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Big gallery here. Via Ectoplasmosis (which is typically neither safe for work, nor for your psyche).
Egyptian officials have announced that the mummy of King Tut will be removed from its sarcophagus and displayed to the public in a climate-controlled glass case starting next month in Luxor. The move is partially to preserve the damaged mummy, which now lies in his tomb with no protection from the humidity generated by tourists. King Tut will be partially rewrapped in new linen, but the face will be left bare when the exhibition begins. Link
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In times of stress, some single-celled organisms band together to create an entity that resembles a multicellular animal. And some of members of the colony will sacrifice their lives to ensure the survival of others. In Carol Otte’s first article for Damn Interesting, the altruism of amoebas becomes fascinating. Link
If you think fishing is a boring sport for old men, here’s something that’ll change your mind: hunting for shark using simple rods and reels on a kayak:
The extreme sportsmen shunned the traditional idea of a peaceful day’s fishing when they rowed into the freezing shark-infested waters off Alaska.
The daring team of four were surrounded by 200 to 300 salmon sharks which were up to nine feet long and weighed between 400 and 1,000 lbs.
I don’t play World of Warcrack .. er Warcraft, and I won’t pretend I understand its draw, but this one is quite funny: a viral ad by Toyota Tacoma, where a dude ("I’m the lawgiver") used the truck to slay a big monster.
Too bad it’s missing the Leeroy Jenkins war cry: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Here’s an example of fantastic customer service from a dollar store in Fort Worth, Texas:
A Family Dollar clerk in Fort Worth, Texas was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after police said he used a crowbar to club a deaf customer. Cody Goodnight, 30, has been deaf since before the age of 2 and uses sign language to communicate.
When Goodnight tried to pay for two bottles of Sprite with a $5 bill he was assaulted by the store clerk. Investigators said the clerk, 20-year-old Ricky Young told them he thought Goodnight was being rude by not talking to him and hit him in the head with a crowbar.
Animal and Buddy Rich in a classic drum battle on The Muppet Show.
Link [YouTube] – via Videofeber
Here’s an excellent ride for Halloween: the Hauntrod, a custom build roadster that can be yours for a ghoulish price of just $8,500. Link – via Boing Boing and Born Rich, thanks Naveen!
Illustration: Mark A. Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Paleontologists have uncovered a bizarre-looking, vegetarian dinosaur in China’s Gobi desert, dubbed the Suzhousaurus megatherioides (a therizinosaur):
"These are without doubt some of the strangest dinosaurs ever found," said Matt Lamanna, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"They looked kind of like a gigantic plucked turkey."
Link – via mental_floss
See also: Neatorama’s Strangest Dinosaur Names
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Three consecutive strikes in bowling is called a "turkey."
Supposedly, during the Great Depression, bowling alleys offered a prize of a live turkey if you managed to get three strikes in a row.
Eric Montanez, a 22-year-old activist, is on trial … for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando, Florida!
It’s the first trial of its kind. A man is facing a judge and jury for violating Orlando’s ban on feeding the homeless. Eric Montanez, 22, was caught feeding a group in Lake Eola Park earlier this year. The prosecution told Eyewitness News their case rests on video taken of Montanez feeding the homeless, breaking Orlando’s feeding ban. [...]
Montanez and the group he’s involved with, Food Not Bombs, returned to Lake Eola just after sunrise to once again violate the ordinance that has him on trial. Food Not Bombs volunteers served breakfast to about 100 Montanez supporters, most of them homeless. They will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner during what they’re calling a three-day "ladle fest," not a protest.
Link (with video)
"Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent."
– Plato, Greek philosopher (427 BC – 347 BC)
Jen Carroll of For Glory and Bicycles blog shot this clip of a "somersault flip" bicycle mod by a fellow named Travis, who gave a performance at the Rat Patrol pig roast in Chicago.
Link [embedded YouTube] – Thanks Jen!
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Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting a single donut worth 52 cent in a strong-arm robbery. For that, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life!
… one man’s sweet tooth got the better of him. He stole a doughnut. A single doughnut.
Authorities called it strong-arm robbery. The "doughnut man," as the suspect is now known, faces five to 15 years in prison for his crime. And Farmington, a town of 14,000 people about 70 miles south of St. Louis, has been buzzing about it ever since.
"That someone would take just a single doughnut, not something very expensive or extravagant, that’s unique," supermarket assistant manager Gary Komar said, smiling.
Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting the pastry and pushing a store worker who tried to stop him. The worker was unhurt. But with that shove, his shoplifting turned into a strong-arm robbery. Masters, who appeared in court Friday, is stunned. The prosecutor shows no signs of backing down. In fact, because Masters has a prior record, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life.
I believe in tough laws, but this is ridiculous. What do you guys think?
Link | Donut image from uncleboatshoes [Flickr] – via Blue’s News
Shiloh Pepin of Kennebunkport, Maine was born with Sirenomelia or Mermaid Syndrome. The condition is as rare as conjoined twins and results in the congenital deformity of lower limb fusion. The condition is usually fatal due to abnormal kidney and bladder and development function.
Shiloh is one of only three persons living with the condition. She triumphs over what others would consider a debilitating handicap with a spirit as enchanting as the mythical creature her condition is named after.
Update: Shiloh requires a second kidney transplant and the family is accepting Paypal donations through their official website.
Hot dogs do a bizarro dance inside a microwave. The weirdest thing you will see all day. The Dancing Hot Dogs via Views Of The All Seeing Eye
On Saturday, March 17, 2007 Kawika launched his boat in Eureka, California. When he did not return that evening, the Coast Guard launched a search, finding his boat Sunday morning. Kawika’s camera was on board; Kawika and his dive gear were not. The Coast Guard continued the search until Monday evening. He has not been found.
Link -via the Presurfer
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R&D Magazine recently published their picks of the 100 best inventions of 2007. American Inventor Spot picked their ten favorites of the list. These include Functionalized Nanoporous Thin Film that attracted heavy metals in water, the Lego Mindstorms NXT, fabric that protects against injury, and an air conditioning system that controls humidity. Link -via Dump Trumpet
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Photo: Daniel A. Anderson / The Orange Country Register
It’s time for another Neatorama and Ape Lad’s Hobotopia Caption Monkey game, but first, the story: that’s Sandy Hartness of Yucaipa Valley, California, who turned this poodle into a Ninja Turtle named Leonardoodle at the SuperGroom 2007.
What’s SuperGroom? It’s just about the hottest contest in creative dog grooming industry where first place winner gets $5,000. Too bad the Ninja Turtle didn’t win first place (how could it not? A travesty!). OC Register has the full story (and photo gallery, of course) – Thanks Julie Anne!
Now, the Caption Monkey game: Funniest caption wins a Free Monkey (or any other critter) Drawing by Ape Lad of Hobotopia. Contest rule is simple: place your caption in the comment, one caption per comment but you can submit as many funny ones as you can think of. You can also vote for your favorite comment, but not your own.
If you don’t win, but still want a drawing (definitely worth it, IMHO!), you can get one directly from Ape Lad for a nominal fee.
Update 11/4/07 (yeah, it’s that late!) – Congrats to Eric #9 for the winning caption!
 The Simpson family as they first appeared on The Tracey Ullman Show The following is reprinted from Uncle John’s Ultimate Bathroom Reader It may be the most popular prime-time cartoon in history. But how did such an outrageous show make it onto the air in the first place? Read on. OFF THE WALL
Brooks was a fan of counterculture cartoonist Matt Groening [wiki] (pronounced Graining), whose weekly cartoon strip Life in Hell runs in The Village Voice and more than 200 other “alternative” newspapers. He had a Life in Hell poster in his office, and one day he remarked to an assistant, “We should get this guy and have him animate for us.” LOST IN SPACE
Groening was making a pretty good living licensing the Life in Hell characters for calendars, mugs, T-shirts, etc., and didn’t want to give it up. But rather than walk away from Fox’s offer, he came up with another idea. He dashed off a short story based on his real-life family – Homer and Marge Groening (his parents); Lisa and Maggie (his sisters); and an autobiographical character named Bart (an anagram of the word “brat”). He proposed using them instead of the Life in Hell characters, Fox agreed o give it a try. A NEW FAMILY As Groening developed these characters for TV, they began to lose their resemblance to his real family. (His father, for example, isn’t bald, and his mother no longer wears “big hair.”) He changed their last name to all-American sounding “Simpson,” and fashioned their lives after old sitcom characters. “I used to spend hours transfixed in front of a TV set watching family situation comedies,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1990. “It’s no accident that the Simpsons live in Springfield – that’s the town in “Father Knows Best.’” Later, he added: “What is “The Simpsons’ but a hallucination of the sitcom? And that has to be the ultimate American nightmare.” The original sketches were only 15 to 20 seconds long, so Bart was the only well-developed character. “He was like what would have happened if ‘Leave It to Beaver’s’ Eddie Haskell got his own show,” Groening says. “He was a deviant.” Homer – his voice, at least – was a Walter Matthau impersonation, Lisa was supposed to be a “female Bart,” and Marge and Maggie weren’t much more than backdrops for the other characters. BUST AND BOOM The “Tracy Ullman Show” debuted in 1987. It was a critical success, but ratings were terrible. Despite this, “The Simpsons” attracted a huge cult following, and Fox responded by increasing the length foot the sketches from 20 to 90 seconds. Then they introduced a line of Simpson s T-shirts, posters, and other items to cash in on the fad. But the biggest boost to the Simpsons’ popularity came from a candy bar company. The makers of Butterfinger and Baby Ruth licensed the Simpson characters for their candy bar ads–which aired on network TV. So kids who’d never heard of “The Tracey Ullman Show” (or Fox, for that matter) finally got a glimpse of Bart and his family. Their popularity grew.
In 1988, Fox decided to spin “The Simpsons” [wiki] off onto their own show. It was scheduled to premiere in September 1989. But when the initial 13 came back from Korea, where they were being animated, Groening discovered that the director had added a few unauthorized “jokes” of his own. In one episode, for example, when the Simpsons were watching a TV show called “The Happy Little Elves Meet the Curious Bear Cubs,” the animators inserted a scene in which a bear cub rips off the head of an elf and drinks its blood. “Not exactly a minor addition,” Groening told The New York Times in 1990. “When we watched it, we sat in the dark for about two minutes in silence. Then we ran for the door. I thought my career in animation had sunk to the bottom of the sea. Had that gotten on the air, there would be no show today.” The director and animators were fired, and the show was postponed until January 1990 while new animators fixed the episodes. SHOWTIME “The Simpsons” as we know it today finally made it onto TV on January 13, 1990. It earned the second-highest ratings in its time slot-pretty impressive when you consider that Fox didn’t have as many affiliates around the country as ABC, CBS, or NBC. (“The Tracey Ullman Show” went off the air five months later.) “The Simpsons” went on to become Fox’s highest-rated show. In March 1990, it placed 20th in the weekly Nielsen ratings, and in June went all the way to #3. It has, without question, played a key role in establishing Fox as a viable fourth network. SOUR GRAPES In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed suit against Fox for $2.25 million, arguing that since “The Simpsons” got their start on her show (“I breast-fed those little devils,” she told a reporter), she was entitled to a share of the merchandising profits. In court, however, she admitted that she did not create “The Simpsons,” write any of the shows, or take part in any of their merchandising. She lost the case.
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Ultimate Bathroom Reader, the 8th in an awesome series by the Bathroom Readers’ Institute.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!
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In the mid-1980s, producer James L. Brooks was hired to develop a comedy series called “The Tracey Ullman Show” for the fledgling Fox TV network. Ullman was immensely popular in England … but Brooks wasn’t sure her humor would play well in the United States. He figured that inserting short cartoon segments between her comedy sketches might help keep the show interesting to American audiences.
So Fox officials approached Groening about animating Life in Hell and making its characters – two humans named Akbar and Jeff and three rabbits named Binky, Sheba, and Bongo – part of the show. At first, Groening agreed. Then he ran into a problem: “Fox told me outright, “We must own the characters and the marketing right.’ The studio was still getting over the fact that a few years ago it gave George Lucas all the licensing rights to Star Wars.”
ON THEIR OWN
