We had some technical hiccups on Monday of this past week because one of our posts, Forensic Scientists Create The Face Of Crystal Skull Vodka, went viral very suddenly. Our webmaster Rommel went into overdrive to make sure it doesn’t happen again. What? Oh, we want our posts to be that successful again, but he’s tinkering with the site to make sure Neatorama can handle the load with no problems. In just a few days, Zeon’s post has already eclipsed the biggest post of 2013, Three Exotic Necktie Knots to Try! Thanks to everyone who shared the Crystal Skull post on social media, on blogs and forums, and by email. Now let’s take a look at what else was happening at Neatorama this week.
Eddie Deezen gave us his personal remembrances in A Few Things You May Not Know About the Movie Grease.
Our book excerpt was from Noble Smith’s The Wisdom of the Shire.
Teddy Roosevelt: 90-pound Weakling? was our Presidents Day offering from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research gave us The Chemical and Physical Properties of Vampires in the Gaseous State.
10 Gloriously Underhanded Sports Tactics came from mental_floss magazine.
John Farrier gave us another neat history post, This Warship Served 6 Different Nations.
Are you a NeatoMail subscriber? They were the only ones eligible for the NeatoMail Chose Your Own T-shirt Giveaway. We announced the winners on Thursday. Congratulations to DanoftheNorth, jenandjuice, and Swissette. Subscribe now, and you'll be alerted when the next giveaway starts!
In this week’s What Is It? game, the “gun” shown is a reaction propulsion pistol; it was tested in zero gravity aircraft flights as a means of individual maneuvering in free fall, photographed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Did anyone come up with a stranger answer? Yes, many folks did! Richard Palmer said it was a “bidirectional flamethrower. Unfortunately the first tester was also the last tester.” And Jaguarfeather described its use thusly: “Put a Tater Tot in each end, open mouths, pull the trigger, and share a romantic, starchy meal with your girlfriend.” Both of those are good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! See the answers to all this week’s items at the What Is It? blog.
Hy Conrad’s Whodunit was called One Drop of Blood.
We had one poll this week, asking which role should Leonard Nimoy have played in Star Wars. The overwhelming choice was Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The post Forensic Scientists Create The Face Of Crystal Skull Vodka was the most popular post of the week, receiving the most traffic, the most social media shares on all four sites we track, the most comments, ♥s, and emails. But some other posts did well, too.
The non-giveaway post with the second most comments this week was Should California be Split Into Six? and Reindeer Get Reflecting Antlers was third.
The comment of the week was from Joseph Francis on the post about the siblings on the kiss cam, saying what many of us thought: "And their father is Darth Vader."
The second most popular post was Photo Series Reveals The Last Meals Of Death Row Inmates, with Monkey Knit Baby Hat following. It was such a good traffic week that several other posts further down the list would have won in most other weeks.
The post that got the second-most ♥s was The Day He Found Luna, followed by a tie between Bunny Stampede, The Perfect Valentines Day, and Fix Your Grammar.
You need to check in on the Neatoramanauts Facebook page every day for extra stuff especially for Facebook users. The question of the day Thursday was “If you had only 24 hours to live, what would you do?” and there were some hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking responses. It’s not too late to add to them. The picture here was the most popular post this week on our Facebook page. How would you fold up that umbrella?
Make sure to follow Neatorama on Twitter and Pinterest! Did you know that the NeatoShop has its own Pinterest board? It’s a great way to keep up with what’s new and popular from the shop. And our sister site Homes and Hues also has a Pinterest board you’ll want to see!
Once again, thanks to everyone for helping us have such a great week. We'll return the favor by bringing you more neat stuff this coming week on Neatorama!