Life got you down? Here's a cheerful little video clip for you. Why it's got cat, rainbow, and pop tart. What more do you need?
You're welcome.
Move over Hamster Dance! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Pigmy Pouter CH OH902 Tally Mezzanatto
Sometimes you don't need Photoshop to make something strange - nature's already doin' it. Here's a gallery of the champions from the 2010 Grand National Pigeon Show in Salt Lake City, Utah: http://www.npausa.com/news/2010grandnationalchamps/2010.htm - via swissmiss
Usually, stocking your pantry with freeze-dried and canned food is something you'd associate with survivalists preparing for Armageddon - but there's a new trend afoot: the Great Recession survivors are now doing it, too, as a hedge against future price hikes and job insecurity.
"The price of everything is going up. I have no idea what's going to happen," Huffman says, assessing her growing collection of dehydrated and freeze-dried food in cans that look like house paint — pink is fruit, green is vegetables, blue is dairy, orange is grains — much of it with a shelf life that won't expire until her second-grader, Chloe, is 32. Whatever she stocks at today's prices her family can eat at tomorrow's sure-to-be-higher ones.
The Huffmans are not among the millions of families who have lost their jobs or homes in the Great Recession. Indeed, Brian Huffman's career as a computer engineer at a local hospital has been going strong for more than a decade, and their modest home in rural Virginia is worth more today than when they bought it 14 years ago.
What this economic crisis stole from them was their sense of well-being. First there was the foreclosure sign that went up on the neighbor's dream house down the block; it's somebody else's dream now. Then the light bulb factory in nearby Winchester closed last fall, taking 200 jobs with it.
And recently they saw gas at the truck stop down the road shoot up 19 cents a gallon in a single afternoon. Brian filled up their 6-year-old minivan before it went any higher, and his wife wondered whether it was possible to store a barrel in the backyard without blowing the neighborhood to smithereens.
Faye Fiore of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link (Photo: Carolyn Cole)
Soldiers that suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after returning from war have a new avenue of treatment: sweat lodges.
Tony Deconinck of AOL News wrote about the use of this ancient Native American tradition to treat a modern ailment:
(Photo: Wendy Chunn)On a secluded piece of land at the Fort Carson military reservation, soldiers have the opportunity to participate in a traditional Native American sweat lodge to cleanse not only their skin, but their spirit. This sweat lodge is led by Michael Hackwith-Takesthegun, a 45-year-old Marine veteran whose elders still live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He's not a conventional holy man, nor would he think of himself as the type of dour and dry minister whose religious temperance separates him from those he wishes to help. He's a guide with an important responsibility to honor an effective, important ritual.
"We're getting so many veterans coming back from the war," he said. "They're searching and seeking and looking for something, and maybe this is helping.
Monty Python In Your Pocket - $8.95
Attention Monty Python fans! Check out the fabulous Monty Python In Your Pocket keychain from the NeatoShop! This little beauty will encourage you to always look on the bright side of life.
Be sure to check out all the fabulously fantastic Keychains & Key Covers available at the NeatoShop!
Here's something neat for those who yearn for super powers: Pop Chart Lab has created the ultimate taxonomy tree of over 100 superpowers and abilities with over 200 superheroes and supervillains as examples: http://popchartlab.com/index.php/poster_detail/the_illustrious_omnibus_of_superpowers/ via Co.Design
See also: The Periodic Table of Superpowers
Normally I don't go for the run-jump-shoot type video games, but this one is so cute! The idea is that poor Dad goes berserk after a long hard day at the office, and needs to break things. The more chaos you cause, the more points you rack up. And you can even shoot lasers and play guitar! Link -via The Daily What
Maddox created an entire blog as an April Fool joke and filled it with annoying things bloggers do, like taking pictures of meals, apologizing for not posting, and adding tons of sharing buttons to each post. He received a lot of mail from people who took it seriously. Most messages were criticism, but there were people who wrote and said they liked it. Link -via Urlesque
(vimeo link)
The Maeklong Market has been in business for decades. When they built a railroad right through it, vendors saw no reason to move, or to even give up space for the train, which comes through eight times every day. The second part of the video shows the Damnoen Saduak floating market in central Thailand. This lush video was produced by Terje Sorgjerd, who also brought us The Aurora.
Previously: Train in a Bangkok Market
Flickr user Mr. Thinktank posted this "invention" for levitating cats.
Cats love anti gravity. I bet you didn't know that. This device was invented by Swedish immigrant Per Karlsson in the early 50s, and a small series was produced in Wellington for a while. But people didn't go for it as much as Karlsson had hoped; maybe because they didn't fancy having the cat hover around too much. In case you're wondering what the little cap with the "antlers" is the cat is wearing on its head, it's the mind reader. The cat steers the machine with her thoughts, because, how else would she.
The picture is part of a marvelous set of photographs in his Flickr set Old Anti Gravity Cruisers of New Zealand. Link -via Everlasting Blort
(Image credit: Flickr user Mr. Thinktank)
It was a profitable but outrageous scheme, set forth in a trial going on now. Prosecutors are charging that David Deng recruited Chinese immigrants to join the "U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve" to help their chances of obtaining U.S. citizenship, and that he charged hundred of dollars from his "soldiers." The U.S. military has no such unit. The group is well known in Asian-American neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where community leaders had no idea they weren't government issue.
If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: FBI)
Last year, one Chinese-language newspaper reported that an Alhambra taxi driver was arrested near Los Angeles International Airport after producing counterfeit military identification while trying to get out of a traffic stop.
Investigators learned that the recruits were told that the military IDs could be used to avoid getting traffic tickets and to receive certain types of military benefits and discounts, Eimiller said.
Some of the recruits were so convinced that they were part of the U.S. military that they actually visited real Army recruiting centers and tried to pay their monthly dues directly to the U.S. government, Eimiller said. That was another tipoff when investigators began looking into the group.
Local Chinese American leaders on Wednesday said they were shocked that a group that was such a familiar presence in the community is now being accused of being a fraud.
If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: FBI)
How much do you know about armadillos? Asher Kade had never even heard of armadillos before he moved to Texas and confronted many of them. But he dug up a lot of fascinating facts about the ancient animals. For instance, they can walk underwater and hold their breath up to six minutes! But they are endangered because they don't reproduce well, as you'll learn in this article at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via Look At This
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Kolossos)
(YouTube link)
Here's the story from the YouTube page:
Sophia breaks into Amy's house in Africa, James Bond style, for the sardines we bought earlier. She's a freaking clawed ninja! (Note her hanging on one paw while trying to open the window with the other before she starts hanging.)
-via Arbroath
It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Do you know what this object is? Can you make a wild guess?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Be sure to check out the What Is It? Blog. Let your imagination run wild, and good luck!
Update: It took over 50 guesses for someone to come up with the correct answer! Berhard finally said this object is a corn dryer. You stuck it into ears of corn to hang and dry them so you could use the kernels for seed corn. trishlovesdolphins gave us the funniest answer: it's the air freshener from Mad Max's car! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.
A classic in modern literature, "The Lottery" did more in nine pages than most novels do in nine chapters. Here's how Shirley Jackson outraged a nation with fewer than 3,500 words.
Spoiler alert: this article reveals the ending of "The Lottery". If you haven't read it, hop to it! It'll take 15 minutes, tops.
In 1948, The New Yorker published the most controversial short story in its history: "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, a 31-year-old wife and mother living in Vermont. The simply told tale covers a ritual lottery in a sunny, rural town. But what starts out bathed in warmth and charm grows eerier and eerier, until the horrific purpose of the lottery is revealed in the story's final paragraphs. Soon after the piece was published, angry letters poured in to The New Yorker. Readers canceled their subscriptions. And while many claimed they didn't understand the story, the intense reaction indicated they understood it all too well.
"The Lottery" was published at a time when America was scrambling for conformity. Following World War II, the general public wanted to leave behind the horrors of war and genocide. They craved comfort, normalcy, and old-fashioned values. Jackson's story was a cutting commentary on the dangers of blind obedience to tradition, and she threw it, like a grenade, into a complacent post-war society.
LUCK OF THE DRAW
Shirley Jackson was not the kind of person you'd expect to be a literary firebrand. Shy and high-strung, she dropped out of the University of Rochester in 1935. Her second stab at school was more successful. At age 20, she enrolled at Syracuse University, where she met her future husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. Together, they published a short-lived literary magazine called The Spectre.
After graduating from Syracuse, the two got married and moved to New York City, where Jackson gave birth to the first of her four children. Soon after, in 1945, Hyman got a job teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. The family moved to North Bennington, a tiny, rural town that later became the setting for "The Lottery." While Stanley taught, Jackson wrote. She penned a few offbeat stories for The New Yorker, but mostly she produced mainstream pieces for women's periodicals such as Good Housekeeping and Ladies' Home Journal. After several years of living in Vermont, Jackson had another child and was carrying a third. From a distance, her life seemed tranquil and wholesome. But something darker was brewing inside.
