How many times have looked in a mirror and saw someone you didn’t realize was there with you? Never? Well, it happens a LOT in the movies. -via FilmDrunk
I would have to agree that the Olympics would be improved with sports that people actually participate in during snowy weather. Snowball Fights, Snowman Building, and Hot Toddy Drinking are right up my alley, but I will leave Dogsled Racing to those who are more experienced. Video examples of each are included. Link
Recycled Keyboard Purse – $39.95
What to get your beloved geek girlfriend? How about this Recycled Keyboard Purse, made from 365 computer keyboard keys. From the Neatorama Shop: Link
Here is a video of chef Ferran Adria preparing an alcoholic sorbet using liquid nitrogen. This is an experimental food preparation technique also used by American chef and Food Network star Richard Blais, who recommends it as a way of impressing a date:
“You don’t need to know any fancy techniques to make a dish with liquid nitrogen. This is the ultimate science-guy-who-wants-to-impress-someone-but-is-fudging-it recipe:
1. Buy your favorite ice cream at the store.
2. Let it melt (in its container) on the counter.
3. Pour the melted base into a stand mixer.
4. Let it whip, and while it’s doing that, slowly add in the nitrogen.
5. When is it ready? When it’s ready! Look for the same consistency as regular ice cream.“You can even use liquid nitrogen to clean up after the meal. Sprinkle some on the floor and it collects all of the particles. It’s easier than a vacuum.
“Will the goggles kill the mood? Not if your girl is into the sexy-nerd look. Hey, while you’re at it, throw on a lab coat with nothing underneath.
In 2001, the Homer Simpson expression “Doh!” was entered into The Oxford English Dictionary. Jeff Wysaski of guyism proposes that ten invented words from The Simpsons should be likewise formally incorporated into the English language. Example:
Embiggen: To make bigger or grow in size; a perfectly cromulent word
This graceful word can be attributed to town founder Jebediah Springfield. As the town motto goes, “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.” The word is used repeatedly throughout the 7th season episode in which all of Springfield comes down with a major case of Jebeditis (another excellent candidate for this list) during the town’s bicentennial celebration. Adding credibility to the word is the fact that it has appeared in numerous scientific publications since the episode aired.
Simpsons fans can’t think of “embiggen” without thinking of the other fake word used to describe it: cromulent. Clearly, this word should be included on this list as well – if it weren’t for the fact that the Webster’s American dictionary added it to their “New Millenium” edition a few years ago. The official definition: fine, acceptable.
Kevin Van Aelst create artworks inspired by biology from a wide variety of mediums. I particularly like this set of chromosomes made from Gummi worms. Link -via The Sciencepunk Blog
Today is a sad day for enterprising cooks, for the greatest possible food has now been invented. What could possibly surpass this invention by Smoking Meat Forums user Fire it up?
Link via Geekologie
It’s often cute when couples dress in matching outfits. Artist Nonaine took this practice a step further with her Codependency Suit. It can be two separate outfits, or it can join together into one. At the link, you can see similar shirts and hooded capes that couples can use to bind themselves together.
Link via GearFuse | Artist’s Website
This video shows a wild bear with three legs. Presumably it was born without a front leg or lost it later in life. The bear gets up on his hind legs and walks like a human. Is it real or fake?
via Urlesque
Remember all the hullabaloo about a grocery store banning customers who shopped in pajamas? Well, your cries of outrage were heard, dear readers …
Behold, the PajamaJeans:
The Pajama Jeans sports a bevy of details that make it look like a regular pair of dark wash pants – authentic denim color, high-contrast stitching, back pockets with stitched designs and brass rivets. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were wearing a pair of counterfeit designer jeans you bought from a powerselling Hong Kong dealer on eBay.
However, it really isn’t. Unlike real jeans, it uses Dormisoft fabric (a proprietary blend of cotton and spandex) that’s both stretchy and cushy, yet gives off a very jersey-like feel. Inside, it’s completely brushed, making it as smooth as fleece. Basically, it’s really just a pair of casual pants that should be so soft and comfortable, you wouldn’t mind wearing them to bed. Like a more stylish pair of mom jeans, probably.
This statue of a guardian type robot near Odessa in Ukraine is made from old, junked cars, among other things. Apparently it was constructed by a logistics company called TIS (Transinvestservice) in order to serve as a signpost of sorts. Now, instead of telling visitors to take a left at the 161km post, they can just say “Turn when you come upon awesomeness.”
Link [EnglishRussia] I can’t find any source for the photo; if anyone knows who it belongs to, please let us know in the comments.
Look at this photograph. Now get ready to laugh. This delectable treat has a Facebook page that is trying to get more fans than the band Nickelback. Currently the group has 1,392,481 fans, and the dill has 400,000, but steadily rising. The creator of the page says:
Yes, this page was inspired by “Can this onion ring get more fans than Justin Bieber?” before anyone tells me that I copied the guy who made that. I know I have but I thought his idea was so hilarious that I just had to do something in its likeness. So I was inspired, more or less!
And there’s already another pickle trying to out-fan The Jonas Brothers. Sounds kosher to me.
Beaker tries for YouTube fame. It’s not as easy as he thought! -via YesButNoButYes
What is this? It’s like a holographic Rube Goldberg machine! Just creative use of an iPod, a TV, 2 computer monitors and precision timing. They say there were no special effects used, which must mean there was no cheating in the making of the video, because the overall effect is special.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
It seems that some people go around with a little dark cloud hanging over them. These are the unlucky ones. Here are ten of the unluckiest people ever!
This poor man went from the lucky co-incidence of winning a $ 16.44 million lottery in Pennsylvania, to being $ 1 million under debt in just one year. His lucky turned incredibly sour as he was sued by his ex-girlfriend for a share of his lottery money, when his siblings pressured him to make joint business investments that brought no money back and also when his own brother hired a hit man to have him killed so that he could have his share of his brother’s win. His troubles, however, were still not over; after shooting at a bill collector he got himself entangled in another long legal process.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
If everyone had to learn how to handle a stick shift, parallel park, and find their way around first, then the new automatic systems would be an assist instead of an excuse to drive without thinking. Let’s take a look at some ways technology does the driving for you.
The roads have already been laid out for us with painted lines, color codes lights and signs with pictures on them, all we need to do is stay in between the aforementioned lines, and try not put our cars into the back seats of other cars. For several decades now, a driver’s only technological distraction was the radio. Getting from point A to point B has never been easier, in theory.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
A tattoo of someone’s name is such a bad idea for so many reasons, but just because you made a mistake that doesn’t mean you have to get stuck with it forever, or pay a big bill for laser surgery. Cover up tattoos are a great way to hide your mistakes if you can’t erase them, and a nice but bigger picture goes a long way.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Placebo buttons are buttons that actually do nothing except give the user an illusion of control.
The advent of computer-controlled traffic signals make the walk buttons at pedestrian crossings on heavily trafficked streets obsolete. By the late 1980s, most (but not all) walk buttons in New York City have been deactivated yet people push them anyhow, either in ignorance, out of habit, or in the off chance the buttons did work.
Many large office buildings also have dummy thermostats to give office workers the illusion of control. Some even go as far as installing white-noise generators to mimic the hum of fans after the HVAC system is shut off.
The same goes for the close button in elevators. Most elevators built or installed since the early 1990s don’t have close buttons that work, unless you have a fireman’s key. People do push them anyhow, because the fact that the door eventually closes reinforces their belief that the button works.
It’s a 50/50 chance. Many basic decisions are made by flipping a coin every day. There have also been decisions made in the past using this act that have made quite an impact on history. Here are a few of them.
Buddy Holly had chartered a plane out of Fargo, North Dakota to fly his band out after one of the buses broke down. Richardson managed to get on the plane after pleading with Buddy Holly’s guitarist (Waylon Jennings) for his seat. Holly’s other band member flipped a coin with Richie Valens to see who got the other seat. Valens won.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
You may need to click/enlarge the image to see the subtlety of the optical illusion. Then the question to ponder will be whether this is the result of image editing, or whether it was created by clever woodcrafting with veneer.
Photo from Erik Minnema’s photostream, via.
Situs Inversus is a rare birth defect in which a person is born with organs facing backwards. A patient in India may be the only living person known to have the affliction:
In Mr Shivnani’s case, they discovered the aorta and inferior vena cava, which pump clean blood in and impure blood from the heart were reversed. He also has two livers.
“While operating we were supposed to know the exact location of everything that we are going to touch. But in this case we were not sure which veins were entering where,” Dr Prakash Sanzgiri told the Times of India.
Surgeons also found he had no small intestine and three vessels supplying blood to his infected kidney.
Link | Information about Situs Inversus | Image: US Department of Health and Human Services
T-Shirt War is an impressive stop-motion film by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. It depicts two men using alternating images on their shirts to battle and irritate each other. Paul Overton of DudeCraft predicts “If this thing isn’t a meme already, it will be soon.” I think that that’s a safe bet.
via DudeCraft | Official Website | Behind the Scenes Video
[YouTube Clip] – via reddit
Old Spice has recently released a series of Manmercials, nonsensically funny 30-second ads for its new body wash, with the following messages:
"We’re not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it."
"Don’t smell like sunsets and baby powder. Smell like jet fighters and punching."
"What’s better than seeing a hot girl on a beach? Nothing. Nothing is better. Maybe nachos. A hot girl lying on nachos. But that’s impossible. "
Now that’s advertisign! And by the way, I’m on a horse.
Although Carrie Underwood did a fine job singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, this offering by Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star game will never be topped.
Edgar Parker opened his dental practice in 1892 and found business was not that great. So he took his practice on the road and became “the P.T. Barnum of dentistry.” Dentistry as entertainment?
Working in the 1890s during the height of ‘humbugs,’ ‘dime museums’, and rational amusements, Parker did what any natural-born-showman would do. He took a cue from the best and hired one of P.T. Barnam’s ex-managers to help him take his practice on the road. From his horse drawn office, amid his show girls and buglers, Parker promised that he would painlessly extract a rotten tooth for 50 cents. And if the extraction wasn’t painless, he would give the customer $5.00, the equivalent of roughly $115 today. Parker’s band actually served a three way purpose. First it drew a crowd. Second, it distracted the patient whose tooth was being pulled (along with a healthy cup of whiskey or an aqueous solution of cocaine he called “hydrocaine,”) and third, it drowned out any possible moans of pain emitted from a patient.
Parker even legally changed his first name to Painless. Link
Three years ago, Gail blogged about a bra implanted inside human breast tissue to take the place of an external bra. Plastic surgeons have greatly developed this idea since that time. So far, 600 women have undergone the surgery:
Conceived by South African plastic surgeons and currently being performed in Europe, the Internal Bra System is a breast-lift operation that places a mesh-like material inside the breast to support the new shape.
The cone-shaped material, named Breform, is similar to what is used in hernia operations. It’s meant to take the strain off the skin, which after a traditional breast lift can begin to stretch and sag in three years, according to The Daily Mail.
“Breform is like a bra cup without the straps,” plastic surgeon Dalvi Humzah told The Daily Mail. “Over time, the mesh gets incorporated into the breast as the body produces a fibrous tissue that holds the structure in place – like a permanent bra under the skin.”
Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Breform
The Impossible Lamp is a work of craft and film by Jeeves Basu. It begins with a large wax candle sitting atop a clear plastic lampshade. Basu and his team had the difficult task of melting the wax so that it would drip over the mold, but cooling it before it could drip off. This time-lapse video shows how they did it.
German photographer Josef Schulz traveled across the U.S., taking pictures of highway signs. He then photoshopped out the text, leaving only the shapes and colors. The series is called “Sign Out.” Can you guess what company the sign represents? More at the link.
Link via Fast Company
Cartoonist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal is back with another explanation of how the world works. In today’s episode, he argues that the personality, lifestyle, and biological features of an octopus make it far awesomer than your mom. You’ll just have to read it if you want to understand why babies equal nachos.
Who says that old people can’t dance? Here’s The Awesome Threesome performing at Leisure World (a retirement community) in Florida.
Check ‘em bust a move (without busting a hip, thankfully) to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean: Link [embedded YouTube]
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