Ghostbrother by Donnie

When you need a geeky T-shirt this summer, who you gonna call? How about T-shirt designer Donnie over at the NeatoShop? Check out his Behance page, then visit the NeatoShop for more: Link

Kirby Stay Puft	Poulp Fiction	Shadow Link	White Russian

Are you a professional artist or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn a king's ransom for every shirt sold and get your website featured on the blog to boot!

Archaeologists are baffled with the discovery of a large, mysterious structure under the waters of the Sea of Galilee:

The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height. [...]

Researcher Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, believes it could date back more than 4,000 years. "The more logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena [from that time] that are found close by," Paz told LiveScience in an interview, noting that those sites are associated with fortified settlements. 

Owen Jarus of LiveScience has more: Link

Cheese Socks

Do your feet smell like cheese? Warn people about their pungent odor with the Cheese Socks from the NeatoShop. This deliciously fun pair of orange socks features the word CHEESE. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Footwear! 

Link

This lovely fountain is called Fuente del Barco de Agua, which means "water boat fountain." You can see it at Playa de la Malvarrosa in Valencia, Spain, or you can see plenty of photos at My Modern Met. Link -via Laughing Squid

(Image credit: Flickr user Jesus Solana)

For two days, Korean pop sensation Psy was the toast of Cannes as he partied with stars, guzzled champagne, appeared on French media and even signed deals. Celebs like Naomie Harris even tweeted a photo of them posing together. Problem was, the real Psy wasn't anywhere near the event.

The New York Post, who dubbed the impostor Psych!, wrote:

The next day, Psych! was interviewed by France’s Radio Prestige (and even taught a clueless host how to do the “Gangnam” dance) and then headed to hot Torch Beach Club. “He was playing it up full scale,” said a spy. “He had three security guards with him at all times, in suits and earpieces. He was scamming free drinks and bottle service . . . three bottles of Cristal Rosé with lunch.” Psych! also had a French “manager” with him who negotiated an upcoming appearance at the starry Better World Awards in Monaco.

But an organizer finally e-mailed at 2 a.m. yesterday, “We’ve been duped. I had a conversation with his label . . . it [wasn’t] him, just a look-alike.” Real Psy tweeted from Singapore, “Seems like there’s another ME at cannes . . . say Hi to him.”

Link

We hail you, chubby Asian guy with Psy sunglasses, whoever you are!

He was the most brilliant fruit peddler in the history of fruit peddling, the smartest man I ever knew. Deprived of a high school education when the Nazis raided his town of Klodowa, he came to America years later as an apprehensive, thickly accented refugee from the unspeakable horrors of Europe. Despite many years in America, the emotional scars were still there. He had a sense of inferiority and was intimidated by those around him who had an education. He was always socially self-conscious, acutely afraid of standing out for his lack of accomplishments. Within his circle of family and friends, dad was proud of who he was and what he had overcome. We knew he was proud of us, too.

It was only after his graduation ceremony that Rotbart realized how proud his father was. When you read about it, you'll need to have a hanky ready. Link -via Metafilter

Matt Clarke has started a YouTube series called Convos With My 2 Year Old. In it, he recreates conversations with his daughter Coco. I'm sure the words were exactly the same, but common sense tells me that the original wasn't nearly as creepy as it seems when Matt plays the part. Look at that adorable little girl -who wouldn't want to play the princess for her? -via Viral Viral Videos

Psycho Donuts calls it "Psycho Psushi"--a complete meal served in a bento box with edible chopsticks. I don't care if it's served raw!

Link

It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you guess? Or can you make up something totally wacky?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, see? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

See another picture of this item at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

These sculptures are amazing! Tom Eckert, a professor of art at Arizona State University, carved these incredibly realistic sculptures of everyday objects. At the link, you can view more photos of his work as well as watch an interview of him.

Link | Artist's Website

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

In 1960, ABC brought something new to the young medium of television: A full-length (30 minute) animated cartoon TV series. Sure, cartoons had been broadcast since TV's inception, but never an actual primetime cartoon series. The show was "made for adults," but the millions of kids who routinely tuned in didn't know or didn't care about that.

The Flintstones ran for six very successful years (1960-1966). The original pilot for the series was called The Flagstones. This name was changed because of the popular comic strip Hi and Lois, whose last name was Flagstone. Their creators threatened legal action if that surname was appropriated by ABC. (Daws Butler voiced both leads, Fred and Barney, in this original pilot.)

And obvious and openly admitted rip-off of The Honeymooners, the show's cast included four lead characters. Fred Flintstone (the earliest animated precursor to Homer Simpson) was the show's central character. Interestingly, although Seth MacFarlane, the brilliant creator of Family Guy, is often accused of "ripping off" Homer Simpson for his lead character Peter Griffin, Seth always denies this theory and says Fred Flintstone was his "favorite cartoon character as a kid" and was the actual inspiration for Peter.

Much like Jackie Gleason's legendary Honeymooners character Ralph Kramden, Fred was loud, overbearing, blustery, and obnoxious. But underneath, he was a good guy, just an average Stone Age "John Doe" trying to earn a living, get by, and have a few laughs on the side. Fred shared one other quality with Ralph: his unequivocal and undying love of this wife, Wilma.

Wilma, much like Ralph's wife Alice, could more than hold her own against her husband's tirades and dramatizations. In the face of Fred's frequent bluster, Wilma could always be counted on to deliver a wisecrack to bring her husband down to size.

Fred's neighbor and best friend, Barney Rubble, was an easygoing, likable little fellow. He was to be Fred's comrade-in-arms in all of his wacky adventures.

Barney's wife, Betty, was a lead character, but was usually in the background, simply there to give Wilma a female counterpart.

Fred Flintstone was voiced by journeyman character actor Alan Reed. Reed had actually dubbed in Gleason's voice on various projects over the years.

The immortal Mel Blanc took on the role of Barney. Blanc was severely injured in a near-fatal auto accident in 1961 and was unable to do Barney's voice, so veteran cartoon voiceover legend Daws Butler (of The Flagstones fame) briefly took over the role. When Blanc was once again well enough to voice Barney, he recorded the character from his hospital bed, in a full body cast. complete with a microphone hung up over his bed.

Jean Vander did the voice of Wilma and Bea Benedaret did Betty Rubble for the first four seasons, before ceding her role to Gerry Johnson.

The Flintstone's family pet, a dinosaur named Dino, was actually featured as a talking dinosaur in one episode, although he never spoke again during there show's run. Oddly, Dino is blue in the show's opening and closing credits, but is purple during the actual show.

Although today it seems quite unbelievable, for the first few seasons, The Flintstones was sponsored by Winston cigarettes. A hilarious Winston commercial (now banned from TV, but available at YouTube) shows Fred and Barney relaxing and puffing on their Winstons as Wilma and Betty do chores around the house. Another early routinely-shown (at the time) commercial spot has Fred lighting Wilma's Winston. As she puffs away, Fred happily sings the Winston jingle: "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should…"

(YouTube link)

The original beginning of the show was actually "The Flintstones, brought to you by Winston cigarettes." Welch's grape juice, a more appropriate sponsor, took the helm and sponsored the show for the last several seasons. All references and mentions of Winston cigarettes have been carefully and thoroughly erased and expunged from all Flintstones reruns.

Many heavyweight guest stars voiced episodes of The Flintstones (a precursor to The Simpsons custom), including Ann Margret, Tony Curtis, Elizabeth Montgomery, and even legendary pianist-composer Hoagy Carmichael.

In 1963, a new angle was added to the show with the birth of Pebbles Flintstone, Fred and Wilma's daughter. In anticipation of her birth, a huge nationwide contest was held to "name the Flintstone's baby." The show had several historic television "firsts" involving Pebbles: it was the first show to actually have a pregnant lead character and was also the first cartoon to have an actual story arc -that of Wilma's pregnancy, Pebbles' birth, and the following episodes dealing with Fred adapting to fatherhood. (The Flintstones was also the first animated show to feature a couple sharing the same bed.)

Soon thereafter, not to be outdone, Barney and Betty "wish upon a star" in a poignant episode, and are given their own child, Bamm-Bamm, the world's strongest boy.

Originally, the Flintstone child was to have been a boy, Fred Junior. But this idea was scrapped because little girls preferred buying girl dolls to boy dolls. The Pebbles doll was a huge seller in the mid-sixties.

Although many (mainly women and girls) like the Pebbles angle, I have always preferred the pre-Pebbles episodes and thought the show jumped the shark with the birth of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. The pre-Pebbles episodes are quite often hilarious, but after her birth, Fred became more domesticated and toned-down, diluting a once-great character.

The "fat jokes" so often unleashed on Ralph Kramden were equally fired at the overweight Fred. Interestingly, Jackie Gleason once threatened to sue the series over its obvious and blatant ripoff of his classic show The Honeymooners. Fortunately, he was talked out of the notion by friends who warned him that he didn't want to be known as "the man who killed Fred Flintstone."

The series, like almost every TV show before and after, was initially new and fresh, but dwindled and limped through the final seasons. The Gruesomes, a weird family of strange, eccentric creatures obviously ripped off from The Addams Family and The Munsters, came and went in two episodes. The Great Gazoo, an extraterrestrial voiced by the great Harvey Korman, was there during the show's final season to help Fred and Barney out of their usual jams. Another fairly unnecessary character in the show's final years was the Rubble's new pet Hoppy the Hopperoo, a kangaroo-like pet, obviously added to give the Rubbles a Dino counterpart.

Finally, after a then-record (since obliterated by The Simpsons) 166 episodes, The Flintstones finally left the airways in 1966. A few much-lesser spinoffs have appeared over the years, as well as both animated and live-action Flintstones movies. But the original stands head and shoulders above all that have come in it wake.

(YouTube link)

Never skimp on quality marketing. You may think that you can just do it yourself, but as John McNamee explains, terrible things go wrong when you don't think through product nomenclature.

Link

Doctor Who TARDIS Hooded Bathrobe (front and back shown)

Father's Day is right around the corner. This Father's Day get your Doctor Who crazy Dad the Doctor Who TARDIS Hooded Bathrobe from the NeatoShop. This beautiful soft cotton terrycloth bathrobe comes with a hood and cinch belt. The robe features amazing embroidered details. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Doctor Who items. 

Link

Mount Pavlof, a volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, is currently erupting. Astronauts on the International Space Station were in a great position to photograph it in action. Do you see that streak across the sky in the lower photograph? That's the cloud of volcanic ash.

Link -via Alexis C. Madrigal

Cracked goes where no one else has time for to find clues hidden in the backgrounds of movies that tell you what's going to happen or what twist will eventually be revealed. Since I now have the endings to three movies I have never seen, I won't give an excerpt here. But your mind will be blown by the tiny details in Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, The Avengers, Reservoir Dogs, and Fight Club. All contain spoilers, so you decide whether to jump into the wormhole. Link -via mental_floss

(Video Link)

Fedoras are popular these days. I assume that's because Freddy Krueger, the demonic villain of the Nightmare on Elm Street horror moviee series, wore them. I never got into either the fedora craze or the movies that inspired it, but I could totally wear this sweater that writhes with the souls that Kreuger captured.

Link (Translation) -via Technabob

Content warning: horror.

Super Iron Bros by Baznet

There's my boys! Look good while you hunt for the Mandarin in this neat new shirt (no need to steal a poncho from a wooden Indian!) by Baznet. He's got a bunch of new T-shirts over at the NeatoShop you simply have to check out: Link

Rancor Pit	Monty Pytron	Walt and Jessie	Bat Country

Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog! Thank you!

View more designs by Baznet | More Funny T-shirts

Adafruit, which posts the geekiest, most wonderful projects I'll never understand, tells you how to make your own "chameleon scarf," an accessory that changes color to match your clothing. The scarf itself is incidental, because what blew my mind is a sensor that detects the color of an object -a piece of fruit or the shirt you're wearing- and matches its RGB code. Then there are LEDs that change color depending on the code sent to them. The possibilities are endless, if you know a little about electronics. Find a video that shows how it works, and links to pages of information behind this project at Adafruit. Link  -Thanks, Becky Stern!

(Image credit: Johngineer!)

Chippedcoffeemug:

The Italian's way of driving. Never in anytime of my life was I more paranoid of being hit by a moped.

RandomWomanNo2:

I first went to Europe as a twelve-year-old kid, and I was shocked by how OLD everything was. Here, a church that's a hundred years old seems ancient, but in Europe you really do have ancient structures. The sense of centuries and millennia of well-recorded history having played out everywhere I went was sort of crazy. Obviously, we have ancient Native American history, but where I'm from that part of our culture isn't always evident.

And nudity! It was often no big thing in advertisements and television. Not so in America, where a single stray nipple can practically bring down the whole television system.

I also also surprised how much of the landscape reminded me of home. I'm from the American midwest and sections of Germany and Ireland looked just like I was driving through home. But then I'd see some small stone wall that had been around for centuries and I'd be reminded how different the landscape is!

yunith:

how everyone uses normal speaking voices, and how loud i am as an American.

_I_might_be_naked:

People in Scotland (Specifically Glasgow) are the nicest I've ever met, seriously. People would have friendly conversations with you at bus stops, and one person even lent me £2 spare cash at a gas station for petrol. It seems to be 90% of people there are like that. Very unusual.

Neatoramanauts, if you've traveled in Europe, what surprised you about it?

Link

(Photo: We All Have Baggage luggage tag, now on sale in the NeatoShop.)

Children of the 80's, take a stroll down memory lane with this YouTube clip by thepeterson and see if you remember 1986.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Neatorama's Facebook page (where you'll find tons more neat stuff)

Detroit is finally getting a statue of its legendary hero, RoboCop. But according to Wolf Gnards, there are other great pop culture heroes worthy of their own statues. For example, San Dimas, California should erect a statue in honor of Bill and Ted of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Well, they will establish a great new civilization.

You can read his other suggestions at the link.

Link

Claire Peters, of Drusillas Park, said: “We were incredibly surprised to see Bandit return. Obviously we longed for her safe return but no one expected her to turn up. It is thought the sisters escaped after being spooked by a noise or unexpected movement, leading them to flee up the perimeter fence and through the electric deterrent. Thankfully neither appears to be injured.”

Bandit's identity was confirmed by a scan of her embedded microchip. She apparently found that the grass was not greener on the other side of the fence. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Drusilla's Park)

A little girl dressed as famed comic book writer Stan Lee at the Motor City Comic Con has captured the hearts of of the people of the internet. Here's a photo of her (right) with the great man himself (left).

Link -via Fashionably Geek

(Photo: Vincent James Cracchiolo)

Uranus Wall Clock 

Are you tired of your tardiness making you the butt of office jokes? You need the Uranus Wall Clock from the NeatoShop. This beautiful clock features a graphic of Uranus, as captured by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. Now you can gleefully tell people that Uranus helps you stay on time. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Clocks & Timers. 

Link

Did you lose your cats? Redditor thingsaintjust found a pile of them sleeping on the porch.

Tyler Marcum made a silly dance video in his underwear back in college ten years ago. Now he's turning 30 and recreated that same dance, side-by-side with the original, to mark the occasion. The song is "Landslide," originally by Fleetwood Mac, but this verso is by the Dixie Chicks. -via Viral Viral Videos

It's been a while since we last featured Worth1000, but their "let's photoshop celebrities into Renaissance paintings" contest is full of all sorts of win. Check out the rest of the winning entries: Link - via Co.CREATE

Hugh Laurie

Steve Carrell

Natalie Portman

... and how could we not see this one coming?

Honey Boo Boo's Mama June

Link: Via Mashable

Jason Criss's knuckles tattoo shows the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He writes:

It took me a while to figure out what kind of Star Trek tattoo I wanted to get. I finally decided that the enterprise d on my knuckles was the best choice for me. It’s still a work in progress there will be more shading and colors after the initial outline heals. let me know what you think of them so far.

Note that he can perform a saucer separation by just moving his fists apart.

Link