It's September, and that means comic artist Sarah Andersen will be swinging into high gear for spooky season. "Spooky season" was once just Halloween, but became so popular it spread through the month of October. After all, there are a lot of horror films to watch! But that's not enough, so September has been reined in as part of spooky season, too. Anyway, Andersen has brought out the monsters.
I know the cephalopod at the top at an Eldritch meeting would be Cthulhu, but I'm not all that familiar with an antlered skull wearing glasses. But in Andersen's latest comic, he's back to learn what monster love is all about.
I, for one, am looking forward to this terrifying yet lovable creature being a recurring character. You can follow Andersen's work at her webpage Sarah's Scribbles, or at Instagram.
The megalodon makes a great monster for Shark Week and scary movies, even though they died out millions of years ago. These sharks could get as big as a tennis court -over 60 feet long! And since we marvel at how vast and how deep the oceans are, and how we've never been able to explore most of it because it's just that big, we can tell ourselves that there may be a megalodon or two lurking where we cannot see, just like colossal squid. But yes, they really really are extinct. Besides that, a megalodon wouldn't even bother with eating humans, because they needed something substantial to eat, like whales.
Shark scientist Jaida Elcock of MIT addresses the question of how and why megalodon became the largest shark ever. How they can tell so much about an extinct fish just from the teeth they left behind is fascinating. There's a one-minute skippable ad at 4:37
Thirty years ago, Uri Gellar appeared on the TV program Beyond Belief and told us he was going to transmit a thought from his brain to the television audience. The screen showed four symbols: square, star, circle, and cross. He stared at the screen, transmitting his selection from among the symbols. Then the audience called in to register the symbol he had transmitted. Of 70,000 calls, 47% percent chose the star. That's almost twice the 25% that would have resulted from random chance. It must have been telepathy!
But that wasn't it at all, because symbols and numbers are neither equal nor random in the human mind. The answer was always going to be the star. Your two-year-old will gravitate to a star among random symbols (or at least mine did). This is a phenomenon called population stereotypes, and professional psychics know what answers will be most prevalent when they ask to you to, say, guess a number between one and ten (it will be seven). Read about this phenomena and how it is used to demonstrate psychic abilities at Big Think.
(Image credit: Francis Wickware)
We've addressed the history of competitive eating, but what is the state of the "sport" now? There are really only two current superstars among competitive eaters, and they are Joey Chesnut and Takeru Kobayashi. Chesnut has won the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest 16 times, and holds the world record for eating hot dogs. He also holds championships in other eating contests. Chesnut is ranked the #1 competitive eater in the world by Major League Eating. Kobayashi is the top eater in Japan, referred to as "the godfather of competitive eating." He has won the Nathan's competition six times, and also holds world's records in eating tacos and other foods.
Neither Chesnut nor Kobayashi competed in the 2024 hot dog eating championship, but they will face off against each other for a Netflix special on Labor Day called Unfinished Beef. Weird History gets us up to speed on each eater just ahead of the event, which will be the first time the two champions have faced each other in competition since 2009.
YouTuber DemonFlyingFox is an AI artist who creates videos that bring pop culture figures to zenith of their narrative purposes. That's why this song imagines Harry Potter as an American redneck. He's still a wizard and fights Voldemud, but time with a mullet. Watch and learn how your favorite characters from the Harry Potter universe live in the trailer park by the swamp.
Redneck adaptations are a recurring theme with DemonFlyingFox lately. Be sure to also watch his music videos for rural versions of Star Wars, which includes the startling detail of a pair of siblings kissing, and Breaking Bad, which imagines rednecks cooking crystal meth in a camper.
-via Educatëd Hillbilly
Would a Godzilla cookbook show us Godzilla's favorite recipes, or would it teach us how to cook Godzilla? From the list of recipes, it appears that answer would be both. Other monsters from the Toho Studios pantheon are included, too. Godzilla: The Official Cookbook is available for pre-order now. In the Godzilla culinary universe, we get recipes like Godzilla Loaf, Kaiju Tempura, and Tacos al Rodan. How about a drink called Godzilla's Heat Ray to sip while you enjoy some Guaczilla and Mothra Wings? Imagine all the impressive dishes you could serve for a Godzilla movie night at your home!
Author Kayce Baker is both a cook and a pop culture nerd, and previously wrote a cookbook based on the pirate-themed video game Sea of Thieves. Godzilla: The Official Cookbook will ship on October 29th, so you'll have time to get one as a Christmas gift for your favorite Godzilla fan. -via Everlasting Blort
Almost every culture has legends of restless human corpses that come back to terrify the living. What do they want? Zombies want to eat our brains, vampires want to drink our blood, and ghosts want revenge. The legendary Chinese ghost called Jiangshi makes more sense because what the dead want is their life force back, and they will take yours. What's really fascinating are the details that gave rise to the legend, which have to do with old Chinese funerary practices, and priests who were seen as controlling the movements of a corpse. Still, corpses are stiff and awkward, so the Jiangshi moves by hopping. That's how you recognize them. The claws and sharp teeth are a dead giveaway, too.
Dr. Emily Zarka of Monstrum explains the origins of the Jiangshi and how the story has undergone alterations in the modern era as they merged somewhat with Western vampire legends for popular Hong Kong movies. Not only do you get the origin story of the Jiangshi, you also get some horror film recommendations.
People will turn anything into a competition. If eating a lot of food in a hurry is something you do better than other people, you may as well show off, especially if there is a wager or prize money involved. And like any human contest, people will flock to see it happen. A notorious eater of the Roman Empire, Clodius Albinus, was documented to consume 500 dried figs plus a host of other fruits, most likely to show off his talents. Several medieval men made a living by wagering on how much they could eat, and made even more money by charging admission to watch.
The ethics of overeating and making a contest of it are arguable. Eating is something all of us do every day, and to make it worth watching, it must be extreme. Pushing the limits of one's body for a prize or a reputation is not safe. And in parts of our history, poor children were recruited into eating contests for the entertainment of the well-to-do. Today, competitive eating is regarded as a sport, regulated by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Read how competitive eating got this way at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company
Have you ever seen a pregnant gecko? Or a pregnant possum? Or a pregnant donkey, guinea pig, or seal? Take the opportunity to see all kinds of animals about to give birth, including male seahorses who may have hundreds of offspring. The zebra above looks like she's going to have a litter, but it's probably just one foal. It's a good thing she doesn't have to fit through a door.
Besides all the exotic animals, you'll see a surprising number of pets who got a pregnancy photoshoot to celebrate the occasion. Like with humans, it's a chance to wear a tutu and feel feminine while sporting a waistline three times the normal size. While we can't accurately ascribe human emotions to animals, these expectant mothers (and fathers, to include the seahorses) actually appear serene and glowing. But that could be lack of sleep. See 50 images of various animals getting ready to give birth at Bored Panda.
Ground has been broken and construction is underway for the Grand Stade Hassan II, a soccer stadium in Casablanca, Morocco. When completed, it will have a capacity of 115,000 people. The only stadiums with a larger capacity are a multi-purpose facility in North Korea built to one-up South Korea, and a cricket stadium in India. Morocco is a co-host of the 2030 World Cup, along with Spain and Portugal, and the new stadium will adhere to FIFA standards.
But what sets this design by Populous and Oualalou + Choi apart is the tent shape. The roof is not fabric, but it provides both light and shade with an aluminum lattice construction. There will be gardens inside, both at ground level and elevated to 28 feet. This being Morocco, there will be multiple levels of luxury boxes and hospitality facilities for 12,000 VIPs, including a royal box. See the plans for this big, innovative stadium at Arch Daily. -via Moss and Fog
(Image credit: Oualalou + Choi)
"Wobbly Cat" is a term for a cat with cerebellar hypoplasia. That's a birth defect in the brain that affects a cat's balance and coordination. The condition is not painful and doesn't affect a cat's overall health or longevity, although a wobbly feral or outside cat will be susceptible to falls and have trouble defending itself against attacks. So wobbly cats need a loving and understanding family who will keep them safe and accommodate their clumsiness.
Archie was lucky to be taken in as a kitten despite his lack of coordination. He turned out to be such a sweet cat that his foster family couldn't let him go. Not only that, Archie is so loving that the family took in another disabled kitten as a companion, and the two cats are affectionate and inseparable. In fact, the family now has eight cats, several with special needs. You can check them all out at Instagram. -via Laughing Squid
Some languages have more words for colors than others, but how does this affect how we see them? It could make a big difference. Lithuanian has two main terms for blue, žydra and mėlyna, meaning light blue and dark blue respectively. In Norwegian, blue is blå no matter the shade. For a series of experiments, scientists recruited a number of people who spoke both Lithuanian and Norwegian, and administered a color discrimination test in which the subject was asked to pick one of two shades of blue that most closely resembled a reference picture. When the test was conducted in Lithuanian, both the accuracy and the speed of the discrimination was significantly better than when the same subjects took the test in Norwegian. Further experiments added people who only spoke one of those languages and found the same results.
While those results are intriguing, it opens up other questions, We know that women can discriminate between colors better than men on average. Could that be because women use more language terms for various shades? Show a woman something blue, and she will describe it as navy, cobalt, periwinkle, turquoise, azure, royal blue, cyan, robin's egg, seafoam, indigo, or baby blue. A man would identify it as blue, even using the same language. Obviously, more research is indicated. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Allenfleming)
Adult Swim has released this bumper for Rick and Morty by animator and director Aaron Fromm. It adapts images, ambiance, and music from the famous opening to Bruce Timm's Batman: The Animated Series. Compare it with the source material:
We clearly need a full half-hour episode of Rick and Morty developing this aesthetic.
-via Discussing Film
When you think of the rules that govern the Star Trek universe, you first think of the Prime Directive, which is broken all the time. The next rules are that Captain Kirk always gets the girl, and that any new crew member played by an unknown actor beaming down to the surface has a death warrant. And they probably wear a red shirt. But those last two rules only apply to the original series. John Farrier could come up with other obvious rules, but that's not what this video is about.
Believe it or not, there is an underlying philosophy that guides how Star Trek stories are told. Some of the nine rules governing the fictional universe may have been born of necessity, like how almost all aliens are human-shaped, but they have become incorporated into the framework of all the Star Trek movies and TV series. Some are contrary to the rules of our reality. Sometimes the rules are bent or broken, but that doesn't ruin the structure as a whole that makes this fictional universe so familiar and understandable to fans.
Tião e os Bravos is a Brazilian band that clearly takes its inspiration from American bluegrass music. Or the members at least have a hillbilly aesthetic. The use of a banjo, an upright bass, and a washboard certainly reflect a American folkways take on "All Star" by Smash Mouth.
Many of their vocal tracks are in Portuguese, as you would expect from a Brazilian band. Fortunately for the monolingualists among us, American classics such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters are presented in English.
-via The Awesomer
