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They’ve got a rap crew, release records, sell toys, do internet TV, DJ… you name it. Oh did we mention they wear giant costumes and the whole thing has a kids show vibe?
The Kid America Club is kinda like Sesame Street [wiki] for adults.
Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] . Found at CBC’s The Hour .
Hello we are the Radical Rodents, the coolest and hippest mice in the world. We are all mad keen surfers and as far as we know are the only rodents in the world that surf, which would make us the world’s smallest surfers. Our names are Chopsticks, Bunsen, Harry & Curly and we have been surfing for over 3 years. We love living here up in sunny Queensland because we get to surf most of the year as the water is warm and the weather is mild. Also there are lots of stinking rich folk with massive boats that deliver the waves which we long to ride.
Self-made billionaire T. Denny Sanford, who made his fortune in subprime lending and credit card, is on track to making good on his goal to "die broke": he is giving $400 million to a South Dakota hospital to help find cures for children’s diseases.
Sitting in Mr. Sanford’s mountainside home in Vail, Colo., Mr. Krabbenhoft told the little-known billionaire: "Now I want to talk to you about something else."
He laid out plans for how his regional health-care system could make a national mark on the evolution of medicine, particularly in pediatrics. He compared his vision to the Manhattan Project, and talked about how Sioux Falls’s geographic isolation might aid the heath-care system’s efforts to make a world-changing medical discovery in the same way that the remoteness of Los Alamos, N.M., enabled the scientists who created the first atomic bomb to move forward quickly.
"How much is this going to cost?" Mr. Sanford asked.
"$400-million."
Mr. Krabbenhoft recalls Mr. Sanford clutching his hands to this throat — as if he were being choked. A long pause followed. The two then dug into the details of how the money would be spent. Five minutes later, Mr. Sanford said: "Let’s get it done."
Link – Thanks David Thornton!
Knit one, Purr … too blog has a neat collection of mini knits ever! Link | Flickr Photoset – via Craft
Talk about being in the right place at the right time – here’s a photograph by Antti Kemppainen of fireworks, comet, and lightning on a beach in Perth, Australia. Take a look at the larger pic at Astronomy Picture of the Day, you won’t regret it: Link
Superbowl XLI may be over (congrats to the Colts!), but the commercials live on. In YouTube, that is: you can vote your own favorite commercials (or just watch them all)
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In 1969, Mister Rogers [wiki] appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. His goal was to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in response to significant proposed cuts. In about five minutes of testimony, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that public television provided. He passionately argued that alternative television programming like his Neighborhood helped encourage children to become happy and productive citizens, sometimes opposing less positive messages in media and in popular culture. He even recited the lyrics to one of his songs.
The chairman of the subcommittee, John O. Pastore, was not previously familiar with Rogers’ work, and was sometimes described as gruff and impatient. However, he reported that the testimony had given him goosebumps, and declared, “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.” The subsequent congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.
Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] . Found at VBS (recommended by VBS creative director Spike Jonze).
A French-led marine expedition team has discovered what is believed to be thousands of new species of molluscs and crustaceans around a Philippine island. Around 150-250 of the crustaceans and 1,500-2,500 of the molluscs are new species.
I can’t wait to try some. Yummmmm.
This is the Maybach Excelero. It’s a 700 horse power concept car.
Hurry up and get yours today! At this price it won’t last long!
A beautifully-executed timelapse video of the 2006 Reno Balloon Race, made up of still shots from a Canon digital camera. Absolutely breathtaking!
Click Play or go to YouTube to watch.
(Hat Tip to Teho’s Blog for the original linkie!)
John W. Cornwell built a pneumatic potato gun that can shoot out tennis balls at 300 mph! Link – via Make
I must have been asleep, since I didn’t hear that liberal comedian and Saturday Night Live actor Al Franken [official website | wiki] is considering running for Senate in (where else) Minnesota in 2008. He’s supposed to announce his decision on his final Air America radio show on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2007.
This unusual tricycle, built in France in 1875, was powered by two dogs! The development of the weird vehicle was halted when The Society for the Protection of Animal thought it was cruel. Link – via Arbroath
From the Darwin Awards:
Monsieur Franz Reichelt with his early parachute – an outstanding example of the way in which early aviators were as spectacular in their failures as in their successes. Reichelt was an Austrian tailor who sought to combine his interests by creating a garment to serve as both an overcoat and a parachute. In 1911 he decided to test his invention. Having told the authorities that he wanted to make a "dummy" drop, at the last moment he strapped himself in, and with sublime confidence stepped from a platform of the Eiffel Tower, and fell to his death.
Link | There’s even a YouTube clip [warning: read the last sentence of the quote above] – via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog
US astronaut Sunita Williams set a new record for female spacewalking – she has now spent more time in space than any other woman:
Williams broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours when she and Michael Lopez-Alegria completed the second of what could be a precedent-setting three spacewalks in nine days. The new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes.
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Found at Bits & Pieces Original Link – via Miss Cellania.
Yes – that is a two-piece Velour Sweatsuit for dogs! Now your pooch can stroll down the street in style.
From the website:
Village of Kewaskum Police Chief Richard Knoebel said he was driving to work when he became distracted by a truck stopping on one side of the street.
He said he didn’t see a school bus with its lights flashing and a stop sign out on the other side of the four-lane road.
The chief said he didn’t know he had passed the stopped bus until it was too late. When he realized what he had done, he issued himself a $235 ticket.
"When we get someone for not stopping for a flashing school bus we give them a citation. So I shouldn’t be any different so I did," Knoebel said.
This dalmatian rides a bicycle better than me! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Say No to Crack
Manuel Quiroz, a 54-year-old taxi driver from Mexico City, sure can eat chili. Heck, he can even rub the spiciest of chilis on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking!
"Chilies don’t sting me. They don’t affect me. It’s just like eating fruit," Quiroz said at a market in the Mexican capital. Shoppers stared in amazement as he crunched on a habanero, the hottest chili pepper in a country that likes its food spicy.
Link – via A Welsh View
Photo: Mike Walker
This article from PopSci tells you how to make your own homemade liquid battery using copper sulfate, water and electrodes! Link – via Random Good Stuff
Lucky and Charm are two lambs that are being reared by Molly the rottweiler:
Ms Foster added: "The cat came into the kitchen the other day and walked over to the bucket where the lambs were sleeping, but Molly pushed her away as if to say: ‘They are mine.’
"She will let the sheepdog have a look, but only for so long before she pushes him away as well."
Link – via Scribal Terror
Photo: Siologen
From the Bldgblog, a story about the mathematics of sewers:
Rumor has it that a university outside Manchester teaches courses in mathematics and knot theory not inside comfortable, well-lit classrooms – the university has none – but down in the sewers, drains, valves, and storm tunnels built long ago beneath the city. That subterranean world of old Victorian brickwork is measured, sketched, and catalogued every year by new students; they spend whole weeks at a time mapping the curvature of spillway walls, graphing intersections of unexplored side-channels.
The results are then compared to diagrams of Euclidean geometry.
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Ejovi Nuwere and Japan Probe wrote about a racist "mook" (magazine/book) called Gaijin Hanzai Ura File or Foreign Crimes Secret File published by Eichi publications being widely available in Japan’s largest convenience stores and bookstores like Family Mart [wiki] (a large chain of 6,000 stores – Family Mart later promised to pull the book from its stores):
I was able to confirm these reports today when I found that a Family Mart in Saitama Prefecture had 5 copies of the magazine, all of them displayed in the very front of its magazine rack. I purchased one of the copies, so that I could look over the magazine myself. As reported, it labels foreigners as a source of crime and even has pages in which it condemns interracial sex between foreigners and Japanese women
Joi Ito wrote that the tendency to blame foreigners (like Koreans) is a persistent theme in Japan’s ultra-right-wing politics:
Crimes by foreigners have been a central talking point of the right wing in Japan including Governor Ishihara of Tokyo. This story of foreign criminals being a public issue is a very old political position. For instance, after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, The Home Ministry declared martial law and blamed the Koreans for crimes. Rumors spread blaming Koreans for looting, arson and even poisoning the well. A great number of Koreans were killed/lynched. The official number is around 231 killed but independent studies put the number closer to 2,500.
Actually it’s just frozen glaciers that look like a tidal wave. Still – very cool (and cold!) Link – via Outhouse Rag
This week’s Cellar Image of the Day and Neatorama’s pick of the week is this photo of a gorilla being taunted by beans!
What? You can’t feed the animals at the zoo? Not in Japan! Well, at least for the bean-scattering ceremony on February 3 you can. On that day, zookeepers and visitors thew threw beans at a gorilla as part of a traditional ceremony to celebrate the coming of spring and to dispel bad luck!
Be sure to check out Cellar Image of the Day for more fun pics!
I stumbled on this amazing fold-up couch while browsing YouTube this morning. Does anyone know where these can be purchased? Push play to watch the video, or follow this link [YouTube].
Japanese apparel company Beams T wants to make art more accessible. Since original art is way too expensive for the average Joe, the company focuses instead on printing art on the wearable blank canvas: T-shirts!
Every year since its launch in 2001, Beams T has invited hundreds of international designers, artists, musicians, and pop culture icons to add their own T-shirts designs and promote the "art on T-shirt" movement.
The culmination of that collaboration is featured in the book T-Shirt Factory, where Beams T showcased 300 of the hottest art and designs to ever graced its shirts. Included are designs by artists like Kevin Lyons, Ryan McGinnes, Unnon, Yoko Ono, The Wonderful! Design Works, Tsuyoshi Kusano, and more.
With a company motto of "Art for Everyday," it’s fitting that Beams T included a CD-ROM with 10 original T-shirt designs that you can print (onto transfer paper) and iron on a T-shirt. You’ll get designs by Palm Graphics, Tomoki Kurokawa, Hiroki Tsukuda, Adapter, UJT, Tsuyoshi Hirooka, Tsuyoshi Kusano, Hi-Dutch, The Wonderful! Design Works, and Kiyoshi Kuroda.
To launch the book, HarperCollins has been kind enough to sponsor a book givewaway (more on that below) in addition to creating a nifty video showcasing samples of the book’s artwork:
Okay – T-Shirt Factory is an art book afterall, so let’s take a look at some of the cool T-shirt designs:
Designs by Hiroshi Iguchi (The Album) (L) and Enlightenment (R)
Design by UNNON
Design by Ryan McGinnis
Designs by tw2ntyf4urse7en (L) and sunjoong (R)
Design by Geoff McFetridge
Now, onto the free T-Shirt Factory book giveaway, courtesy of HarperCollins. Go to Beams T’s website and tell me your favorite shirt design or artist and why in the comment section. Please, one comment per person, best 15 will get a Free T-Shirt Factory book (Note: I can only ship to US addresses, though).
And please, check the book out: T-Shirt Factory, a must-have for T-shirt junkies and art lovers alike.
The review above as well as the giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins.
That’s Malcolm McDowell as Alex in A Clockwork Orange. This pixelated image is composed of dozens of Rubik Cubes used as pixels.
Link – via Microsiervos
