The Serbian a cappella choir Viva Vox (previously at Neatorama) perform a medley of Star Wars themes with just their voices. All the orchestral parts are there, and they are wonderful.
The group is a lot larger than you can tell from the visuals here. The visuals are almost as catchy as the music. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Harry Potter is a story written for children so J.K. Rowling didn't spend too much time making realistic characters, plus it's a fantasy series so realism can detract from the magic and wonder of it all.
But let's face it- if Harry Potter had actually survived the killing curse as a baby he would be one jacked up looking kid!
Serverus Snape was a slippery character with a dark past, and even though he turned out to be a double agent in the end all the bad stuff he did while working for Voldemort would look pretty bad on his resume.
And wizards may have figured out how to remove the horrible effects inbreeding has on their children, but in real life whenever people talk about their "pure bloodline" we start imagining what their mutant kids look like. (Comic by Andy Kluthe and Andrew Bridgman)
Tuesday will be the 20th anniversary of the release of James Cameron's blockbuster film Titanic. The movie was over three hours long, cost $200 million to make, and everyone already knew how it ended, since it was based on the real-life sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Studio executives expected a flop of epic proportions, not because the movie was bad, but because they had sunk so much money into it that it had seemingly impossible hurdles to jump before it could break even. It was a miracle that Cameron got the chance to do the movie in the first place.
Cameron asked for $125 million to make Titanic. Fox Chairman Peter Chernin balked, and told Cameron he could make the movie he had first pitched as “Romeo and Juliet on a boat” if he could have it ready for a July 1997 release, and keep the budget to $110 million. Cameron, perhaps believing this might really be possible at the time — and perhaps also figuring it was better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission — said he could do it, offering to forfeit $4 million of his own salary to squeeze under the line.
Almost as soon as Titanic went into production, it began to go over budget. In 1996, shooting a typical action blockbuster — a Batman Forever or a Tomorrow Never Dies — cost an average of $100,000 to $150,000 a day. Titanic averaged between $225,000 and $300,000 — and this was after construction ended on the brand-new 40-acre movie studio Cameron needed to film it. He had considered locations all over the world, and ultimately decided on a spot 15 miles south of the border, in Rosarito, Mexico. Workers needed 10,000 tons of dynamite to blast a hole in the coastline big enough for the 17-million-gallon open-air tank — the largest ever built — that Cameron needed to hold his ship.
That's just the beginning of the spending bill for the production of Titanic. The finished film spent months in theaters and made a billion dollars, mainly due to repeat viewings. Read how Titanic went from Cameron's obsession with the ocean to a pop culture phenomenon twenty years ago, with input from Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and others at Buzzfeed.
Cats love farms because they have lots of food (and rodents) for them to snack on, and farmers love cats because they help keep the farm rodent free.
But having too many cats on your farm seems like a bad idea, what with all of those plump chickens strutting around.
So how do Russian farmer Alla Lebedeva and her husband Sergey raise those big and beautiful Siberian cats and keep her farm animals from becoming a feline buffet?
Alla says the Siberian cats actually protect her animals from rodents:
"How many do we have now? To such a question I usually answer 'a million, maybe more,'" Lebedeva tells DesignYouTrust. "They live in the henhouse... They have three ‘little bedrooms’ there where can they sleep according to how they feel. Our cats protect the chickens and rabbits from rats and mice."
By the look of them there must be quite a few rats raiding her farm- because these cats look like they have a healthy appetite for fresh meat.
These little lions are often mistaken for Norwegian Forest cats, but Alla wants everyone to know that her Siberian cats are a different species, which she and her husband have been raising for over a decade on the farm they call "Catland":
See more Siberian Farm Cats Have Absolutely Taken Over This Farmer's Land here
What do you do when you feel miserable? Do you withdraw and feel sorry for yourself? Doing something for others might mitigate the misery for a little while, like it does for this guy, or a good deed might go even further. For one thing, it takes your focus off yourself, even just for a short time. And the happiness you've boosted in someone else could easily bounce back on you. Worth a shot! This is the latest comic from Lunarbaboon.
Matt Groening and the writers on The Simpsons have made some incredibly bold predictions over the years- and way too many of them have actually come true.
Does this mean these visionary animators possess psychic powers, or is modern life just becoming so ridiculous it has more in common with cartoons than the real world we once knew?
We could debate that question for years to come, but Disney's recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox proves The Simpsons is without a doubt the most prescient show on television.
The Simpsons has now predicted Disney buying Fox, the FIFA scandal, Greece’s economic collapse & President Trump (via @TomButler) pic.twitter.com/yj3qjx9TBB
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 14, 2017
They predicted Trump's presidency, they knew Siegfried and Roy's tigers would one day turn on them, and they even predicted that Bengt Holmstrom of MIT would win the Nobel Prize for Economics.
Read 11 Events Correctly Predicted By The Simpsons at Mental Floss
Porgs are the token "cute" aliens (read: toys) in the new Star Wars film The Last Jedi. They played their role perfectly by looking cute, but what do they taste like? As the most prevalent wildlife we see on the planet Ahch-To, we can assume that they've been eaten quite a bit. The question has been discussed by the cast and crew of the movie, fans all over, and even biologists and chefs. Gizmodo reached out to experts to get their opinions. Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology speculated on how porgs would taste based on an extrapolation of the biology of birds on Earth.
It’s hard to say what a porg’s lifestyle is from the brief clips I’ve seen. But, if they’re supposed to be seabirds and can fly, then they’re probably all slow-twitch muscle, just like real seabirds. Swimming and flying takes constant effort. Living in the ocean means probably eating smaller ocean-going life, which on Earth usually means fish at some level. Many birds that eat mostly fish tend to taste fishy (or so I’ve heard).
A couple of cooking experts weighed in, one of whom questioned whether porgs are really birds. And chef Steve “Mo” Fye got to the heart of the matter.
First of all, I don’t believe in Porgs. They’re not real like Tribbles are.
Their answers are more extensive, and you can read them all at Gizmodo.
It never ceases to amaze me how much people will spend on jewelry and accessories designed to do little more than impress others with a display of wealth, but at least expensive watches tell time while looking fancy.
Now a fifty dollar watch always worked fine for me, but men who demand an elegant timepiece on their wrist will spend thousands on a Rolex, TAG HEUER or an Omega, like the $5,000 Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch.
And if that seems like a crazy amount of money to spend on a watch imagine spending $85k on a Patek Philippe 5170P, with diamonds on the dial and a platinum case!
So what's the difference between a $5k Omega and an $85k Patek Philippe? Watch this video by Watchfinder & Co. and find out!
-Via Gear & Grit
Cats for Everybody by Tobe Fonseca
What did you ask Santa to bring you for Christmas this year? Some new toys? Slick new shoes? A new car? Too bad, you're getting a cat instead! That's right, this year Santa is working with animal shelters around the world so he can drop CATS FOR EVERYBODY down the chimney!!!! I hope you're not allergic, but if you are maybe you should write Santa another letter and ask him for some allergy meds to go along with your new feline houseguest...
Get ready for the furriest Christmas ever with this Cats For Everybody t-shirt by Tobe Fonseca, it's the purr-fect tee for the cat lover in your life, or grab one for yourself and keep the spirit of Christmas alive all year long!
Visit Tobe Fonseca's Facebook fan page, official website, Instagram and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs:
| Jingle Meow | In Coffee We Trust | Polar Xmas Eggnog | Le Petit Lecteur - The Little Reader |
View more designs by Tobe Fonseca | More Funny 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!
What on earth inspired this guy to bring in an Eldritch Insanity Drake as a new member of the household? We all build our families in our own ways, but you have to take the feelings of existing members into consideration. But you also have to teach the young ones how to treat strangers. This is only the beginning; you can see the rest of the comic by noobtheloser at imgur. The story is really going somewhere, I promise, but you have to read it to the end. The punchline is worth the confusion on the way there. -via Geeks Are Sexy
A donor took a piano to a Goodwill store. Is it in tune? Why, no, but that only lends an air of authenticity when a patron sat down and played "Alley Cat" by Danish composer Bent Fabric. The ragtime tune sounds right at home on this instrument. With a one-time tune-up, it would be a fine addition to a home with children learning to play. Meanwhile, the folks shopping at Goodwill got a free concert while they selected items to buy. -via reddit
Who would hang a stocking by the chimney with care if they didn't want treats stuffed in it? That's not teh story here. Craig Groeschel posted this picture of his wife Amy showing off the new Christmas stocking that just arrived. The caption says,
Guess what @amygroeschel typed in the box that said, “Would you like a name to personalize your stocking?”
We come across the command that "all fields must be filled" so often that we forget that there are some fields that truly do not need to be filled in. This one's funny enough to become a family heirloom. -via reddit
If you've been a Star Wars fan for any length of time, you are probably familiar with the 1978 fan film Hardware Wars, which was a recreation of the first Star Wars movie made on a budget of about $20 using whatever was lying around. We posted it here at least once. It set the standard for all Sweded fan films to follow.
Released in 1978, filmmaker Ernie Fosselius released a crude-but-endearing 13-minute short film that recreated the original Star Wars, only with appliances. Characters Fluke Starbucker (with his flashlight lightsaber) and Augie “Ben” Doggie meet an ace pilot named Ham Salad who flies them all around in a giant iron that battles flying toasters.
I went to see The Last Jedi Saturday evening. Without giving away any spoilers, there is a moment where my brain went haywire when I saw a spaceship that looked just like a vintage steam iron. Wait, what? Yes, it was a deliberate reference to Hardware Wars. Director Rian Johnson admits to it, and was delighted that some fans knew what they were seeing. He talked to Mike Ryan about the easter egg he slipped in just for older hardcore fans at Uproxx. The post there contains no major spoilers.
Many people will be hitting the slopes this winter, and some of those people will even go skiing despite the fact that snowboarding is way more fun.
But whether you like shredding powder or shushing down the runs you're bound to run in to one thing while you're at the ski resort- trail signs.
They're posted everywhere to keep skiiers safe and show them where to find each trail, but these signs usually don't contain much information about what the skiier should expect on each slope.
Which is why these honest trail signs are something every ski resort should consider implementing, so that skiiers can avoid all the child-shaped hazards and hit the slope that best fits their personality.
-Via Bored Panda
Chili Klaus (previously at Neatorama) is a musician and hot pepper vendor. He went back to visit the Herning Boys Choir, the choir he once belonged to, to sing some Christmas music. Here they perform "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful."
But Chili Klaus always has a hot pepper up his sleeve. I don't know how he convinced the entire choir to eat a ghost pepper and sing, but he did, and the resulting music will being tears to your eyes. It certainly brought tears to their eyes! -via reddit
