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This Twaggie was illustrated by a Tweet from @DamienFahey, who apparently a frustrated Whole Foods customer. See a new Twaggie every day at GoComics. Link
Now that you can get duct tape in just about any color imaginable, why not make your Valentine some roses that are darn near indestructible? As a commenter at Metafilter said,
Because nothing says “Let’s stick together,” like a “realis-stick” rose made of duct tape.
See how it’s done at Instructables. Link -via Metafilter
The highly-anticipated Lord of the Rings LEGO line was unveiled at a party in conjunction with the International Toy Fare 2012 in New York. Or, at least most of the sets. The Hobbit set is still under wraps. But representatives from TheOneRing.net were there and took pictures. The sets themselves, which feature Lord of the Rings minifigures, are expected to be introduced in stores starting in June. See more photographs in their report. Link -via The Daily What Geek
Let your geekiness show in the valentines you send! Express your love for your sweetie plus your love for your favorite video game, online community, scientific discipline, movie, or TV show. There are lots to select from, but you won’t find them in your local greeting card store -no, these out-of-the ordinary valentines are found on the internet. Shown here are some valentines based on the TV series Breaking Bad, by Beth at Butt Horn. See the rest of the collection at mental_floss. Link
A 20-million-year-old bat fly was discovered in a mine in the Dominican Republic, the first fossilized fly of its type ever found. Its descendants are still around, sucking blood from modern bats, but scientists did not know how far back these parasites existed. But what’s even more enlightening is that this fly carried an ancient strain of bat malaria, of a species new to science. George Poinar, Jr. of Oregon State University found the fly, and also found the malaria while examining the fly under a microscope.
Before he became a specialist in ancient diseases inside equally ancient bugs, Poinar had worked on attempting to extract DNA from insects trapped in amber—work which author Michael Crichton has acknowledged as part of his inspiration for Jurassic Park.
But no ancient bats will be reconstructed from this specimen, even if it were possible.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Poinar said, “this specimen is so rare that we wouldn’t want to attempt to try it.”
Read more about the bat fly at National Geographic News. Link
A Star Wars nerd fantasy come true! Jar Jar gets his in this fan-made trailer. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Inflatable Tentacle Arm – $11.95
Are you a sucker for the big eyes of a brainy octopus? We at the NeatoShop are not here to judge you. We encourage you to embrace your inner cephalopod with the Inflatable Tentacle Arm from the NeatoShop. Don’t forget, the Inflatable Tentacle Arm pairs great with the Tentacle Mustache.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Inflatable fun!
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To show heart felt love, Etsy seller OneAgainSam made an anatomically correct heart. Perhaps to express other sentiments, he also felted a pair of lungs, a brain and an intestinal tract.
Whether or not you’re in a relationship, it’s still pretty easy to get swept away in the romantic spirit of Valentine’s Day. In honor of the holiday, let’s take a look at some of the most romantic world records ever achieved.
I don’t know about you guys, but I would need a serious Chap Stick infusion after kissing someone for 46 and a half hours. The couple, Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, was part of a contest held in Thailand in 2011, which led to seven couples breaking the existing record of 32 hours that was set back in 2009.
It takes two people who can both hold their breath for a long while to break this record, which is why it is so impressive that Italians Michele Fucarino and Elisa Lazzarini were able to hold their breath while kissing for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.
While the Italian couple may have set the record for longest underwater kiss without breathing, Antonio de la Rosa Suarez holds a different but equally impressive record for kissing underwater. In his case, two women took turns kissing him while passing air to him. He stayed down there for 7 minutes, which seems like a relatively short record given that he was allowed to breathe during the process. Maybe one of you guys could take a crack at this one.
Love Sharon Stone? Not as much as Joni Rimm apparently. Rimm actually shelled out $50,000 for one kiss with the actress, who offered up a lick-smacking session as part of a charity auction supporting Project Angel Foods, a charity dedicated to providing free meals for people with HIV and AIDS.
As if having a giant wedding ceremony wasn’t romantic enough, the fact that 34 couples opted to exchange wedding vows underwater on Valentine’s Day makes this one sweet occasion, even if kissing the bride 33 feet underwater isn’t exactly an easy proposition.
It seems strange, but the world’s longest hug was actually almost a full day shorter than the world’s longest kiss. At only 24 hours and 33 minutes, it seems that this record, held by Ron O’Neil and Theresa Kerr, is just begging to be broken –so if you want to get in the book, better start locking arms now.
Russian street artist Nikita Nomerz discovers facial features in buildings and adds just a few touches to expose them. View a gallery of his recent work at the link.
Link -via Colossal (where there’s a video) | Photo by the artist
Sometimes it’s too hard to actually get your kitty in a costume. Fortunately, with a simple cardboard box and a marker, you can make your little one the coolest geek kitty in town. Click the link to see the picture even bigger.
Link Via I Can Has Cheezburger
You might know all about the show, but what do you know of the men who played the Doctor? If you want to increase your knowledge of the subject, then don’t miss this great Mental Floss article filled with fascinating trivia on the actors and the show. Personally, I didn’t know the story of how Tom Baker’s scarf was born:
The Fourth Doctor is particularly famous for his ridiculously long scarf, which resulted from a miscommunication between costume designer James Acheson and the knitter hired to produce it; Acheson never specified a length, and bought far too much yarn, so the knitter just kept going until it was all used up.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, these kitties want to show us just how to celebrate the upcoming holiday. Isn’t love beautiful?
These cute, colorful and rather kitschy Valentine’s Day cards were licensed by Paramount Pictures in 1939, and they feature characters from Max Fleischer’s animated version of Gulliver’s Travels.
They’re charming and simply ooze retro cartoon charm, so it’s no wonder these cards are highly prized by collectors of animation memorabilia, and Valentine’s Day card enthusiasts, over 70 years later.
Anyone have a nice color printer and some cardstock, I want to give one of these adorable cards to my Valentine! *wink*
–via Cartoon Brew
Here’s your WTF moment of the day, an animated short featuring a giant hot dog eating the Caped Crusader! The hot dog has no facial features save a giant maw, so it’s hard to tell what it’s thinking about as it chomps down on old Batsy, but I bet it wishes it had a giant beer to help rinse the taste of spandex out of it’s mouth.
And so, the question remains-why would a giant hot dog do such a horrific thing? Because it’s hungry, of course!
BTW this video (LINK) could well be the reason why the giant hot dog went after the Dark Knight in the first place. Apparently payback reeks of mustard and relish…
–via i09
What started as an art form practiced by prisoners and tramps has become a really cool way for crafty folks to show off their modeling skills by building awesome structures, and sculptural works of art, out of a million or so little pieces of wood and lots of glue.
Hit the link to peruse a gallery featuring eight matchstick art masterpieces, full of fine detail and fantastic constructs, just don’t light up anywhere near these highly flammable works of art or you can kiss them goodbye!
Oh Disney animators, you know how to breathe life into characters in a way which makes them seem so real, from the dawn of the animated feature (Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs) to your latest hit (Tangled) you’ve almost never disappointed, despite the fact that you’ve been so busy buying up franchises (Marvel Comics,The Muppets) that you haven’t had time to keep your television programming (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) from becoming utter drek.
This video was created by a true Disney film fan (NkMcdonalds), and while it may not feature enough classics for my taste, it tugs at the heartstrings just enough to make you want to bust out the DVDs and have a Disney marathon. Great Mouse Detective here I come!
–via The Mary Sue
Kat Martin takes discarded landscapes and alters them just a bit. A monster here or a zombie there. In this case, the TARDIS and Doc Brown’s DeLorean have rematerialized in the same place at the same time.
Etsy Shop and Artist’s Website -via XombieDIRGE
Previously: Artist Buys Cheap Landscapes, Adds Monsters
The world according to Americas
Europe according to Germans
This ain't your grandfather's maps! In the series Mapping Stereotypes, Designer Yanko Tsvetkov of Alpha Designer created maps that lays bare the racists and stereotypical views of a number of nations (us Yanks included): Link
When Tommy Jordan came across a Facebook post written by his teenage daughter complaining about how she had to do chores, he decided to film his response and upload it to YouTube:
This dramatic situation started when Jordan discovered a Facebook post from Hannah, complaining about her daily life at home. The note, which Jordan read and analyzed in his sit-down chat with the camera, takes issue with the slew of chores she’s forced to do each day. “To my parents: I’m not your damn slave,” the note begins. The teenage angst bleeds from the note, as Hannah proposes that her parents pay her for the chores that she does. This point, in particular, sets off Jordan, an IT worker from Albemarle, N.C., who proceeds to delineate how entitled Hannah sounds in the note. But that wasn’t the only punishment he planned for his daughter’s supposedly “hard” life.
“That right there is your laptop,” he explains, filming the newly-upgraded computer perched vulnerably in the grass. “This right here is my .45.” A quick cock of the gun, and Hannah’s laptop takes a shot through the screen. In the next 30 seconds, he proceeds to empty his gun, and the bullets shatter the computer’s plastic shell.
What do you think Neatoramanauts? A justified or over-the-top reaction? Link | The YouTube video clip
Can
french fries be objects of art? That's debatable, but they sure can be
objects of lawsuits!
Here's what happened when a gallery lost a pair of french fries that "were the basis of an artwork":
The artwork comprised a cross made of two golden chips, alongside two normal fries, deep-fried and not gold-leafed.
The catalogue for the original 1990 exhibition “Pommes d’Or,” described the work of artist Stefan Bohnenberger as “the metamorphosis of a profane everyday object into a sacred artwork.”
But the gallery’s reverence for the chips declined in the intervening decades, because when Bohnenberger asked for the two normal fries back last year, the Munich gallery Mosel and Tschechow could no longer find them. An incensed Bohnenberger promptly demanded damages, which the gallery refused to pay.
According to a report in news magazine Der Spiegel the court ruled that the gallery must now hand Bohnenberger €2,000 plus five percent interest from May 2010. On top of that, the gallery is being forced to pay 90 percent of the court fees.
The judge found that the gallery had neglected its duty to keep the chips safe.
What were they thinking? This could've been solved for $0.99 with a quick trip to the local McDonald's: Link - via Arbroath
Why do some songs - take Adele's hit pop song Someone
Like You
Science came up with the formula why certain songs can induce strong emotions in people:
When the music suddenly breaks from its expected pattern, our sympathetic nervous system goes on high alert; our hearts race and we start to sweat. Depending on the context, we interpret this state of arousal as positive or negative, happy or sad.
If "Someone Like You" produces such intense sadness in listeners, why is it so popular? Last year, Robert Zatorre and his team of neuroscientists at McGill University reported that emotionally intense music releases dopamine in the pleasure and reward centers of the brain, similar to the effects of food, sex and drugs. This makes us feel good and motivates us to repeat the behavior.
Measuring listeners' responses, Dr. Zatorre's team found that the number of goose bumps observed correlated with the amount of dopamine released, even when the music was extremely sad. The results suggest that the more emotions a song provokes—whether depressing or uplifting—the more we crave the song.
Michaeleen Doucleff of The Wall Street Journal has more: Link
Europe has had a hard winter, but the upside may be that the Netherlands gets to hold a rare ice skating race. The Elfstedentocht is conducted in the province of Friesland whenever the 125-mile course of canals and lakes has frozen to a thickness of six inches:
Called the Elfstedentocht (or in English, the Eleven Cities Tour), the race is a roughly 200 kilometer trek across the frozen landscape and takes, at its fastest, over six hours. For the race to occur, the ice must be at least 15 centimeters thick throughout the course — which is rare. While the tradition of skating from city to city dates back to 1760, the race was not formalized until 1909. In the century-plus since, the Elfstedentocht has only taken place 15 times and not since 1997. [...]
If the race occurs in 2012, area officials expect as many as 15,000 skaters — and more than ten million viewers watching on television. Nearly 2 million fans will travel to the region as spectators — an absolutely enormous number given that the total population of the Netherlands is only about 17 million, and doubly so given that the race only occurs at sub-zero temperatures.
Link | News Story | Photo: Flickr user nikontino
Okay, I’ve got one of Shakespeare’s love sonnets in the original Klingon. Now I need a good valentine before Tuesday. Thankfully, Eric Goodnight of How-To Geek has a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots that shows how to make a geeky valentine with Photoshop. He also has eleven ready to use, including the two you see above.
Link -via Geek Crafts
Natalie Sampson’s table isn’t just pretty; it’s practical too. It folds into a small space and can be stuck wherever there’s loose soil.
Link -via Dude Craft | Sampson’s Website
Huzzah! Another scientific mystery bites the dust! Scientists have finally cracked a problem that has "perplexed humanity since Leonardo da Vinci pondered it 500 years ago."
Learn all about the Rapunzel Number, which provides a key ratio needed to calculate the effect of gravity on hair relative to its length. In the right hands, this dangerous number can predict the shape of any ponytail:
Cambridge Professor Raymond Goldstein told Reuters that he and his colleagues took account of the stiffness of individual hairs, the effects of gravity and the average waviness of human hair to come up with their formula. [...]
"That determines whether the ponytail looks like a fan or whether it arcs over and becomes nearly vertical at the bottom," Goldstein said in a telephone interview.
The research also took into account how a bundle of hair is swelled by the outward pressure that arises from collisions between the component hairs.
Oh, he also mentioned how the Rapunzel Number would also help scientists deepend their understanding of fibers, as well as be useful in computer graphics and animation, but we all know that the real reason for the study is to break the stronghold of the hair stylist mafia on ponytail-wearing populace.
Everything you need for a romantic evening in one move. One move for you, that is. The machine makes dozens the get it done. -via Buzzfeed
In the Star Wars universe, Tattooine is the home planet of the Skywalker family, but it looks like Tunisia because that’s where many of the exterior shots were filmed. In fact, Tatooine got its name from the town of Tataouine in Tunisia. A lot of the buildings and landscapes you know from the films look pretty much the same today, and many of them welcome tourists. This photo is of a fisherman’s hut which was used as the home of an old hermit named Ben Kenobi. Read about more of these Tunisians locations at LosApos. Link -via reddit
The pianist is Lise Linde Kronenberg, filmed on her first birthday. It’s not clear whether the piano music was overdubbed on a pre-existing melody, or whether the orchestral accompaniment was created specifically to harmonize with her extemporaneous creation, but the result is fascinating. Try playing it for someone who can’t see your monitor, and ask them what they think of this “nouveau” piano style.
And it has an LOL ending.
Vampire Bottle Opener – $5.95
Valentine’s Day is almost here. Are getting ready to hunker down and watch your favorite vampire love story over and over again? Make sure you are well prepared with the Vampire Bottle Opener from the NeatoShop. This great bottle opener is shaped like a vampire’s fangs. Even werewolf fans will appreciate this fantastic kitchen gadget.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fangstatic Barware & Cocktail items.
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