Previously at Neatorama: spaghetti ice cream.
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Cartoonist Neill Cameron is spending a month creating and presenting an A to Z list of things that are truly awesome, bringing together pop culture icons such as Hello Kitty, Optimus Prime, and Ironman.
Link via Popped Culture
Previously on Neatorama: The Periodic Table of Awesoments
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Everybody knows that Billy Mays is TV pitchman for OxiClean ("powered by the air we breathe!) and Kaboom ("tough on grime, easy on you") ... but wait, there's more! Did you know that the loud, bearded uber-salesman also pitched strange products like the Grater Plater and the Hercules Hook? (There's also the Green Now, a spray paint to paint your dead lawn green, but I couldn't find the video for it.)
In memory of Billy Mays, the king of infomercial, here are 5 of the strangest product he ever pitched:
What do you get when you combine a cheese grater and a plate? The plate that grates, of course, here's The Grater Plater. (The name alone is golden: Grater. Plater. Grater plater. Gotta love it!)
While my wife likes OxiClean, The Gopher is actually my favorite item Billy Mays had ever pitched (in the words of another late-night infomercial, "I'm not only a blogger, I'm also an infomercial customer!"). It just works well - many years later, I still use mine to grab things too high to reach (saves me from getting the step stool out).
The Tool Band-It is another in Billy May's long line of making a product out of two existing ones. This time, it's magnet + armband, to give you a magnetic arm band. Genius!
I distrust a $20 drill, but the idea behind the AwesomeAuger is pretty solid (I have a similar device - the drill bit alone cost me $20. It works well for boring holes in hard ground for small plants). The only thing that works better is The Garden Weasel's Garden Claw.
The Hercules Hook is in a class by itself: here, Billy Mays used his infomercial prowess to sell you a bent pin for hanging stuff on your wall. I myself am a nail-and-hammer kind of guy, but the Hercules Hook does work well (if you don't damage the drywall while you're pushing it in) though I wouldn't use it to hang shelves or anything like that ...
Billy Mays, RIP.
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I have always had a fascination with planes and fighter jets ever since my Dad used to take the family and I to the Dubai Airshow when I was really young where we got to watch some of the craziest and most talented pilots showing off their stuff. I remember once seeing the Blue Angels on display and they blew me away! Still to this day their stuff is top notch and gives me thrills to see them fly.
Lucky for us we get to see the view from one of their cockpits as they perform some hair raising maneuvers. I trust I won’t be the only one who gets goosebumps and a few butterflies in their stomachs as you get to see how amazingly close they get to each other and how in tune they are to each others positions. Mind you it’s almost 10 minutes of video!
* Also, if you are prone to motion sickness be careful watching this! Thank you SydneyClaire for reminding me to put a motion sickness warning!
** This is raw footage so the sound will be a little loud so please take care to drop the level just a bit after hitting play! Don’t want to hurt your ears! 
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First it was David Carradine, then Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Now, infomercial king Billy Mays is dead. Celebrities are dying left and right!
The 50-year-old known for his shouting OxiClean ads was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. The Hillborough County medical examiner will perform an autopsy, Tampa police Lt. Brian Dugan said.
Mays was on the US Airways flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Tampa on Saturday that had a hard landing at Tampa International Airport when the plane’s front tire blew out. There were no reported injuries on Flight 1241, US Airways told CNN.
According to a local Tampa TV station, Mays said: "All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping. It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."
No words whether the a bump in the head, which caused the death of actress Natasha Richardson a couple of months ago, is also responsible for Billy May’s death. CNN has the news: Link
Previously on Neatorama: 5 Shocking Celebrity Deaths
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All of you Neatoramanauts know that we love tpyos here at Neatorama, but even we know how to spell Susan Boyle, MySpace and Swine Flu – those are just three of the most commonly misspelled (or perhaps mistyped) searches in Yahoo!
Vera H-C Chan of Yahoo! Buzz’ The Buzz Log has the list:
Recent Orthographic Abuses of the English Language on Yahoo!, Past 30 Days
* Swan Flu (for Swine Flu)
* Susan Boil (for "Britain’s Got Talent" contender Susan Boyle)
* Brack Obama (for U.S. President Barack Obama)
* Sonia Sotomeyer (for Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor)
* Rachel Ray (for Food Network host Rachael Ray)
* Paperview boxing (for cable programming pay-per-view boxing)
* Amtrack (for train system Amtrak)
* Wallmart (for retailer Wal-Mart)
* Farrah Faucet (for actress Farrah Fawcett)
* Rod Steward (for singer Rod Stewart)
* Arlene Specter (for Senator Arlen Specter)
* “Dancing With the Starts” (for ABC reality competition Dancing With the Stars)
* Bea Author” (for the late comedian Bea Arthur)
* Brittany Spears (for singer Britney Spears)
* Chris Allen (for “American Idol” winner Kris Allen)
* Configure worm (for computer virus Conficker worm)
* Mysapce (for MySpace)
Previously on Neatorama: Swine Flu: Bacon’s Revenge
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The economy is so bad that even prostitutes are desperate! Oklahoma City resident Lahuma Sue Smith, 36, pled no contest to prostitution charges that she traded sex for … a box of Frito-Lay chips:
According to the police report, undercover officers noticed Smith "trying to catch a date” by flashing her headlights at SE 33 and Robinson. Officers said they followed Smith’s car and found her with her blouse open and found a man in the passenger seat pulling his pants up.
The man told police he was having marital problems and knew he could pick up a prostitute there.
Smith told police the man told her he was looking for company but he didn’t have any money, so she agreed to be paid with a $30 case of Frito-Lay chips he had in the back of his car.
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The World’s Ugliest dog contest has been decided … and the result ain’t pretty! Congrats to Pabst, a boxer-mix shelter dog who won the 21st annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California.
From the official website:
As the crowd chanted “Pabst, Pabst,” the celebrity judges deliberated between the so-named boxer-mix shelter dog and Rascal, a former world champion Chinese Crested to determine who would be the 2009 World’s Ugliest Dog Champion tonight at the Sonoma-Marin Fair. First timer Miles Egstad from Citrus Heights, California was stunned at Pabst’s win. “ I don’t think he’s that ugly!” he said of his boxer mix whose under bite was his most compelling physical feature. His sweet personality made him an audience favorite.
The Chinese Crested breed has dominated the contest for more than seven years and in this year’s contest represented more than 50% of the 2009 entries in the pedigree class. But Pabst, who was given his name because he had a “ bitter beer face”, according to his owner quickly won the crowd and the judges soon followed. Egstad, 25, first saw the contest on television and his friends urged him to enter his dog.
Link (Photo: Grace Chon / Shine Pet Photos)
Video clip of the event:
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You don’t want to be around when a high-rise apartment building falls over! The unfinished 13-story building in Shanghai toppled Saturday morning and killed a 28-year-old worker.
“It was just like an earthquake,” witness Zhang Supong told China Daily.
Construction of the building has been halted pending an investigation of the collapse, including reports that cracks had appeared Friday on a flood prevention bank near the apartment building, Xinhua reported.
Link to story. Link to pictures. -via J-Walk Blog
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