Optina Monastery is an Eastern Orthodox refuge in Kozelsk, Russia. The monks who live there follow the rituals of their spiritual ancestors, including a daily procession of blessings. Father Sergey Kuzmich walks the grounds, giving blessings to the monks. And the cats. The monastery has become home to ten stray cats who found shelter there in return for their pest control services. The cats follow Kuzmich as he does his daily procession.
Kuzmich doesn’t call the cats, but he manages to give them a blessing along the way. The walk just became a habit for them. The monastery found it charming, and made a video to show “something simple and kind.” -via Buzzfeed
When is a marshmallow more than a marshmallow? When it's a work of art, of course. Instagram user Meaghan Mountford (@mallowart) proves that marshmallows are a surprisingly good canvas with her delightful mallow creations.
No word on whether or not the mallows are still edible after they are beautified, but who could eat such charming works of art anyway?
When Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were robbing banks in the 1930s, they became folk heroes because they fought against the Establishment as represented by the evil banks that many felt caused the Great Depression. When the Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway movie about them came out in 1967, it happened all over again as the duo’s adventures resonated with the counterculture of the time. Almost 50 years later, the movie is still a rollicking action film. Let’s learn some trivia about Bonnie and Clyde.
2. FAYE DUNAWAY'S STAR-MAKING PERFORMANCE ALMOST DIDN'T HAPPEN.
Warren Beatty, doing double duty as star and producer, and director Arthur Penn considered many other actresses first, including Tuesday Weld, Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood, Sharon Tate, Leslie Caron, and Ann-Margret. (Back when he was only producing it and not starring in it, Beatty had also considered his sister, Shirley MacLaine, for the role.) Beatty said they were turned down "by about 10 women," though he would later say Weld was the only one they made a firm offer to. When Beatty met Dunaway, he didn't think she was right for the part, but he told her to meet with Penn, who he thought would think she was perfect. Beatty was right.
6. THE STUDIO THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO FLOP AND TREATED IT ACCORDINGLY.
Jack Warner, who measured films according to how well they convinced him not to leave the screening room to use the bathroom, hated Bonnie and Clyde. "That's the longest two hours and 11 minutes I've ever seen!" he reportedly said after seeing an early cut. "That was a three-piss picture!" (Also: "This gangster stuff went out with [James] Cagney!") Thinking they had a turkey on their hands, and despite a warm reception at a film festival in Montreal, Warner Bros. dumped the movie in drive-ins and second-run theaters in August of 1967.
The studio was wrong, and Bonnie and Clyde not only became a hit, but a classic. Read more about the movie in a trivia list at mental_floss.
New seasons of the anime series Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Detective Conan have begun. To promote them, an artist in Japan created this amazing anamorphic wire sculpture. From this direction, it looks like Phoenix Wright . . .
. . . and from this angle, it looks like Conan Edogawa.
Joseph Medicine Crow-High Bird, the last war chief of the Crow Nation, died Sunday. Nicknamed CrowJoe, he was a writer, historian, and activist. During his life, he received the Bronze Star Medal and the Légion d'honneur for his wartime service and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. The Washington Post has more.
According to Crow tradition, a man must fulfill certain requirements to become chief of the tribe: command a war party successfully, enter an enemy camp at night and steal a horse, wrestle a weapon away from his enemy and touch the first enemy fallen, without killing him.
Joe Medicine Crow was the last person to meet that code, though far from the windswept plains where his ancestors conceived it. During World War II, when he was a scout for the 103rd Infantry in Europe, he strode into battle wearing war paint beneath his uniform and a yellow eagle feather inside his helmet. So armed, he led a mission through German lines to procure ammunition. He helped capture a German village and disarmed — but didn’t kill — an enemy soldier. And, in the minutes before a planned attack, he set off a stampede of 50 horses from a Nazi stable, singing a traditional Crow honor song as he rode away.
After the war, Crow led a distinguished life as an educator, tribal historian, and advocate. He was 102.
Comedians often have a hard time finding the right audience to try new jokes out on because their friends and family don't make very good sounding boards but they'd rather not go to a club with new material and bomb.
That's why comedians should have a puppet version of themselves made so the puppet can take the heckler's verbal bullets and the comedian can adjust their act accordingly.
Observe this Seinfeld inspired puppet doing observational humor so Jerry can learn what works and what doesn't from the safety of his apartment mansion.
New Material Seinfeld is a web series by director Oren Brimer starring Pete Holmes and Joe DeRosa as a puppet version of Seinfeld named "New Material"...pretty straightforward stuff here...
Seven years ago, we celebrated Square Root Day on March 3, 2009, because it is abbreviated as 3-3-09. Even in Europe. At the time, we considered the next Square Root Day to be a long way off, and here it is! Today is 4-4-16, and since 4x4=16, four is the square root of 16. The holiday is the brainchild of Ron Gordon, the master of calendar holidays. On his website dedicated to Square Root Day, Gordon is celebrating the convergence of Square Root Day with Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. You know, the game where men run around all four sides of a square to get home. Tonight is the championship game of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, too! It’s a good day to "root" for your team.
There are plenty of ways to celebrate Square Root Day, including going to a ballgame, planting root vegetables, eating your carrots and other root vegetables cut into squares, watching math videos, etc. Gordon has more ideas, and a contest!
It's a good day to.......get things squared away, try to fit a square peg into a round hole, go square dancing, tie a square knot, travel on Route 66, drink rootbeer from a square glass, root for the underdog, eat a square meal, or watch the pigs root around.
We've established a contest with two prize packets. Each group of winners will share the date in dollars---$441.6. One packet will be divided among 4 + 4 + 16 U.S. winners. A second grouping will share the international prize, also totaling $441.6. The winners will be those who involve the most people in a Square Root celebration. Entries can include creating the largest square root sign from people, serving rootbeer in square glasses to the most folks, or cutting many roots into squares (well, cubes) for a square root stew.
Many humans think of capybaras as nothing more than overgrown rodents or some sort of rat-pig hybrid, but apparently all the other animals in the world see capybaras as cuddly companions.
We know cats almost always land on their feet. How they do it has fascinated cat owners and scientists since we first started watching cats. The BBC gives us a slow-motion view with some commentary on the kinetics involved in a fall by a caracal from the new TV show Life in the Air.
This is fascinating, but we still have questions. Did they throw a caracal to get this footage? Drop it from a helicopter? Was the cat upset about it afterward? Were there injuries to the camera crew? -via Digg
Warriors rarely earn their nicknames with their actions, and many young fighters will give themselves any old nickname they see fit just so they seem a bit tougher, but Guts got his the hard way. Whether due to his bravery or the fact that he was constantly eviscerating his enemies, spilling their guts on the battlefield, is anybody's guess because Guts isn't exactly a talkative guy. But anybody who fights by his side feels emboldened by his very presence, so perhaps Guts is named such because he gives his fellow soldiers the courage to face any enemy...
Add some dark fantasy anime flavor to your geeky wardrobe with this Berserk ! t-shirt by Geek Me That, and all eyes will be upon you as your fellow anime fans go berserk over your cool new shirt!
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!
I'm not one for fancy soaps, but they certainly have their time and their place. When you add glitter and a unicorn into the mix though, any time is good for fancy soaps. After all, how could you say no to a Soapicorn sitting atop a rainbow cloud that smells like unicorn farts strawberries, raspberries, citrus and apples?
For those looking for something a little more masculine, it's hard to beat the Soapsquatch that is walking across turf that smells of pine needles, citrus, strawberries, cedar and vanilla. Either way, it's hard to go wrong with these magical soaps.
We asked our friend Andy the Talking Humpback Whale to settle this once and for all: Do these creatures exist or not? We’d tell you what Andy’s answer was… but then we’d have to krill you.
BACKGROUND
You’ve possibly heard of cryptozoology. It’s the study of animals that some people think exist, but whose existence has yet to be proven. Of course, the field includes a lot of wackadoodle creatures (Uh-oh— here comes the angry letters from Bigfoot and Chupacabra!), but there’s some serious science involved, too. That includes the study of animals that are believed to be extinct… but not by everybody. Meanwhile, take these possibly imaginary creatures… please.
This odd cetacean (a marine mammal such as a porpoise, dolphin, or whale) was first sighted in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1800s. The reports, which claimed the animal was a dolphin with two dorsal fins— hence the name “rhinoceros dolphin”— were not taken seriously, because no other known cetacean has two dorsal fins. (They all have either none or one.) That would have been that, but in 1819 two respected French naturalists, Joseph Paul Gaimard and Jean René Constant Quoy, backed up the story when they reported seeing very similar creatures while sailing the South Pacific: “Every one on board was surprised to perceive that they had a fin on their head bent backwards, the same as that on their backs,” they wrote. The naturalist duo even gave the creature the scientific name Delphinus rhinoceros. Sightings of similar two-finned dolphins have been recorded over the years since, but none have been confirmed. (If you see one— take a picture and send it to us!)
Larry Collmus is a horse racing announcer at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, New Jersey. In 2010, he provided a running commentary to a race that included horses named Mywifeknowsevrything and Thewifedoesntknow. The result was a denial-filled marital argument in the form of a horse race.
The Telegraph (auto-start video) informs us that Mywifeknowsevrything was trained by a woman and Thewifedoesntknow was trained by a man.
My advice: just apologize anyway and bet on another horse.
When you’re an ant, working is its own reward. Keep that in mind before you try to help. Sometimes it can be interpreted as trying to show them up. This is the latest comic from Lunarbaboon.
On March 25, several children near Capel, Surrey, UK were on an Easter egg hunt in a field. At the same time, a police helicopter was pursuing burglary suspects. The children spotted the suspects running into a nearby house.
So the kids lay down in field in the shape of a huge human arrow, pointing at the burglars' hideout. Surrey Police posted the camera footage on Facebook last Friday. Some people thought it was an April Fool's Day joke. But it was real. ABC News reports:
"No. This actually happened," Surrey Police said in reply to the comment on Saturday.
"We were torn whether to wait until tomorrow to release it [because of the April Fool issue] but it was such a good story we needed to share it." […]
The helicopter crew landed nearby after the hunt to thank the children and were treated with a few chocolate treats from the group, which "was an added bonus after a busy shift".
"'I'm sure the last thing the group of daring Capel residents expected when they set out on Friday afternoon was to abandon their Easter egg hunt to assist us in a police search but the initiative they demonstrated proved to be invaluable," NPAS Sergeant Paul Sochon said in the statement.
