. (via reddit)

Walt & Jesse's Magnificent Meth Lab



What if Breaking Bad had been launched by Cartoon Network? JabaToons imagined the content of the AMC show with the animation style of Cartoon Network's glory years. It is not for children, as if that isn't totally obvious. This is just the intro, but people are already asking for full episodes. Yeah, the animation idea has been done before, but not in this particular way. (via Boing Boing)

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Friday, September 23, 2022

Inheritance



This was in 1934. You have to wonder how long the cat lived. "The first thing that cat did with the money was hire a food taster." (via Undine)

Mesothelioma



"Financial compensation" never sounded so good. The latest project from There I Ruined It takes the monologue from that ad we've all seen again and again and sets it to the tune of "Galop Infernal" by Jacques Offenbach. We know it as the Can-Can song. (via reddit)


It's Fall!


 

I can SO relate to this! Yesterday was the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the transition from summer to fall. From this point on, the nights will be longer than the days until next spring. But autumn is often just a state of mind, especially in the torrid American South. Having been through a few equinoxes in the South, I knew that yesterday would be just another day as far as the weather goes, but I was surprised this year. On Wednesday, the high temperature was 90°F (32°C). But where I am, the high temp Thursday was 75°F (24°C) and I needed to bring in the porch plants in last night. The weather is always surprising; this year I am surprised it followed the calendar. (via Digg)

Miss Cellania's Links

The ‘Cost’ of Voting in America: A Look at Where It’s Easiest and Hardest. (via Digg)

The 1904 Olympic Marathon Was The Worst Race Ever. It involved cheating, illness, theft, injury, performance-enhancing drugs, hallucinations, and one runner being chased off course by dogs.

Chagrin Falls: First they came for Trump, and I said nothing… The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.

This lady needs to try the taste test again.

We Are a Picturesque Small Town and We Refuse to Be the Setting for Your Romantic Comedy. (via Metafilter)

Rogue One: 15 Stories About The Making Of The Underrated Star Wars Movie.

A new study asks: Are we harming blood donors by taking blood from them? (via Damn Interesting)

Woman With Severe Chronic Pain Was Denied Medication for Being ‘Childbearing Age.’

San Francisco’s Famous Sourdough Was Once Really Gross.

How a Lumberjack Cake is Made



Professional cake artist Liz Marek of Sugar Geek Show shows us how she makes a lumberjack cake. In the first two and half minutes, you'll know how the red flannel is done. She uses two layers of chocolate cake, two layers of red velvet cake, and two layers of yellow cake with some red dye to make the four layers of flannel shirt. Then she models a mostly-edible chocolate axe to go with it, then frosts the outside of the cake to look like a crosscut tree stump! I wouldn't go to this much trouble to make my own wedding cake. If you want to try this one yourself, there's a tutorial with words and stuff that explains all the steps at Sugar Geek Show. (via Nag on the Lake)

Olive is a Clever Rat



Rats in the wild are scary because they are so invasive and can spread disease, but they honestly make pretty good pets. With a good home and regular meals, they can be affectionate and entertaining. And one of the reasons they survive in almost all conditions is that they are so intelligent. Esther Minic-Rosenthal has several rats, but she's never had one as willing and able to learn as Olive. While Minic-Rosenthal tells us Olive's story, watch to see all the neat things she can do. At about 1:40, you'll see she can recognize her own name in print! I am quite impressed. See more of Olive's tricks in several videos at Laughing Squid

LEGO Machine Demonstrates Mechnisms



Brick Experiment Channel shows us a LEGO machine that combines 20 different mechanical principles. If that were all this video had, it would be simply fascinating. You have to have a little awe at the engineers who came up with all these ways of controlling movement. But these mechanism are all eventually combined into one LEGO device powered by one motor. See them all work at once is glorious! They labeled the video as a "useless machine," but it is anything but useless as it demonstrates how all these moving parts work, and brings us joy to see the finished product. And besides, it rotates a Viking. (via Boing Boing

How to Win a Preschool Argument



Okay, is it sprinkling outside, or is it raining? A little boy tries to argue about the weather with a little girl. She’s got a sister for backup, and although the sister makes an attempt to moderate the disagreement, you know the poor little boy feels totally outnumbered. And she poked his heart! There will be a lot more of that in this young man’s life to come. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

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Just when you thought air travel couldn't get any worse. (via Fark)

The Puppy Raised in a Bubble



A tiny dachshund puppy named Sally had pneumonia so bad that she needed an oxygen tent. It's possible that she aspired milk while nursing, which led to lung damage. The Bottle Brigade, a group of vet techs who care for fragile or special needs puppies and other animals, took her in. Sally was confined to an oxygen chamber they called the bubble. Kathryn and her comrades didn't know how long it would take for Sally's lungs to heal, and the puppy did a lot of growing up in the bubble. Watch and see how her story turns out. (via Fark)

Simba's Education



You know what happens to little cubs who ask too many questions! Mufasa, being an apex predator instead of a wise king, chooses the easy way. It sure would have made The Lion King a shorter film. This tale is from Deliberately Buried Comics. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Honest Trailer: Elvis



When Screen Junkies gives us an Honest Trailer, the expectation is that they'll tear a movie apart and tell us everything that went wrong. However, when critiquing Baz Luhrmann's movie Elvis, they have little to criticize the film for. They poke fun at Baz Luhrmann (for his other films), the casting of Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker (but not his acting), and the story the movie told, because it was beyond bonkers (but it was a true story). They couldn't say one bad thing about Austin Butler's portrayal of Elvis, except that the camera lingered on his pelvis. Elvis was quite a hit over the summer. That doesn't mean this Honest Trailer isn't worth a watch, because it is. The movie was bonkers, but that's what was called for when you do a biopic of Elvis.  


Miss Cellania's Links

An Important Update to the Multiocular O. A letter you should know, I guess.

His Little Fish (Grab a Hankie). (via Geeks Are Sexy)

The racist backlash to The Little Mermaid and The Rings of Power is exhausting and extremely predictable. (via Fark)

How to gird your loins. (via Everlasting Blort)

"Semper Supra," the official US Space Force song, was unveiled Tuesday. What do you think of it?

The Best Gothic Horror Movies.

Old Oil Paintings of Cats Stealing Food.

The Symbolism of Food in Movies.

How Many Ants Are There? An awful lot! (via Damn Interesting)


September



Do you remember the 21st of September? Earth, Wind, and Fire debuted this song in 1978. It takes me back to college. NPR has an entire article about why this song is so popular after all these years.

Burning Man Drone Light Show



Watching this light show on video might not quite as awesome as seeing it live, but you didn't have to spend several days at Burning Man to see it. (via Digg)


Fish Brought Back from the Brink of Death



Emma The Cabbage is studying to be a vet tech, and she's studied fish for years. Emma spotted a fish in distress at a pet shop, pale, floating, and not moving except to breathe. The store didn't even charge her for it. Emma brought the fish home for some TLC. After a few weeks of intense care, the little fish changed from a sick nondescript minnow to a beautiful rainbow betta! It's amazing what a little knowledge and the willingness to care for a pet will do. This fish won the lottery in that aspect. He even looks like he's smiling!

The League of Pigs



One guy in the UK has a group of adorable young pigs on his farm, and he's set them up to compete in footraces. These pigs are serious about getting to the food trough first!  In this video, you'll get to know and love the competitors: Ginger Hamilton, Bear Trotsky, Piggy Smalls, Pepper Sanchez, and Hoshi Oinku. Besides that, the production values are excellent, and the narrator is not only professional, but quite funny. This is the first race video; if you want to see more, there are other races. (via reddit)

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Monday, September 19, 2022