This custom console by Arcade Controls forum member griffindod provides a barrel of fun. He made it in the hope of turning his hobby into a profitable enterprise:

Every time friends or family see my builds they always say the same thing "Oh you should make these and sell them", to which my answer is always the same "It's just not worth the man hours for what I could charge". With that being said there are people quite successfully making bar tops and selling them on a regular basis, and, I assume, turning a profit of some kind.

So, I thought I'd have a go at a 'Build-to-sell' project, trying to maximize the value of the finished product while keeping a very tight record of all of my costs and time to see how practical it is to build for profit. The goal is to build something fun and desirable to a decent standard, while keeping costs and man-hours to a minimum.

You can see more photos at the link.

Link -via Obvious Winner

Sure, you admire the Old Masters, but there are plenty of accomplished artists from the past 100 years -enough to fill an alphabet! Andy Tuohy designed this poster featuring 26 modern artists, representing each letter of the alphabet. Some you know; others you should look up. The poster is for sale, too. Link -via Everlasting Blort

DeviantART member Silvia7 went as Lady Rainicorn and her daughter Lizzie as BMO for some cosplay fun. Then they found another, bigger BMO! That's good because sometimes BMO seems lonely.

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How much did you pay for your last sneakers? Probably not as much as these sneaker afficionados did. Sneakerheads, as they're called, collect and trade rare sneakers that can run up to the thousands of dollars:

Two teenage boys eye rows upon rows of sneakers, sizing each up for rarity and signs of use. One of the boys points to a pair of limited-edition Nike Yeezys and said he is buying them for a friend.

"How much is he paying for it?" asks the seller, 15-year-old Alex Asfar.

"16," the boy responds.

When they say "16," they mean $1,600.

"16, there you go," Alex said, counting the wad of cash and handing over the shoes.

Darren Rovell and Brandon Baur of ABC Nightline report: Link

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We now know that many dinosaurs had feathers; the question is, why? They couldn't fly, but for some reason, they developed fluff that eventually became feathers. There must have been some benefits from the plumage that eventually helped birds to fly. One of my favorite science writers, Carl Zimmer, explains how this may have happened. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

I got the drinks like Jabba...I got the driiiiinks like Jabba. Oh, and the cookies that look like Han Solo in carbonite. Of course, if anyone ever tells you they love this coffee break treat, you can only respond by saying, "I know."

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To celebrate the milestone of a million Facebook likes, Matthew Inman asked people to post their profile pictures to his Facebook page, so he could make cartoons of them. See the top ten photos and the cartoons he created at The Oatmeal. Link -via Laughing Squid

Poppin' Hot Oven Mitt

Are your cakes and cookies fragile? Pull your delicate delectable delights carefully out of your piping hot oven with the Poppin' Hot Oven Mitt from the NeatoShop. This hilarious oven mitt is designed to look like bubblewrap. The mitt is made from temperature tolerant silicone. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Kitchen Stuff. 

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Neatoramanaut Anton Hecht shares with us this nifty animation of the Angel of the North, printed across the palms of 350 participants, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the giant sculpture.

The Angel of the North, a sculpture by Antony Gormley in Gateshead, England, is a gigantic 66-ft tall steel sculpture with wingspan of 177 ft. Why an angel? Gormley replied:

"People are always asking, why an angel? The only response I can give is that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them. The angel has three functions - firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future, expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears - a sculpture is an evolving thing."

Image: David Wilson Clarke/Wikimedia

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Anton!

The elevators at the headquarters of Amazon Japan look fun to ride, but you'll regret using them if you haven't secured free shipping. You should also check the reviews before stepping inside.

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(Photo: Copy Writing)

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Last night, Miss Connecticut, Erin Brady, won the Miss USA pageant. But she will not be the contestant that gets the most publicity out of the evening. If you recall the Miss Teen USA pageant of 2007 at all, it's the moment Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, answered her interview question. She didn't win, but she is still the most famous contestant from that pageant ever. Now it is possible that Marissa Powell, Miss Utah, will go down in history as the most memorable interviewee from the Miss USA pageant. Yes, we all know that it is difficult to collect your thoughts under pressure, but if you can make any sense out of this response, you've got the rest of us beat. -via BroBible

Dorothy Baker-Flugence of Baytown, Texas and two of her children were in her van when a carjacker appeared in the backseat. He threatened them with a knife. Mrs. Baker-Flugence said, "You messed with the wrong witch*" and went into action:

"She got the knife," Flugence said. "She got a cut that goes across her chest. She grabbed the knife and he bit her hand."

Police say the woman ran her van intentionally off the road trying to disorient the attacker. She was hoping that a 911 dispatcher would hear what was going on, and find a way to sent help. But when she saw a telephone pole, she sped up and targeted it, feeling it was a risk she had to take.

"I thought, 'If you swerve and hit the pole, he's not wearing a seatbelt, he'll go through the windshield or at least hit his head, and you can stop him. You can do something to make sure that he doesn't hurt your kids,'" Dorothy Baker-Flugence said. "That's all I was thinking of really, was just to get him away from my kids."

Police add that Baker-Flugence punched the man in the face and when she stopped, he jumped out of the vehicle. That's when she reportedly turned the tables and ran over him.

That's the way we do it in Texas.

Link -via Gawker | Image: KTRK

*She probably used a different word.

In 1902-04, the magazine Vanity Fair (unrelated to the current magazine of the same name) was a precursor to the "girly magazines" that followed. One of the raciest things they could publish was women wearing pants, meaning you could actually see that they had two legs! They were called "bifurcated girls," as if they were split in two. Bifurcated girls were a regular feature of the magazine, and in 1903 it published a special issue featuring a full set of pictures of women in men's clothing (sometimes accompanied by women in skirts, outrageously showing their petticoats). See more at the Public Domain Review. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Artist Phil Postma previously took the opportunity to show us what would happen if Pixar took on Marvel superheroes, and now he's back, this time with Pixar's take on classic pulp films like Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy and The Shadow.

Link Via io9

Free Haircut by Donnie

This T-shirt screams, "Hold me." If you think that it's a shish-ka-bob, you'd be mistaken: it's a really neat T-shirt by French artist Donnie, now available at the NeatoShop!

Check out Donnie's official webpage and Behance page then visit his NeatoShop page to buy: Link. Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog.

Triforce Art	Flash Hedgehog	My Moon	White Russian

View more designs by Donnie | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

There was once a TV commercial in which a chef was frustrated to find that the Italians did not invent spaghetti -it was supposedly the Chinese. It ended by saying at least the Italians invented ice cream. Well, that's not exactly true, either. It turns out that earliest form of ice cream was made in -you guessed it- China.

No specific person has officially been credited with inventing ice cream. Its origins date back as far as 200 B.C., when people in China created a dish of rice mixed with milk that was then frozen by being packed in snow. The Chinese King Tang of Shang is thought to have had over ninety “ice men” who mixed flour, camphor, and buffalo milk with ice. The Chinese are also credited with inventing the first “ice cream machine.” They had pots they filled with a syrupy mixture, which they then packed into a mixture of snow and salt.

But frozen dairy desserts popped up in various places over history, making it hard to pin down any one place of origin. Read about the history of ice cream at Today I Found Out. Link -via Digg

What happened during Season 3 of Game of Thrones? The staff at Vulture summarized it in a series of funny charts--if there's anything funny about living in a world ruled by the imagination of George R.R. Martin.

Content warning: spoilers.

Link -via Blame It on the Voices

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A handsome cat reacts to the sound of a tape measure retracting. There is no other information with this video, but you can almost imagine that the cat is imitating the gadget. "Hey, I can stick it out and retract, too!" And he certainly has the long tongue to show off! -via Arbroath

Chew-Chew Train Dish Set

Are you looking for a fun and functional gift for your favorite pint-sized railroad engineer? You need the Chew-Chew Train Dish Set from the NeatoShop. This adorable set comes together to look like a locomotive. The set includes: 

• Plate
• Small Plate
• Cup
• Bowl
• Lid
• Fork 
• and Spoon

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Mealtime Fun. 

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The only thing that could make these Zelda nails any better would be if the character's faces were somehow more pixelated so they looked 8-bit. Either way, they're pretty darn awesome.

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The following article is taken from the book Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.

Today we know that there's no such thing as unicorns. But back in the 1500s, they were sort of a respectable version of Bigfoot. Although only a few people had ever "seen" them, it was widely believed that they existed. So when Topsell's Historie of Four Foot Beasties, the first illustrated natural history in English, was published in 1607, unicorns were included. Here are some excerpts from the original version of the book. Remember, as you read, that these descriptions were considered science, not fantasy.

ABOUT THE HORN

* "We will now relate the true history of the horn of the unicorn. The horn grows out of the forehead between the eyelids. It is neither light nor hollow, nor yet smooth like other horns, but hard as iron, rough as a file. It is wreathed about with divers spires. It is sharper than any dart, and it is straight and not crooked, and everywhere black except at the point."

* "The horn of the unicorn has a wonderful power of dissolving and expelling all venom or poison. If a unicorn puts his horn into water from which any venomous beast has drunk, the horn drives away poison, so that the unicorn can drink without harm. It is said that the horn being put on the tables of kings and set among their junkets and banquets reveals any venom if there be any such therein, by a certain sweat which comes over the horn."

* "The horn of a unicorn being beaten and boiled in wine has a wonderful effect in making the teeth white or clear. And thus much shall suffice for the medicines and virtues arising from the unicorn."

THE WILD CREATURE

* "Unicorns are very swift. They keep for the most part in the deserts and live solitary in the tops of mountains. There is nothing more horrible than the voice or braying of the unicorn, for his voice is strained above measure."

* "The unicorn fights with both the mouth and his heels, with the mouth biting like a lion's and the heels kicking like a horse's. He is a beast of untamable nature. He fears not iron nor any iron instrument."

* "What is most strange of all other is that he fights with his own kind (yea, even with females unto death, except when he burns in lust for procreation), but unto stranger-beasts, with whom he has no affinity in nature, he is more sociable and familiar, delighting in their company when they come willingly unto him, never rising against them, but proud of their dependence and retinue, keeps with them all quarters of leagues and truce."

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"We're gonna need a bigger ball," the manager of Big Cat Rescue must have thought when he saw a cat playing with a ball and thought about getting one for the group's white tiger.

The new Superman film is guaranteed to be a marketing boon -both for the officially licensed merchandise and for the cheaper knockoffs. Some of those knockoffs are produced without the slightest bit of research into what the particular superhero being portrayed is all about. Others are repackaged comic book heroes with different names. Check out Superheroic Man, Special Man, Spader Man, and the various collections called "the Sense of Right Alliance," which here includes Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, a Power Ranger, a car, and Shrek. See a whole slew of these toys at Flavorwire. Link -via mental_floss

You don't have to decorate these heroically good Rice Krispie treats with Superman's shield, but I'm glad that Janine did so. Her recipe uses dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and dark chocolate peanut butter spread, which apparently exist.

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The encounter does not end as you would expect, after a lifetime of fairy tales about wolves. This was filmed in Norway. -via Tastefully Offensive

Although I can't learn much information about him, it's easy to tell that Franco León Reyes is a highly skilled and imaginative artist. He can turn anything--especially plastic soda bottles--into skulls.

Link -via Recylart

Redditor bluesberry's mother ordered a graduation cake. She said something to the effect of "put a cap on her head." And apparently they heard that just a little wrong. Still, the finished product is a work of art! Link

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It's an exciting day at the cricket field! Or are we playing rounders? I'm not sure. Like a lot of Americans, I find these sports really confusing.

What would a British rounders television commentator make of baseball? Here's an interpretation of a Red Sox/Yankees game by the comedy troupe The Exploding Heads.

-via Daily of the Day

It seems like a silly question, as we tend to think of spaghetti and meatballs as an Italian feast. But like many Chinese-American recipes, what we eat in the U.S. is quite different from what you'll find in the old country.

If you go to Italy, you will not find a dish called spaghetti and meatballs. And if you do, it is probably to satisfy the palate of the American tourist. So if not Italy, where does this dish come from? Meatballs in general have multiple creation stories all across the world from köttbullars in Sweden to the various köftes in Turkey. Yes, Italy has its version of meatballs called polpettes, but they differ from their American counterpart in multiple ways. They are primarily eaten as a meal itself (plain) or in soups and made with any meat from turkey to fish. Often, they are no bigger in size than golf balls; in the region of Abruzzo, they can be no bigger in size than marbles and called polpettines.

So there are meatballs in Italy. And marinara sauce. And spaghetti noodles. But combining them was a process made in America. Read about how Italians immigrants in the U.S. developed the spaghetti and meatballs we grew up on. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Roger Ferrer Ibáñez)

Cape and Tiara Luggage Tag

The summer travel season is almost here. Are you ready to get out there and contribute your unique gifts to the world? Don't sell yourself short. With a cape and a nice tiara you probably could save the world.

The Cape and Tiara Luggage Tag from the NeatoShop features a sturdy strap and ID card insert. It is the perfect luggage tag for any traveling optimist.   

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Travel Accessories. 

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