Why So Strangely Yoda Speaks

Any Star Wars fan will recognize an imitation of the Jedi Muppet Yoda even in text because of his peculiar syntax. But is it really so peculiar? There are plenty of examples from history -many from Shakespeare- of the same rearrangement of subject, object, verb, and sentence clauses.

When you bring a later part of the sentence to the beginning, it's called fronting. You can front just a noun or prepositional phrase — "Jackets we hang here, ties we pile over there"; "The life of Riley, you live"; "For $5 you came here?" — or you can front a verb with it as well, as long as you keep a conjugated verb (such as an auxiliary do or have or will) at the end — "Likes it hot, he does"; "Park in my spot, will he?" Sometimes we even leave off the verb at the end, when we start with a shortened sentence and then clarify: "Makes a lot of money, your friend?"

Furthermore, Yoda’s syntax varies from movie to movie, because the scriptwriters were different. Read about how Yoda’s distinctive way with words is perfectly understandable to us because it’s not that new or different, at The Week.


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Amazing! This Bird Sounds Just Like R2-D2


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This is Bluey, a parakeet owned by Carli Jeffrey. Bluey loves to imitate sounds, including human voices, laser sound effects, and kissing sounds.

Jeffrey played a video of R2-D2 from Star Wars. After hearing it about 4 or 5 times, Bluey was ready to offer this perfect imitation of the droid.


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You can compare Bluey's imitation with the original sounds of the foul-mouthed droid in this clip from Episode III. Bluey is ready to be a voice actor!

-via Twisted Sifter


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Man Walks 5,600 Miles across Australia in Stormtrooper Armor

Now this is obviously a good idea. But Scott Loxley is doing more than being cool by dressing as a stormtrooper from Star Wars. He's a member of the 501st Legion, a charitable organization operated by Imperial stormtroopers. Loxley plans to walk around the entire coast of Australia--that's almost 10,000 miles--to raise money for a children's hospital.

So far, Loxley, 47, has traveled about 5,600 miles in a year and a half. He hopes to finish his journey by July of next year. He has raised about $19,000 (USD) for Monash Children's Hospital in Melbourne, which will open in 2016. Loxley hopes to get as much as $87,000 (USD) by the end of the project.

It's hard journey, but Loxley is committed to it. Jenni Ryall writes for Stuff:

He has gone through more than 20 pairs of shoes, eaten roadkill and slept in a swag by the side of the road. […]

It is an amazing story of survival in the harsh Australian outback, where he says his own company is the enemy but to get through he thinks of the children he can help. "You are fighting a mostly mental battle. Some days you wake up and don't want to get up, and you think why I am doing this," he said. "Before I started I went and visited the kids quite a lot of times, I dwell on that a lot and think of those kids on my bad days. Their bad days are worse than this."

-via Dave Barry | Images: Storming Australia


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25 Things You Might Not Know about Harry Potter

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In this week’s mental_floss List Show, John Green tells us some interesting things about the Harry Potter books and movies. Find out the inspirations and models for J.K. Rowling’s characters, what happened when all those children were on a movie set together, and quite a few details that carry spoilers, so avoid this if you plan to read the books sometime in the future. Who are you kidding, anyway? If you have put off reading the Harry Potter books this long, you probably won’t get around to reading them anytime soon. So enjoy the video!


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Comic Artist Russ Heath Shares His View Of Lichtenstein's Appropriation

Many artists feel appropriation is a perfectly reasonable form of artistic expression, and Pop Art superstars like Warhol and Lichtenstein had no problem incorporating other people’s artwork into their own.

But what happened to the artists from whom inspiration was drawn, those artists who created the original piece the Pop Art world turned into a valuable commodity?

This is the story of one of those artists left behind- Russ Heath, aka the guy who drew the comic book panel in DC’s All American Men Of War #89 Roy used in his painting entitled Whaam!

Russ created this comic to share his experience with Lichtenstein's appropriation and spread the word about The Hero Initiative, a charity that helps comic industry professionals in their time of need.

If you ask me Russ handled the appropriation pretty well, but Roy really should have hooked Russ up with a wine of the month club membership at the very least!

-Via Boing Boing


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A Visit To Titmouse Animation Studio

Titmouse, Inc. is a chirp-tastic independent animation studio that creates some seriously cool, mind meltingly good animation for (chiefly) Adult Swim.

They’re the wicked visionaries who deliver Super Jail, China IL, and The Venture Bros. to your eyeballs via television waves, basically just a bunch of amazing artists who create cartoon shows for the love of the medium.

Juxtapoz paid the Titmouse crew a visit- they spent some time with studio founder Chris Prynoski, spoke with some of the studio's gifted animators, and discovered that JJ Villard likes to chill in villain mode while he works on his far out show King Star King.

(Contains NSFW language)


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10 Hours of Princess Leia Walking around New York City

It seems impossible for a woman to walk around Coruscant or through the streets of New York City without being harassed by Star Wars characters. This parody of Hollaback's anti-bullying video shows Princess Leia trying to mind her own business in the midst of a few Jedi, Jawas, and Mandalorians who need to be Force-choked. She's got it as bad as a typical Skyrim warrior.


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-via Ace of Spades HQ


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Old Paramount Records Ads That Inspired R. Crumb's Artwork

Robert Crumb’s illustrations have a signature style assumed to be entirely of his own creation, but like most artists he drew inspiration for his style from somewhere, and for Crumb that somewhere is an old set of ads for Paramount Records.

These wonderfully illustrated ads ran in the Chicago Defender over 80 years ago, telling the stories behind popular “race music” songs like Lock-Step Blues and So Lonesome by artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Ma Rainey.

Crumb’s interest in old timey music and illustration make the influence pretty clear, and he paid homage to the artists, and artwork, found on these old Paramount Records ads in a series of trading cards which are now collected in R. Crumb’s Heroes Of Blues, Jazz & Country.

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Read more about The Amazing Old Paramount Records Ads That Inspired R. Crumb over at Dangerous Minds


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Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters

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The latest episode of Epic Rap Battles of History pits fictional characters against TV stars as the four Ghostbusters strut their supernatural superhero status against Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who’s main advantage is that they are real. Who won? It really doesn’t matter; it’s all about the sick rhymes. -via The Daily Dot


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Star Wars Babies: The Crib Wars


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Filmmaker Oscar Rene brings us Star Wars Jedi Babies - Crib Wars Episode I : The Baby Menace. While you're waiting for Episode VII to come out, you can feel the thrills of the original series as three warriors--Darth Vader, Leia Organa, and Yoda--battle for control over the one cupcake in the house. Even at a young age, the Force is strong in these three.

-via You Bent My Wookie


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Carl Brings The Creepy To Those Sexy Carls Jr. Commercials

There’s a slovenly man named Carl Brutananadilewski who lives next door to some food monsters, loves the sweet rock 'n' roll sounds of Foreigner, and generally tries to keep things sexy on Adult Swim's hit show Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Although he enjoys eating a burger or four, Carl was in no way associated with the restaurant chain Carls Jr. until they decided to bring a new kind of sexy to their burger ads by hiring him as their spokesmodel.

(YouTube Link)

Move over Paris Hilton, hightail it outta here Hannah Ferguson, there’s a new pair of buns in town and they don’t stop shakin’ til Carl's done gettin’ his freak on.

Will this commercial make you want to buy burgers? Probably not, but there’s no doubt it's the most memorable Carls Jr. commercial so far!

-Via Topless Robot


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What It's Like To Walk Around Skyrim As A Woman For 10 Hours

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We recently featured the story of actress Shoshana Roberts, who walked around Manhattan with a hidden camera and recorded all the street harassment she encountered, but that video was full of modern street behavior.

Things weren't so bad on the dusty dirt roads of long, long ago, were they?

According to this video by Shinji72 things were just as bad back then, and even mighty warrior women encountered harassment in the days of swords and sorcery.

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10 Hours of Walking in Skyrim as a woman in skimpy armor is an enlightening video in many ways- it shows that harassment exists no matter where or when, it proves that male NPCs will still speak to you despite your deadly combat skills, and it definitely demonstrates that "I was once a warrior like you..." is a terrible pick-up line!

-Via Cheezburger


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The Doctor Comforts a Grieving Child


(Image: BBC)

YouTube user Ross Goodall has a 9-year old autistic son. Thomas is grieving after the death of his nanny. Peter Capaldi, the actor who currently plays the Doctor, sent him a personal message that arrived right before the funeral. While in character, Capaldi offers a warm and thoughtful reply.


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-via The Mary Sue


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Artist Creates Amazing Sculpture Depicting Final Level of Doom II

The Doom video game franchise was extremely groundbreaking in many ways, and the series influences the work of many game designers and artists to this day.

Jason Hite is one of these Doom loving artistic types, and he has taken his love of the series to the limit with this incredibly detailed assemblage sculpture depicting the final level of Doom II.

Jason created this amazing ode to the gory glory of Doom out of various parts, including circuit boards, action figure parts and original sculptures, and now Jason's selling his geek craft masterpiece for a mere $6k.

This incredible work of gamer art is being shown at the Copro National Gallery where it will get the attention it deserves, and hopefully fetch Jason's asking price so he can start on another amazing assemblage!

(YouTube Link)

-Via Kotaku


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Physicists Determine That Being Rescued by The Flash Is Worse Than Being Hit by a Car

(Image: The CW)

In an early scene from the TV show The Flash, Barry Allen rescues a bicyclist from being hit by a taxi. That was really helpful of him, right? Well, no. According to an article published in Physics Special Topics, a student journal at the University of Leicester (UK), the bicyclist would have a better chance of surviving if The Flash had left him alone. The force of hitting The Flash would exceed that of hitting the car:

It has been shown that in the scenario depicted in the trailer that The Flash’s intended heroic act results in more villainous consequences by injuring the cyclist more than the taxi would have. The Flash’s efforts will be serving the greater good if he lowers the speed at which he makes contact. Alternatively, increasing the area over which he makes contact with the cyclist would also lower the pressure and likelihood of injury.

This isn't the first time that Physics Special Topics has addressed the physical realities presented in pop culture. They've also determined that Batman woud die if he attempted to glide and Miley Cyrus would be crushed if she came in like a wrecking ball.

-via Blastr


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