Funny Links

Seven Little Girl Cats.

7 of the most subtly depressing sitcom premises of all-time. Yet another reason I rarely watch TV.

Check out these cartoon versions of my four cats.

9 Road Signs For Your Life. Most are spot-on, but the creators should eventually learn it’s not “all pretty much downhill from here.”

The 50 Greatest Celebrity Prom Photos. Smile nicely, high school seniors, you never know if your date may one day be famous! (via Gorilla Mask)

Panhandling or street theater? This guy has clever signage down to an art!

The Rise And Fall Of An Internet Meme [CHART].

Andy Graulund made a rage face comic to the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody. It didn’t take long for a music video to be made from it.

Does the Person You’re Talking to Want to Hear About Your Dream? You could give a simple answer (no), but it’s more fun to follow a flowchart. (via Buzzfeed)

Firemen use the Jaws of Life to rescue a baby fawn stuck in a pile of rocks. The reunion with his mama will touch your heart.

Cuckoos and Other Animated Clocks

Mental_floss blog editor Jason English told me his daughter wanted a cuckoo clock, but she wanted one with a dog instead of a cuckoo. I began to wonder why clocks use cuckoo birds to identify the hour. As it turns out, there are quite a variety of ways clocks will announce the hour. See some of them in this article I posted at mental_floss.

Good Reads and Interesting Links

Otto Rahn was one of the inspirations for the character of Indiana Jones, despite the fact that he was a Nazi. His real life story would be just as exciting as a movie, if so many details weren’t shrouded in mystery.

7 Bizarre Early Versions of Famous Cartoon Characters.

The 7 Most Ridiculous Cases of Misplaced Priorities.

How to spot a psychopath. The danger is that when you start to look, you may see monsters everywhere. (via Metafilter)

Movie theaters are using 3-D lenses to show 2-D films, which ruins both brightness and color for viewers. So even if you refuse to pay extra and wear the glasses for 3D, you may still be paying for it.

You’d think that when you put a 72.1 gram bag of popcorn in the microwave, you’d get 72.1 grams out after popping it. But no… guess how much the popped version weighs.

People in China don’t consume much cheese. And when they do, they have a unique perspective on the experience.

Michael Meets Mozart is an arrangement with one piano and 100 cello tracks. This will sound good no matter what kind of music you like.

TRUE CRIMES: The Man who Hijacked a Cargo Jet. It was an inside job.

The History of Tequila. We wouldn’t have the liquor today if Spain hadn’t used a shortcut for importing goods from the Philippines. (via TYWKIWDBI)

Why is America the ‘no-vacation nation’? Because employers don’t have to give you one, and if they do, workers feel guilty taking it. (via Metafilter)

Life lessons for students who don’t think school is worth the trouble. As if those students will ever read it. (via Neatorama)

Autobahn

An animated 1979 video for the song "autobahn" by Kraftwerk. (via Your Daily Cartoon)

Links for Fun

You go to a college baseball game and the rain starts. While waiting, the players entertain the crowds with a series of silly skits that are more entertaining than the game.

MacRecipes is a database of all the hacks in all the episodes of the TV series MacGyver. Click on a dot and it will display the episode, the plot, and how MacGyver managed to do something miraculous with whatever he had at hand. (via Gorilla Mask)

Underwater explosion. Does what it says on the tin.

Ten Rules for Dating My Daughter.

Denmark has a way to make drivers slow down. At least male drivers. NSFW.

7 Basic Tips for Horny Politicians.

John and Sandra have an everyday love story, but it’s the kind of love story that we all want. And it makes a great little movie.

STOL Landing

17 foot landing, 10 foot take off. (via Neatorama)

Zoetropes

A zoetrope is a mechanical device that creates the illusion of moving pictures, based on a spinning cylinder in which slits are cut. You look through the slits at a picture on the other side, and the strobe effect of looking through the sequence of slits frames the sequential pictures on the inside. It was invented in about 180AD. That’s a long time ago! The modern way to do it is to use strobe lights or camera shutters to recreate the effect of looking through slits, but however you do it, a zoetrope is still magical. See a variety of them in action in this video collection I posted at mental_floss.

Aos

A 1964 animation by Yoji Kuri. (via Your Daily Cartoon)

Good Reads and Interesting Links

How do serial killers get their nicknames? An unidentified serial killer in Long Island doesn’t have a snappy moniker yet -or at least he hasn’t claimed one.

Olympics Loser Fights his Horse (and 5 other Unlikely Sports Brawls). An athlete losing his temper may be unsportsmanlike, but the crowds love it.

10 Stats You Should Know About Our Prison System.

Health insurance companies are raking in record profits, yet they are still seeking higher premiums. And still people resist a single-payer plan. (via J-Walk Blog)

5 Scorned Women Get Their Revenge. See what happens when you don't take the time and care to let her down easy.

What It’s Like to Get a Breast Reduction, a major step that made a major difference in one young woman’s life. One illustration is NSFW. (via Metafilter)

Is It Time to Destroy the Last Smallpox Stores? A list of pros and cons for keeping smallpox around are listed at 80beats. (via Carl Zimmer)

James Zwerg was a Freedom Rider in Montgomery in 1961. The picture of what he endured put the Civil Rights movement in the news across the country and left Zwerg with permanent psychological scars. (via Fark)

How Saipan got Obsessed with SPAM. You could almost say it became comfort food.

Over 50 and Out of Work, a site I can’t even read because it’s so scary. These folks are spending their retirement savings on groceries and might never find jobs again. (via Breakfast Links)

A little robot rolls around the room, then stands up on one end and turns into a helicopter! I’m impressed, but it looks a bit dangerous to be flying indoors.

7 Memorable Commencement Addresses. If you’ve been so honored as to speak this spring, you might want to get some tips from these hit speeches.

Ivory Soap In A Microwave

According to Steve Spangler, http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000053 the tiny amount of water in Ivory's famous air bubbles heat up and expand. The end product is a "soap souffle"! (via The Daily What)

Nyan Cat: Covering the Web in Cute

Like most memes, you’ve either seen it everywhere you go on the internet, or you are totally unaware of it -until now. Nyan Cat (also called Pop Tart Cat) is an 8-bit animation produced by the artist at LOL-COMICS who goes by the name prguitarman. The cat was published on April 2, 2011 and became an instant hit. The original image is accompanied by an endless loop of music, and in fact has a timer included. The first video version is closing on ten million views now, so you can imagine how many people have visited the Nyan Cat page -and the many spinoffs and tributes. Read all about it in this article I posted at mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

Drop some Mentos into a plastic soda bottle to make a homemade rocket -what could possibly go wrong? It might not work, or it just might work.

All you need to do is turn off the lights to unleash Ana Somnia’s dreams. Whether they are dreams or nightmares depends on your state of mind.

A classic story of a remote control blimp. This is only funny because it happened to someone else. (via reddit)

Charlie took his sister Ginny to the movies. What Charlie knew, but Ginny didn’t, was that Ginny’s boyfriend Matt made a special video to show during the previews.

Duck Tape Prom. The biggest night of your high school career doesn’t have to bankrupt you -if you got enough chutzpah to wear Duck tape!

The Limited Lifetime of the Solar System.

The 100 Worst Senior Portraits Of All Time. There were advantages to the old "line them up and shoot them" method. (via Gorilla Mask)

What the British say and what they really mean. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

I Like Vegetables. Parry Gripp brings us a catchy rap about tasty tasty veggies -word!

Are you ready for the Zombie Apocalypse? The CDC has tips on being prepared for the onslaught.

We all like to see food in slow motion! Breakfast Interrupted is like a ballet, except for the horrific mess you know will follow. Followed by a making-of video.

Interesting Links

The Lazarus File. A 1986 murder was solved 23 years later as DNA technology caught up with an unlikely suspect. (via Metafilter)

The Art of Manliness offers an extensive tutorial in the art of negotiation, also known as haggling. As long as you are nice about it, you have nothing to lose by asking for a better deal.

The Hidden Message in Pixar’s Films. This article deconstructs the major Pixar films and compares them in ways you’ve never considered to find they have a common goal.

3 Heartbreaking Tales of “Freaks”. Besides being born different, these folks endured family, physical, legal, and financial troubles.

Beulah Land. Freed slaves settled in Oklahoma after the Civil War, but racism caught up with them eventually.

6 Classic Movies You Didn’t Know Were Remakes. I, being elderly, was well aware that five of these were remakes, but you might learn something new. Cracked, NSFW text.

Roseanna Barr talks about her groundbreaking sitcom, her struggle for control of it, and the dangers of success. (via Metafilter)

Is The Cockroach The Perfect Organism? They have a lot of creepy, disgusting things going for them.

5 Scorned Women Get Their Revenge. See what happens when you don’t take the time and care to let her down easy.

Many items belonging to Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber) are up for auction. Proceeds go to his victims, but does this sort of sale just glamorize his crimes? (via Metafilter)

The secret world of child brides. Tradition trumps modern laws all over the world with the goal of controlling, protecting, and profiting from the family females.

8 Creative Periodic Tables

The Periodic Table of the Elements is a wonderful aid in understanding chemistry, if you understand the reasons the elements are sorted the way they are. The table itself is a model of information classification. No wonder folks want to use this structure to classify other types of information -although science geeks can see right away whether the artist really understands the original table. That said, we can all enjoy periodic tables of items other than elements, as you'll see in this list I posted, the latest in a long-running series at mental_floss.

Fun and Funny Links

A recovering Star Wars fan goes through the five stages of grief. There’s hope that eventually all fans will reach the level of acceptance. (via Buzzfeed)

An 840-barrel paintball machine that shoots art.

Watch an Apple Engineer Recreate a 2,000-Year-Old Computer Using Legos.

Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts. He found making graphs to be like eating potato chips -one just leads to another and another. (via Metafilter)

The torch is passed. Calvin is all grown up with a daughter (named Bacon), but Hobbes is still there. (via Neatorama)

A giant labyrinth game uses a bowling ball instead of a marble. Oh, you can still tilt the table, but you’ll need a remote control to do it.

I'm Sorry. You know how true this is.

May Is Zombie Awareness Month. Believe me, if I was aware of a zombie anywhere near, I wouldn’t care what month it is!

When Hollywood movies are renamed for overseas audiences, the results can be literal or inexplicable, and sometimes remarkably apt. Surely you can guess which of these 50 movies was renamed The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses. (via Gorilla Mask)

35 Years Backwards Through Time. Sam Klemke videotaped himself every year, so you can watch as his voice fades and he becomes a swaggering 20-year-old in platform shoes from the mid-1970s.

They told us the Useless Machine only does one thing, and that is to turn itself off. But this one got tired of that one thing and is determined to put an end to such shenanigans.

ZDoggMD and Dr. Harry took Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and added tons of medical jargon to make a tribute to the poor residents who are on call at the hospital. You don’t have to understand it all to feel sorry for these guys.

Good Reads and Information

“No matter what happens at the site, DO NOT CRY.” A Japanese medical worker kept a diary after the earthquake, now available in English. (via Metafilter)

Mike Rowe's Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. A tribute to working people and full employment.

5 Shocking Ways You Overestimate Yourself. This article might take you down a peg or two, so be prepared. Cracked, NSFW text.

The current flooding of the Mississippi River is almost as high as the flood of 1927. Here are 35 pictures of what happened that year.

6 Unsolved Disappearances. If you’ve seen any of these people… well, you probably wouldn’t recognize them.

Playgrounds from Hell. The “whimsical” decor of Soviet playgrounds could give an adult nightmares.

8 Fan (Or Hater) Made Alternate Endings.

The Loneliest Plant In The World.

Take this 1931 8th grade test (you will probably flunk).

The Library of Congress has an extensive online collection of historic sound recordings going back over 100 years called National Jukebox. Select from classical, ragtime, opera, gospel, and ethnic music as well as spoken word recordings, and never insert a quarter! (Thanks, Rich!)

Inside the Black Market Intern Economy. At the bottom you’ll find a slide show of the 9 types of interns. (via Buzzfeed)

6 Bizarre Explanations from the set of Roseanne. I don’t know why they even bothered trying to explain things that obviously just don’t make sense.

James Cagney

A montage in which he makes funny noises. (via Boing Boing)

Parking Puzzle

A time-lapse video from a security camera reveals a game in which the goal is to escape a parking lot. Why didn't they drive through the grass? (via Buzzfeed)

I Have To Have You

Performed by Helen Kane and Skeets Gallagher in 1929.

Chase Scene

The wildest police chase I've ever seen. Outside Hollywood, that is.