Recommended Reading

All about that strange cap that Jughead wears. (via Metafilter)

People Ferment The Darndest Things. You can make alcohol out of almost anything, which is a challenge to some.

The Worm Within. This short story tells of Vincent Eaton's experience with a tapeworm. This is not for hypochondriacs or those disturbed by bathroom scenes.

Strange items from the Michael Jackson auction.

Why freeing Willie was the wrong thing to do. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17039

Andrew at Southern Fried Science tell the story of how he made beer with limited resources while at sea. Your results may vary. (via Terra Sigillata) http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/

Why The Golden Girls was sitcom genius.

Should you get your baby boy circumcised? The question bothered one mother so much she made a movie about the decision.

Elephant on Water Skis

At the Pittsburgh Bicentennial regatta in 1959. (via Neatorama)

Fun and Funny Links

The obituary of a car salesman. (via Arbroath)

10 Divorce Stories Too Strange to Make Up.

How sex in the movies compares to sex in real life.

Aha! At least I have one person fooled.

The smallest man in the world dances with his cat.

Imagine the reaction when people see you taking a sip from a urine specimen container! Formula P and Blood Sample are sour candy liquids packaged in specimen bottles. Guess which one is lemon and which is cherry. (via Unique Daily)

25 pictures of a man and his grizzly bear.

Look at this Lovely Hamster. (via Metafilter)

What Makes You Happy?

Family, sex, and ice cream, according to these folks. I can't really disagree. From John Rawlinson. (via Neatorama's Upcoming Queue)

Good Reads and Information

Puijila, the walking seal. This new transitional fossil from 20 million years ago will help us understand how pinnipeds evolved from land animal to sea creature.

Can science determine the age of a Somali pirate? The legal difference between 16 and 18 is enormous.

5 Super Powers You Can Have Today. The wisdom to use such powers for good instead of evil will cost you extra.

$25 billion dollars in bailout funds could be paid back to the government by the end of this year. Where will that money go?

17 Cool Magnet Tricks. Plus a discussion in the comments about magnets in your hard drive.

Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization? World grain production is not keeping up with consumption, which will eventually spell trouble with a capital T.

How to Get Started with Solar Power. It's not difficult if you know some basics, and it's no longer fringe.

Geographers from Kansas State University have plotted the seven deadly sins of the nation. (via Metafilter)

Links for Fun

What if The Muppets had starred in Ocean's Eleven? It would have been an even bigger hit!

What font are you? This this silly quiz to see how you stand out. I'm Helvetica, which is about as boringly normal as you can get.

Cake Wrecks has a delightful collection of cakes that look like classic board games, from chess to Operation.

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, played on an accordion. Forget it's an accordion and enjoy this virtuoso performance by AccCam.

The Amazing Adventures of Little Batman. The cutest super hero of all!

The Longest Way. This guy spent a year walking across China; he remembered to take plenty of pictures along the way but forgot to shave.

5 Massive Hit Songs That Almost Didn't Get Released. The people that make these decisions should remember that they can't always be right.

How to get up and ready for work in only five minutes. I can applaud any man who can put on his pants with no hands while brushing his teeth.

Bob Hope and James Cagney

From the 1955 movie The Seven Little Foys. This was back when you had to sing and dance as well as act to get a job on Broadway or in Hollywood. (Thanks, Duke!)

Black Hole Sun

By Soundgarden. At one time I thought this was the creepiest video ever. Now that I work on the internet, it seems rather tame!

Powerhouse

By The Philharmonicas, a part of Larry Clinton's Orchestra. From 1939. (via Metafilter)

Friday Fun Links

Everyday people in super hero costumes fight crime and save lives when the situation arises! 

7 Reasons Frogs are Funny. Not that you need a reason to laugh at frogs, but there are plenty of them. Reasons, that is. 

An easy-to-use wristwatch -if you follow the directions!  

Sneezing in slow motion. This PSA from Australia is gross, but effective -it made me want a flu shot. 

Why Tech Support Sucks. There's a reason for the pain you go through when you call, and it's not personal. 

Honestly. It's that season again- here are the kinds of people you might meet at Ye Olde Ren Faire. 

Change this ad from NOM to this slightly different variation from PAE and see just how ridiculous both are. 

Reddit won an award for this. 

How to fix Star Wars.

She's Got Me Dancing

By Tommy Sparks. Video by Eric Wareheim. (via Everlasting Blort)

Recommended Reading

President Nixon had a speech prepared in 1969 to use in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts were marooned on the moon. Or on the sound stage where the moon landing was faked.

Every scientific post should begin with a fun little quiz like this one. Then continue with a lesson on how some people have an amazing ability to recognize faces.

My Students. My Cellphone. My Ordeal. A teacher who was investigating "sexting" students preserved the evidence on orders from his boss and was charged with possessing child pornography. (via Boing Boing)

Josephine Cochrane was tired of her servants breaking dishes, so she invented the dishwasher. I always thought that what kids are for.

Two new extrasolar planets have been found that resemble Earth in some ways. In other ways, they are very different.

How to Spend Less and Get More. Seriously reorganizing your household can save you big bucks over time -and now is the time to do it.

The Tallest People Around. 15 videos of really tall folks who are alive today, including a dozen over seven feet!

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ax Murders. The architect's lover and six others were killed while trying to flee a fire.

One Wing Landing

An Israeli pilot lands an F-15 with only one wing after a mid-air collision during a training exercise.

Fun and Funny Links

When you need a goat, just press the Goat Button. But why wait until then?

The FBI has a new way of tracking what terrorists (and everyone else) does on the internet. See a demonstration here. (via Phil's Phun)

Kids' Letters to Michael Bay. (via Pajiba)

5 Geniuses Who Were Massive Assholes.

It was a Dark and Silly Night, a Gahan Wilson animated version of a story by Neil Gaiman. The coolest place to have a party is in a cemetery. (via Metafilter)

What was the worst car of the 70s? You can add a suggestion to the list, but it's pretty long already.

Here's a slow loris being tickled. Have the insulin ready for your overdose of sweetness.

Super slow-motion video shot at 1,000 frames per second. Awesome footage from a rugby competition, but don't leave before you see the Jello.

Raccoon House Party

Just haging out, making out, dancing a bit, you know... (via Buzzfeed)

Recommended Reading

How To Colonize a Nation. Just remember, if you break it, you buy it.

The Big Picture has a roundup of signs of spring, including the many ways people around the world celebrate the vernal equinox. Well, at least those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Debit Card, Credit Card, Charge Card, what's the differences? And which one works best for you?

18 Ways Attention Goes Wrong. That seems like an awful long list for people who may have attention problems.

A expedition in 1930 hoped to find gold in New Guinea. What they found was thousands of people who had no concept of a world outside their island, and they had a movie camera with them to record the event.

America Becomes a Thrift Nation, sort of like we were in the 1930s. Even when money is tight, people tend to look at the bright side.

The story of X -- evolution of a sex chromosome. The male Y chromosome keeps deleting genes that are detrimental to males, while the female X chromosome is busy putting them back in.

The Florida School for Boys was created to reform delinquent teenagers. What it accomplished was to scar them for life.

The Car of Tomorrow

A classic Tex Avery cartoon from 1951.

Friday Fun Links

12 Pictures That Give Superheroes A Bad Name. (via Gorilla Mask)

Top Ten Celebrity Perverts.

Tone Matrix is a play pretty that plays music! Click the tiles to not only make designs, but listen to them as well. (via Bits and Pieces)

Rush Limbaugh's 10 Dumbest Remarks.

Wolf Loves Pork. A very complicated video tells a very simple story with a surprise ending.

The craziest car chase you'll see today. A woman in Orange County, California messed with police for over an hour and is now charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Pregnant Women Are Smug. Two women who aren't pregnant say what the rest of us won't in a song.

French prankster Remi Gaillard creates havoc with a real-life version of Pac-Man. And somehow makes a golfer way too angry.

6 of Your Favorite Local Characters

The fifth, and I believe final post in the series I wrote for mental_floss featuring local characters from all over is now up. In 6 of Your Favorite Local Characters I profile people you've seen in Seattle, Austin, Madison, WI, Jacksonville, NC, and one you are too young to have ever met from San Francisco.

The rest of the series:

How to Be a Local Character had characters from Memphis, New York City, St. Petersburg, FL, Lexington, KY, and Maggie Valley, NC.

7 Fascinating Local Characters brought you profiles from New Orleans, Boston, Toronto, Austin, Ann Arbor, MI, Anderson, SC, and Wellington, NZ,

9 Wonderful Local Characters featured folks from Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, St. Louis, St. Cloud, MN, and Adelaide, Australia.

7 More Unforgettable Local Characters has colorful characters from Peoria, IL, San Marcos, TX, New Haven, CT, Wheeling, WV, Ocean City, MD, Omaha, NB and Montreal.

Good Reads

How inbreeding killed off a line of kings. Scientists say isolated cases of incest are genetically no big deal, but over 16 generations it bred disaster in the form of Charles II of Spain.

A lot of what your were told about the Columbine killings is not true. It took years to sort out the real story behind the 1998 school shooting. (via Metafilter)

50 Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know. I wish I had all this spelled out for me when I was young.

How Our Salaries Are Changing. Parade Magazine's annual look at what people earn sees security trumping job satisfaction.

Tooth enamel is barely stronger than glass, but doesn't shatter easily. The reason may surprise you.

How It`s Done: Laser Eye Surgery. After watching this, you're probably going to stick with wearing your glasses.

What happens if I don't file my tax return? Maybe nothing, maybe your eyeballs will fall out, so I'm not taking the chance.

15 Film Production Credits Explained.

The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains. We can survive with only half a brain, so why do we need both sides?