Tomorrow is the biggest celebration of the American summer.  Fourth of July, Independence Day, is one of my favorite holidays of the year.  To me, it means burgers, barbeque, and fireworks with the family.  To other people, it means salmon, shooting old computers, and the return of mimes.  No, I’m not kidding; you can read about some of the more unusual July 4th celebrations at Mental Floss.

I can’t wait to get a hot dog fresh off the grill tomorrow.  Gathering with the family for cook-outs in my uncle’s backyard is one of our family traditions, and a great way to celebrate humanity’s victory over a horde of marauding aliens, lead by Will Smith. (There’s going to be a midnight showing of ID4 on the big screen at a local theater that I’m probably going to go to, mostly because they’re offering free food.)

However you celebrate the holiday, or if you don’t, I think we can all agree that everything tastes better when cooked over flames.  I’m not sure why that is, but if you offer me a broiled hot dog or a grilled hot dog, I’m taking the grilled every time.

Tags: Fourth of July, July 4, Independence Day, celebrations, holidays, unusual holiday traditions

The Japanese community can do some incredible things with paper.  The versatile material just might be going to space if one Japanese man has his way.  Meanwhile, back on Earth, Japanese art student Wataru Itou is turning paper into art with this beautiful paper craft castle.  Entitled Umi no Ue no Oshiro (A Castle on the Ocean), the piece is on display at Umi no Hotaru, a Japanese service station on a bridge in the middle of the sea between Chiba and Tokyo.  It is already a tourist attraction, but this will just add to the tourism spectacle.

When I was a kid, I had a couple of paper craft kits.  Basically you punch or tear out these little pieces, and you use tabs to stick them all together, turning a pile of printed paper into a giant gothic castle.  It was fun to work on it, though I never got it together as a result of a move.

Actually, I think I still have my papercraft castle model.  I think I should blow the dust off of it and try to piece the thing together.  It’s been 15 years or so, but I figure it’s still doable and it ought to be easier now that I’m a grown-up.

Tags: Uminohotaru, papercraft castle, paper crafts, unusual art, A Castle On the Ocean, Japan, Umi no Ue no Oshiro, Wataru Itou

I like the use of normal, every day things for unusual artsy purposes.  Take, for example, Vlad Artazov’s incredible series of pictures where he turns bent nails into pieces of art.  It’s easy to see how Alice and Kev could be used to create a free-flowing story based on the random decisions of a video game engine, but who would have thought that bent nails could be so expressive of love, joy, sorrow, and adoration?

I never thought I’d say this, but some of those bent nails are incredibly sad.  It’s the combination of the scene, the way the images are captured, and even the bend of the nails themselves that just evokes so much feeling.  I can only imagine the effort it took to bend each nail properly to evoke these feelings.  I guess to get specific bends you’d have to use a blowtorch?

Tags: art, images, nail art, bent nail art, Vlad Artazov, unusual art

The famous fat monkeys at an animal park in Osaka, Japan have been discussed at PopFi before.  Well, those same pudgy primates are back in the news as those monkeys have dieted successfully!  Good for them!  The fattest of the monkeys has lost half his body weight, but with any weight loss that dramatic comes other issues, namely with loose skin.  So the Osaka zoo is looking into plastic surgery.  For monkeys.

I’ve lost a lot of weight in the past few years.  I’ve talked about that before.  It’s not half my body weight like certain flabby chimps, but uncomfortably close to it.  The solution to my problem, or at least some of the solution, has been weight training and muscle building.  I guess you can’t get monkeys to do cardio and free weights, though.

Even after all that, I’d be down for a little nip and tuck in certain areas that aren’t responding too well.  Maybe I could talk to this monkey vet and see if he’ll give me a tummy tuck while he’s busy hacking open primates.  It’s practically the same thing, after all.

Tags: monkeys, animals, unusual animals, health, monkeys on a diet, monkey plastic surgery, Japan

If there’s one thing I love it’s a good fad website, and the latest in a long line of quality picture sites is There, I Fixed It.  There, I Fixed It highlights the best of creative engineering solutions to problems we might face every day.  Like, for example, the hot water heater fix you see above.  There are no captions or cute animals, but you don’t need them when you’ve got Rube Goldberg inventions around!

Is most of the stuff featured on the site horribly unsightly, and possibly very unsafe?  Yes, so DO NOT try this at home.  Unless you’re like my, in which case you do this stuff all the time and have thus far been exceedingly lucky and/or good at what you’re doing.

Among the projects my dad has undertaken lately, the most TIFI-style work was done when he rewired the water  spigot in the door of our refrigerator to bypass the filter system (thereby saving the expense of new filters every 6 months).  It works like  a charm, and since we have good-tasting water locally, the filter wasn’t really necessary.  Unfortunately, it didn’t require any crazy feats of engineering, either, unlike the crack in the wall he patched with a series of concrete screws, caulk, and a big piece of plastic flooring.

Tags: websites, memes, there I fixed it, funny pictures, image gallery, creative engineering

He had his flaws, but apparently his pitch style works, because he sold everything from cleaning products to life insurance successfully.  The glimpse at the Billy behind the Billy Mays persona the world saw on his excellent show Pitchmen revealed him to be a thoughtful and decent dude, and made him a whole lot more likable.  I had fun with his persona, but I know he did too.

I’m going to miss the guy.  He wasn’t as aggressive or ironic as the ShamWow guy Vince Offer, but he did the job and he did it in such a way that you knew it was Billy Mays even before you saw that famous beard.  He seemed like a good dude who died way too soon.

Tags: obituaries, Billy Mays, Wear Blue For Billy, infomercials, accidents

Then I read something that kind of hit me like a punch in the stomach.  From The Ride Home:

At one time, he was an extraordinary talent: He made incredible music and danced like no human will ever be able to perfectly replicate.

He died years ago.

She’s right.  The Michael Jackson who changed the musical world has been gone a long time.  What remains is a sad freak show, almost too pathetic to mock thanks to his many money problems and obvious psychological issues.

Isn’t that always the case with the truly brilliant, though?  Look at Van Gogh or Hemingway or Hunter Thompson.  With every figure that transcends the bonds of mortality and becomes truly legendary, there is an equal and epic fall from grace.  Even in the midst of a legendary comeback attempt, Jackson could not escape mortality.

I can only hope that the peace he never had in life can be his in death.

Tags: Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson dead, King of Pop, Michael Jackson tributes, music, obituaries

I love a good photograph, and I’m infinitely jealous of people who can take good pictures.  Even more so, I’m jealous of people who know how to use Photoshop and other image editing software to manipulate photos, because I have a ton of awesome ideas and no real way to make them happen.  That’s why I love things like WebUrbanist’s gallery of Photoshop art.  Some of these images are just spectacular!

However, one problem with Photoshop is that nowadays it gets used too much.  It’s no longer just a tool, it’s a crutch.  Everyone thinks they can save any picture with enough Photoshop work, and the sweetening of photos can get someone in a lot of trouble.  Especially if that someone is a photojournalist who tries to make his photos more inflammatory via digital trickery.  For some reason, people get mad when the news media lies to them.

I say bring back legitimate photography, and legitimate photographers!  Life never needed Photoshop to catch an incredible image!  Try staging a creepy photo the old-fashioned way!

Tags: unusual images, image gallery, Photoshop, art, geek art, photographs, unusual edits, surreal pictures

Her story of survival is remarkable.  During her first six years of life, the girl endured multiple medical hardships and unexplained conditions that puzzled doctors, yet she survived all of them and has continued to prosper.  Despite being a toddler in terms of size and development, Brooke is otherwise perfectly normal and in good physical health.  Brooke’s three sisters, ages 22, 19, and 13, are all completely normal children, yet Brooke’s body did not even respond to treatments with human growth hormone. It’s as if she’s immune to aging of any sort.

Doctors believe that within Brooke’s DNA lies a mutation that has prevented her from developing normally.  She’s a puzzling miracle, this young woman.  Who knows what secrets she contains within the coiled strands of her DNA?

Tags: Brooke Greenberg, 16-year-old baby, girl who does not age, unusual medical conditions, medical problems, health

Researching dark matter requires quite a bit of labor.  Any little flicker or radiation can throw off the readings and make hundreds of hours of experimentation useless.  That’s why the city of Homestake, South Dakota, is planning to turn an old goldmine into the world’s deepest laboratory, dedicated to the Large Underground Xenon (or LUX) detector.  The lab is 4,850 feet deep, which is over 6 Empire State Buildings. Meet the Homestake DUSEL!

The history of the Homestake site is fascinating; but one of the crucial details to me is that the lab’s current depth of 4,850 feet is nowhere near the final depth of the old mine shafts.  The deepest, darkest corner of the old mining facility is an incredible 8,000 feet deep!  That means there’s another 3,150 feet of untouched space in the bowels of the earth just waiting to be turned into a real-life Umbrella Corporation, pumping out hordes of designer disease and evil.

Tags: underground science lab, world’s deepest lab, Homestake, South Dakota, DUSEL, Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, Sanford Lab

I imagine it would be horrible to lose a limb in some sort of accident.  One of my biggest fears is some kind of horrible industrial accident.  Since I work around a bunch of printers and presses and with a bunch of awful machines, that’s always a distinct possibility.  However, if that does happen, I hope my morbid sense of humor would lead to me getting my broken stump of a limb tattooed with something awesome, like these folks with unusual body tattoos.

As I’ve always said, if you’re going to get a tattoo, you need to get something different than everyone else.  There’s nothing more unusual than a shark tattoo on a missing arm stump! That’s a great way to turn something people are going to stare at to something that… well, people are going to stare at.  But it turns a negative into a positive, right?

Tags: images, unusual tattoos, amputee tattoos, missing limbs, funny tattoos

No, it’s not a stunt to promote the latest Michael Bay movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  It’s just an ordinary man with a lot of time on his hands, a love of the 80’s cartoon Transformers, a crane, and a spare Volkswagen Beetle.  He turned a yellow VW bug into a full-scale model of the transforming Autobot hero Bumblebee (the original version, not the movie version).  It’s seriously awesome!

What possesses someone to do this kind of thing?   Tom Rhoads started the project after the birth of his son.  After all, what boy wouldn’t love a giant transforming car/robot in his front yard?  That’s really the perfect birthday gift for any boy, and a great attraction for the neighborhood!  Some people have garden gnomes.  Some people have flag poles.  Some people have unusual trees.  Tom and his family have an extraterrestrial robot!

Tags: Transformers, Autobot, replicas, models, Bumblebee, full-sized Bumblebee statue, unusual art, Tom Rhoads, Lemoore, California, lawn ornaments, images

If your 15-year-old daughter sent 400 texts a day and averaged over 12,000 texts in a month, as a parent you might be concerned.  Is all that texting bad for her thumbs?  Is she paying attention in school?  How do you monitor almost 300 pages of text messages stuffed in the phone bill box?  All reasonable questions.  Of course, if you’re the parents of Kate Moore, your next question should very well be, “How do I enter my daughter in the L.G. National Texting Championship?”  Kate took home a $50,000 prize for her texting prowess!

It’s not just a test of speed of thumb and accuracy of spelling (although there was that).  There was also a quiz on texting acronyms, an obstacle course to negotiate while testing, a pressure cooker round in which texters were distracted by people in emoticon outfits hurling insults, and a blindfolded texting challenge.  Kate definitely earned her grand prize by surviving that competition!

I wonder if she’s going to give texting lessons from now on, because I could use some.  It takes me 5 minutes to poke out a basic sentence on my phone, and forget about walking and texting at the same time!  You never know what crazy gadget you have might end up saving your life.

Image:  Oddity Central

Tags: Kate Moore, National Texting Championship, unusual contests, texting, cell phones, L.G.

One of the arguments against video games as art is that, generally, video games rarely (if ever) move anyone to tears.  I’m not sure what crying has to do with art, but Wonderland linked to a wonderful new blog/webcomic/project that may just finally prove that video games can make you cry.  It’s called Alice and Kev, and it is one of the most moving/wonderful things I’ve seen involving video games.

Alice and Kev is the brainchild of video game design student Robin Burkinshaw from Anglia Ruskin University in the UK.  Using Sims 3 as a tool, Robin sought out to simulate homelessness in a video game.  Thus Alice and her mentally ill father Kev came to be.  With a minimum of interference from the creator, the Sims carry on their daily lives living hand-to-mouth, stealing food,  and generally being outcasts.

There have been other depressing video games, like Layoff the Game, but there’s never been something quite like Alice and Kev.  It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking sociological experiment.  This is the kind of thinking outside the norm that will help turn video games into a legitimate form of media.

Tags: Alice and Kev, The Sims, Sims 3, video games, Robin Burkinshaw, video games as art

The Bulwark is a warship, and Commander Keble has declared war on Brussels sprouts.  He’s the commanding officer, and as such he can make whatever rules he wants on his ship.   Will the Royal Navy complain?  Does anyone actually like Brussels sprouts?  I know they’re very low down on my list of veggies I like; if I were in charge of a ship I’d probably ban them, too (and my crew would no doubt cheer me for it).

Kudos to Commander Keble!  Thanks to this ruling, his soldiers will follow him anywhere there isn’t Brussels sprouts.

Tags: Brussels sprouts, Wayne Keble, HMS Bulwark, banned foods, unusual foods

Umpire Don Briggs decided that he’d had enough of the unruly fans, so the crowd of 100 people got tossed en masse during the game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington. How fans got too unruly at a high school baseball game I’ll never know. Maybe Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington are bitter rivals or something. Maybe someone threw something at the umpire when he made a bad call.

That reminds me of one of my favorite baseball meltdowns of all time, the one thrown by Joe Mikulik, manager of the Class A Ashville Tourists. Check it out; it gets really good towards the end when the dirt mountain and water bottle come into play.

Tags: Winfield-Mount Union, West Burlington, umpire throws crowd out of game, high school baseball, unusual sports moments, rowdy crowd tossed, Don Briggs

We’ve seen a lot of unusual pranks involving roadside equipment, but nothing quite like this.  Anyone can break into a digital road sign and put up a zombie warning, but it takes some serious skill (and serious artistic talent) to turn a pile of those orange striped construction barrels into a leering comic book nightmare.  This is a seriously impressive project that took a lot of planning.

I think the most impressive part of this feat is that it was constructed at night on the side of a road right out in the open.  That takes a serious amount of guts.  If the accused perpetrator, Joseph Carnevale, isn’t an art or engineering student, he really ought to consider changing majors.  Not only is this an inspired feat of creativity, it’s also an impressive piece of on-the-fly building and planning!

Tags: unusual crimes, art, unusual art, monster made from construction barrels, pranks, NCSU, Joseph Carnevale, mischief

One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons involved Homer and Ned Flanders becoming friends.  The two neighbors/enemies (well, Homer hates Ned, not the other way around) bonded by going to a baseball game.  While there, Flanders bought Homer food and drinks, caught him a ball, and basically bent over backwards to be polite and nice to Homer.  Homer, being an insensitive jerk, lapped it all up but wasn’t happy until he got his nacho hat.  And guess what?  Someone has finally made a nacho hat!

You know, I could never afford a Simpsons iPod Touch, but baking my own nacho hat?  That I could probably pull off.  Maybe.  If I had help.  I think creators Cota Froise was very wise to avoid going with the scalding hot cheese dip in the center/bowl of her nacho hat.  Salsa is not only tastier; it’s also a lot less painful if it leaks onto the top of your head.

Tags: Cota Froise, nacho hat, edible hat, edible clothing, funny hats, The Simpsons, unusual foods, snacks

As someone who has been through college and who works as something of a paid writer right now, I know all about the process of sitting down at the computer for the purpose of working, only to find that work never gets accomplished. Researching something on the internet or browsing my feed reader quickly turns into playing a game or reading message boards about my favorite movies. So I can completely identify with Savannah College of Art and Design student Bang-Yao Liu’s short video “Deadline.”

That’s incredible, isn’t it? I can only imagine how many stacks of Post-It notes the director went through to do this film. I do have to admit that he perfectly captures the process of procrastination and efficiently wasting time. Now if only someone had some ideas on how to stop procrastination, then maybe this post wouldn’t be coming at you at 2 PM.

I know a lot of tricks to get myself out of it, but the hard part is making myself actually follow the recommendations.

Tags: deadlines, videos, short film, Bang-Yao Liu, SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design, YouTube

Salomon-Prudo’s catch came in the Gulf of Mexico, and while you might think running into missiles is a pretty unlikely incident, to hear Salomon-Prudo tell it, the event is commonplace.  Eglin Air Force Base has been testing missiles since WWII, and in Salomon-Prudo’s own words, “I hear them exploding over my head all the time.”

I guess that’s why he wasn’t so afraid to drag what he believed to be a dud missile on board his ship as a souvenir.  He’s lucky the thing didn’t blow him to bits!  Commercial fishing is dangerous enough without the added risk of exploding!

Tags: fisherman catches missile, Gulf of Mexico, fishing for explosives, Rodney Salomon-Prudo, Florida, Madeira Beach, Eglin Air Force Base, unusual fishing stories

I can’t think of one person who isn’t fascinated with the concept of weightlessness. Man has always dreamed of flying, and the zero-gravity situation of space makes this humanoid flight possible. However, you don’t really get to ask astronauts to perform stunts for you, unless you’re able to email the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and astronaut Koichi Wakata. One of his duties on the International Space Station is designated stuntman.

Whatever people ask, Wakata will do. Fly around on a magic carpet? Done. Put in eye drops? Done. Engage in some friendly arm-wrestling (or try to)? Done. The condensed video of Wakata’s rigorous experimentation from Pink Tentacle is one of the most amusing things I’ve ever seen, and it looks like Wakata is really enjoying his mission.

Who could blame him? Do you think they’d let him do this stuff just on his own whims? No way! There’s nothing science-related about swimming around with folded up flight manuals as oars. But it is fun, and it is the kind of experiment that the public wants to see.

Less ant colonies in space; more moon golf!

Tags: Astronauts, space, International Space Station, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, ISS, JAXA, videos, funny videos, experiments, weightlessness, zero gravity stunts, Koichi Wakata

Americans have a love of cars that starts at birth, play with Matchbox cars and build model cars in our youth, and we continue to love cars until the government pries our drivers’ licenses from our wrinkled old hands.  We’re a car loving people, and no doubt the Cozy Coupe has a lot to do with that.  No doubt that’s why the Cozy Coupe is being honored by a Cleveland, Ohio, automotive museum for its enduring popularity.

Tags: toys, little tikes, cozy coupe, best selling car in the US, popular toys

Thanks again for the compliments, and yes, I do use a lot of shampoo and conditioner.  Actually Beardsley brand shampoo and conditioner!  It’s been a long road growing a beard  like this and it was nice to be appreciated for it!

Not a problem.  I’m glad you and your wife liked the line about your luxurious chin pelt!  I’ve always wondered how somebody could grow such epic facial hair without it getting all matted or breaking. Every time I’ve tried to grow my beard out, it gets to about two inches at the chin and then just kind of stops.  I guess it’s because I wasn’t conditioning!

First off, again thanks!

I do shampoo and condition daily.  It’s funny, people always think that guys with beards are lazy and they just don’t want to shave, but it’s actually more work to keep a beard this long!  Shaving would be quicker and easier!

How long did it take you to get your beard to that length?  Are you going to try to go for 3000 toothpicks?  Or contact the Guinness people and see if you can’t get your name in the book?  How did you talk your wife into letting you grow/keep that?  I’m full of beard-related questions!

I’ve been growing this particular beard for about a year and a half now.  I started in August of ‘07.  If you want you can check out my pictures on my MySpace page.  I have monthly shots of the growth.

Going back for 3000?  I doubt it, unless someone asked me to, to film it or something.  I could have easily fit more in, it was just taking so long and I had other stuff to do so we just stopped where we did.  I liked the number 2222 so we stopped there.  I would like to have a shake out with out the garbage bag under it, just free flowing; I think that would look cool!  I don’t know if this is any kind of record or anything.  I didn’t do a thorough research on the subject, I just typed it into a couple place and the highest number I saw anyone doing was 2000 so I wanted to go higher.  It was all for fun, I had no idea anyone would ever see it around the web.  I just thought I’d show my family and friends and we’d get a laugh!

How long did it take you to stick the 2222 toothpicks in?

It took an hour and a half when we made the video.  That was with stopping and taking pictures and filming and just goofing around.  I’m sure I could do it faster.  I’ve tried pencils before, but just like one or two. I never got a box and tried that.  Maybe I’ll have to give it a shot!  I have a loose beard style, not overly course and dense, so I don’t know how well they would stay in.

Have you ever tried to stick anything else in your beard, like something heavier?  (When I had my beard I’d stick capped pens into it and let them hang off my face like a human desk caddy.)

A few times I tried messing around with moustache wax, but it really pulls the hairs out, so I stopped.  I’ve never braided it or anything, just because I didn’t want to rip a bunch of the hairs out.  It takes too long to replace a pulled hair when they get to this length!

Have you ever thought about having your beard braided so you’d look like a Tolkien dwarf on Fellowship picture day?

“a Tolkien dwarf on Fellowship picture day?”–another great line!  I see why you are a writer!  First chin pelt, now this!

George is a proud member of Beard Team USA, and he competed in the World Beard Championships in May.  I’d like to thank him personally for emailing me, and I’d like to thank him more for letting me interview him.  Also, I’d like to apologize to him for not getting the interview up sooner, as we’d done most of the communicating way back in February when I first posted the video, but I’d forgotten about it until now when I saw Neatorama pimping the beard video again.  Thanks again, George!

As always, for more beard information, visit Beards.org!

Tags: George Gaspar, World Beard Championships, beards, unusual beards, facial hair, Little George, interviews, interesting people

Are you ready for your daily dose of zombies?  The Boston Police Department has a Twitter feed.  Apparently, they also have a deadpan sense of humor, as evidenced by their response to Will Cady’s question about a potential zombie outbreak in Massachusetts.  Hehehe, I love things like this; when an organization or company I assume is otherwise faceless is able to properly use social media (by, gasp, being social), it always kind of makes me happy.

It also kind of makes me wish I did more with the PopFi Twitter feed.  One of my goals was to be more of a presence on there, like Shout Factory’s Twitter person.  It’s all well and good to have an RSS feed, but it’s better to talk to the people who subscribe and get to know them while getting feedback on what you’re posting.  So far, that’s been kind of a challenge for me due to my natural laziness (but I’ll keep working on it).

However, I wonder if Will actually believes that the Boston police would tell him if it was a zombie attack?  Everyone knows the first page in the government manual for dealing with anything is denial.  No matter what it might be, if movies have taught me anything, it’s that the government will deny the zombie outbreak until it is too late.

Tags: Twitter, social media, zombies, humor, funny Twitter feeds, Boston Police Department, Will Cady, zombie outbreak

I think that if my employer offered me any of these options, I’d jump at the ones I could qualify for.  I’d love to get paid not to work for five years; I’d spend that time working on PopFi or writing a novel or something.  I’d even love a four-day work week in exchange for four ten-hour work days because I could use that extra day to rest and recharge (AKA stay up late the night before and sleep until noon).

Three years does seem like an awfully long time to go on a third of your normal salary, though.  I think most of the people who’d take that either don’t need the money too badly or feel confident they can pick up a second job (or actually take the leave to work on projects like they promised they would).  I know I could get a lot done with a few free years at my disposal, like grow a killer garden.

Tags: BBVA, saving money, economy, paid not to work, unusual employment ideas, business, cutting costs

While penguins themselves aren’t visible from space, scientists are able to pick out the reddish-brown droppings against the white sheets of ice, and they use the latrine trail to track the movement of the birds.  This has to be one of the strangest penguin-related stories since Pierre the Penguin got his designer coat!  It’s great that they’ve figured out a better way to track the birds, but that’s really kind of a strange thing to issue a press release about.  I wonder how they A) discovered they could see penguin doo-doo from space and B) who figured out that it WAS penguin remains they were tracking across the ice.

Tags: weird science, penguin tracking, Antarctic wildlife, satellite tracking, animal poop

In what has to be one of the weirdest, creepiest promotional items ever, Del Monte Superfruit Smoothes, a UK ice cream treat confectioner, has released the License to Chill ice pop in honor of National Ice Cream Week in the UK, which starts today and runs through June 7th.  What’s so creepy about a popsicle you ask?  Well, you’re licking James Bond.

That’s got to be the creepiest looking combination of sugar, water, and purple I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, I know ladies love Daniel Craig, but he’s not even the best James Bond!  I’ve heard they tried to make a Sean Connery popsicle, but people kept choking on the resulting hairballs from licking the Scot’s woolly torso.  I suppose when it comes to popsicles and lollies, hairlessness is of crucial importance, even of James Blond isn’t quite the model of a modern English gentleman.

I’m a huge fan of James Bond, and I love stupid collectibles as much as the next nerd, but that’s pushing it for me.  I don’t think I could bring myself to actually eat one of those, no matter how delicious the flavors might be.  I imagine it will be quite popular with both the ladies and the alternative lifestyle set, though!

Image:  Telegraph UK

Tags: Daniel Craig, James Bond, Del Monte, Superfruit Smoothies, National Ice Cream Week, License to Chill, creepy food

An airplane full of people disappears near a deserted tropical island.  No, it’s not a description of the hit TV show Lost, it is real life.  An Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris disappeared overnight last night without a trace.  An hour after takeoff, the plane encountered heavy turbulence.  Ten minutes after that turbulence, the Airbus A330 disappeared from radar screens near the island of Fernando de Noronha.

I hate to be flippant, but the first thing I thought when I read the story was, “Hey, that’s like Lost!”  I know that in real life, people don’t crash land on traveling islands full of smoke monsters and polar bears.  There are 228 people missing at this moment that may never be found.  Maybe the plane’s transponder just went bad, but as time passes that becomes less likely.

All that you can hope for is that there are some survivors and that they were able to safely evacuate the plane and are on rafts headed towards civilization.  Simply surviving an event like a plane crash is a miracle, but surviving a plane that goes down in shark-infested waters is even more difficult.  Here’s hoping for a miracle, eh?

Tags: airplane crash, airplane missing, Air France flight 447, real-life Lost, Fernando de Noronha, Brazilian plane crash, Airbus A330

You know what movie made gigantic floor pianos look fun? Big. Everyone who has ever seen the movie will, when walking by any toy store of sufficient size, duck inside to see just where the giant floor piano is. They might even attempt to play something on it. I’ve done this many times, yet I’ve never managed to come close to what these two girls can accomplish on their giant floor keyboard. They rock; I’m more like a clumsy robot.

The song, which you’ll recognize but may not know, is Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach (or as his friends call him, Johnny S.). It was memorably played in the opening of Disney’s Fantasia, and is the song of choice for the Phantom of the Opera and everyone looking to play off the Phantom of the Opera. I believe it’s one of those tunes everyone knows and enjoys, simply because of its longtime association with creepy!

Tags: two girls one piano, girls playing piano, giant floor piano, dancing piano, toccata and fugue in D minor, Bach

If you’re a huge fan of the 80’s and you have $2.3 million dollars to spare, then you can buy a piece of history.  The famous modernist house where Cameron Frye and his best friend Ferris Bueller steal Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari is up for sale.  That’s right; you can own a piece of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  (Car not included.)  You can see the actual real-estate listing!

Even if you’re not a big fan of John Hughes films, then this house is interesting purely from an architectural standpoint.  It’s mostly glass and steel, with the house actually being two buildings built cantilevered over a ravine on an acre of gorgeous, wooded land.  Every room has a giant window in it, or whole walls made of glass, so you can get the most out of your view of the woods around you.  Prepare to spend a fortune on Windex and to spend a lot of time chasing away kids trying to borrow your car.

It’s not as traditional in appearance as the house made of recycling, but it’s still incredibly awesome.  I’m not sure about its carbon footprint, or how much it might take to cool or heat the house, but for pure awesomeness it’s hard to beat owning a real live movie set.

Image: YBNBY

Tags: movie houses, movie sets, unusual architecture, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Cameron’s house for sale, movie locations for sale

For example, did all humans eat Neanderthals?  Did we eat them to extinction, or just eat them if we happened to kill them in a fight over fire or whatever ancient peoples fought over?  Who decided that they were delicious enough to cook and, for that matter, why didn’t we all die of awful cannibalism-related diseases?  Were Neanderthals different enough genetically that they weren’t predisposed to give humans some precursor to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease?  Did we also eat all the missing links?

See, science can be awesome, but they never can answer the questions I really want to know.  I guess I’ll have to turn to real-life caveman Ringo Starr for my answers.

Image:  Daily Galaxy

Tags: Neanderthals, ancient humans, what killed the Neanderthals, ancient cannibalism, history

Next time you get a big mug of coffee from your local coffee shop, don’t just give right into it and start gulping away. Not only will you spare yourself lots of mouth and tongue burns by taking your time, you might also get to see a little bit of creativity. If you’re a customer of Sam Corra at Café Yala on the Canberra Institute of Technology campus, you might be lucky enough to see one of Corra’s creations. He turns steamed milk, froth, and beans into art!

This is really impressive. I can barely pour myself a glass of milk without spilling it everywhere, let alone draw designs of angels, dragons, and swans with the dairy! How do you even learn that you can do this? At what point was he filling a cardboard cup with cappuccino and randomly decided that he ought to try making a picture in the java?

I never see anything in my coffee except frothy bubbles or, if I’m unlucky, bean grindings that have escaped the filter.

Tags: Sam Corra, coffee, coffee art, unusual drinks, world’s best barista, unusual talents, cafe yala

See that little critter above?  Paleontologist Jorn Hurum and the folks at National Geographic say that the prehistoric animal, nicknamed Ida, is the long-searched-for missing link in the evolutionary chain that connects the modern day human to our primate predecessors.  Apparently Darwinius masillae up there has several human characterstics, including opposable digits, fingers with nails instead of claws, and grasping hands.  She’s the earliest-known discovery of these traits so far.

I just don’t get how this is considered the Missing Link.  I’ve always understood that term to be something that directly connects the gap between humans and apes, not between apes and dinosaurs or swamp algae or whatever.  This seems like an earlier offshoot where apes separated from lemurs and has little or nothing to do with humans.

Maybe I’m just not getting it.  She looks like any other skateboard-riding ape to me.

Tags: human evolution, the missing link, missing link found, Ida, Darwinius masillae, prehistoric primates, Jorn Hurum

From the mad genius behind An Engineer’s Guide to Cats comes his latest video, An Engineer’s Guide to Advanced Cat Yodeling. I’m not sure where Paul Klusman gets his inspiration for these videos, but whatever combination of drugs he’s taking is really working for him. He puts out some of the funniest videos on the web when it comes to analyzing and annoying cats!

I think what makes these videos so funny is their absolute deadpan presentation. There’s no winking at the camera; Paul and his accomplice TJ Wingard play it completely seriously. Like the actors in My Little Pony: Reign of Buttercup Sprinkles, ignoring the jokes only elevates the laugh potential higher!

I have an absolutely wonderful, patient cat who will let me do pretty much whatever crazy thing I want to her. Hang her upside down? No problem! I could mildly annoy her all day long and she’d never get mad enough to where I’d need cat socks and eye protection (and she’s talkative by nature), so I think I’m going to be trying this later. Toonces won’t know what hit her!

Tags: advanced cat yodeling, videos, youtube, viral videos, funny videos, an engineer’s guide to cats, Gutsy Movies Productions, Paul Klusman

Of course, to Toda-san that’s nothing.  His real goal, and one he’s been pushing for since 1979, is to launch a paper airplane from space back to Earth.  He believes (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is studying this now) that because of the design of his paper airplanes that they can travel safely to Earth from the International Space Station.  I guess you can do anything with origami!

His airplane and the Space Shuttle NASA uses have the same design, so there might be something to his crazy-sounding theory.  Why they don’t just send some paper airplanes up on the next shuttle mission and throw them at Earth?  I don’t know; apparently you can’t just do these things without spending a few million yen to do a feasibility study.  Paper is pretty cheap these days, Japan; you could probably just wing this one.

Get it?  Airplane?  Wing?  Ha!

Tags: world’s longest paper airplane flight, Guinness World Records, world record paper airplane, 29.7 second paper airplane flight, paper airplanes from space, Takuo Toda

That’s what I love most about using WordPress on my own hosting space; if I get tired of my site’s look, I can change it with little to no effort on my part.  Just select a new theme under the Presentation menu and I’m good to go!  If you’re not technically inclined, your web-host will usually install WordPress for free when you buy even the smallest of hosting packages, and they’ll often help with installing widgets as well.

Really, if you want to blog, there is no good reason to hold your tongue.  Just be careful what you say, because you can get in trouble for blog posts.   These days, anyone with something to say can announce it to the world.  Who knows, you might even get famous!

Tags: blogging, wordpress, wordpress themes, free wordpress themes, free blog themes, top 100 templates

You know, I love how strange the Internet world is. A few days ago, a friend of mine linked me to a trailer for a heartwarming movie about a shark and an octopus who become friends. Actually, it’s Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus and they’re more like frenemies united in their declaration that humans taste good. My friend Jaime shared the trailer with me, knowing that I love awful Sci-Fi Channel original pictures and the later work of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures/New Horizons, and The Asylum is carrying on that fine tradition. In turn, I shared that trailer with my friend Katie from Word of Mouth, and now it’s all over the place.

That’s one of the most fun aspects of the Internet. Something a friend shared with me that I shared on has become some kind of crazy viral video sensation. I know I didn’t really have anything to do with it, since I didn’t even post it at PopFi two days ago when it was linked to me, but it’s a neat feeling nonetheless to know that I was a good day ahead of the curve. Or at least only a day behind the curve.

Either way. On the Internet we can all feel like trend setters, even if we’re just nerds behind keyboards linking one another to movie trailers for Z-grade independent movies starring Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson. That’s what’s so great about the World Wide Web, we’re all one viral video discovery away from being the man (or woman) behind the meme.

Before you ask: Yes, I am kicking myself for not posting this the other day.

Tags: the internet, memes, mega shark vs. giant octopus, movies, b-movies, the asylum, sci-fi channel, Lorenzo Lamas

One of the most memorable scenes in Tim Burton’s movie Edward Scissorhands is when Edward goes around the neighborhood carving all the shrubs and trees into topiaries.  Topiaries are those living sculptures or works of art made out of actual green, growing plants.  If you’re like me and can’t even cut paper on a straight line without help from the Army Corps of Engineers, you might want to consider the gardening services of Topiary Joe, one of the world’s premier topiary artists.  Just check out his work over at Inhabitant!

This is some absolutely stunning stuff.  Whether it is carving a living plant into the right shape or growing plants around a wire frame, I’d have trouble replicating this work.  Making the frame isn’t the problem; I can’t make plants grow.  Even if I had a digital pot that told me all I needed to know about my plant’s health, it’d still end up dying.

Tags: living sculptures, topiary gardens, topiaries, Topiary Joe, plants, gardens, landscaping, unusual plants

It only took 448 yellow LED lights, but Japanese hacker “Ron” Tajima turned his Roomba into that vanquisher of ghosts and eater of pellets of yore, Pac-Man! This is quite possibly one of the best Roomba videos ever, even when you consider that video of the cat riding on top of the Roomba. I mean, who doesn’t love Pac-Man, even now? If I see one of those old-school table-style Pac-Man games, it gets every quarter I can get my hands on!

When I was a kid, the pizza place we went to had a Pac-Man table machine and I played it every time I went. I’ve probably fed that thing $1000 by now. Does that make me any better at Pac-Man? No, I’m awful, but I enjoy taking the trip back in time to the 1980’s. Sometimes you do things just because you love them, not because they make sense.

Tags: roomba hacks, pacman roomba, video games, custom roomba, funny videos, how-to, youtube, Ron Tajima,

The English language, being free of all conventions and having no governing body, is a beautiful thing.  French is a carefully cultivated garden, but English?  As Shakespeare could tell you, all someone has to do to invent a new word is to get enough people to start using it.  That’s how d’oh joined the official lexicon last year, and how this year’s new addition, word number 1,000,000, might just end up being the word noob.

There are other options, of course, but the fact of the matter is adding a de- to words like defriend or defollow isn’t unusual, but adding a word invented in online games is a sign that the culture is changing.  No longer are words being invented by playwrights or author; average people like us can create a word, spread it amongst our friends, and (eventually) have it join the dictionary and be usable in Scrabble games throughout the world.  It’s kind of like an episode of Fraggle Rock I barely remember in which the Fraggles picked one person every year to add one new word to the Fraggle language.

Image:  Joystiq

Tags: new words, additions to the dictionary, new English, noob added to dictionary, one million words, language