(via Bad Newspaper)
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Have Rocket, Will Travel
Have Rocket, Will Travel is a Three Stooges feature from 1959. It was Joe DeRita's first big screen appearance with the Stooges. The plot is pretty simple- Moe, Larry, and Joe are janitors at a space agency who launch themselves on a rocket by accident. They land on Venus and manage to accidentally lure evil robots back to earth with them. The movie was shot in 13 days and made back six times the budget. (Thanks, WTM!)
The Con Man Who Invented Anesthesia
The timeline for the development of surgical anesthesia is filled with steps that make it difficult to pinpoint who invented it. First there was alcohol and opium, which required dangerous amounts to help at all with surgery. Then there was nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, which kept scientists so busy getting high that its use in surgery was delayed considerably.
William Morton turned to ether, which had already been used in medical cases. He wasn't even the first to use it in surgery. See, Morton wasn't a surgeon, but a dentist. But Morton got the credit for ether, because it happened to work when he publicly demonstrated it. And he didn't get what he really wanted out of it, because it wasn't patentable. The real winners were the rest of us, because so many doctors and scientists worked on the problem, today we have a variety of drugs that can dull the pain of surgery. (via Damn Interesting)
An Honest Trailer for Casino Royale
Screen Junkies say they are doing an Honest Trailer for Casino Royale in honor of its 20th anniversary. That can't be right, Casino Royale was in theaters in 1967! But that wasn't even a real James Bond film, despite having the same title as Ian Fleming's first Bond novel in 1953. That film began as a real Bond movie, since the producer had the rights, but couldn't get cooperation from Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, they went with making it a parody. Besides, there had already been a TV version in 1954 that Americanized James Bond.
But then EON Productions decided to make a "real" version of Casino Royale, casting Daniel Craig as a rebooted, less experienced Bond as if it were actually the first movie in the long-running series, although set in a modern day. How does it hold up 20 years later? Screen Junkies shows how Casino Royale fits well in with all the other Bond movies by giving the audience everything they expect, taken up a few notches.
Miss Cellania's Links
Why English Law Hanged Witches and Scottish Law Burned Them.
The Humble History of the Bedpan.
Supreme Court lets Trump resume deporting migrants to countries not their own. (via Fark)
When a big guy with a beard gets his nails painted.
26 Huge Movies and TV Shows That Almost Had The WORST Names. And why they were changed. Usually for the better.
The Mysterious Rzepin Train Disaster. The Soviets never acknowledge it, so the story is still a mystery.
Cats love babies, or at least tolerate them.
A Blast from the Past (2010): Hadacol, the Last of the Medicine Shows.
How a Television Show Gets Made
Got an idea for a TV show? Good luck. That idea is just the beginning of a long and stressful process of getting a show made. It involves lots of money, a bunch of people, changes at every step of the way, and then you have a pilot. That's when it gets really interesting, but no less stressful. Vanity Fair takes us through the process quickly, and you can see how risky it is to work in the industry. But it can also be very rewarding. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Scurryant Invasion
Mother and her little, uh, offspring find their house has been invaded by ants! Mother directs the catastrophe well by encouraging the little monster to observe and figure out what to do instead of freaking out. He does so like a competent five-year-old, but oh, that face and that voice! His vocabulary is a way beyond any child I know, while his understanding is perfectly childlike. He even has a companion plush sheep named Jeremy.
So this is how I found out what Chris Hallbeck, formerly of the webcomic Maximumble, has been doing. He has an entire series of videos featuring the character called Little Monster. In every video he confronts a new mystery about the world, just like all children, and learns to deal with it. This is how you make a hairy monster with one eye and a frightening voice into something just plain adorable. And how you make a cartoon about a child much funnier.
Africa, '50s Style
It's an '80s song set to a '50s beat, and Generation Z doesn't understand at all. But the rest of us can enjoy Postmodern Jukebox with guest musicians Casey Abrams and Snuffy Walden performing Toto's "Africa." (via Laughing Squid)
Days of Yore
@davewhamond.bsky.social
— Xela Hart (@xelahart.bsky.social) September 27, 2026 at 8:59 PM
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Monday, September 28, 2026
Rainy Days And Mondays
"Rainy Days And Mondays" by the Carpenters was released in 1971. It would have gone to #1, except for the juggernaut that was "It's Too Late"/"I Feel the Earth Move" by Carol King. This one's for gwdMaine.
An Army Medic on D-Day
On June 6th, 1944, the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the mass invasion of countries occupied by the German forced in World War II. Hundreds of thousands of troops from the US, the UK, Canada, France, Australia, and other countries made the dangerous landing from the sea and from the air, and there were around 10,000 casualties, dead, captured, missing, or wounded.
The duties of military medics during invasion was to determine who died and who could be saved, starting even before they reached the beach. Those often had multiple injuries. For some of those medics. it was their first day in battle, and while the experience was traumatic, they did their job to the best of their ability. They were young, short on supplies, and unarmed. While others took cover, they ran to help the wounded. Weird History tells us the real stories of some of those medics and what it was like on D-Day.
Mario Kart in the Alps
Mountain biker Sam Pilgrim teamed up with the Swatch Nines alpine sports crew to race down a mountain in Sölden, Austria. Their three-wheeled carts are not motorized, just gravity driven, but they reach ridiculous speeds as they make their way down the hill. They have brakes, but no one is using them. Pilgrim wears the GoPro camera. Some of them are wearing Mario Kart costumes to lend an air of, uh, inauthenticity? Meanwhile, you might notice that the road is ridiculously narrow in places, and there are few guard rails to keep a rider from tumbling down the mountain.
Warning: This video may induce vertigo, but if you're into that sort of thing, you can watch it in full screen mode for maximum effect. (via the Awesomer)
Miss Cellania's Links
Lessons for the 21st century from a 200‑year‑old book by Frankenstein author Mary Shelley.
The Disappearing Priests: Victims or Vindication? They might be related, but probably not. (via Strange Company)
Elon Musk and His DOGE Pals vs. Giant A.I. Robots! The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Cats don't listen to you, but they will learn anything that benefits them.
What Disease Did the Elephant Man Really Have? The Full Story.
Dummy with the Wig On Top. Randy Rainbow's latest song is a parody of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top."
My Two Front Teeth. Reflections on a lifetime of dental drama. (via Metafilter)
Two-Year-Old Bakes a Cake
Two-year-old Roman bakes his first cake. The cake making itself is not so astonishing, since Mommy does the measuring and part of the mixing. However, I was surprised to find that Roman is a boy, since he has an amazing vocabulary for that age. In my experience, girls learn words very early and boys don't talk until you start worrying about them. Then they suddenly speak in complete sentences. Of course, that's generalizing, and I shouldn't assume all kids are the same. Anyway, Roman is adorable as he leads us through the process of baking a delicious cake.
Update: Yeah, I shouldn't have generalized, because the silent thing happened in my family. My grandson is now four, and he hasn't stopped talking (in two languages) since he said his first word years ago.
Sunday, September 27, 2026
The King is an Idiot
I wasn't familiar with it before watching this, but the game is called Royal Match. It's free to play, but they try to sell you stuff in-game, and it's generated some complaints. That's really not the point here. It's the king himself, who manages to get himself into all kinds of trouble without knowing what to do to save himself. The royal advisors must generate the scant brain power it takes to save his neck, but then the king takes the credit.
The story of wise King Solomon has spoiled us. You don't have to be wise, or even clever, to be a king. It's usually a matter of blood line, and having enough people around you who benefit from the royal system to keep your position. And since it's a lifetime thing, you probably never had to confront your own weaknesses. Use your inherited iron fist enough, and people will compliment your new clothes even when you're stark naked. At least that's the way it is in the real world. In fairy tales and video games, the king might just look like an everyday idiot. This video is only 2:20; the rest is promotional.
Cats Have No sense of Personal Space
You know it's true. They want to be around their person, all the time, up close and personal. It's quite sweet. They do not understand "computers" or "working for a living." The one that's complaining about the person in the bath is just trying to save them from drowning. As best he can.
Trump, Mamdani, and El Niño
Season 52 of Saturday Night Live began last night. I don't stay up that late anymore, so I'll be busy watching the YouTube replays of Weekend Update. They have a lot to catch up on. The opening skit once again features James Austin Johnson as Trump, with Ramy Youssef as New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani.
Blue Marble 2
Some years back, Kaplamino gave us a wonderful chain reaction called The Blue Marble. He followed that up with Blue Marble 2, in which physics and timing combine to make this chain reaction act like a pinball machine! What's really neat about this one is that Kaplamino gives us some insight on how the tricks are done. From the YouTube page:
The trick at 0:23 caused the majority of the fails. It had to be exactly in the right position and it was moving because of the vibrations of the trick above.
The air canon with the balloon was a big challenge to make. The rubber band squeezes the balloon around the straw to release the air in a specific direction. Then the hardest part was to find how to stop the air and deliver it when I want. It was too difficult to put something like tape at the end of the straw because it was either too clingy or not enough. The solution was to twist the balloon around the straw and block it in this position with a rope. In this position the air stays in the balloon until it untwists. I explain it because I think what exactly happened it's not easy to get when you see the video.
After this I built a timing catapult trick. I know I'm crazy because timing tricks are so unreliable, it was mostly based on luck but worked 80% of the time. It was so sensitive, just a little more dust or some hair on my table could make it fail so I had to clean it for almost every take.
Yep I used a fidget spinner again, I'm proud of this one, nice and almost never failed.
The big catapult was supposed to be a trick with fire (the plan was to build something with elements: fire, air and water). The marble was supposed to go up because of the explosion of a firecracker :p
But it was too risky, I know it can work (it worked 2 times) but with MASSIVE luck. It's impossible to predict how they'll explode. And it caused lots of others problems. The marble was burned and it wasn't rolling really well after that.
The shockwave can trigger other tricks and finally the debris from the explosions was falling all over the place and could block the marble at a later stage. It also burned the table and hurt my ears. So I gave up, but maybe you'll find this trick in a screenlink later ;)
About the water trick. Release the water was really easy, but it took me weeks to figure out what to do with it. You can't push something with it, not enough force ...Note that we get to see how slanted the table is when the camera pans near the window. There's not much slant at all... just enough. (via Laughing Squid)
So I taped a folded paper and when the water touched it, it got wet and unfold because of the weight :D But the marble also touches the water and gets wet. After that you can see that it moves slowly.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
The Flying Serpent
Despite the title, the 1946 movie The Flying Serpent is about a bird. A mad scientist, in this case an archaeologist, find the legendary Quetzalcoatl and imprisons it. He uses the bird by plucking a feather and planting it on his enemies. Quetzalcoatl must kill whoever holds the feather it to get it back. The movie is noted for the poor special effects puppetry and a plot ripped from an earlier movie. (Thanks, WTM!)
Luke Realizes What Happened
One thing that bothered viewers of the first Star Wars film, once they really thought about it, was how Luke Skywalker saw his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru killed and burned to a crisp, then ran off to find space adventures. No grief outside of a sad glance, no trauma over the death of the people who raised him from infancy. Yet he went crazy over the death of Obi-Wan, who he'd only known for a day or so.
Well, Luke wasn't all that smart or mature when we first met him. His later position as a Jedi hero was due to nepotism more than merit, as we eventually found out. YouTuber Embarrassed & Cold imagines a scenario in which Luke does have an emotional reaction to the loss of his family and home, but it happens in a most inconvenient time and place.
Lives of The Downtrodden in Early America
We learn a lot about the Founding Fathers and the movers and shakers of Colonial America, but what about the regular folk, and especially the poor people who left no records for us? Jon Townsend knows a lot about colonial America. Here he gives us details from the travel journals of Sarah Kemble Knight and surveyor William Bird, who wrote down the things they saw and the people they met. (via Digg)
Friday, September 25, 2026
The Coming El Niño Will Be the Most Powerful Ever
Don't panic just yet, but meteorologists and climate scientists are predicting that the upcoming El Niño weather pattern will be the biggest and most powerful ever recorded. That could mean storms, wildfires, mudslides, heat waves, drought, and the list goes on and on, depending on what part of the world you're focusing on. Such weather disasters used to cause millions of deaths, but we have a couple of things going for us, such as more accurate forecasting, easier travel, and better infrastructure. Still, when something is bigger and more powerful than ever, we can't really know how bad it will be until it happens.
El Niño happens when the ocean surface temperature is at least .5°C higher than normal. That's roughly 1°F. The Pacific already at 3.8°C higher than normal, and El Niño is just getting started. AsapSCIENCE explains what it all means.
Why a Language Map of the World is Impossible
The world has 193 countries, but around 7,000 languages. And these languages are less and less restricted to their region of origin, thanks to war and travel. For example, when my family gathers around the dinner table, the languages they can speak are English, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, Quechua, and Swahili. And those are only among four adults! But they speak English because we all know that one. So how would you assign languages to a place on a map? Going by a nation's "official" language is no help, because that often means nothing. Many nations have several, some nations have none, and some are a compromise. Things get really complicated when speakers of the same language use different dialects and cannot understand each other, and when different languages are so similar that you don't need to learn them. I once knew a Canadian woman who spoke Polish, and was surprised when she went to Ukraine and understood people speaking Russian.
The Map Men, Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, humorously take us on a tour of the world's languages, how they came about, and how they became so mixed up. Their conclusion? You can't put them on a map, for many reasons. There's a skippable ad from 4:18 to 5:52, but at least they make it obvious. (via Damn Interesting)
Miss Cellania's Links
Sordid revelations about the white-nationalist-themed Office of Remigration should galvanize Democrats: If they win power, they must try to shut it down. This is a real thing. See also. (via Fark)
Lamentations of a Dog Owner, Chapter 7: "The Taking of Thine Medicine." (via Everlasting Blort)
Georgia Tann Was Supposed to Help Orphans Find Homes. Instead, She Abducted Children Who Already Had Families and Sold Them for Profit.
Ah, nostalgia time. All these songs take me back to graduating from high school and settling in at college.
Soldiers can refuse to commit war crimes. Can AI? (via Damn Interesting)
The Only Navy Warship Authorized to Fly a Pirate Flag at Sea. (via Bits and Pieces)
Have you ever heard of Tobor the 8 Man? You can see the series at YouTube. (Thanks, Lars!)
This little girl is so good at chess that she has to do other things at the same time to keep the boredom down. Checkmate! (via kottke)
Falling Asleep
Yep, that's how it goes, except for me, there's waking up at least once an hour until the clock says I can get up and turn on the coffee. This graph is from Matt Shirley.
Thursday, September 24, 2026
The US-Canada Border Is 5,500 Miles of Pure Nonsense
The long border between the US and Canada is not as straightforward -or as straight- as you might think. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (via Bits and Pieces)
Numbers
Dr. Dolittle asked me how old I am. I said, "You know how old I am, I'm 40 years older than you."
She said, but how old are you?
I said, "I'll be 68 in a couple of weeks."
Exasperated, she asked how old I am today.
"67."
She started laughing like a jackal. 6-7! 6-7! Her husband and I both looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "You're pushing 30, kid. Stop acting like a middle schooler. If you were a middle schooler, you would have done that a year ago."
(Thanks, Karen!)
Dive Into the Ghent Altarpiece
Hubert and Jan Van Eyck painted the Ghent Altarpiece in the 1430s. Oil paint was new, and the painting marks the transition from medieval to Renaissance art. The details are fascinating, as this video shows us. (via TYWKIWDBI)
Family Coffee
This morning I was perusing my Kroger digital coupon choices, and was struck by the range of coffee on sale. Not only are the prices staggering, but they seem to be catering to different lifestyles. The coffee above would be for Papa Bear. Of course, they also have a brand for Mama Bear. I'm thinking Green Mountain, but Donut Shop will do.
And one for the older daughter.
And another for the rebellious teenage son.
Notice than none of them list the actual price, just how much you can save with a coupon. Yeah, I can almost imagine the cost of separate coffee brands for everyone. I just buy the house brand, stocking up when it's on sale. It's not going to get any cheaper.
2,000 Musical Marbles
Jelle Bakker of Jelle's Marble Runs spent 278 hours building a huge contraption he titled "Cacophony" that is a musical marble run. It uses 2,000 marbles at once! There are two dumpsters, or reservoirs, that hold 1,000 and 200 marbles until they are full and then are dumped into the run. That's a maximum of 1200 marbles waiting, so there are always at least 800 in motion. Once dumped, they are randomly sorted into different courses. Along the way, they hit combinations of 128 bells and chimes, plus drums, xylophones, springs, funnels, and other percussion musical instruments. Still, that music is mostly overshadowed by the clickety-clack of thousands of marbles on the run. Keep your eyes out for the rare blue and green marbles. (via Laughing Squid)
Robot Chicken Star Wars
Adult Swim picked out their favorite Robot Chicken Star Wars skits. They're pretty good. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Thunderstorm
A little too close for comfort, eh? This comic is from Steven Dengler and Ash Vickers of Megacynics.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Tobor the Great
In the 1954 film Tobor the Great, a scientist builds a robot (named Tobor) to replace human space travelers as a safety measure. This seems silly now, since we can make unmanned spacecraft that can be controlled by radio from earth. But foreign spies want to take Tobor for themselves! Anyway, Tobor is the hero here, and becomes friends with an 11-year-old boy, leading some critics to call Tobor the Great a kid's film. This version is colorized, but that doesn't help the acting or production values. (Thanks, WTM!)
A Very Loud Bobcat Rescue
These folks saw a bobcat far from shore near Southside Harbour, Nova Scotia. We're glad they saved the cat, who must have been exhausted. But next time, ladies, remember to use your indoor voices because human screeching only stresses out wildlife. I'm not sure petting the bobcat was a good idea, either. Once they moored, he couldn't wait to get away.
Why Are Villains All Sympathetic Now?
Have you noticed the trend in the last couple of decades of stories that make the villain into a sympathetic character? Yeah, we already had the antihero, which is a hero that goes against type, or has character flaws you wouldn't expect, but this is different. In the TV series Breaking Bad, we watched the main character go from a sympathetic everyman to a full villain, but we rooted for him anyway, because everyone else was even worse. Disney has given us sympathetic backstories that make us feel sorry for Maleficent and Cruella DeVil. Even Godzilla went from stomping on Tokyo to protecting it from other monsters. And then there's Wicked.
Maybe it's because we are so fascinated by the evil character. Arnold Schwarzeneggar played the most captivating role in The Terminator, so they brought him back as a good guy in the sequel. Darth Vader got a redemption arc in the end, and it was repeated with Kylo Ren. But this trend of seeing the story from the villain's point of view is not really new, it just got submerged in the first hundred years of cinema. PBS takes us back to the roots of our sympathy for the devil, literally and literarily. But is the modern version of this trend an attempt to understand bad behavior or to excuse it?
Miss Cellania's Links
I tricked 3 million people into believing in an evil fake polycule. (via Nag on the Lake)
New ICE horrors come to light. (via Fark)
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 – the winning images. (via Everlasting Blort)
Did Thomas Jefferson Father Sally Hemings’ Children? After More Than a Decade of Research, the Answer Is Finally Firmly in Hand.
“Lonely” Manuel Herrick, the “Okie Jesus Congressman.” From a hundred years ago.
26 Reasons Why Classic Hollywood Was as Evil as They Say it Was.
Who's not afraid of the King of Beasts? Mom, that's who.
SNL's Wardrobe Challenges
Saturday Night Live is aired live from New York, of course, so the production team are always on their toes. At the same time, the skits feature cast members impersonating real people and characters wearing over-the-top silly costumes, which must be completely changed during commercial breaks. The wardrobe department handles all this, plus finding, designing, making, and rehearsing with those costumes, with only a week to get it all right. Then they start all over again. THe new season of SNL starts on September 26th. (via Laughing Squid)
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
An Honest Trailer for Ocean's Eleven
In honor of its 25th anniversary, Screen Junkies made an Honest Trailer for the movie Ocean's Eleven. I thought it was a lot older than that, but I was thinking of the 1960 Rat Pack film -which is the one I've actually seen. This is the remake with George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt, among other late 20th-century stars. It's hard to believe the remake is 25 years old. Or close to it- it was released in December of 2001.
Saving a Ukrainian Leopard
Okay, I will admit that there is no such species as a Ukrainian leopard, but Leeloo the leopard was born in a sketchy petting zoo in Ukraine. Her mother rejected her because she wouldn't eat, and she was getting weaker every day. Then Leonid and Valentina Stoyanov stepped in. They are married veterinarians who decided to stay in Ukraine when war broke out to take care of the animals.
This video doesn't go into what was exactly wrong with the cub, but the Vet Crew said it was "a long list of serious health problems." Leeloo underwent two operations and intense therapy before she regained her health. That was three years ago, and now Leeloo is the queen of their sanctuary.
The History of House Colors
What color your house is may depend on when it was built, and whether the owner follows fashion or function, although the two may be entwined. As the owner of a bright daffodil yellow house in a white vinyl neighborhood, I follow neither. There are always outliers. But Stewart Hicks takes us through the reasons that the dominant house colors change over time.
One reason is which building materials, paint colors, and innovative siding was available. Also, there was a historic trend thrown in when people went from colors that hid dirt to colors that highlighted dirt. In some eras, people just got tired of houses that all looked alike, but then HOAs came in and reversed a colorful trend. Picking a color means risking your home's resale value, offending the neighbors, or making a decision you might regret. Maybe that's why neighborhoods tend to move toward the monochrome, even when it's a weird color like black.
You can lament the lack of color in houses all you want, but there are reasons why people choose the house color they do. I was once able to tell people I lived in the yellow house near the river, and they instantly knew where I lived. Now they just ask for an address for their GPS system. This video is only ten minutes long; the rest is promotional.
Bootleg
Dram O' Sham @danpirarobizarro.bsky.social @comicskingdom.bsky.social
— Wayno® (@wayno.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 3:31 PM
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Monday, September 21, 2026
Why Americans Are So Cautious About Travel
Laurence Brown looks at the difference between the way Americans consider travel and the way Europeans do. There are a few factors at work here. Americans travel a lot without even thinking of it as "travel." We can drive 100 miles to try out a new restaurant, while Europeans would consider that a "road trip." My youngest drives three hours to see me every weekend. It takes at least three days to drive from one end of the country to the other, the equivalent of Europeans crossing a dozen nations. But we do it all the time, in a car, and it's no wonder we think about the safety of those in those cars. And that's just the first part of this video. There's a skippable sponsor message sneaking up on you at 2:50 that lasts until 3:58.
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