Thursday, July 03, 2025
Clearly, He's a Winner
A group of two-year-olds were competing in the Dutch Championship walking bike race. Senn Swieters pulls out in front, giving it his all on his green walking bike, having the time of his life. He's headed straight for the finish line. The crowd cheers him on!
Or maybe not. Considering how much he cares about winning, Senn is probably avoiding the finish line because he doesn't want the event to be over. A good time was had by all. (via Mashable)
Vices
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Shirley Șerban reworked the old tale of The Emperor's New Clothes into a song to befit the president who thinks he's a king.
Levitating Bird
Watch the weird way this bird flies! The original video is 21 seconds long, but all the action happens in the first two seconds. What's happening is that the frame rate of the security camera synced up with the birds flapping rate. You've seen that effect in wagon wheels in movies and helicopter blades in videos. The effect makes the bird seem to just float around eerily. (via reddit)
Poppy
Bless those who take in foster cats. Every one of them should have a cat like Poppy to help out.
An Honest Trailer for Spaceballs
Sure, you went to see Mel Brooks' Star Wars parody in 1987, and you laughed, but you might not recall the plot. This Honest Trailer goes over it, even though it doesn't make sense and it doesn't really matter. The point of Spaceballs was to make fun of the Star Wars franchise's merchandising and generally cashing in while the iron was hot. Little did we know then that the money-making machine that is Star Wars would continue for the next 50 years at least. Spaceballs' constant stream of jokes, self-deprecation, double entendres, and random crashing of the fourth wall only made us laugh more, and yeah, you had to go see it a second time because you missed a lot of jokes while you were laughing the first time around. Did Screen Junkies like Spaceballs? You betcha!
Miss Cellania's Links
This Is How Mel Brooks Kept the Crew From Laughing While Making Blazing Saddles.
In 1965, a young Scottish man named Angus Barbieri walked into the University of Dundee hospital with an extraordinary request: “I want to stop eating—completely.” He still holds the record for the longest fast.
The Delicious, Life-Saving Joys of the ‘Trad Trans’ Lifestyle.
The other heroes of the space race: Ham the chimpanzee never got over the ordeal. (via Damn Interesting)
Professor has mental breakdown and accuses class of cheating. This eventually goes completely off the rails. (via Memo of the Air)
Know Your ICE Agent. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Murder, she measured: The impressive science behind Agatha Christie’s poisons.
The Image today was not generated, but is a photo of a wire sculpture from Tom Kaufmann at Your Name Rings a Bell. He sent me this quite a few years ago, and he'll make one for you, too!
The Fifth Element Remix
Eclectic Method turned the 1997 movie The Fifth Element into a song! The French production, filmed in England with American and British actors, was a visual treat, and this remix highlight the spectacular visuals for three minutes of rhythmic weirdness. I still haven't seen The Fifth Element, but thanks to this, I now know where many of the gifs I've seen around the 'net are from. (via Digg)
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
The French Boredom
Daddy done retired and doesn't know what to do with his time. Yeah, too many people don't plan on what to do once they aren't going to a job every day. The ones that do makes plans run into the fact that by the time you have the time and money to travel or dance or refurbish your home, you no longer have the energy or desire to do it. But grandpappy has some advice.
Digit's Story
Our cats would love to communicate with us, but they aren't equipped to speak our language. Mine can understand the English words that are important to them (except for Marshmallow, who understands some gestures), and they are very good at telling me what they want with body language. Digit, on the other hand, goes the extra mile to hold conversations with his speech the best that he can. His human knew he wanted more, so she set him up with speech buttons to express his needs and desires. Digit is very smart, and knows he must take pills every day, but probably doesn't quite understand why. It's difficult enough for people to understand autoimmune disease. You can learn more about Digit's medical video in this video. You can keep up with Digit and his special needs housemates at Instagram.
Arranging The Buffet Supper
I've thrown a few parties, and have a few things to say about this 1946 instructional video. First, that table looks too small for a buffet. And putting that chair against the wall instead of in the room where your party will be eating is a mistake. If a child reaches adulthood without knowing how to put a tablecloth on the table, you've neglected part of your job. You don't put a desert out on the table until after everyone has filled their plate, or else the kids will eat nothing but desert. But ultimately, I was appalled at the amount of food. If that's all you have, why not just eat at the table? She has only eight salads, so all the people would fit.
The last party I threw (in April) was out on the porch, because it's bigger than the rooms inside. We had to have two tables for all the food. A good time was had by all. Rifftrax just released their version of this, but I prefer the original.
Doing Canadian Things
Here we get a sideways view of how a British person sees Canadian culture.
James O’Malley is from Leicester, England, and when he visited Ontario for three weeks, he recorded himself doing as many "Canadian" things as possible. Although some things he did were quite Canadian to our American eyes: hockey, Tim Horton’s, ice roads, others seemed altogether American: Walmart, shooting guns, driving on the right, welding, diners. And Canadians were just as perplexed, as O’Malley did not record many things they consider typically Canadian: poutine, maple syrup, Canadian Tire. It just goes to show that all the English-speaking nations are primed to notice their differences more than their commonalities.
At the same time, many folks at reddit and YouTube said, "I’ve lived in Canada all my life and you’ve done more Canadian things than I ever have." O’Malley wrote about his trip to an ice fishing spot where he traveled on a snowmobile.
It was at this point that I mentally reflected on how far I had come. “I’m a long way from London now”, I thought as I looked out across the endless nothing in every direction. I’d made it to my destination, and was still alive — which when you think about it makes me even better than Scott of the Antarctic.A good time was had by all. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)









