Twitter user @Belcorno has made a name for himself as an accomplished latte artist. He can create almost any image on the surface of a cup of coffee, such as these colorful renderings of Anna and Elsa from Frozen. Most commonly, he uses anime characters as his subjects.
Lately, Belcorno has been experimenting with pancakes, presenting our favorite characters in sweet pancake batter. Pictured above is a Colossal Titan from the series Attack on Titan. If Belcorno can add eggs or bacon, he can present full anime breakfasts!
It has either 10 or 12 strings. With them, it’s possible to play a broader range than either the standard guitar or bass can do individually. Author Dave Hunter says that Emmett Chapman invented it in the 1970s to offer jazz players more options:
Its range runs the gamut from the bass’ low to the guitar’s high. Traditional tuning, if you can call it that, goes low E, A, D, G, C, although the bass strings progress upward—that is, the reverse of those on a standard bass guitar, from highest pitched string at the top to the lowest pitched at the middle of the tapboard; the treble strings run conventionally downward, tuned F#, B, E, A, D.
Süreyya Noyan, an artist in Turkey, has lately been experimenting with painting on eggshells. She cracks them open, cleans them, then turns the delicate interior surfaces into amazingly precise copies of famous works of art, such as Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave at Kanagawa.
Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku informs us that Kentucky Fried Chicken locations in China are now offering chicken-like meat burger semi-food objects that feature bright pink buns. Why? And what makes them pink? You ask too many questions. Begin eating immediately.
Eating contests are an American tradition with roots in county fairs and harvest festivals, but the sponsored, no-holds-barred food spectacles we see today all started with Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Now there's no foodstuff which is off limits, and contestants stuff their faces for fat stacks of cash and international acclaim.
But at the root of every eating contest is a ravenous urge known as gluttony, and this "ferocity of consumption” is the core theme behind Nina Berman’s documentary series “Eat To Win”.
The images are captured at just the right moment, the contestants' faces frozen in horrifying expressions as the desire to win drives them to devour more than their neighbors.
Nina’s series presents an interesting counterpoint to the “eating contests are fun and funny to watch” view typically presented by the media.
Animation studios know that style is the biggest selling point for their features, and industry leaders like Pixar, Studio Ghibli and DreamWorks have made their name on their unique stylistic choices.
CineFix has put together a list of what they’re calling the Top 10 Most Beautiful Animated Films Of All Time, which includes some incredibly cool animated films like Waltz With Bashir, The Boxtrolls, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Like many of these online “best of” compilations it’s hit and miss if you're a serious animation fan, but serves as a great primer for those who are new to watching animated features.
Ivette Ivens of Chicago adopted a French bulldog pup when she realized that he was born on the same day as her infant son Dilan, thinking it was a sign that the pup should be in her family. Ever since, the bulldog, which the family named Farley, has been like a brother to little Dilan. Ivans said,
“I’m pretty sure Dilan thinks they’re both the same species, as they walk at the same level and are both going through the stage of chewing on everything.”
Ivans is a photographer specializing in family shoots. She has a book on breasfeeding coming out soon called Breastfeeding Goddess. See more adorable photos of Dilan and Farley here. (Includes one NSFW-ish breastfeeding shot.) Keep up with Ivens' projects at her website, Facebook and Instagram.
This massive treehouse, located in Crossville, Tennessee, is thought to be the largest in the world. The 80-room structure is four stories high, 97 feet tall and is supported by six trees in all, the largest being an 80-foot-tall white oak. It was closed to the public due to being a fire hazard, but there are hopes that necessary changes will be made so that visitors may once again be allowed to enjoy the fanciful building. Via Uproxx
Cartoons meant for kids are scrutinized to make sure that no elements deemed “mature audiences only” creep into the final product.
This includes sexual references, violence and foul language, but clever cartoon creators are capable of slipping an adult joke into a kid’s cartoon like nobody else.
These jokes tend to go right over a kid’s head, and are likely slipped in to entertain the older folks who might be watching along with their little ones.
But when you look back at some of the jokes found in favorite childhood cartoons like Rugrats and Batman: The Animated Series it's surprising how raunchy those sneaky little jokes can be!
Roger Ebert is one of the most well respected, liked and famous movie critics who has ever lived, and he spent four decades helping us refine our cinematic palates by telling us why movies deserve a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
Mr. Ebert did not mince words, and sometimes his reviews were so perfectly scathing they gave the film a bad rep before most people had even seen it.
He wasn’t afraid to go against the opinion of the masses, like when he called Michael Bay’s Armageddon “an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained”, or his review of beloved cult classic Hocus Pocus “The witches in this one inspired my silent cry, ‘Get me out of here!”
Behold his review of M. Night Shmalayan's The Village:
“Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. It’s a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It’s so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don’t know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we’re back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets.”
It’s a combination of elite hair styling and classic Americana. HairStream NYC is a hair and nail salon run by internationally famous stylists Ric Pipino and Gil Haziza. Together they and their colleagues serve discerning clients in a classic Airstream trailer converted into a top-end salon. This summer, they’re touring the Hamptons, offering haircuts and styling services ranging from $70 to $450.
Never mind a cruise ship. Those are like floating 5-star hotels. A more offbeat approach to sea travel is to book passage on a freighter. This is called “container ship tourism.” Most large freighters have cabin space for a few passengers. For a few thousand dollars, you can book a month-long journey across the ocean. Andy Wright of Atlas Obscura has a fascinating article about this very old yet largely unknown form of travel. He talked to Julie Richards, a travel agent who specializes in this field:
Ships departing Australia often make their way to Asia, the United States or Europe. Ships sailing from the west coast of the United States head to China or Hong Kong, while those from the East Coast or Savannah frequently sail to Europe. Trips may last just a few days, although some travelers sign on for 60 days or even around-the-world journeys. Meals are provided, rooms are cleaned once a week and passengers do their own laundry. Once in port, travelers can go ashore to explore; it’s their own responsibility to make it back to the ship in time for departure. Richards says most of her clients are single men, and the typical cost is about $120 a day.
You’ll probably get a reasonably comfortable cabin. But you’ll have to entertain yourself. A container ship offers nothing like the cruise ship experience. And according to freighter travel enthusiast Robert Rieffel, the food varies widely:
Passengers dine with the officers, and the cuisine is often dictated by the officers’ country of origin. Every day the Rieffels were offered a traditional European breakfast of sliced cheese, hard bread, butter and marmalade favored by the mostly Ukrainian officers. There was juice and coffee, eggs and bacon. One day, Rieffel writes in his book, dinner consisted of “salad, soup, beef tips in gravy, potatoes, green beans, a potato salad with calamari, cheese, cold cuts, bread, butter, wine cake and coffee.” Spittler’s German and European officers had a proclivity for hearty meals like pot roast. Alcohol, candy bars and other treats can usually be procured from duty-free shops. Spittler stocked up on Bacardi rum and Teacher’s scotch, parlaying his leftovers into a party for the crew towards the end of his voyage.
Take a trip to Bixton, a trendy neighborhood in London. At many popular, independently owned cafes and shops, you can pay in the local currency. That’s not the British pound. It’s a locally produced and accepted bill called the Brixton pound, which is pictured above. It reflects a trendy new fashion: artisanal currency. Dan Crane writes about it in the New York Times:
These are small-batch currencies designed by locals and lovingly handled by millennials, who came of age during the rise of the Internet, the meltdown of the stock market and Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency revelations, and would be forgiven for becoming more wary of credit and debit cards. […]
Many of the new alternative currencies have the look and feel of the regular legal tender accepted at such places. Most include anticounterfeiting measures like holograms and serial numbers. But they are more eye-catching.
These paper bills lack government backing, but they’re accepted in communities that want to keep their money local:
The local currency, though, is intended not as collectible but to encourage trade at the community businesses where they are accepted, rather than chain stores, where money taken in tends to flow out of town and into the coffers of multinational corporations. (Compare it to the farmers’ market: Homegrown lettuce now has a whole new meaning.)
Police in Zion, Illinois call him the "unlucky thief." On Tuesday, police say, the suspect went into a Walmart to shoplift electronics. Store staff summoned the police. The suspect fled, only to find that his car was gone!
Police arrested him attempting to leave the area on foot. They determined that a repossession agent had towed the car away while the thief was inside the Walmart. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Hearn was later located walking by the side of the road, according to police. When asked why he was walking, he responded that his car had been repossessed while he was at the Wal-Mart, police said.
Investigators determined that the repossession company had followed Hearn to Wal-Mart, police said. The car was towed away when he entered the store, giving Hearn the only option of fleeing the scene on foot, police said.
A tiny child is trying to get his white belt in Taekwondo at the Peak Taekwondo & Fitness Center in Temecula, California. He must break a board to do so. The boy is supposed to follow a particular method, but he has a "by any means necessary" approach to the task. Even jumping up and down on the board is acceptable to him--but it won't work!
