Miss Cellania's Blog Posts

My Name is Cow

A couple of months ago, a reddit thread asked for stories about health inspection violations. Chamale posted a lovely story about an inspection at a historical recreation.

My stepdad used to be a baker in an authentic recreation of an 18th century New French fortress. Because they sell bread to the public, the health inspector came by, and she was ripping into my stepdad for violations like the stonework walls, the doorless entranceways, or the lack of a mosquito zapper. He pointed out that they were following the highest standards except for things that would destroy the authenticity of this 18th-century bakery. The health inspector relented and agreed to give him a pass after verifying the food storage area was secure. They went to the shed, which was a doorless building attached to the bakery. As the health inspector went in, there happened to be an escaped cow licking all of the loaves. My stepdad could only say, "Honestly, this never happens." They passed the health inspection.

In response, redditor Poem_for_your_sprog (Sam Garland) wrote an amazing poem.

my name is Cow,
and wen its nite,
or wen the moon
is shiyning brite,
and all the men
haf gon to bed -
i stay up late.

i lik the bred.

That started a meme that spread way beyond reddit, as others contributed poems recited by the dog, the cat, the calf (with a reply from the cat), the goat, the bread, and more from the cow. And more here and here. So when you run into more poems of the same type, you'll know where they came from.

-via Metafilter, where you'll find more poetry. 


An Honest Trailer for Space Jam

Space Jam is a movie about neither space nor jam that combined Warner Brothers cartoon characters with the NBA stars of the '90s, so it was destined to become a classic among a certain age group. That cohort holds the 1996 film on a sacred pedestal. But here comes Screen Junkies to take it down a notch with an Honest Trailer.

(YouTube link)

There's plenty to mock here, and this Honest Trailer makes it clear that to love Space Jam, you pretty much had to be there. If you were, it was perfect. -via Uproxx


"America the Beautiful" in Every National Park

Conor Knighton is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning. During the course of 2016, he visited all 59 U.S. national parks in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. At every park, he stopped and recorded himself singing “America The Beautiful,” and made this compilation video in which you can get a glimpse of them.

(YouTube link)

In this segment from the show, he tells us about his tour. You might want to enlarge this one, because the scenery is lovely.

(YouTube link)

See beautiful pictures of Knighton's national park visits at Instagram. -via Boing Boing


Super Antics #10

Superman has a lot to say, and he's probably counting the steps until someone wakes up and smells the  ...coffee. You have to wonder how many more "nice things" he had on his list just in case no one called him out on it. This is new material from Kerry Callen. We're just glad everyone got a laugh out of it.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

See more of Callen's best comics, previously at Neatorama.


This 19th-Century Book Chronicles Victorians' Strange Cat Fears And Fascinations

Cats, as a group, had a bad reputation in the 1800s. There were so many superstitions centered around cats that many people saw them as downright evil. English cartoonist Charles Henry Ross noticed that books about cats were obviously written by people who didn't know much about them, since they repeated the superstitions. So he wrote one himself: The Book of Cats. A Chit-Chat Chronicle of Feline Facts and Fancies, Legendary, Lyrical, Medical, Mirthful and Miscellaneous, published in 1868. In it, he promotes cats in many ways, including confronting the superstitions head on.

The Book of Cats addresses the wild, popular fears regarding cats—rumors flying that their scratches were venomous and that their breath sucked the life out of infants. In comparison to the smooth cut left from a knife, the thin scratch from a cat’s sharpened nail often festered, leading people to believe their claws were venomous, Ross explains. In addition to avoiding their claws, some would lose their wits at the mere sight of a cat. Conrad Gesner, a 16th-century botanist, documented men losing their strength, perspiring, and fainting when they saw a cat. A few have reportedly fainted after seeing a picture of a cat.

Read about The Book of Cats at Atlas Obscura, where you can see a selection of illustrations, or you can read the whole book at the Internet Archive.


A History of Pepsi Cola

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

Pepsi Cola was originally called "Brad's Drink" and marketed in Bern, North Carolina in the early 1890's by pharmacist Caleb Bradham. Bradham = "Brad's Drink," get it?

By 1898, the name Pepsi was officially adopted. The name "Pepsi Cola" is derived from the pepsin and cola nuts in the recipe. Pepsi was originally marketed as a cure for stomachaches or dyspepsia.

A church across the street from Bradham's drugstore claimed the name Pepsi Cola was an anagram for "Episcopal." But Pepsico, the company that manufactures Pepsi, discounts this theory. (And remember, just because Britney Spears is an anagram for Presbyterians, it doesn't mean this fact has any other significance.)

Pepsi actually fared better than its main rival, Coca-Cola, in its early days. (Coca-Cola was invented a few years earlier, in 1886.) It sold briskly until 1923, by which time Coke had built a huge empire.

Pepsi, meanwhile, went broke. Sugar prices had gone up as result of World War I, and the company couldn't pay to make it's own beverages. Eight years later, the company went bankrupt again.

Ironically, the Great Depression did not bankrupt it a third time. If anything, it helped. Pepsi introduced a 12-ounce bottle in 1934 at the height of the depression. Coke bottles were only half that size, a fact Pepsi capitalized on. Its marketing team wrote the words to the world's first jingle to go on the radio:

Continue reading

Surfing Under the Northern Lights

Photographer and filmmaker Chris Burkard records surfers and other extreme adventurers. Surfing in Iceland is definitely an extreme adventure. In this video from The Big Story, Burkard talks about what he does and about how a severe storm in Iceland led to an amazing opportunity to photograph a surfer under the Aurora Borealis.  

(YouTube link)

Burkhard's Iceland trip is the subject of the upcoming documentary Under an Arctic Sky. -via Laughing Squid


The Empire Scratches Back

That one scene we all remember so well from The Empire Strikes Back is now available with an all-cat cast! Pasdidée set up the frame and then had to be very patient for his two cats to get their parts right. Here the human version and cat version are shown side-by-side, or rather, top and bottom, as it were.

(YouTube link)

In fact, they may have even switched roles in the middle, but it's hard to tell. Even for the director.   -via reddit


The Official Hostess Power Rankings

Lucas Peterson at Lucky Peach made us all a graph that sorts Hostess snacks by not only taste, but by how easily each one's name can be given to a pet. As someone who named a cat Marshmallow*, I heartily approve. -via Digg   

*Someone in my family actually suggested SnoBall.


7 Weird But Real Jobs

Most of us end up doing something for a living that we didn't plan for as kids. But there are jobs out there that are rare, odd, and probably difficult to get into unless you just happen to fall into them. Can you imagine majoring in French literature and then getting a job as a professional bridesmaid?

Most people believe that in order to be a bridesmaid, you must be close friends with a bride. This is not the case. There is a company called Bridesmaids For Hire, where the bride-to-be can hire a woman to be her bridesmaid. Some women don’t have many women friends, which can make the wedding party uneven. Some women don’t have responsible friends. The bride needs a bridesmaid who is willing to do the work on the big day. She needs someone there to handle problems when they arise and to make her day easier. If a bride doesn’t have any friends who can handle the job, she can hire a bridesmaid. Bridesmaids For Hire offers a variety of packages, and the cost ranges from $300 to $2,000, depending on the package that you choose.

Yes, it's a real job, but it might not be a full-time position. Read about more Amazing Jobs You Had No Idea Were Real at Uncoached.

(Image credit: Sherry Main)


Possible Consequences of Writing Poetry

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!

compiled by Tenzing Terwilliger, Improbable Research staff

Poets, since ancient days, have suffered (and in some cases, also celebrated) a reputation for being sufferers. Several researchers have tried to assess how, what and whether poets suffer. These four studies present compelling evidence for or against the prevailing beliefs.

Possible Pathology for Poets
“Poetry or Pathology? Jesuit Hypochondria in Early Modern Naples,” Yasmin Haskell, Early Science and Medicine, vol. 12, no. 2, 2007, pp. 187–213 (http://dx.doi. org/10.1163/157338207X194686). The author, at the University of Western Australia, Crawley, explains:

In their didactic poems on fishing and chocolate, both published in 1689, two Neapolitan Jesuits digressed to record and lament a devastating ‘plague’ of ‘hypochondria’. The poetic plagues of Niccolò Giannettasio and Tommaso Strozzi have literary precedents in Lucretius, Vergil, and Fracastoro, but it will be argued that they also have a real, contemporary significance. Hypochondria was considered to be a serious (and epidemic) illness in the seventeenth century, with symptoms ranging from depression to delusions. Not only did our Jesuit poets claim to have suffered from it, but so did prominent members of the ‘Accademia degl’Investiganti’, a scientific society in Naples that was at odds with both the religious and medical establishments.

Possible Immunity for Poets

Continue reading

North Koreans Try American BBQ

Digitalsoju TV took some people who escaped from North Korea years ago to one of the best barbecue restaurants in South Korea. They also recruited a master barbecue chef and flew in a variety of American barbecue sauces. The people who were trying all these cuts of meat and sauces for the first time were quite impressed (as I'm sure anyone would be).

(YouTube link)

But the food is mainly a starting point for a discussion about the difference between North Korea and the rest of the world. They tell us about the food, the farms, and the customs they grew up with, and especially the North Korean government that takes everything from the people to feed the administration and military. It's all in Korean with subtitles, but well worth the watch. -via reddit, where two of the video producers answer questions.

Warning: if you watch this, you will end up hungry.


Overwhelmed

This is one of the reasons you waste time: you have so much to do, you don't know what to do first. That can lead to nothing at all getting done! But as you make your to-do list, put your priorities in order. The you'll have a clear idea of what's most important. In this comic from Chris at Lunarbaboon, the process resembles getting your ducks in a row, even if they are shaped like little devils.


Diseases Caused by Masturbation

I'd heard of the writings of Dr. Samuel-Auguste Tissot, but I had no idea his 1760 book on masturbation was still in print! The 2015 edition of Diseases Caused by Masturbation was originally titled L’Onanism. Dissertation sur les maladies produites par la masturbation.

The book recounts stories from his own patients and from the patients of other renowned European doctors to support his claim that masturbation is deleterious to a person’s body and mind. Tissot also uses quotes from the ancient physicians, such as Galen and Celsus, as well as the most noted doctors of his day, such as Herman Boerhaave, to further strengthen his claim.

It's pretty easy to see how he might come to those conclusions. First off, everyone who went to the physician for treatment had a physical illness. Secondly, not only did everyone masturbate, in the 16th century most of them felt guilty about it, and it was easier to confess to the doctor than to the priest. The correlation was clear. You can read quite a few pages of the book, but the reviews are the best part of the Amazon page, even though most reviewers admit that they have already gone blind. Now I can look forward to weird contextual ads following me around the 'net. It's an occupational hazard. -via Blame It On The Voices


Work Safety Fails

I just found a new Twitter account that I will have to bookmark. Work Safety Fails collects cringeworthy images, videos, and gifs from workplaces all over the world. Some are scary, like the guy above who should have worn a harness while cutting a tree, and some are just dumb.

But occasionally there's a sequence that works amazingly well if you ignore all standard procedures and safety rules. These are labeled "like a boss."

Follow Work Safety Fails here.


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  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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