Archive for January 1st, 2008
Baby-Name Regret
We’ve all heard of buyer’s remorse, but how about baby-name remorse? Apparently, quite a lot of parents regret the names they give to their children:
In a recent poll of 1,219 mothers conducted by BabyCenter.com, 10 percent considered changing their baby’s name. The reasons they gave ranged from being inspired by another name to having a relative disagree with the choice.
Regret is common after any big decision, and few prenatal decisions these days are as open to debate as picking a child’s name. Rare are the parents who haven’t invested in a small library of baby-name books or trolled the Internet for a name unique enough to be usefully Googled, but not so weird as to cause ridicule.
"Today, there’s this perception that naming a child is almost like naming a product — there’s this huge national drive now to not be like anyone else," says Laura Wattenberg, author of "The Baby Name Wizard" and founder of the blog BabyNameWizard.com.
I wonder if the parents of these kids ever got baby-name remorse … Link – Thanks Tiffany!
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New Year Traditions (other than that whole Times Square thing)
I’m not going to lie; my New Year’s Eve was decidedly NOT wild and crazy. We spent it at home with friends, lots of wine, board games and Guitar Hero (if you’ve been following my mental_floss musings, you know I got it for Christmas and have been obsessively playing ever since).
But you know what? I’m totally cool with my low-key New Year’s. It’s much more my scene than clubs and huge bashes. If you’re already trying to figure out how to ring in ‘09 and Catchphrase and Pinot Noir isn’t exactly your style, here are a few celebrations and traditions to check out.
If you’re going to be in Scotland, plan on celebrating Hogmanay. One of the major Hogmanay traditions is called “first footing”. Just after the stroke of midnight, neighbors start filing through each other’s houses. The first person to enter the house is known, appropriately, as the first foot. The first foot traditionally brings gifts for the household – coal to ensure a warm house and shortbread to represent a well-stocked kitchen for the next year. Scotland was also the home of Robert Burns, who wrote Auld Lang Syne.
In Japan, you’ll definitely want to hit up the stores to get Fukubukuro. Fukubukuro is a New Year’s Day tradition where retailers fill grab bags with products leftover from the year before. It goes along with the Japanese supersition that you should start the year clean – not with unwanted garbage from the year before. This just proves that one man’s trash is another man’s trreasure, because people literally line up around the block for a chance to purchase one of these random bags. They usually sell for at least 50 percent off of the contents inside – although the contents remain unknown until the purchase is complete.
Some stores even up the ante by including airplane tickets to exotic destinations, couture clothes and expensive accessories and jewelry.
During Songkran, the Thai New Year, expect to get doused with water in some form or another. Garden hoses, water guns, buckets of water… anything goes. It started as a way to show respect to other people and was more of a “blessing” with water, not a total shower. The Thai New Year is celebrated in April, which is a very hot month, so the water is usually welcomed by those getting hit with it.
One of my favorites is the dachshund parade in Key West. On New Year’s Eve, 100 dachshunds get the chance to strut their stuff. This is only the third annual Dachshund Parade in Key West, so it’s a fairly new traditionl. Some dogs are dressed up in costumes; some are au naturale. This is just one of the offbeat traditions in Key West – Ernest Hemingway’s old haunt, Sloppy Joe’s, drops a giant conch shell at the stroke of midnight. And on Bourbon Street, a drag queen named Sushi descends from the balcony of a bar in a huge, red, glittering high heel.
If you’re visiting Denmark for the New Year and wake up to find a pile of smashed dishes on your porch, you should be flattered. People save old dishes all year so they can throw them at the doors of friends on New Year’s Day. The bigger the pile of broken dishes you have, the more friends you have.
Oh yeah, and then there’s that whole ball dropping thing in New York City. But NYC isn’t the only town that drops something at midnight.
As for us, the only thing we really did out of the ordinary was eat 12 grapes at midnight. It’s a Hispanic custom that is supposed to bring good luck. Here’s hoping it works. Happy New Year everyone!!
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How to Toilet Train Your Cat
Karaynn Long wrote this article on how to toilet-train your cat. Apparently, "toilet-train" is to be taken literally – you can train your cat to go in the toilet (imagine never having to clean the litter box ever again!)
Watch your cat using the bathroom in the metal bowl. Count the number of feet he gets up on the toilet seat (as opposed to down in the bowl of litter). The higher the number, the luckier you are and the easier your job is going to be …
…because next you have to teach him proper squatting posture. Catch him beginning to use the toilet as much of the time as possible and show him where his feet are supposed to go. Just lift them right out of the bowl and place them on the seat (front legs in the middle, hind legs on the outside). If he starts out with three or, heaven forbid, all four feet in the bowl, just get the front two feet out first. Praise him all over the place every time he completes the activity in this position.
Link – Thanks Skully!
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C-3P0 Leggings by Nicolas Ghesquière
L: Hana Soukupova (VIVA) R: raquel Zimmermann (VIVA) Photo: Marcio Madeira
This fashion we get: sci-fi inspired fashion, complete with C-3P0 leggings designed by French designer Nicolas Ghesquière of the house of Balenciaga. His creations include Stormtrooper leggings and designs inspired by Tron and The Terminator.
"I was thinking of robotic articulation. Car parts. Droids. A boyish silhouette…" said Nicolas Ghesquière before he was dragged off to sort out a last-minute glitch. Moments later, his incredible futuristic vision was out of the gate: elongated black jackets with a double-layered shoulder line; cyber-goddess dresses jigsawed from patent leather; space-crew shirts with high white collars.
Now that’s what we call droid-chic! Link – via A Welsh View
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Steam-Powered Trucks and Buses
A 1905 Yorkshire
Steampunk lovers, listen up! Behold, the steam-powered trucks and buses, a throwback to the Victorian era when public transportation and cargo trucks meant belching "locomobiles."
Here’s a neat gallery of steam-powered vehicles at Dark Roasted Blend: Link
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Poppy Seed Beards
Flickr user unaesthetic had an "epiphany … to host a party where you style crude beards and moustaches out of elmers glue and poppyseeds." And why, here’s his Flickr photoset as proof: Link – via GorillaMask
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Energy Independence: How Denmark Kicked Its Foreign Oil Habit
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th
With rising gas cost at the pump, violence in the Middle East and the upcoming Presidential Election, it’s no wonder that politicians are saying they have plans to make the United States independent of foreign oil. But can it be done? Here’s a country that has kicked the foreign oil habit: Denmark. INDEPENDENCE In 1973, in response to the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, the Organization of Arab Oil Producing Countries began the infamous "Arab oil embargo" – any country that supported Israel in the war would stop receiving shipments of oil. That meant the United States, Japan, and most of Europe. The effect was devastating – soaring oil prices set off a worldwide recession. Most of the affected countries quickly initiated plans to conserve energy: The United States lowered the speed limit to 55 mph and started programs like "turn off the lights at night." But when the crisis ended, most nations dropped those programs and went back to their old ways. Denmark was different: being 99% dependent on foreign oil, it was particularly badly hit by the embargo. Determined never again to be at the mercy of their oil suppliers, the Danes kept conserving and worked to produce their own energy. A COMMUNITY EFFORT In 1976 the Danish public got behind an ambitious (and expensive) program to become entirely energy-independent, and, with the development of new, clean energy systems, to get out of the foreign oil business completely. Some of the steps taken: • Strict energy-efficiency standards were placed on all buildings. RESULTS Denmark is a small nation geographically – roughly half the size of Maine – with a population of about 5.5 million, so that has to be taken into account when comparing it to larger and more populous countries. Still, the Danes’ accomplishments are startling. Remember that in 1973 Denmark was 99% dependent on foreign oil? Today they produce enough energy to cover all their own needs and sell the extra to other countries, the only European nation to do so. And their energy conservation programs have been so successful that over the last 30 years, even with extensive modernization and a 7% increase in population, their annual energy use has remained basically the same. Still, although Denmark has among the highest taxes in the world, it also has one of the highest standards of living. And polls show that a majority of Danes would pay even higher taxes to remain self-sufficient and live free of fossil-fuel dependence. In 2007 the Danes set further goals for the country: They hope to be able to provide 75% of all their energy consumption from wind farms by 2025 – less than two decades from now. "We aim to make Denmark independent of oil, gas, and coal in the long term," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, "and strengthen our position as a world leader in clean energy." Svend Auken, a member of the Danish Parliament, added, "It need not be dull, it need not be boring, and we don’t have to give up our lifestyle. We just have to be a little bit smarter about how we live." |
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader. Proving that some things do get better with age, the latest Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with 600 pages of fascinating trivia, forgotten history, strange lawsuits and other neat articles. 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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Quote: Bertrand Russell on Patriotism
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
– Bertrand Russell, philosopher (1872 – 1970)
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Eyescapes: Photography of Human Iris by Rankin
"Eyescapes" is a series of photographs of a dozen or so decontextualized irises.
It’s a project by Rankin, London-based photographer and co-founder of the magazine Dazed & Confused (apparently, he’s cool enough to get by with only that singular name).
Link – via Boing Boing
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Cool papercraft toys
You can download “Sayuri” along with an assortment of bandits, robots, and other oddities here. Via ToysRevil.
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Canned 'cakes
Do you think Easy Cheese is the best invention since sliced bread? If so, consider your life changed:
Yep. EZ pancakes.
Link – via BoingBoing
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New Year Babies 1908
Not only are they celebrating a new year, twins Betty Richards and Jenny Pelmore are celebrating their 100th birthdays!
Born half and hour apart in Manchester on New Year’s Day 1908, the pair have barely been apart since and now live within a mile from each other in Cornwall.
The pair have survived five different monarchs, still both enjoy driving and even took up Spanish lessons at the age of 97 to keep their minds active.
Mrs Pelmore is an accomplished painter whilst her sister only recently stopped keeping bees.
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The Other Man in the Iron Mask
100 years ago today, Harry Bensley set off on a strange journey, in order to fulfill the requirements of a wager between John Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale. The question was whether a man could walk around the world without being identified. The journey had 15 conditions, including that Bensley had to wear an iron mask from a suit of armor and push a baby carriage! Bensley spent the next six and a half years trying to fulfill the terms of the wager. Link
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Trivia: Shoplifter Statistics
Shoplifters are caught an average of once every 48 times they steal. Even when they are caught, they’re only reported to the police 50% of the time.
Only 3% of shoplifters are professionals who steal for profit. The rest are amateurs who steal to cope with social or personal problems, or who like the "high" from getting away with it. Drug addicts that also become habitual shoplifters describe shoplifting as equally addicting as drugs.
This, and more fascinating statistics are from the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention.
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Most People Die Within 3 Months of Their Birthdays
Did you know that most people die within three months of the anniversary of their births? It may seem counterintuitive to you, but the mathematical explanation makes perfect sense:
Part of the answer depends on how strictly and specifically you wish to interpret the question. Counting three months (or ninety days) to the minute of a person’s birthdate will of course give a relatively narrow window, though most people (including Browne) probably begin counting from the target person’s month of birth. This allows for three months before the birth, the month of the birth, and three months after the birth, for seven out of twelve months. Since this range covers well over half the year (in fact, just under 60 percent of it), the chances are somewhat better than 50/50 that a given person will die within three months of his/her birthday …
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Man Saved All of His Trash for One Year
In 2006, Ari Derfel decided that he would save all – and he meant all – of his trash for one year, to see if he could do something to generate less trash in his daily life.
In October 2006 I had dinner with three friends, Vince, Carolyn and Britt. While sitting in my living room eating a delicious, local, organic meal (we are all foodies with remarkable culinary talents) the topic of trash came up in conversation. To be honest, I don’t remember how it came up or how it meandered its way to the concept of me attempting to save my trash for a year. Needless to say, it did. Two months later, on December 4, 2006, I started saving it in the closet of my kitchen.
My original goal was to get two 96 gallon bins from the local waste management company. They quickly informed me that it was illegal to keep trash in bins and not have it removed regularly. Gotta love the law!! I decided to simply keep it in my closet, and instead of stuffing it into two bins I decided to organize it by type, so it could be seen, felt and understood more clearly.
I have accomplished the goal with 99.9% accuracy. I have kept all of my trash, per the rules I set for myself, for 1 year.
Link (Ari has a FAQ page which is quite fun to read)
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Nomadic by Nature: Santa Barbara's Parking Program For Those Who Live in Their Cars
Photo: Stephen Osman / LA Times
Los Angeles Times has an interesting article by Steve Chawkins about a "live and let live" parking program in Santa Barbara, California, for those who choose to live in their cars:
Two or three nights a week, a 29-year-old ex-Peace Corps volunteer named Shaw Talley rolls through the parking lots in his old Volvo wagon, offering help where he can. In spaces where others see a handful of battered RVs and vans, Talley sees lives playing out, for better or worse.
Here, a Vietnam vet suffers from war wounds that keep him in constant pain. There, a man in a van plays classical music on his violin. Here, a diabetic gives himself an insulin shot under the dim glow of his dome light. There, a quiet middle-aged woman eases into her old Lincoln for the night, resting up for another day in customer service at a big-box store. In the glare of a street lamp, she relaxes with a book before closing her eyes.
All are beneficiaries of the city-sanctioned Safe Parking program, which allows people to live — sometimes for years — in cars or RVs in about a dozen parking lots that belong to the city, the county, churches, nonprofits and a few businesses in industrial areas.
With housing prices still at a stratospheric high in many places in California, it’s no surprise that a lot of people lived just a step away from homelessness. When Talley did an informal census of people living in their cars, he counted 249 makeshift homes in just a few hours.
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Baby Miracle, Born with Deformed Face, Denied Entry to New Zealand
We’ve blogged before about how New Zealand is strict about denying immigrations to fat people, but apparently the country’s not keen on letting the deformed in, either.
Here’s the story about Baby Miracle:
Doctors had told the parents of a Samoan baby born with severe facial deformities that she should be left to die within hours. The couple refused, secretly feeding their daughter in hospital with a plastic syringe, and four months later she lives.
The case quickly attracted supporters, moving the public in the Polynesian island nation of Samoa and in New Zealand to donate NZ$103,000 (£40,000) so that a full medical assessment could be carried out on baby Miracletina to determine her future. But the courage of her parents, Sefulu and Mikaele Nanai, and campaigners was tested again yesterday when the New Zealand authorities denied a visa to the baby girl for medical assistance, arguing that surgery would not help.
Links: Times Online Article | New Zealand’s TV3 Article | Baby Miracle’s Blog | YouTube Clip (and why it’s titled "Half human half pig") – via Arbroath
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Super Easy Craft: LEGO Minifig Place Card Holder
Here’s something creative and fun (not to mention super easy!) for your next dinner party: create a place card holder by simply putting a LEGO minifig on a block!
All you need to do is place a Lego person on a Lego block so it will stay up. The hands of the Lego will keep the card in place, no need for glue. May the crafty force be with you.
Now why didn’t I think of this before! … Link – Thanks Amy Cottrell!
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Strange Hangover Cures
If you’ve woken up after a wild New Year’s Eve party with a nasty hangover, Angela Epstein of the Daily Mail has written this handy guide on (some strange) ways to minimize the symptoms and cure the headache, nausea and body aches:
RUB YOUR ARMPITS WITH LEMON
Puerto Ricans apparently swear by this holistic cure. The lemon juice supposedly stops you sweating and so helps you retain fluid and prevent the dehydration that contributes to hangover headaches. [...]
SNACK ON A BANANA
Bananas contain a lot of potassium, a mineral lost when we drink alcohol and a lack of which contributes to the dehydration symptoms of hangover, says Tom MacDonald, professor of immunology at Bart’s and The London School of Medicine.
Bananas are also a source of carbohydrates and eating one will raise blood sugar levels and so stave off nausea.
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This Hummer's Not a Gas Guzzler: It's Made From Styrofoam!
No gas guzzling for this Hummer – it’s a life-size sculpture made from styrofoam scavenged at trash disposal site by San Franciscan artist Andrew Jungle.
Article with larger photos here: Link (Photos by Christina Koci Hernandez / Chronicle)
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World's Neatest Monopoly Boards
Over at Trifter blog, Julius Vortemizzi has a post of some of the neatest Monopoly gameboards ever.
Included are pictures of the Star Wars, The Simpsons, and the Family Guy (left) edition Monopoly.
Link – via Grow-a-brain
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Happy New Year 2008, Everyone!
Boy, 2007 had gone by very quickly – a lot happened that year: our family had quite a scare – my father had a mild stroke (he’s recovering well, thank God), I had to move my business into a new warehouse, and the highlight of the year: our new baby boy was born a few days before Christmas.
Neatorama had a great year, too. We posted a lot of neat stuff (8,099 posts, to be exact – an average of over 22 posts a day!), got a lot of comments (47,357 – keep ‘em coming!) and welcomed new authors to the blog. We had over 13.3 million unique visitors, 25.6 million visits, and 62 million pageviews in 2007. Neatorama owed it all to you, gentle readers, so thank you for visiting and for telling your friends about the blog.
I haven’t been posting for a while – the baby and work had taken a lot of out of my days and nights, but things are settling back down. So, for 2008, my New Year Resolutions are to post a lot more neat stuff on the blog, to start new fun collaborations (more on this in the next couple of days, hopefully) and giveaways, as well as to expand the blog’s functionalities. Which brings me to this:
I’d like to hear from you on ideas to improve Neatorama. What would you guys like to see on the blog? More current events? Less embedded videos or more of ‘em? How about a forum or a community- would that be fun?
Happy New Year, everyone! (and while we’re at it: what areyour New Year Resolutions?)
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