Women in MMORPGs

When you're taking part in a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), you are joining in a community of people who don't know each other, yet you are playing a game together. What you see are the characters these people create for the game. If there's character who doesn't speak, there may be a reason.  

The scenario here is actually pretty clean compared twosome I've heard about. This video from Epic NPC Man focuses on that moment when you learn who is behind that character. And why so many women gamers play offline. Yeah, women gamers aren't as rare as guys think; they just don't want to deal with this.  (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Story Behind The Godfather. The book, the film, and the mob that wanted in on it.

Actor Chris Evans spent 10 weeks away from his dog Dodger during filming. Their reunion on Sunday was adorable.

How to De-Feralize Your Children for Back-to-School. Your school will expect them to be at least a little civilized. (via Nag on the Lake) 

The Biggest Things Ever to be Transported by Sea. Even ancient sailors took on the challenge to haul large cargo. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

A Pictorial Chronology of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." Now you can see what he's singing about in all five verses.

Five Traits That Define a Cat's Personality. A guide to analyzing your furry family members.

The Biggest Misconception About Today’s College Students.

10 Disgusting Things Joe Arpaio Did as Sheriff of Maricopa County. (Thanks, Lorrie!)

Keep This Emergency Puppy Folder. It has more than 100 images to help you through rough times.

The Lanterns of the Dead. Why did the French erect stone towers to light up cemeteries?

Forecast

(via Fark)

The Tweeter

Don Caron and Linda Gower gave us the song parody "Confounds the Silence" the other day. Here's another of their Simon and Garfunkel impressions, this time set to the tune of "The Boxer."  (Thanks, Bill Scheitzach!)

Kids Eat Free

(via Bad Menu)

Pusic's Dinner

The Russian cat Pusic orders his dinner from a menu. Yeah, what you thought was his dinner choice was just the appetizer! Pusic has to have everything. (via Metafilter)

Bonus: Read the story of how Pusic came to live with his cat-loving family.

Breaking News

It was a hard-hitting report. (via reddit)

How to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables

Jordan Watson, the "How To Dad," shows us his foolproof method for getting kids to eat vegetables. Have the kids grow them in the garden! Yep, gardening is a lot of fun. Eating vegetables? Not so much.

Parents want their children to eat healthy foods, but learn early that forcing a child to eat right is a losing battle. Strict rules and arguments are liable to do more harm than good. So you offer a variety of nutritious foods and hope for the best …and they hold out all day for chicken nuggets. So how do you get children to like vegetables? I tried gushing over how much I loved to eat vegetables. I tried hiding them in other foods. I tried having the kids grow their own garden. You know what worked for me?

One night at dinner, when we had three tween girls and an always-hungry older teenage boy who ate everything in sight, one of the girls made a remark about our son's eating habits. I mentioned that a person's tastes changed when they matured. Real adults have different tastes, and when and if you girls ever mature, you need to try the foods you don't like all over again to see if they are good. If you like them, that's a sign of becoming an adult. I said that, but I didn't give orders. I knew it was useless by then. But they wanted to be adults so badly that they actually tried the "test." It turned out each kid found different vegetables they now liked, so I served an entire salad bar at dinner every evening. Whatever works. 

Science tells us that children are more sensitive to bitter tastes than adults, and they are also programmed to prefer high-energy foods. But repeated exposure to different foods helps a child become more comfortable with vegetables. Here are some tips to make vegetables more palatable to children. You might like those recipes, too! 

Labor

From Married to the Sea.

Miss Cellania's Labor Day Links

Thank a Union: 36 Ways Unions Have Improved Your Life.

Labor Day Used to Be a Grand Celebration in This Storied Factory Town.

Meet Ninja Phil, a defender of Southern working people.

5 Rights That New Adults Think They Have On The Job.

How Your Brain Benefits From the Long Labor Day Weekend. A three-day weekend should be universal, but in the American model, it would come with a pay reduction.

Nag on the Lake: "Take a look at Lewis Hine photos from the era of child labour and then tell me that the good old days were better for ordinary working people."

6 Deadly Labor Disputes. Remembering the movement that gave us a holiday. 

The Star Trek Story. How Gene Roddenberry's space western refused to die.

The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond—And Why the British Won’t Give It Back. Where does an artifact belong when it's been stolen so many times?

The Rise of Baking Powder. It was a game-changer for household bakers.

Laying Down on the Job

Happy Labor Day. (via reddit)

He-Man and Skeletor Dance

This is an ad, but it's so darned silly you might not notice that it's also well-done. Just enjoy the idea of He-Man and Skeletor doing their thing, then you can watch it a second time to catch the details. The beginning will remind you of Terminator 2, but it quickly shifts into another very familiar movie.

"MoneySuperMarket" sounds like a check-cashing place, but it's actually a site to comparison shop for insurance in Europe. At least that's the idea I got from comments. Anyway, if you liked this, you'll enjoy the one with Skeletor dancing to "Fame," which has some footage explaining the He-Man costume, too. (via reddit)

Tweet of the Day

Best translation fail. The arabic spells out a transliteration of 'meat ball' in English - which sounds like 'mayit baul', or Dead Paul. pic.twitter.com/zReTm93Gg8

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) August 28, 2017

This led to the best news headline so far this month. (via reddit)

Oh, the Humanity!

(via Bad Newspaper)

Confounds the Science

Don Caron and Linda Gower channel Simon and Garfunkel to sing about our current president. (via Bits and Pieces)

Tweet of the Day

It's a Girl! Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian Welcome a Daughter 💕 https://t.co/hH7pxYAoIX pic.twitter.com/pIdslLvUFo

— People (@people) September 1, 2017

Serena Williams has won a new title: Mom.

Corpse-Dressing Competition

More than 25,000 people attended the Tokyo Int'l Funeral & Cemetery Show 2018 last weekend. It's an industry convention and exposition for funeral professionals across Japan. The expo included a competition between the top funeral dressers. In the Shinto religion, dressing the deceased is a ritual that cleanses them before they enter the afterlife. It's usually done by family members, but some 2,000 or so undertakers have become experts. The top four competed in front of convention attendees. The winner was 23-year-old RinoTerai, who said,

“I practiced every day to prepare for this competition,” said a smiling RinoTerai after her win over three other finalists. “I took videos and made improvements by asking myself, does this look beautiful? Am I treating the deceased kindly?”

(via Mental Floss)

Miss Cellania's Links

10 People Who Were in the Right Place at the Right Time.
 

White Canadians Made Me Ashamed Of Myself. Kyle Edwards tells about growing up Anishinaabe in Manitoba.

Study: a universal basic income would grow the economy.  But don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.

Put this Story About a Long Lost Dog in the Viral Dog Story Hall Of Fame. Ten years after having to part with her beloved cockapoo Cami, Kate Griffin randomly met her again while walking down the street.

Places In Idyllic 1960s Postcards Have Transformed Into Scenes Of Abandonment. Pablo Iglesias Maurer bought a bunch of postcards from bygone resorts in the Poconos and the Catskills, and photographed the original locations as they look today.

A New Experiment Reveals the Secret Behind 200,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Glue. They were cooking up tar before pots and pans were invented.

Why The Best Nicolas Cage Performance Is In Raising Arizona. His talents shone brightly in the Coen brothers' comedy.

Sports Announcers Comment on the Action, Whatever That Action Is. Watch them give a play-by-play of a spectator carrying too much food.

Those Magnificent Ladies in Their Flying Machines. In the early days of flight, women longed for the freedom of the skies.

I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won’t believe the questions I got about slavery.

Umlaut

(via Fark)

This Is a Generic Millennial Ad

Millennials will take over the world someday, sooner than you think. So what are we doing to help them find gainful employment, pay for their educations, buy homes, and raise families? Nothing. But someone is paying very close attention to those millions of young adults -ad agencies. That what the generation is good for- marketing!

The point of advertising is to make all those millions of Millennials feel special or unique if they buy your product. Too bad they are not all the same! And even worse- they don't have unlimited funds to buy your products, whatever they are. They are too busy working their 30-hour a week service jobs and trying to pay off their student loans. (Thanks, gwdMaine!)