Turn the sound on before you watch this. Tasha is playing hide-and-seek because she doesn't want to go inside, and she's found the perfect hiding place! Tasha is pretty smart for a dog. She understands that her man's viewpoint is different from her own. She's a little fuzzy on the concept of glass doors, though. -via Bits and Pieces
Burros, or donkeys, are descended from the African wild ass. They are not indigenous to North America, but were imported by the Spanish. Burros proved to be the most useful beast of burden for the Grand Canyon area, where unsuccessful prospectors would sometimes abandon their animals, which led to a feral population of burros. That's how the burro named Brighty found himself living in the Grand Canyon.
Brighty himself, who lived from about 1882 to 1922, was first seen in the Canyon near an abandoned miner’s tent, sitting vigil as if expecting the tent’s occupant to return. The burro appreciated occasional human companionship, especially when pancakes were involved. He spent summers on the cooler North Rim, hanging out with the game warden Jim Owens or the McKee family, who managed the first tourist facility on the North Rim, which opened in 1917. Brighty came and went as he pleased, toting water for the McKees’ young son, but scraping off any loads he deemed unworthy of his efforts. For instance, if a hunter caught Brighty and tried to make him pack his gear, Brighty would sneak away, rubbing the pack against trees until the lashing loosened and the load fell off.
It was along the North Rim that early Canyon tourists first met Brighty, probably between 1917 and 1922. Wills writes, “Vacationers struggling to interpret, or connect with, the immense scale of the Canyon (John Muir called it an ‘unearthly’ place), appreciated the presence of a familiar creature.”
But Brighty’s hybrid existence—not exactly wild, but not domesticated enough to be consistently useful—would count against him and his kind when the park service decided in the early 20th century that it should restore the Canyon to a pre-Columbian state of virgin splendor. Having arrived with the Spaniards, the burro was not native to Arizona.
The National Park Service's plan for ridding the canyon of invasive species meant shooting the feral burros. Brightly had already passed on, but his story made him the face of the effort to save the burros. Animal lovers did not want them shot, and others wanted to maintain the feral burros for their part in US history. Others believed the canyon should be returned to its pre-settlement ecosystem. The controversy went on for decades. Read about Brighty and his legacy at Atlas Obscura.
Yes, it would be nice to have a machine that makes breakfast, but then you remember that making bacon and eggs is about the easiest thing there is to do in the kitchen. But this machine is impressive! There are two LEGO contraptions here. One is a huge scaffolding that delivers bacon and eggs to the frying pan, and even cracks the eggs open. The other is a vehicle which can move things around as needed and flip and serve the food with a spatula. YouTuber The Brick Wall (previously at Neatorama) built this set up for his father, who makes breakfast every weekend. He worked an entire week just to get the egg cracking unit right. -via Digg
We love cats, and we love monster movies. What's even better? Cats starring in monster movies! Thrill to the spectacle of a 50-foot cat stomping through Tokyo or some other urban area, blocking traffic and knocking things over (as they do). Indonesian digital artist Fransdita Muafidin imagines these scenarios in photo mashups, with fluffy kittens threatening society with their incredible mutant mass and their adorableness. See 17 of his photo collages in a roundup at at Sad and Useless, and more at Muafidin's Instagram gallery. -via Everlasting Blort
Marching band geeks have a lot of fun in high school, but afterward, you realize that those skills aren't exactly in high demand in the outside world. You have to find some other way to make a living. Then that day comes, maybe years down the road, where you pull out your old skills to impress your co-workers. That happened to Officer Pennington of the Sacramento Police Department when the Kings' drum line approached, and suddenly a flashback caused his billy club to become a baton! Those years of practice weren't for naught after all. -via TYWKIWDBI
Marty Boyer bought Theater House in Covington, Kentucky, in November. He was shocked at the amount in his electric bills. He was being billed for seven electrical meters, but he could only find four in the building. After he requested an audit, Duke Energy confirmed that three of the meters were located across the street from the theater, but they weren't going to separate them from his bill.
Frustrated by Duke's inaction, Boyer told Duke to turn off the meters across the street on March 19 not knowing what they powered. The lights stayed on at the Theatre House, but a Duke worker showed up the next day asking who turned the lights off.
"(The) lesson here: Want to get attention, turn off the lighting on the bridge," Boyer said.
It turned out that Boyer had been paying to power the lights on the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge that spans the Ohio River. But Duke wouldn't change the bill because they couldn't find anyone at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to accept responsibility. It was only after Boyer told the story on Facebook Monday and the local newspaper got involved that the meters were separated for billing purposes. Read an update on the story at The Cincinnati Enquirer -via Bits and Pieces
(Image credit: Derek Jensen (Tysto))
Ingesting embalming fluid is a horrible way to die. It's not a death we worry about much these days, but back when funeral wakes were held at the family home, it was a different story. The undertaker would come and do his job at the house, then a wake would be held for days before the burial, often with plenty of drinking to drown the grief. Accidents happened, in an astonishing number of different ways.
EMBALMING FLUID IN THEIR BEER.
Mourners at a “Wake” Poisoned, One of Them Fatally.
Racine, Wis. Oc. 5. Special Telegram.
While attending an Irish wake last night James Payton, James Callahan and Mrs. George Diven were poisoned by drinking embalming fluid. During the night refreshments were served, and beer was poured into a tumbler which contained embalming fluid left by the undertaker. Payton is not expected to recover. Daily Inter Ocean [Chicago IL] 6 October 1888: p. 9
Whether someone poisoned by embalming fluid survived depended on how much they drank. It didn't take much to kill you. Just using a container that once held embalming fluid was often enough. You'd think people would be put off by the smell, but a child or someone who'd already drank quite a bit of alcohol might not. Honestly, look at the bottles it came in. Read a roundup of 19 different cases of poisoning by embalming fluid at Haunted Ohio. -via Strange Company
Last year, Tom Fitzgerald and Marcus Herring assembled a feature-length remix of a ton of Star Wars fan films, parodies, tributes, knockoffs, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, and fan reactions for the franchise's 40th anniversary. Star Wars Nothing But Star Wars was shown in a theater for a gala celebration on May 18th, 2017, for the anniversary. Since then, the company that commissioned it folded, and the theater closed. So Herring remixed the remix and added new footage, and made it available to all of us on the internet! Enjoy an extended mix of the weirdest Star Wars stuff there is. It's completely bonkers!
This one is the PG edit, with just a couple of scenes excised or censored. If you prefer, there's a somewhat more risqué R-rated version at YouTube. -Thanks, Marcus!
If you're in Anchorage, Alaska, here's a neat art event that you should check out: NeatoShop artist Raven Amos and her husband Scott Elyard are having an art show called Gallimaufric Science.
Info for the opening day (May 4, 2018 - today!) and the rest of the month, as well as the fundraiser.
Thanks Raven!
Following all of Star Wars was a pretty simple task for those of us who have seen every movie in a theater when they were released. That took 40 years, but there was no confusion as to how the story was constructed. It's quite different when you want to introduce your children, or your friend who was never interested until they met you, to the long and ever-expanding Star Wars universe. What's the best order to see them in? George Lucas says to watch them in chronological order, starting with The Phantom Menace. No, no, no.
The problem in getting started with Star Wars is two-sided. First, there's the inconvenient fact that the first three movies to be released, the original trilogy, come in the middle of the current continuity. Then, there's the not-insignificant matter that the prequel movies are widely considered to be terrible. Episode 2, "Attack of the Clones," won a Golden Raspberry award for Worst Screenplay.
Until the release of "The Force Awakens," much of the zeitgeist surrounding the Star Wars saga dealt with the prequels. The conversations were largely negative, along the lines of "are these movies cringe-worthy, or outright detestable?"
There's also the big twist that would be completely spoiled by watching the prequels first -which really only applies to children as viewers. The best way is to show your kids the movies in release order, which is what I did, although back then there were only five movies to catch them up. That's what Mathew Olson recommends, although his list of media in watching order do not include Ewok Adventure or The Star Wars Christmas Special. Even I haven't seen those. Or you might prefer Machete Order. But there's a lot more in the article, including an explanation of the special editions and a look at Disney's vision for the future of Star Wars. And May the Fourth be with you.
The departure screen at Heathrow Airport in London was a little different as May 4th dawned. You can enlarge the picture here. The flight to Hoth has been delayed because of snow on the destination runway. The flight going to Kashyyyk is numbered WOOK1E. And sadly, Flight LE1A to Alderaan has been cancelled.
Good morning from Heathrow. The force is strong with us today and we've got some special new routes. Will you be travelling to galaxies near... or far, far away? #Maythe4th #MayTheFourth #MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/B9IcnMOMxC
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) May 4, 2018
Every departure has a story, but you'll see it only if you're familiar with a galaxy far, far away. -via reddit
Dave was abducted by aliens. He wants to tell everyone, but there are some things "they" don't want you to know. However, the warranty on the mind wipe machine has run out, and someone didn't do the scheduled maintenance check. The "man in black" is forced to take matters into his own hands. -via Geeks Are Sexy
You know Carry Nation as the woman who hated alcoholic beverages so much that she vandalized bars with a hatchet and became the symbol of the Temperence Movement. Nation was always religious, but she only became an opponent of alcohol after she found out her first husband was an alcoholic. Her saloon-smashing career began with a voice from God, and soon turned into a lesson on the value of publicity.
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, she would march into a saloon and proceed to sing, pray, hurl biblical-sounding vituperations, and smash the bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet that she had concealed under her black waterproof cape.
Carry responded with alacrity to appeals from citizens of other towns to close their saloons, as her violent approach, which had received national attention, was getting results. Her behavior provoked a tremendous uproar and sent her to jail repeatedly for disorderly conduct, vandalism, and disturbing the peace in locations where liquor sales were legal. Between 1900 and 1910, Carry was arrested at least 30 times, in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, while many other incidents did not end in arrest simply because the smashed saloons were illegal and the owners just endured the vandalism. She paid her fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets and photographs inscribed with "Carry A Nation, Home Defender", or some such, at times earning as much as $3000 per week, this in an age when a typical working man made about $100 a month.
Nation's campaign catapulted her to stardom on the lecture circuit, in vaudeville, and as a publisher. She even portrayed herself in a play, complete with a reenactment of a saloon-smashing. Read about the life and career of Carry Nation and how she influenced the push for Prohibition.
When Celine Dion sings a song for your movie, you can expect a big, emotional performance that will rule the charts this summer and be nominated for some Grammys or even an Oscar. She's done it before (Titanic). With "Ashes," the song is exactly all that, and the video has all the required elements, with a stage performance and some movie clips. But this is Deadpool, so there's more. He lends some out-of-character choreography to the stage show, and then offers a critique at the end. The kind of thing you'd expect from Deadpool.
Dinosaurs, even covered in feathers, are big, dangerous, and fun to make movies about. They are perfect for that purpose because they are more real than space aliens or ghosts, yet we can still go to sleep unafraid of being eaten by one. But what we know about dinosaurs is constantly changing with new discoveries. I just learned that they only grew to enormous sizes because of a mass extinction event -one that isn't as publicized as the mass extinction event that later wiped them out. That information comes from the new book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte. Here's more.
The first dinosaurs were not brutish monsters like T. rex or earth-shakers like Brontosaurus. Dinosaurs evolved from skinny, long-limbed, cat-sized ancestors called dinosauromorphs, which lived about 250 million years ago. They were sprinters who ran around on four legs, and lived in the shadows of giant amphibians, reptiles, and mammal ancestors who dominated the food chain at the time.
"Dinosauromorphs" should be a Saturday morning cartoon with a toy line, don't you think? Read a list of ten interesting things about dinosaurs from the book at Boing Boing.
