Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Young Oprah
What it shows is a very young Oprah Winfrey lip syncing in a video at age 17 just before she entered, and won, the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Halloween Links
The 12 Most Convincing Real-Life Ghost Stories.Who Was Dr. Frankenstein?
Absolut Frankenstein.
Ten Vampire Cats.
Check out this silly Halloween ecard I received. (Thanks, John!)
The House of Blood. It can be yours!
The Night of the Vampire.
How Do You Make a Monster? Dissecting Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies.
From Human To Corpse: Walking Dead Make-Up. It takes hours to become a zombie, and then they have to wear that stuff all day!
Your mother warned you about guys like these, but you still fall for them. Our Favorite Vampires. Does not include sparkly vampires.
Sleepy Hollow (and its Legend). Stacy actually went there and brought back a list of fascinating facts.
The Hidden Haunted History of 7 American Landmarks.
Have you ever guessed a Halloween costume embarrassingly wrong? This guy had the best story.
The Most Excellent Halloween. (via Buzzfeed)
13 Horror Movies and the 'True Stories' They're Based On.
Vintage Kids in Halloween Photos. Amid all the modern hype, some things never really change.
In the modern world, you can wear a “virtual costume.” Just sport the proper QR code, then anyone who cares can see you in costume on their device of choice.
10 TV shows with the best Halloween specials. Sitcoms love the opportunity to break out of their formula and do something weird and different.
7 Burning Halloween Questions: Answered! Now you’ll know why you do the silly things you do on this silly holiday.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Halloween Links
The Lost Masterpiece. How the Spanish version of Dracula came to be so much better than the one we saw.Smashing Pumpkins in Slow Motion. Flying pumpkin guts are cool, as long as someone else has to clean up the mess!
9 Creepy Places to Visit For a Good Scare.
Why Our Brains Love Horror Movies. The more you know, the more pleasure you can squeeze out of this weekend’s offerings.
Horror Movies and Ghost Stories.
The 7 Most Ridiculous Ghost Stories from Around the World. (NSFW)
25 Zombie Cakes.
The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth.
Where Monsters Come From.
All Kinds of Vampires.
The Story of Stingy Jack and the Devil.
Top 10 Badass Vampires.
38 Facts on Frankenstein (Including the Aerosmith song it inspired and the reason the Munsters never got sued). And then nine more!
The Most Epic Halloween Gaming Pumpkins of All Time.
Who Was Dr. Frankenstein? Mary Shelley dreamed up the monster, but she had plenty of influences for the scientist who made it.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Historic Vampires
While researching the tale of Mercy Brown for the Cemetery Stories post, I read that she was the only accused vampire ever exhumed in the United States. The very idea that this is a notable fact gave me the willies. Is this so common in other countries? As it turns out, exhumation over supernatural suspicions happened quite often in our history, and many people have been accused of vampirism during their lives. There are so many such people that I limited this list I posted at mental_floss to examples of the different reasons people became known as vampires. Warning: these stories are all gruesome.
Good Reads
The Physics Book by Clifford A. Pickover. I'm glad I already have a copy of this!This thread at Metafilter lines out so much of what's wrong between employers and employees now. Oh, yeah, there's an article attached, but it's not all that helpful.
Jon Bon Jovi has opened a restaurant without fixed prices. You pay if you can, and help out at the restaurant or somewhere else if you can’t.
A military dad reads a bedtime story to his daughter via prerecorded video. It gets more adorable and poignant as it goes along.
Why Being a Jerk at Work Pays. In the workplace, rudeness tends to be respected and rewarded, more so if you are a man.
Being Elmo: 5 revelations about Sesame Street’s star. That would be Kevin Clash, who has given Elmo his personality for 25 years.
Twelve years after the fact, two families found out that their babies were switched at birth. This turns out to happen relatively often in Russia.
The Cost Of Daylight Saving Time. A hassle twice a year for an extremely small payoff.
Scientology’s super-creepy South Park investigation. The church took retaliation measures against the show after an unflattering episode in 2005.
A Voice From the 1%. One of the wealthy explains what difference taxes on the rich will make. (via Boing Boing)
Here's what you should know about the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Who knew that Mt. Ranier could throw a shadow onto the sky? Luckily, some talented photographers knew, and now you can, too.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Links for Fun
The Macramé Owl Rescue & Sanctuary Organization. (via Laughing Squid)Nostromo Crew Portraits. (via Metafilter)
Joss Whedon cast, directed, and filmed an entire movie in secret, in just 12 days while he was directing The Avengers. As if that’s not strange enough, it’s a play by William Shakespeare.
You might be pretty good with a puzzle, but can you solve a Rubik’s cube with one hand while juggling two others with your other hand? David Calvo can do just that!
15 Incredible Flower Praying Mantis Pictures. They survive by looking as fancy as the plants they live upon.
This house has a computerized Halloween light show that plays “Party Rock Anthem” and other songs. Why wait until Christmas season to annoy the neighbors?
Gettin’ Sugar High. Trick-or-treaters are serious about their sweets, so cough ‘em up or else!
Don’t mess with Crabs! You’ll see this one coming a mile away, which doesn’t make it any less funny.
J.R.R. Tolkien drew more illustrations for The Hobbit than were printed with the book in 1936. Now you can see some of the others.
7 lies people tell about their pop culture tastes. The truth is I have actually seen Citizen Kane and …it’s not all that.
Cirque du Soleil employees do a dance tribute to Michael Jackson. The cast includes performers from their far-flung global production.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Historic Werewolves
The idea of a person turning into a dangerous animal has been part of folklore ever since folklore was invented. It’s quite popular today, at least in fiction, since the transformation makes a great special effect. But there have been real people in various parts of the world who went down in history as practitioners or victims of lycanthropy. In other words, werewolves. Read about some of them in this article I posted at mental_floss.
Interesting Links
Pssst: There's a giveaway going on at Miss Cellania!MLC Productions was on Nikoi Island in Indonesia last month to shoot a commercial when a nest of sea turtle eggs hatched! So they recorded the babies on their all-important first journey from the sand to the ocean.
It's official: The rich get richer, and everyone else gets poorer. (via Breakfast Links)
The Saga of Amanda Knox’s DNA. (via Carl Zimmer)
The 25 Worst Cities to Be Young. The numbers that were crunched included unemployment, education, debt, and marriage among the young adult populations.
Google+ To Allow Pseudonyms, with no actual explanation that makes any sense. But it means I can now admit that I am on Google+.
The Ancient Tradition of Fishing With Cormorants on China’s River Li. Not a natural way of life for the bird, but he’s fed and the tourists take nice pictures.
A new study says certain areas of the brain are bigger in people who have a lot of Facebook friends. Of course, correlation is not causation, and it might not apply to people who have a thousand friends they don’t know.
The Origins of 7 Musical Instruments. If you’re gonna play one, you should know where it came from.
The Eunuch Admiral. In the 15th century, Zheng He commanded a fleet that put any European explorer to shame. (via Metafilter)
The Strange Tale of a Gucci Murderess. After 13 years in prison, Patrizia Reggiani turned down a parole offer because she doesn’t want to work.
12 of sports’ most hated teams (and why). Because sports fans are like everyone else, and only rally together behind a common enemy.Seven revelations from the new Steve Jobs biography. That should be just enough to make you to want to read the whole book.
The 5 Most Extravagant Ways Cities Have Been Wiped Out.
How to Confuse Your Rat
Show off your juggling skills! He'll try to follow it, because he thinks you're playing three-card monty. (via Arbroath)
Monday, October 24, 2011
Fun and Funny Links
Attack of the Killer B-Movies! The story of Roger Corman and his many, many films.CSI: Legoland. It’s just like the CSI you see on TV, puns and all, except Lego gore is easier to watch. Enhance!
The 8 Most Wildly Irresponsible Vintage Toys. I remember some of them from my own childhood, the one with no seat belts or bicycle helmets are minimum age for working as a babysitter.
“Fulci put a stuntman dressed as a zombie in a tank with a live shark and made them fight – it’s one of the craziest, most insane and irresponsible scenes ever put on film.” The 1980 film Zombie is doing a round at theaters.
America’s greatest superhero, 3D Man, invades NY Comic Con. He’s trying to get a movie deal like the other superheroes.
The Muppets will be in theaters on November 23rd for the first time in years. But some are not happy with what Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller, and James Bobin have done to Jim Henson’s beloved characters.
The odds of a set of lottery numbers coming up like this are astronomical! Too bad they didn’t win you any thing.
Your favorite comic book heroes explain their views on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Each one has a background story and specific concerns that lend credence to their positions.
What Would Happen if Zombies Invaded Stephen Spielberg Films? Artists from all over let their imaginations run wild with that idea.
Kitty Vs. Boston Terrier. They may look like they’re having a spat, but you know they’re really best friends forever.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Xanadu
Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra welcome in the 1980s with the movie Xanadu. Roller skates, big hair, harem pants, lighted dance floor, mirrors, disco moves -it's all here!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Informative Links
Behold, a wheelchair that can be completely controlled just by facial muscles. This could mean movement, freedom, and so much more for paralysis victims.Blood and sex: TV’s inaccurate portrayal of forensic nursing. This is not to demean the shows, but you should know how crime investigation works in the real world.
America’s shameful child abuse problem. Why is our rate of death from abuse so much higher than other industrialized nations?
There is no pink light. I have a string of plastic flamingo patio lights that I will now describe as infrared-ultraviolet.
Even if there is no pink light, there are Blue People. They have actual medical conditions that cause their skin to appear blue that don’t even involve body paint.
Eight people lived in Biosphere 2, a self-contained ecosystem, from 1991-1993 and lost a bunch of weight in what was supposed to be a healthy, if restricted, diet. Near-starvation is supposed to make you live a longer but apparently unhappier life. (via Boing Boing)
Top 20 College Sex-Ed Programs. How high does your school rank?
Personal trainer Drew Manning gained 70 pounds in six months on purpose, so he could understand what it’s like. Getting back in shape is not going to be easy with those new fat cells he never had before.
Student Loan Debt Nears $1 Trillion. I hope that’s spread out among a lot of students, because a trillion is $1,000,000,000,000.
13% of parents aren’t getting their kids vaccinated on the recommended schedule. Here are four theories as to why they are rejecting conventional medical wisdom.
Should celibate gay men be allowed to donate blood?
Big Food makes Big Finance look like amateurs. (via John Walkenbach)
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Six Seriously Spooky Cemetery Stories
It’s that time of year, when we look to graveyards for tales that scare the Dickens out of us. Ghosts, unexplained phenomena, and even vampires figure in these stories of graveyards from all over, in an article I posted at mental_floss.
Links for Fun and Entertainment
The Pathology of Classical Sculpture, or Where Did the Penises Go?Bricks of War. When the video game Gears of War meets Lego, neat stuff like this happens.
The Video Game as Art. A new generation of experimental game designers are putting aesthetics in your shoot-em-ups (with video evidence).
The Midnight Sun. This time-lapse video consists of thousands of photographs turned into a technicolor dream, with the never-setting sun moving sideways across a gorgeous landscape in Iceland.
The Incredible, Interchangeable Films of Steven Seagal. Since they are all so alike, you can limit yourself to the ’80s films when he was at least eye candy.
The Passing Cloud concept vehicle is a cluster of balloons you ride on top of, drifting along with the wind. What could possibly go wrong?
The 20 Cutest Baby Meerkat Pictures On The Entire Internet. You just want to pick them up and cuddle them and go all “awww.”
7 things women look for in your personality (if you’re a guy). Or at least young adult women; the older you get, the less picky you are.
Sweet Halloween costume: The Pixar Lamp. Homemade in 2010 by a 15-year-old.
Aussie Good Luck: 6 Australians who caught lucky breaks. All great stories, but don’t move to Oz just for the luck.
Sweet Child O' Mine
Played by Zoe Thomson. She was seven years old when this was recorded. Now she is eight and plays with her band, The Mini Band.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Good Reads and Information
Mrs. A.J. Young and five of her 11 children worked in the mills of Tifton, Georgia in the early 20th century. Joe Manning found out what became of Catherine Young and her Family. (via Metafilter)The Origin of Frankenstein.
The Cassini-Huygens mission sent back awesome images of Saturn and its moons. They look even better set to dramatic music.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at how they filmed boxing robots for the movie Real Steel. All this effort and expense for a feel-good family-bonding film.
Check out the list of the most-downloaded movies of all time (which is not all that long, considering). Then for a strange contrast, the Netflix top-ten of all time is included as well.
When dreams kill: The phenomenon of sleep paralysis. A new book tells us about research that may keep you up at night.
The Zany History of Mini Golf. It started out for ladies, but everyone likes a cheap shot.
Women Who Kill the Men They Love. Filmmaker Olivia Klaus has new documentary about domestic violence and a culture that gave some women no choice.
New Biofuel Cell Can Make Electricity From Your Insides. It won’t power your home, but if can keep your pacemaker going, we have a significant breakthrough.
The death of the American chain restaurant. With fewer disposable dollars, Americans want to spend their bucks on food that’s good.
What’s a Trade Secret? (And What Would Happen if You Stole The Colonel’s?) Well, then your fried chicken would be tasty, but still not as good as mine.
A study shows that American many college students are graduating without improving their critical thinking or reasoning skills. But we can’t yet lay blame because there are many possible reasons.
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