Check this out -a cat video with a professional performance soundtrack! Musician Tim Collins is trying to practice playing the vibraphone. His cat had other ideas. “It’s time to pet me, or play with me, or if nothing else, I can sit here and enjoy the vibrations.” Why won't humans stop doing that silly stuff and pay attention to what's important? From the look of the video, this must have been an all-day project. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Blog Posts Mindy Slover-Peek Likes
Take notice of what you say to your parakeet; it may end up saying it back to you. It’s not easy to teach a parakeet to talk, but this one picked up the sweetness and baby talk he got when he was young. That certainly beats the bad language and incriminating phrases we’ve heard from other birds! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
You’ve heard that there are people who buy carpet, draperies, and furniture to match their pets. Sometimes it’s because of they just wanting things to match. More likely, it’s because the pet hair won’t show too badly. In this case, redditor ianjjohn04 already had the carpet, and the puppy they selected just happened to match perfectly. His name is Waldo.
Looking to get your Futurama drink on? Then try chugging some of Mom's Old Fashioned Robot Oil as instructed by The Insatiable Geek. Fortunately, their version shouldn't be so deadly for humans as most real oil as it's just made with dark beer and Jagermeister.
There used to be an old Russian wive's tale that if a frog jumped in your bucket of milk, it wouldn't go sour. As it turns out, that might be true because the peptides in frog's skin secretions are antibiotic. It also means that as more diseases become antibiotic resistant, we might start turning to frog ooze to prevent infections.
We were all stunned by the horrible news of the school shooting in Newton, Connecticut, yesterday. Our hearts go out to all the grieving families and the survivors of that incident. As with other overwhelming news stories, we didn't post about it here at Neatorama because, honestly, there are so many other media outlets that are better at covering breaking news, and our readers know where to find them. The editors at Wikipedia are adding continuous updates to the story as it is known. If you have children, you may want to read Mr. Rogers' page on Tragic Events in the News for tips on discussing what happened. Meanwhile, we continue to offer you a steady stream of pleasantness and distraction when you need it. Or just want it. And we had a lot of neat stuff on here this past week.
Eddie Deezen gave us some entertainment history in two posts. A Few Things About Frank Sinatra was posted on what would have been Sinatra's 97th birthday, and The Only Christmas Song to Hit #1 on the Charts followed it the next day.
Tiffany presented us with The Bacon Lovers Gift Guide.
The Other Mr. Coffee. That is, the story of Starbucks, came to us from Uncle John's Bathroom reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research had Molecular Genetic Analysis of a Christmas Carol.
Where Traffic Lights Came From came from a mental_floss book.
Our banner at the top of the page with the little pictures will help you access these exclusive Neatorama feature articles anytime. There are more than what you see at any given time -just use the little arrows on the ends to see more of them. After the Christmas rush, we will seriously get to work on a new "Best of Neatorama" page where you can see all the features going back to 2006.
We have a contest open now for Pinterest users (established and new): Neatorama 'Pin To Win' Contest - Holiday Edition. Read and enter to win fabulous prizes!
In the What Is It? game this week, the pictured object is indeed, a horn shark's egg. Ain't nature weird? Mindy Slover-Peek was the first of many commenters to recognize it, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from iago, who guessed it to be a "Piece of fossilized unicorn poop found in North Korean unicorn lair." (reference) That's good for a t-shirt, too! Thanks to everyone who played! You can see the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Our new subblogs have extra content aside from what you see on the main page! At Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly, we are free to post as many cute cat videos as we want to -and we do! Neatolicious, Mad Skills, and NeatoBambino all have extra content, but the real treat is the Halloween blog, which has a lot of new items every day that will either bring a smile to your face or a chill to your heart.
The post that was most-commented-on this week (besides the contests) was Eddie's The Only Christmas Song to Hit #1 on the Charts. Nothing else came close. We are going to have to put more typos in our posts if we want people to talk to us!
Remember, we have extra fun stuff at our Facebook page. For example, David Israel posted this picture and got a lot of comments. The best was from Tony Deconinck, who said "I'm happy to see he moved on after Heidi Klum." Ha! You'll find Neatorama on Twitter and Pinterest as well.
As Hanukkah draws to a close, we hope you had a blessed holiday. As we head into the last busy week before Christmas, remember to stop and recharge your batteries with us at Neatorama!
Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? You can win even if you don't know!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. 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 each win a 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, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Check out the What Is It? Blog for other mystery items. Good luck!
Update: the pictured object is indeed, a horn shark's egg. Ain't nature weird? Mindy Slover-Peek was the first of many commenters to recognize it, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from iago, who guessed it to be a "Piece of fossilized unicorn poop found in North Korean unicorn lair." (reference) That's good for a t-shirt, too! Thanks to everyone who played! You can see the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
It was 1969 and The Beatles, although still brilliant as musicians and as a recording group, were on their last legs. But the band still owed one film on a long-ago signed contract with United Artist films. Let It Be was originally planned as a television documentary, but later became the contract-fulfilling film the Beatles needed to be over and done with it all.
By this time, John had found the great love of his life, the woman of his dreams, the enigmatic Yoko Ono, and the sad truth was he just didn't care much about being a Beatle anymore. Also, John's growing drug use, especially his current experimentation with heroin, definitely added to his growing disenchantment, paranoia, and hostility.
George's attitude about being a Beatle was about the same -if not worse. George, at the point in time, was eager and anxious to get out from under the collective thumbs of John and Paul. Frustrated at always being the fifth wheel in the band as a composer, George was seemingly always taking a back seat behind the daunting combination of Lennon-McCartney.
And George was not enamored of John's beloved Yoko, either. In fact, in a moment of characteristic bluntness one day, George actually came up to Yoko's face and told her she had "bad vibes" and tactlessly informed her that he really just didn't like her at all. John later said he didn't know why he didn't punch George for his careless statements, but tellingly, he admitted he "still loved him."
Ringo, as always the most easygoing Beatle, came along for the ride.
And Paul, seemingly the only band member who still cared about being a Beatle, became the group's de facto leader, rallying the troops and getting the Fab Four in front of the cameras. In direct contrast to the lethargy and apathy of John and George, Paul seemed chipper, eager, and optimistic to make Let It Be a great Beatles project.
Filming began on January 2, 1969, at a chilly (literally and figuratively) Twickenham Studios. For the first few days, as John and George grumbled and complained, Yoko sat firmly by John's side, almost as if they were conjoined twins. According to one witness, Yoko even accompanied John to the men's restroom. Between takes of every song, John and Yoko would huddle up together to whisper, gossip, and giggle. This, of course, only added to the increasingly frosty atmosphere.
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