Gone but not forgotten

Back in 2008 I posted about the Victorian era practice of postmortem photography known as memento mori. Recently deceased family members were sometimes posed in chairs or lying down so as to appear sleeping.

While it may seem shocking or even disrespectful to some today, take into consideration that at that time, with photography still in its infancy, requiring bulky, expensive and complicated equipment to take and develop the pictures, most people were rarely (if ever) photographed throughout their entire lives. Memento mori allowed families a way to remember lost loved ones.

While the most common presentation was to have the subject supine, eyes closed as in sleep, some chose to pose the deceased in a standing pose, with eyes either open or sometimes even with the pupils painted on the eyelids, as in the photo below.

This and other somewhat unsettling memento mori photos at mental_floss.



Technorati tags: memento, mori, photography

I do my moves, I do my dance moves (both of 'em, baby)

Bboy vs Bulldog in an interspecies breakdance-off. (via Blog On A Toothpick)




Amazing: One-legged Petit Freez versus Luca "Lazy Legs" Patuelli

Technorati tags: breakdance, danceoff

I Am Joe's Eyeball

I don't know what's going on here, but it looks like Superman could use some Visine.




Real-life Popeye (via The Frosh!)



If you have a tendency to get the willies seeing someone literally pop their eyes out of their sockets, this picture is not the droid you're looking for.








The genius of the late Marty Feldman in Mel Brooks's 1974 masterpiece Young Frankenstein.




The object of The Eyeballing Game is to drag the blue section by "eyeballing it" to fulfill the instructions. The more accurate you are, the lower your score.

Technorati tags: eye, eyeball, popeye, Superman, Marty Feldman, Young Frankenstein

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Straight Dope columnist Cecil Adams answers a reader's question, "Do other cities have logical street numbering systems like Chicago's?" (hint: yes, but some, such as New York City's street numbering system is so insanely complicated you almost never know which cross street a particular will land near.)

Technorati tags: city, mapping, cartography

Today's menu: Freshly picked mockery and name-calling served on a bed of Indian burns with a side of swirlies

The 10 worst lunch boxes ever -- and what they say about the kids who carried them.

Technorati tags: lunch, boxes, sad

The Power of the Pen

Bored Animator (via Everlasting Blort)




The Black Beast of Arrrggghhh, where the animator gets into the act near the end of this classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.




It's Daffy Duck vs. Animator in "Duck Amuck"

Technorati tags: animator, animation, bored, Monty, Python, Looney, Tunes, Daffy, Duck

"I find your lack of FAIL disturbing..."

John Scalzi's Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design

R2-D2
Sure, he's cute, but the flaws in his design are obvious the first time he approaches anything but the shallowest of stairs. Also: He has jets, a periscope, a taser and oil canisters to make enforcer droids fall about in slapsticky fashion -- and no voice synthesizer. Imagine that design conversation: "Yes, we can afford slapstick oil and tasers, but we'll never get a 30-cent voice chip past accounting. That's just madness."

(via The Daily What)

Technorati tags: Star Wars, fail

Feed your face

Food Face Kid's Dinner Plates, which are appear to be based on the classic Wooly Willy toy of yesteryear. (via Boing Boing)

There's an online Flash version of Wooly Willy available, and it's about as much fun as I remember the toy being (ie. not that much after about 15 seconds), but hey, maybe that's just me being a grouch.

Here's my rendition of a unibrowed Sideshow Bob after attending a Hitler rally:





Thanks to this cutting-edge technology, high school geeks and nerds can now experience an even higher wedgie-per-day quotient with Handerpants!

Note to self: I wonder if I can market palmless Handerpants to the more, let's say "adventurous" crowd...

PS. Let me be clear: I absolutely do not want to know about skidmarks.

Technorati tags: weird

What do you get for the person who has killed everyone?

Evidence Knife


Bloodbath Shower Curtain


Bloodbath Mat

Naturally, you'll want to make it all nice and festive with this blood-spattered wrapping paper.


Technorati tags: blood, bloody, gifts

That's a real video?

Teenage Belgian girl's choir Scala covering "I Touch Myself", made famous by the Australian Divinyls.




From the Two-Wrong-Turns-Don't-Make-A-Right Dep't.
A really really really horrible cover of what started out as an already exceedingly horrible song. Really, only GOB Bluth performing his magic show could save this one.




Lawrence Welk stars sing "One Toke Over the Line". Yes. You heard me.

Technorati tags: strange, covers

Hats 101

Hat wearing is fraught with peril. (via The Daily What)

Technorati tags: hat

Necessity is the mother of some really, really ugly children

(DIY Fail + WTF - safety) / (creativity + initiative) = There, I Fixed It

Technorati tags: kludges, fail, DIY

Words are flowing out just like the Grand Canyon

WORDIT is a pleasing freeform sort of Scrabble. Arrange the letters to form valid words, score higher points for longer words. Once you use all the letters you move on to the next round. Play in a timed or untimed mode.




Word Vine gives you several words that are connected in some way. Your job is to drag them from where they start over on the left to their logical spot on the vine. In this example, "light" connects to each of the others to form "limelight", "light switch", "traffic light" and "lightweight". The faster you solve the puzzle, the more points you score.

There are various difficulty levels, and that one was in the beginner level, as you can probably guess. They get considerably harder as you move up, though. Below is a screenshot from one of the harder puzzles:


Technorati tags: word, game, WORDIT, Word Vine

Faces all over the places

Seeing faces in the strangest places? So are the contributors to Faces in Places (the blog) as well as Faces in Places (the Flickr photo pool).

Technorati tags: faces, places