Last month we saw Tuco Salamanco from Breaking Bad rushing through the dalgona candy game in Squid Game. The guy responsible for that, YouTuber Alternative Cuts (previously at Neatorama) hinted that he was working on another Breaking Bad/Squid Game mashup involving the red light, green light game. More than a month later, it's here and just as remarkable as you'd expect. Walter White is participating in the game, and displays just the right amount of horror when the truth sinks in. Jesse is in the crowd, too, as well as most of the characters from Breaking Bad, drug dealers or not. You have to admire the way they all fit in so well, but then again, the Squid Game scene is shock, gunfire, and death, and there was plenty of that in Breaking Bad. Besides, we know that Alternative Cuts has every scene from every episode of Breaking Bad memorized. He lives for this sort of thing. -via Laughing Squid

You may have seen advertisements already for the Presidents Day sale at your local car dealer or furniture store. It says Presidents Day on your calendar- right there on February 17th (although it might say President's Day or Presidents' Day). The truth is that there's no such federal holiday. We learned in grade school that George Washington was born on February 22nd and Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th, and we marked both birthdays in class. But Washington's Birthday has been a federal holiday since 1879. It was moved from February 22nd to the third Monday in February in 1970, and people started calling it Presidents Day under the assumption that it was a combined holiday for Washington and Lincoln. But Lincoln's birthday was never a federal holiday, and what we call Presidents Day is still officially named Washington's Birthday by the federal government.

However, quite a few states recognize the holiday as Presidents Day, and celebrate George Washington, or Washington and Lincoln, or any combination of US presidents they please. The same with local governments, calendar makers, and stores. Read more about the confusion over Presidents Day (and its punctuation) at Mental Floss.

If someone were to ask you when Frank Sinatra sang "New York, New York," you might guess sometime in the 1950s or '60s. The song was Sinatra's signature song, and is synonymous with the city. Mayor Ed Koch declared it the city's unofficial theme song in 1985. The song invited tourists back to New York City after 9/11. It's played at every Yankees home game. You know the song.

The truth is that Sinatra didn't release his version of the song until 1980! The song, actually titled "Theme from New York, New York" was written for a 1977 Martin Scorsese movie that bombed at the box office. Liza Minelli sang it in the film, and her soundtrack version reached #105 on the music charts. Once "Uncle Frank" did the song, Minelli's record was quickly forgotten. Read how a song from a failed movie became the anthem of the Big Apple at Smithsonian. 

YouTuber Craven In Outer Space is having fun with the theme songs and introductions to various Star Trek series. He's adjusting the audio so that it sounds like the Enterprise is the speaker for the Alexander Courage's famous theme music. Craven's use of the Doppler Effect is particularly effective.

A lot of horror films deal with the end of humanity, by war, natural disasters, disease, aliens, or supernatural beings. But what if it happened without gore, panic, heroics, or any action at all? What if we slow-walked into our own destruction so gradually that we just accepted it? What if, instead of fighting for our last chance, we sympathized with our destroyers? Somehow, that scenario is even more terrifying than a violent apocalypse, because there's the possibility that we may already be doing that slow walk in real life.

The short film Quiet Apocalypse by Brazilian horror fan insolitum picks a scenario for the end of things that is a cosmic horror for both the predators and the victims. But even if all these deaths came from some other source, the misery that opens the door for the acceptance of doom is more dreadful than the deaths themselves. He got that idea across in less than two minutes, and now I may have trouble sleeping. -via The Awesomer

In 1944, Germany and other Nazi-occupied territories suffered greatly from new and powerful Allied bombers. They brainstormed for a defense against such bombing attacks, and one project had the benefit of not requiring highly trained pilots. That's because they did not need to take off or land their aircraft, the Bachem Ba 349 Natter. The plane would be launched vertically on its rocket engine, much like later space flights. The plane was made mostly of wood, and wasn't expected to survive a mission. After the pilot launched missiles at the Allied bombers, the pilot would eject and he and the rocket engine would separately parachute to the ground.

Did it work? Not at first, because production was rushed. Not at second, either, because failed tests slowed down development. And then the war was over. But the Bachem Ba 349 Natter proved that vertical aircraft takeoff was possible, so the research that went into this seemingly hare-brained idea wasn't a complete waste. Read about the Bachem Ba 349 Natter at Amusing Planet.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

There are a lot of islands in the Atlantic Ocean around New York City and many are a part of the city. You know about Ellis Island, and Rikers Island, and Hart Island is known as the city's Potter's Field. There's also North Brother Island, which is notorious for several reasons. Its history is filled with misery, calamity, disease, and crime. Is North Brother Island cursed? Or could it be haunted? At any rate, no one lives there now, and it is considered abandoned. Finding a purpose for the island is difficult considering how close it is to the penal colony of Rikers Island. A wildlife refuge seems to be the best use for a place that no one really wants to occupy, and nature is working to reclaim what humans have done to it. Weird History takes us through some of the more notable eras, events, and personalities of North Brother Island. We'll also learn some facts about South Brother Island and Rikers Island as well.

You know the lives of celebrities. You know when their movies came out, when they peaked in the music business, or when they served in office. But do you remember what year they died? That's a tough one, even for history buffs. When I played my first game of When They Died, I could recall learning about each celebrity's death, but I couldn't place the year. I was close but missed the mark for each of them.

For each famous person presented, you move a slider to guess what year they died. They all died between 1950 and today, and there are five people in each game. A perfect guess will get you 1000 points, and getting within 15 years will give you some points. I ended up with 3732 in my first game, and unlocked a few "achievements" at the end. One of them was called Speed Demon, because I gave answers in a hurry so I could decide whether this game was worth sharing. Try it yourself, and let me know if I was right.  -via Nag on the Lake

Do you recall the story of The Ugly Duckling? Or the cartoon character Baby Huey? The story of Peawee reminds me of both. Peawee started out as an abandoned peafowl egg, which the farm family snuck into Susan's nest. Susan is a regular hen, and she's kind of a bird brain, but she has a motherly instinct that just won't quit. Susan fiercely protected the odd-looking youngster she hatched, and did her motherly duty in teaching Peawee how to be a chicken. The chick grew quickly and was soon much bigger than Susan. Peawee learned to be a typical chicken except for her size and the fact that she is very attached to her mother at an age when most chicks have moved out on their own. Susan doesn't mind, though, as she is quite attached to her giant baby, too.

You can see more of Susan and Peawee at Instagram. Adaurie Stemshorn wrote a children's book about Peawee that will eventually be available.

You understood the assignment 🤝 pic.twitter.com/DTU7BTbm5t

— Cinemark Theatres (@Cinemark) February 5, 2025

In order to get people back in the habit of going to movie theaters, the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO, no kidding) has several promotions planned for 2025. The first was Bring Your Own Bucket Day, meaning popcorn bucket. You could fill your own container with popcorn for just $5, as long as the container would fit through the theater door and would not block anyone from seeing the movie. It was a win-win promotion, since you could fill a bathtub with movie popcorn and that $5 would still be almost all profit.

People showed up with an outrageous range of containers. Several people came into Cinemark theaters with stock pots or actual five-gallon buckets. A backpack or a pair of jeans will hold a lot of popcorn, but do you really want to eat out of them? One guy wheeled in a piece of furniture- a nightstand, to hold a movie's worth of popcorn. Read about Bring Your Own Bucket Day and see the clever containers people brought in at Foodbeast.

Volkswagen is most well known for manufacturing cars. But part number 00010 ZDK-259-101 is a bottle of ketchup. For a brief time, during last fall, this part was available to American customers.

The Takeout informs us that Volkwsagen has made its own ketchup for the past 30 years. The ketchup is made to go with Volkswagen-brand currywurst, which is identified by part number 199 398 500 A. The company made the currywurst starting in 1973 to serve to factory workers and then the ketchup in 1996 to season the sausage. The combination is popular enough that the firm is willing to occasionally offer it to non-employees.

Photo: Volkswagen

Over the past year or so, you may have encountered a video on social media about a strangely accurate apartment that was sized for dogs, but also became smaller for cats, and then increasingly smaller for other animals. I saw it with no narration and no attribution, but now I know who did this. This mini-home is by YouTuber Xing's World, or more specifically, Xing Zhilei, an engineer in Zhongyuan, China. He loves building things, and he made a miniature home as a playhouse for his young children. Then he took things a step further and built one for the family's various pets. You have to be impressed with the architecture, the furnishings, and the appliances -some that work! But more than anything, I had to wonder how he took us on a tour into smaller and smaller spaces. Not too long ago, Xing posted a behind-the scenes look at how he built this unique world.

You can see more videos of Xing's miniatures at YouTube. -via Boing Boing

Government bureaucracies are stereotypically wasteful of both time and money. The Dodo reports that a community of beavers in the Czech Republic apparently became frustrated with governmental delays in the construction of a dam the Brdy wetland region and built one themselves.

The government had planned for seven years to build the dam which advocates hope would restore the damaged wetland. But after seven years and the equivalent of $1.2 million spent, there was still no dam. Then officials found that, in just mere days, local beavers had erected dams in the spots tentatively selected by the humans.

-via Oddity Central | Photo: Klaudiusz Muchowski

Spoon & Tamago, a design blog that informs English-speaking audiences about design developments in Japan, introduces us to the ZZZN Sleep Apparel System. Yes, it's a futon that you wear. But it's even more than just the fabric and stuffing.

The coat/bed electronically monitors the user's sleep state and has a built-in hood with noise-cancelling earphones. The design goal is to promote polyphasic sleep, which is a sleeping pattern in which a person occasionally naps throughout the day. The ZZZN Sleep Apparel System is thus optimal for taking an immediate nap anytime, anywhere.

The Japanese government is promoting the device in response to a study which reveals that the Japanese get the least amount of sleep among all nations in the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

In 1924, Charles Minear and his family recovered a lead cross from a layer of caliche that had been exposed by mining. The cross turned out to be two crosses stuck together, and when they were separated, there was a Latin inscription inside! Manier and his friend Thomas Bent returned to the site ready to dig for more artifacts. Together, they found eight crosses, nine swords, 13 spears, one fan, and one tablet, all but the tablet made of lead and containing more Latin inscriptions and some in Hebrew. The men were convinced that this was proof of a Roman settlement in the US long before Columbus. The inscriptions led them to believe this would have been between 775 and 900 AD.

But there were some fishy things about the discovery. The artifacts were recovered in an evenly-spread area, and from different depths in the caliche. No other artifacts were recovered from the site, no pottery, no trash, no evidence of architecture. The dates assigned to the artifacts came from the Latin inscriptions, which were surprisingly helpful, written as if the items they graced were manufactured as souvenirs. And the lead alloy they were made of was suspiciously modern. But the real kicker is the sword with a carving of a brontosaurus on it! The Tucson artifacts are generally regarded as a hoax these days, but no one has ever owned up to it. Read the story of the medieval artifacts found in Tucson, Arizona, at Archaeology Review. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Erin, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)