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Cat Ash is Still Groovy

Well, at least this guy has an excuse when he messes up the "Klaatu Verata Necto" neccessary to pick up the Necronomicon -after all, he doesn't even speak English. This amazing Ash Vs. Evil Dead catplay was brought to you by the skilled cat costume creators over at Cat Cosplay.

Via Fashionably Geek


The 2014 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners

The 2014 winner has been crowned in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which writers compete to construct the worst opening line for a novel. The winner is Elizabeth (Betsy) Dorfman of Bainbridge Island, Washington, for this gem:

When the dead moose floated into view the famished crew cheered – this had to mean land! – but Captain Walgrove, flinty-eyed and clear headed thanks to the starvation cleanse in progress, gave fateful orders to remain on the original course and await the appearance of a second and confirming moose.

Dorfman received “about $150” for her prize. The contest site has winning entries in various categories such as children’s literature, fantasy, and crime, as well as runners-ups that are all hilariously bad. The contest takes its name from Victorian novelist George Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who started a novel in 1830 with “It was a dark and stormy night,” a sentence that has come to be shorthand for a hack novel. -via Metafilter


Everyone in This Bizarre Australian Town Lives Underground


(Photo: Nicholas Jones)

And you would, too, if your local temperatures regularly rose to 125ºF!

Coober Pedy is a mining town in Australia. If it weren't for the huge opal reserves here, no one would live in this hellscape that was used to shoot the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.


(Photo: Nachoman-au)

But that's only how it looks like from the surface. Go below, and you can find comfortable and well-decorated churches, a bar, and other amenities that you'd expect from a modern town. No one wants to spend a lot of time on the baking hot surface, so they cut rooms into the rock.


(Photo: eyeintim)

There are about 1,500 homes in the town. They're called "dug outs." In a typical house, the kitchen and bathroom are on the surface or close to the entry hole because they need water access. But the rest is below ground.


(Photo: Werner Bayer)

The construction style does offer some advantages. When you need a new addition to your house, all you need to do to get started is cut a room out of a wall of your house. And since it's all opal mining territory, you may find valuable rock that can pay for the cost of the expansion.


(Video Link)

There's a fun bar called The Desert Cave. It can get loud there, but that's okay. Because the walls of every home in the town are made of rock, the noise from the bar won't disturb you.


(Photo: Charles Bukowsky)

When you do venture up onto the surface, keep in mind that you're in the middle of a mining complex. There are specific dangers that you'll have to worry about.


(Photo: Rob Chandler)

The barren landscape is unappealing to many people, but movie directors love it. It was ideal for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and the 2000 Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black. That movie was about a spaceship that crashed into a desert on an alien world. When filmmakers wrapped up production of Pitch Black, they left the spaceship prop at Coober Pedy. It's now one of the local tourist attractions.

-via Glenn Reynolds


Don't Make a Grown Man Cry: Men Who Have Cried in Their Movies

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

In the film A League of Their Own (1992), Tom Hanks, as baseball manager Jimmy Dugan, scolds one of his girl players by saying "There's no crying in baseball." Interestingly, and a bit ironically, Tom himself was to cry in at least four of his films: Forrest Gump (1994), Philadelphia (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and Cast Away (200). Note that two of the four are his Oscar-winning roles, Forrest Gump and Philadelphia.

Almost every actress worth her salt in movie history has cried in a film. Think Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Natalie Wood, Meryl Streep, et. al. But guy actors are different. In real life and in many societies, it is perfectly accepted and natural for a woman to cry, but men must be more stoic and "hold it in."

Double standard? Of course, but whoever said life is fair? And as we all know, the movies often parallel comtemporary real life, so movies where the guys cry are few and far between. Or are they?



Clark Gable was actually asked by director Victor Fleming to do a crying scene in Gone With The Wind (1939). Gable adamantly refused, saying it was "against my image." Although there was initial resistance, even Clark Gable, the "man's man," does, indeed, weep in the Oscar-winning film.
     
John Wayne appeared in more than 150 films, but never once wept on screen. Did Humphrey Bogart or Frank Sinatra ever cry in a film? Not to my knowledge.

James Cagney went "over the top" and got hysterical, tearing up the place, in White Heat (1949), when he hears his beloved mother died. Cagney also technically wept in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), when he "turns yellow" while being escorted to the electric chair.

Continue reading

LEGO Breaking Bad Laboratory

Citizen Brick designed a laboratory playset from the TV show Breaking Bad made of 500 pieces of customized LEGO bricks, minifigs, and accessories. It's called the Superlab Playset, and you can purchase one, complete with little Walt, Gus, and Jesse. It's not cheap, but it's perfect for the ultimate Breaking Bad fan. Link -via Laughing Squid


Bear Walks into a Bar, Is Ignored by Humans, Leaves


(Video Link)

The 350-pound bear strolled into a bar in Estes Park, Colorado. He sniffed around, then left. None of the humans took any notice:

The bruin, estimated at about 350 pounds and about 6 feet tall when standing on its hind legs, entered a back door of Lonigans Saloon Nightclub and Grill about 9:15 p.m. July 18 and nosed around for a time before exiting the way he came in, the Estes Park Trail-Gazette reported earlier this week.

The bear's visit would have gone unreported if not for a man walking by outside who saw it and security camera footage that captured it for posterity.

I don't blame him a bit for leaving. If you can't even welcome your customers, then they won't stay customers for long.

Link -via Dave Barry


LEGO Sharknado

LEGO Sharknado! It sounds almost poetic, doesn't it? LEGO artist Iain Heath, known as Ochre Jelly, couldn't resist turning the SyFy monster/disaster movie into a LEGO work.

Amazingly, this model actually stands up on its own (although its a bit wobbly, being very top-heavy). If I have the time I may add more sharks, improve the lettering, and strengthen it up enough to display at BrickCon.

Link -via Geeks Are Sexy


Sweded Chestburster Scene

(YouTube link)

It's amazing what you can do with time, imagination, and modern cameras. The group Homemade Movies recreated the "chestburster" scene from the movie Alien -and nailed it. You can see a behind-the-scenes video and a side-by-side comparison with the original at Laughing Squid. Link


What Are These Huge Concrete Arrows in the Desert For?

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the US Department of Commerce created an air mail route between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. These enormous arrows helped pilots stay on course. The historical society of Washington County, Utah explains:

Large concrete arrows were constructed on the ground along the way as visual navigational aids for the planes flying the mail route. There were built at intervals of approximately 10 miles and were about 70 feet long. Typically, there was a 51-foot beacon tower in the middle of the arrow topped with a powerful rotating beacon light. Below the rotating light were two course lights pointing forward and backward along the arrow. The course lights flashed a code to identify the beacon's number. A generator shed, where required, stood at the "feather" end of the arrow. 

Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Photo: Washington County Historical Society)


The Children Who Went Up In Smoke

On Christmas Eve, 1945, a fire broke out at the home of George and Jennie Sodder in Fayetteville, West Virginia. The couple escaped with their baby, and the three older children living at home got out as well. The other five children in the house, Maurice, 14; Martha 12; Louis, 9; Jennie, 8; and Betty, 5, were never seen again. In about 45 minutes, the wooden house was burned to the ground. Strangely, no remains of the children were found in the ashes. The odd circumstances of the fire led the family to recall other recent events that in hindsight were terrifyingly ominous.

The Sodders planted flowers across the space where their house had stood and began to stitch together a series of odd moments leading up to the fire. There was a stranger who appeared at the home a few months earlier, back in the fall, asking about hauling work. He meandered to the back of the house, pointed to two separate fuse boxes, and said, “This is going to cause a fire someday.” Strange, George thought, especially since he had just had the wiring checked by the local power company, which pronounced it in fine condition. Around the same time, another man tried to sell the family life insurance and became irate when George declined. “Your goddamn house is going up in smoke,” he warned, “and your children are going to be destroyed. You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini.” George was indeed outspoken about his dislike for the Italian dictator, occasionally engaging in heated arguments with other members of Fayetteville’s Italian community, and at the time didn’t take the man’s threats seriously. The older Sodder sons also recalled something peculiar: Just before Christmas, they noticed a man parked along U.S. Highway 21, intently watching the younger kids as they came home from school.

Receiving little help from local officials and a rejection from the FBI, George and Jennie Sodder launched an investigation they pursued for the rest of their lives. Read the entire story of the missing Sodder children at Past Imperfect. Link


Pro Tip: In the Event of Armageddon, Avoid the Statue of Liberty

In fact, you may wish to just stay away from New York City as a whole. Movies never show the destruction of Little Rock or Topeka. Go to one of those cities instead.

-via Blame It on the Voices


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