Another Christmas Alone

In this ad for the German supermarket EDEKA, an old man spends Christmas after Christmas alone because his children are leading busy, far-flung lives. And he does seem to have quite a few offspring. How many years must he keep this up? You might want to have a hanky ready for this one. Sometimes it’s worth rearranging your life for someone else. (via Buzzfeed)

The B-Word

From Married to the Sea.

Off to Defend His Thesis

David is about to publicly present and defend his dissertation in math at Stanford University. That’s somewhat equivalent to throwing yourself off a cliff wearing an untested parachute you invented yourself. Is he nervous? No, he’s so cool he’s getting there by unicycle. And he juggles when he rides his unicycle. Dave knows something about risk. And his Dad knows a great video opportunity when he sees it. Oh yeah, he got his PhD that day. That was in 2009. His Dad gave us this update yesterday:

David went on do his Post Doc at Harvard and finished it off at USC. He is now, at the age of 33, a Mathematics professor at Montana State University and doing research. He juggles 7 balls easily, still rides his Uni, and just recently placed 4th in the Wasatch 100 mile Ultra Run.

Here’s David now. (via Neatorama)  

Miss Cellania's Links

Why You Can’t Do That on Television Was One of a Kind. No show that cheap could be a hit today.

Leaked Star Wars Auditions With The Bots From MST3K. Look to the future as Crow and Tom Servo take their place as droids in a galaxy far, far away.

6 reasons why The Phantom Menace is better than you think. Or maybe we should say it’s not as bad as you’ve come to believe. 

The Dreams of an Astronaut, with Helen Sharman. The first British astronaut tells how her experience in space affected her.

A Giggle-inducing Guide to This Year's Lifetime Christmas Movies. You know how they all end, but it doesn’t matter if you enjoy the ride.

A Day In the Life of an Empowered Female Heroine.

A grim bargain: Once a weakness, low-skilled workers who get paid little have become the Deep South’s strength.

Leaked Documents Reveal Dothan Police Department Planted Drugs on Young Black Men For Years. (via Metafilter) Dothan Police Chief Steve Parrish responded.

20 of the Most Surprising Numbers about Seinfeld. 

Collectors Weekly interviewed Gabriel and Sarah Chrisman about living their anachronistically Victorian life together.

Driveby

(via Fark)

The Evolution Of Zombies In Movies And TV

They’ve been around a long time, and in more movies than you realized! Zombies take all forms, often depending on the special effects budget. I need to watch more movies.

Paranoia

(via Fark)

Drum Battle: Dave Grohl vs. Animal

The ABC TV series The Muppets had a little drum battle over the credits of last night’s episode. Animal, who plays with the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, faced off against Dave Grohl, who sings with the Foo Fighters but played drums with Nirvana.

Oh, it may have ended in a draw, but if you break it down, Animal gets points for being a Muppet. Of course, you could argue that Grohl should get points for being a Foo Fighter, which would sound utterly ridiculous outside the cultural context. (via Rolling Stone)

No, Thanks, I'll Walk

(via reddit)

Movie Wedding Super Vows

An astonishing number of movies have a wedding in them somewhere, some more memorable than others. From the first glimpse of the bride, to the objection by the poor-but-deserving ex, to the punches thrown, they wouldn’t be in the film if they weren’t entertaining in some way.

Burger Fiction assembled tons of wedding clips from (most comedy) movies. There’s a list of them at the YouTube page. You’ve seen most of these movies already, and if you have a favorite wedding scene, it’s probably in here. (via Tastefully Offensive) 

Substitute Teacher

(via Buzzfeed)

Miss Cellania's Links

Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners? The research says yes and no and maybe.

An Oral History of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” Scene in Wayne’s World. Link contains autoplay video. (via Digg)

The Beggar CEO and Sucker Culture. When career advancement is based on who gives the most free labor to the company. (via Metafilter)

A Fox Executive’s 1976 Memo on Star Wars shows that not everyone was expecting a flop. (via Uproxx) 


“All You Americans Are Fired.” How businesses misuse the H2 visa program to undercut American workers.

Kyle Shearrer didn’t just put his Christmas tree up: he pulled out the Stormtroopers and gave them the job! (via reddit)

10 Career-Ending Affairs. As many times as we tell ourselves it’s nobody’s business, there are still repercussions.

Hunger Games and Harry Potter: The Art of Splitting The Final Book Into Two Films. It worked well for those two, not so much for the Twilight series.

10 Books That Remind Us America Should Be For Everyone. Sometimes we get a more personal taste of history through novels than through nonfiction.


The Daily Life of Darth Vader. (via Metafilter)

Disco Turtle

(via Fark)

Great Deal

(via Bad Newspaper)

Texting Snowman

A snowman in a store window is not all that uncommon at Christmas time. This one is firmly in the 21st century, with a smartphone and a text conversation. He’s obviously conversing with another snowman. I like the way the glass itself is used as a medium for captions. The scene has nothing to do with the clothing being sold in the store behind him, but this would get me to stop and look, and that’s what counts. (via reddit)

Star Wars So Far

We are about two weeks away from the premiere of the seventh episode in the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens. How long has it been since you’ve seen the six movies leading up to this point? Years? To prepare for The Force Awakens, you could sit down and watch all 13 hours 17 minutes we have so far (plus five more minutes if you’re watching the special editions). Or you could watch this.

Master remixer Eclectic Method edited the most essential clips of all six films into three minutes to tell the story up to this point. It’s very quick. I wouldn’t recommend this as a substitute for watching the full movies. For one thing, there’s no Han Solo. Is he really that superfluous to the story? But on the up side, there’s no Jar Jar, either. There are no Ewoks, no Chewbacca, no Wampa, no Cantina band, no hints of incest, and no wretched hive of scum and villainy. But it will remind you of what happened, in a hurry. (via Tastefully Offensive)     

A Reason to Keep Going

From Lunarbaboon.

Miss Cellania's Links

The World’s Greenest Burgs. Some cities are serious about the environment.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens debuts three achingly retro film posters. They practically scream “1977.”

 Is the 20,000-Year-Old Ishango Bone the Earliest Evidence of Logical Reasoning? The complicated arrangement of notches could mean any number of things.

How The Hidden Track Faded From Recorded Music. There’s just no place to hide it anymore.

My High School Teammate, Kobe Bryant. An oral history of the Lower Merion Aces' unforgettable 1995-1996 season.

9 More Crazy Math Facts That People Refuse To Believe Are True. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Retro Star Wars. The space opera could have been a hit movie in any era of cinema -even as a silent film.

22 Fun Facts About Scrooged.    

The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans. (via Boing Boing)

Government Surveillance and the Third Amendment. Could that prohibition against billeting soldiers be used to protect out privacy?

Cookie Monster

(via Fark)

How to Avenge a Guy in 10 Days

What if Marvel made a romantic comedy? It could star the cast of The Avengers, since there are plenty of them! And more importantly, there are plenty of Avengers movies to take clips from to assemble such a movie. Vulture made this remix as part of their Vulture Remix series. (via Tastefully Offensive)