The Greatest Showman was loosely based on the life of PT Barnum. Proving that there's a sucker born every minute, my brother took his entire family to see the movie without realizing that it's a musical. That bothered him more than the fact that the story was totally fictional and had nothing to do with the real Barnum.
Screen Junkies corrects that by giving new lyrics to the songs in this Honest Trailer for The Greatest Showman.
Millions of people have spent time in the U.S. military over the past 250 years, and they come home with valuable life skills that go far beyond warfare. Service leaves you no time to waste, so any period that's not filled with the task at hand can be used to catch up on sleep, particularly during travel. You can't let uncomfortable seats, changing schedules, or tomorrow's plans get in the way.
If your to-do list springs to mind just as you’re nodding off, there’s a low-tech solution for that, courtesy of Ben Feibleman, a Marine Corps vet who has visited more than 50 countries. “I've found it's easier if I keep a notepad with me or on my nightstand,” he says. “I write down what I can't stop thinking about as a kind of to-do list for the morning. That works as an ‘unburdening the mind’ trick.”
For extra unwinding, try some on some oms. “Meditation has helped me to have much greater control of my mind, curb that irritating inner-dialogue, and fend off unwelcome thoughts,” Burton says. “Not only do I sleep better, but I'm much more able to focus on and comprehend more of the world around me.”
Thrillist spoke to several veterans who shared a variety of tips for falling asleep when the opportunity was there. -via Digg
(Image credit: Flickr user DVIDSHUB)
When regular ol' flamethrower is too boring for you, Jairus of JairusofAll has got the upgrade for you: an awe-inspiring device that creates a swirling vortex of wind combined with propane fuel and ignited into a fire tornado.
Behold, the Fire Vortex Cannon - via Nerdist
You may not know the name Renato Bialetti, but you may have one of his coffee pot in your kitchen. That's right: Bialetti was the man who turned the Moka Pot, the stove-top espresso maker, into a household icon.
When Bialetti died in 2016, his three children decided that it would be fitting to put his ashes inside an urn shaped like a giant Moka Pot (Just don't ever mistake what's inside for coffee grounds.)
Vincenzo Amato of La Stampa has the video clip and story (in Italian) - via BB-Blog
Now, you too can write like some of the world's most famous musicians and songwriters, thanks to Nicolas Damiens and Julien Sens of Songwriter Fonts. The duo have designed fonts from handwritten notes and letters of musicians like Kurt Cobain, David Bowie, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg.
The fonts are free to download, but are for personal use only. Check it out over at Songwriter Fonts (Update 4/12/18: No longer available).
My, how The Gray Lady has changed over the years!
Josh Begley compiled every front page of The New York Times since 1852 in this Vimeo clip. It's neat to see photographs starting to make their appearance in the newspaper - first as black and white photos, and then as color photos.
(The first edition of The New York Times was published on September 18, 1851. Want to read the first published issue? Wikimedia has it).
Image: John Atkinson / Wrong Hands
It's been nearly four years since John Atkinson's last Anatomy of TV Shows comic panel, but hey, you can't rush genius. A TV crime show that starts with a grisly scene, supermodel in the lab, and "enhance"? I think I saw that!
The preternaturally calm voice of HAL 9000 the supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's epic "2001: A Space Odyssey" wasn't always so. In fact, at first, HAL - to be played by Martin Balsam - was supposed to have a voice embued with human emotion.
Adam Balsam, the actor’s son, told [Gerry Flahive] that “Kubrick had him record it very realistically and humanly, complete with crying during the scene when HAL’s memory is being removed.”
But that just didn't work for Kubrick:
We had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, and Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American,” Kubrick said in the 1969 interview. Mr. Rain recalls Kubrick telling him, “I’m having trouble with what I’ve got in the can. Would you play the computer?”
Kubrick had heard Mr. Rain’s voice in the 1960 documentary “Universe,” a film he watched at least 95 times, according to the actor. “I think he’s perfect,” Kubrick wrote to a colleague in a letter preserved in the director’s archive. “The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting.”
Gerry Flahive writes this interesting piece for The New York Times about the origin of HAL 9000's voice, including why it sounds so ... Canadian.
The term "turtle power" used to refer to the ninja turtles' explosive fighting abilities and awesome command of martial weapons, but ever since Donatello built the Party Wagon, and the boys got their drivers licenses, the power is all under the hood! Now the teenage mutants are too busy rollin' around town in their van to fight the Foot, and the rivalry has grown so cold that Shredder started building his own rat rods so he can take the fight to the street!
Add some high octane fun to your geeky wardrobe with this Rad Fink t-shirt by Poopsmoothie, featuring a fun design sure to get nerdy motors revvin' wherever you go!
Visit poopsmoothie's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more fink-errific designs:
| Scrappin Bats | Furiosa Fink | Infinity Worm | Working Overtime |
View more designs by poopsmoothie | More Comic T-Shirts | New T-Shirts
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!
New York's Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, and has remained one of the crown jewels of the city ever since. It was largely the work of impresario Roxy Rothafel, who had also opened the Roxy Theater not long before. Rothafel incorporated many of his grand ideas into the new showplace, including the multiple balconies, oval theater shape, and lobby murals. He pioneered the use of a live orchestra to accompany movies, and gave us the line of dancers we know as the Rockettes. For all this, he got his own apartment inside Radio City Music Hall. But Rothafel only enjoyed it a few years before he died in 1936. The apartment was locked, to become a time capsule of the period. Today it is only open for special occasions, but we can take a peek inside at Messy Nessy Chic.
(Image credit: Luke J. Spencer)
Joseph Herscher of Joseph's Machines (previously) designed a delightful and inventive chain-reaction sequence that serves him a piece of delicious pineapple upside-down cake. This one involves crashing electronics, a baby playing with a phone, and a candle that initiates motion by melting butter. The wheel that rolls over his head is a bonus. And the baby gets a piece of cake, too! The story behind the cake server is in a different video. -via Boing Boing
Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers, usually begins his monologue with jokes about the news of the day. Monday night was different. He opened the show by announcing that his wife had given birth to his second baby son on Sunday. On the floor of the lobby of their apartment building.
Luckily for Seth, there was no time to panic before it was over, and Alexi and baby Axel were attended after the fact by the NYFD. An event like that in the hands of a professional storyteller is well worth hearing.
Jelly Mario by Stefan Hedman is a surreal browser game that combines Super Mario Bros. with QWOP. Imagine playing a familiar video game while coming out of serious anesthesia or downing a half-dozen martinis. The music is just as distorted as the action, and changes speed as you work the controls. Hint: remember that "up" is whichever direction Mario's head is pointing at the time. Hedman is still working on the game; you can get a preview of level 1-2 here, or see if you can get that far yourself. -via The Verge
This is Vordingborg, Denmark. A concrete silo near the harbor is ready to be demolished. The wedge-shaped holes cut out of the bottom are to ensure that silo will fall to the right when explosives are detonated. They have prepared the area to the right to contain the debris as much as possible. The white building to the left is the town's library, which was closed for the occasion. What could possibly go wrong? While the library was not "destroyed" as the video title insinuates, the silo came awful close to it.
The Vordingborg local government said volunteer firefighters worked through the night to help secure the cultural centre.
The library said though books and everything else were covered in dust, there was little structural damage to the interior.
An investigation into the demolition has been launched to determine what went wrong.
A new trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story was released today - and we get to learn just how old Chewbacca was (hint: our favorite Wookiee was really, REALLY old - no wonder he groaned a lot).
