Let's be safe out there, people

As if you needed another reason not to drink and drive tonight, meet Jacqueline Saburido. WARNING: SHOCKING IMAGES (via Look At This...)

Technorati tags: drunk, driving, injuries

Happy New Year! Bolivians, get your yellow undies on.

10 Unusual Traditions for Ringing in the New Year around the World

In Spain, people ring in the New Year by eating 12 grapes. In Bolivia, to bring good fortune in the coming year they wear yellow-colored underwear (presumably it comes from the store that color, and is not the byproduct of overexcited Bolivians).


Technorati tags: New, Year, traditions

A nice addition to the resume

This must have been an interesting conversation with the school.

Too small? Click the pic to activate the Enlarginator. (via The Best Article Every Day)

Technorati tags: homework

Is that a lump in your throat or are you just speaking !Xóõ?

An interesting article from a writer at The Economist searching for the world's most difficult language. While we sometimes hear about how difficult English can be to pick up as a second language (why is it that our noses run while our feet smell?), the author of the article argues that English isn't that bad, with its lack of gendered nouns and mostly painless pluralization rules (usually just adding an -s works). No, that honor may well go to !Xóõ, which is so badass it actually gives you a lump on your larynx just from speaking it. (via Languagehat)

For sound complexity, one language stands out. !Xóõ, spoken by just a few thousand, mostly in Botswana, has a blistering array of unusual sounds. Its vowels include plain, pharyngealised, strident and breathy, and they carry four tones. It has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones. The leading expert on the !Xóõ, Tony Traill, developed a lump on his larynx from learning to make their sounds. Further research showed that adult !Xóõ-speakers had the same lump (children had not developed it yet).

Technorati tags: language

Santa goes to better parties than you do

It's official. Dylan is out of his everlovin' mind. Wearing a ridiculous wig and barely managing to lip sync to his own vocals, I am not even sure if he realized the cameras were on. Though the album (Christmas In The Heart) was roundly panned by the critics, I've gotta tell you, this song burrowed past my earworm defenses and is still rattling around in my head hours later.

Must be Santa! Must be Santa! Must be Santa, Santa Claus!

Technorati tags: Bob, Dylan, Christmas

The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N.

A great "Dazed and Confused" reference over at Defective Yeti, which will be lost on you unless you've seen the movie, or at least the trailer below.

I'll take this time to say that if you grew up during the 70s and have not yet seen Richard Linklater's 1993 classic (featuring a fairly skeevy character played by the then pretty much unknown Matthew McConaughey), do yourself a favor and check it out. You'd be a lot cooler if you did...



Technorati tags: Dazed, Confused, Santa

On, Dasher! On, Dancer! On, Tinkle and Whizzer!

Come on, big guy. You're in like hundreds of millions of houses tonight, most with a fully functional toilet, and you choose this very second to let it fly? (via AmyOops)

Technorati tags: Santa, when you gotta go...

It's what keeps your insides from becoming outsides

The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair this past November featured a book bound in human skin. Ick.




Not having read the books or seen the movies, this was a tough quiz for me, and I scored a middling 67% to prove it. Take the quiz: Harry Potter Character or Hideous Skin Disease?




7 Most Bizarre Skin Diseases

Dede Koswara, a 35-year-old Indonesian fisherman suffers from a severe Human Pappiloma Virus (HPV) infection. he is called the "tree man" because of the gnarled warts all over his body.

Technorati tags: Harry, Potter, skin, disease, quiz, book

Pew-pew-pew! Meow! Pew-pew!

As expected, a friendly little game of lasercat tag is all fun and games until somebody brings out the nuclear hairball.

Seriously, though. What kind of targeting mechanism are they using with these cats? With that kind of aim, I don't think even the Imperial Stormtrooper Academy would take them. (via Neatorama)

Technorati tags: pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, laser, cats

Hmm. Should I celebrate Christmas or crush the entire planetary ecosystem with my gargantuan carbon footprint? Can't I do both?

A collection of cool and/or crazy Christmas light decoration pics.







Technorati tags: Christmas, lights, Step away from the LEDs

Christmastime and a Life of Crime

Just Who Is This Guy? It's that time of the year where we actually welcome nocturnal break-ins. Just as long as the perpetrator leaves a copy of Rock Band...



Santa's Crime Wave - By all accounts, the suspect is still (at) large.



Sherwood Linton - Santa Got A DWI

Technorati tags: Santa, Christmas, Ho ho ho, crime

Nothin' but 'Net

Shoot some online baskets, and compare your prowess to others playing around the world. In a case of gaming imitating reality, I suck out loud at both virtual and actual basketball. (via Kottke)

Technorati tags: flash, games, basketball

10 PRINT "MERRY " 20 PRINT "XMAS!!" 30 GOTO 10

A cute video of little robots dancing to some of your favorite Christmas songs. (via [Geeks Are Sexy]



Daft Punk - Robot Rock




Battle of the Robot Dance Moves (Even a Robot's Got to Protect His Junk)




Dancing Citroen Transformer




Dancing Sony Robots




This contestant on So You Think You Can Dance has really got his 'bot on. Day-um.

Technorati tags: robot, dance

That comes out to just one good story every 450 million years

It's the end of the year, and that means lots and lots of "Best Of"/ "Top 10" lists covering 2009.

A piffling 365 days? Forget that noise. The Onion steps up their game and brings you their Top 10 Stories of the Past 4.5 Billion Years. A few of my faves would be Fire, Setting Everything In Sight On Fire Discovered, Dinosaurs Sadly Extinct Before Invention Of Bazooka and Rat-Sh**-Covered Physicians Baffled By Spread Of Black Plague.


Technorati tags: Onion, news

Who Let The Apes Out?

CAUTION: There is so much action packed into this video (called "The TV Show") directed by Sugimoto Kousuke, you might need a seatbelt just to watch it. Strap in.

If you like that, you might also enjoy Kousule's Full Moon Party, which compresses thousands of years of ape civilization into a three-and-a-half minute guitar-propelled barnburner.


Technorati tags: Sugimoto, Kousuke

Don't move...

Go out and amaze your drinking buddies, maybe even win a few bar bets with these balancing tricks.




This Diet Pepsi is part of a balanced breakfast.
Although it looks impossible, that 2-liter soda bottle is balancing without any hidden support other than that acrylic board with a hole just big enough to accept the neck of the bottle. Neat center-of-gravity physics that looks like magic.




How to balance 10 nails off the head of a single nail. Ingenious.

Technorati tags: balancing, trick, soda, bottle, nails

I'm counting the seconds...

A final countdown of that cheesiest of 80's power anthems, Europe's 1986 mega-hit "The Final Countdown". All 16 (count 'em, 16!) versions, everything from a version done by a "manualist", aka one who forces air through this cupped hands to make musical sounds to some guy performing it on a homemade "kazookelele" (kazoo + ukelele). I'd say, "enjoy", but that may be asking a bit much. How 'bout, "good luck"?





Go to Google and don't enter anything into the search box. Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and you will see how many seconds are left in 2009. (via TYWKIWDBI)

Technorati tags: Europe, Final Countdown, Google

And after you read this post, you will think you are a chicken

People all over Norway were freaking out December 9th because of a mysterious ginormous spiral of light in the evening sky. (via The Presurfer)

Update: It was caused by a failed Russian rocket launch. Interesting video explaining the cause of the spiral.



So, I guess that means my They Might Be Giants "Spiraling Shape" Theory is definitely not a contender. Ah well, it's still a good song and I recommend listening...




Mess up your brain with these hypnotic spirals and optical illusions.

Technorati tags: spirals, Norway, tagname, They Might Be Giants, hypnosis, optical, illusions

What if...?

How would things look if the Earth had rings like Saturn? A cool thought experiment with some gorgeous visuals. (via Albino Blacksheep)



Elephants on Acid, just one of 10 Bizarre Scientific Experiments.




Schrödinger's cat and 7 other Famous Thought Experiments.

Technorati tags: weird, experiments

In the not too distant future...

Yay! Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes are on Hulu. So far just a few from seasons 4-6, but hopefully more to come. (via The Daily What)

Technorati tags: MST3K, Hulu

Was that an undead squid I just saw?

One more bit of silliness from the land of the rising sun:
Ultraman + Kaiju + Thriller dance = Win! (via Japan Probe)

Technorati tags: Ultraman, kaiju, Thriller, Japanese, TV, strange

Domo Arigato, buy my potato (chips)

A Japanese Halls lozenge commercial. Somehow I don't think subtitles would have cleared this up any. (via List of the Day)




Nice. Make sure your speakers are turned up.




Odd commercial with an anthropomorphic dog(-like demoncreature) for Calbee potato chips.


Technorati tags: strange, Japanese, commercial

What's black and white and delicious all over?

Epic Oreo Cookie




Oreos as artistic medium. Using 1,887 Oreos, Phil Hansen recreated the famous 1963 photograph of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk immolating himself in protest of the persecution of Buddhist monks by the South Vietnamese government.

Kind of a downer in a post about Oreo cookies, fer cryin' out loud, so you can go here for more history and the original photo. You can view more of his unusual work at PhilInTheCircle.com.




Recipe for Oreo Balls, a/k/a Reindeer Droppings




How to make deep-fried Oreo cookies.

Technorati tags: Oreos

My superheroes are really in shape. Round is a shape.

Not everyone can (or should) be a superhero. I can totally see Wolverine here walking around Comic Con '09 eating Sausage McGriddles that have been skewered on his claws.

Technorati tags: overweight, superheroes

Is that a flashbag in your pocket or do you just have a lot of data?

WebUrbanist put together a list of 50 geektastic USB flash drives. The ones in the first picture below are called "flashbags", and they contain a micro air pump. The more data you store, the more air gets pumped into the drive, letting you see at a glance how "full" it is.

Uh huh.






Technorati tags: USB, flash, drive, flashbag

It's been a strange news day

Man dressed as elf causes mall evacuation

Atlanta, GA - Southlake Mall was evacuated Wednesday night after a man dressed as an elf allegedly told the mall Santa that he was carrying dynamite. [more]



Man gives up attempts to produce milk

Stockholm, Sweden - Swedish man who spent months attempting to pump milk from his breasts has given up on the failed attempt, his observers said. [more]



Technorati tags: odd, news

I would gladly pay you Tuesday for $200,000 in unmarked, non-sequential bills today

Bank Notes: A collection of bank robbery notes culled over the years. Some are surprisingly polite or even apologetic. I like the second one here. It appears he is robbing the bank... for $100. (via Blame It On The Voices)

I have a gun in my bag.
Give me $5,000 please.
Thanks a bunch.




This is a bank robbery,
place 1 100.00 bill
on the counter
or I will shoot you


Technorati tags: bank, robbery, notes, crime

You are too a beautiful and unique snowflake

Just because Guinness snubbed your world record claim of Most Chicken Faces Drawn In One Minute (18) or your Most "The Big Lebowski" Catchphrases Recited In One Minute (23) doesn't mean that all that hard work and training were for nothing.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course it was for nothing! Even so, The Universal Record Database wants to know about it! (via In4mador!)

From their About page:

Let's see what humans can do.

What world record are you capable of setting? We believe every person on earth has potential to be the world's best 'something'. URDB's mission is to become the database where all such achievements will live.

What record categories are acceptable?

The general guidlines are simple: every record in the database must be a) quantifiable, b) breakable and c) legal. If you want to set a record for, say, "Fastest Time Eating a Banana While Standing On The Great Wall of China and Wearing A Purple T-Shirt", go for it. Creativity is highly encouraged.

While not mandatory, achievements that positively impact mankind are encouraged. For example, think "Most Soda Cans Recycled in 24 Hours" instead of "Most Oil Spilled Into a Lake". Let's build a site we'll all feel good about.

Technorati tags: world, record

OK Go lets you taste the rainbow

WTF?

OK Go | MySpace Music Videos
The video from the first single off OK Go's latest, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky makes me feel like someone may have dosed my Diet Coke.

Technorati tags: OK Go, WTF?

The Living Camera

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic man also known as "The Living Camera" for his ability to recall and sketch landscapes with incredible detail after viewing them only once. Here he draws from memory a 17-foot long aerial recreation of the city of Rome after seeing it for the first and only time on a 45-minute helicopter ride. Astounding. (via Bits & Pieces)

Technorati tags: memory, autism

I had no idea that chickens could do the Fandango

The Muppets - Bohemian Rhapsody (thanks, Tim!)




The six kinds of wonderful Julia Nunes - You're My Best Friend




Freddie Chin - Bicycle Race




My favorite Queen song, the one that always puts a big dopey smile on my face (and looks of consternation on everyone else's when they hear me trying to sing along), Queen - Somebody to Love

Technorati tags: Queen, Muppets, Julia, Nunes

One-man band

Looping Around The House from Si on Vimeo.

Technorati tags: video, music, looping

Tipping Point

Walter Wick's "Balancing Act" manages to put 117 toys on a single Lego brick without glue or supports. Stick around for the "unbuilding" section at the end. (via The Awesomer)

Technorati tags: balancing

Five Leaves Left

Christoph Niemann explains a lot of concepts using just leaves in his latest picto-piece called Bio-Diversity. (via kottke)

Technorati tags: art, leaves, Christoph, Niemann

Selling It

AdweekMedia put together some of the most epic commercials of the 2000s. How many do you remember?

Technorati tags: advertising, creative

If I had a hammer (that was shaped like my hand)

Really creative metalwork from DesignMartus (via Crookedbrains)

Technorati tags: art, metal

Scaring off the visitors

Four words. Dread. Zeppelin. Immigrant. Song.

Wait. Does "Waah-ee-aaaaaaaa-hah!" count as a word? Then five words.

Technorati tags: Dread, Zeppelin, Tortelvis, Immigrant, Song, Led

The Song Remains the Same, and the Same, and Still More of the Same

Stairways to Heaven, Stairways to Hell - One man, one song, 101 ways.

Ken posts at WFMU's Beware of the Blog and has just completed a quest to collect as many unusual covers of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" as possible, including a banjo version (Todd Taylor), a mashup with Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" (DJ Earworm), a Gregorian chant, and, unless my math fails me, 98 other versions. (via Mookie)

Technorati tags: Stairway, Led, Zeppelin, covers

Operation Freedom Clump

Take the "U.S. Military Operation or Brand of Cat Litter?" quiz!

Technorati tags: quiz, stupid

Video Mixtape

‘The Golden Age of Video’ by Ricardo Autobahn (via Cynical-C)

Technorati tags: mashup, movies

Moving Pictures, Sitting Still

Name That Movie: Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film.

Technorati tags: movies, cinema, quiz

You're drinking what now?

17 Obscure Brands of Soda Pop (#17 - #7), includes Pickle Juice "Sport", which not only looks and tastes like pickle juice, it is pickle juice. Carbonated pickle juice.

Continuing on... Obscure Brands of Soda Pop (#6 - #1)

Technorati tags: obscure, sodas

The Story of ________

The Story of John F. Ptak and His Large (90,000) Collection of Pamphlets From the Library of Congress, and How Many of The Publishers Tried to Spice Up The Somewhat Mundane Subject Matter by Using the Narrative Form "The Story Of ________" In Their Title

Get the full story (and lots of other examples) here. (via Growabrain)

Technorati tags: pamphlets, not that interesting

Because the original title of "Excuse me there, Jude. I was wondering if I could have your attention, please?" lacked a certain punch

Hey Jude: The Flowchart (click to automagically embiggenate) (via Bits & Pieces)




Hey Jude: The Diaper Years




This has been kicking around for years and years. Linda McCartney's isolated vocal track of "Hey Jude" from a live show in 1990.

Technorati tags: Beatles, Hey, Jude

Air Supply: What were we thinking?

Air Supply: Literal Video Version (Making Love Out of Nothing at All). The White Man Afro, Dave Coulier lookalikes, and illegal U-Turns. This video's got it all! (via Bored At Work)

Technorati tags: Air Supply, literal, video, comedy

If Halloween was in the summer, would we be defacing watermelons?

October is drawing to a close, and as the 31st rolls around, that can mean only one thing: time to celebrate Increase Your Psychic Powers Day! But somehow you already knew that, didn't you? Of course you did. Just like you successfully predict the winning Lotto numbers week after week...

Hmmm, it seems though there might be some other obscure holiday around the same time. Wonder what that could be... Ah, yes! This so-called "Hallow's Evening" or something similar.

As usual, we visit the go-to site for all things having to do with mutilated gourds, ExtremePumpkins.com for a bit of inspiration.


Worm Infested Pumpkin


In this article they called him "Stay Puff", but every Ghostbusterphile knows him as Mr. Stay Puft a/k/a The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Only in this case he's made out of pumpkins, of course.


The Ravenous Baby-Eating Jack-o-lantern (not to be confused with a certain Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal)

Technorati tags: halloween, extreme, pumpkins, Stay Puft, Hitchhikers, Guide

I hope you know that this is will go down on your permanent record

You know the economy is hurting everyone these days when burglars can't even afford the basic tools of the trade, namely ski masks. Two would-be Iowan burglars were arrested, their faces blackened with permanent marker. The third member of their gang, Joey "The Highlighter" McConnell, remains at large.

Technorati tags: dumb, criminals

Saturday Night Quizzes

Sporcle has tons and tons of timed quizzes:

Name the rock band that was the subject of these rockumentaries (I got a 15/24)

Things with "Blue" in the title (30/40)

Name the movie from its initials (15/30 -- note: spelling COUNTS)

Presidential first names (38/43)

Looking at a world map, name the mountain ranges around the world (I didn't even attempt)

Technorati tags: quiz

Everything looks better...

.... in slow motion. Well, almost everything. (via Blog on a Toothpick)


Technorati tags: running, slow, motion

Is that the Brawny Paper Towel Guy in there??

If Paper Towels Could Talk - A series of paper towel art from Marc Johns

Technorati tags: Marc, Johns, paper, towels

So I'm thinking my sheet with eyeholes isn't gonna make the cut...

25 Clever Costume Ideas (via The Presurfer)

Technorati tags: Halloween, creative, costume

Here Comes Science

I've been hearing They Might Be Giants interviews and appearances all over NPR recently in connection with their newest release, Here Comes Science. True, the album is built to encourage kids to get interested in science, but I would be lying to say I didn't thoroughly love this album and the videos for each of the 19 songs on the accompanying DVD.

Here are four of my favorites, but really, practically every single one of the songs and videos is equal parts entertaining, ear-wormy and educational. But don't tell my boys that last bit; they're too busy sing-shouting "I Am A Paleontologist".

Here Comes Science on Amazon


"I Am A Paleontologist", with vocals from TMBG bassist Danny Weinkauf.




"Put It To The Test" in all its 8-bit goodness. And you don't even need to insert a quarter to play it.




"Electric Car", with Robin Goldwasser. Beautiful animation. Adorable overload.




"Meet The Elements". Did you know that elephants are made of elements?

Technorati tags: TMBG, Here, Comes, Science

Taking the blue pill

I don't know about you, but me, I've had a stressful last couple of days (work-related stuff), so I am self-prescribing this video of the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan. Gonna put it on HD and full-screen and just chill out a bit. (via Pharyngula)

Technorati tags: aquarium, aaahhhhh

When Bears Go Soft

A Brief History of Gummy Bears




Molten potassium chlorate is a strong oxidizing agent that reacts violently with sugar. Lucky for us, Gummy Bears have lots of sugar in them.



Aaaaand in this corner, disturbingly wearing no trunks whatsoever and weighing in at a whopping 5 pounds and 12,600 calories, the Sugar Coma from Oklahoma, the Leader of the Nation of Cavity Formation, the Treat to Lead Us to Diabeetus, won't you please put your hands together for... The World's Largest Gummy Bear!!

There is much more at Vat19's Gummy Bear site, including the semi-disgusting video these shots were captured from.




Technorati tags: Gummy, Bears