Stephen King has been remarkably candid in the past few years about his long foray into hard drugs and the destruction that they wreaked on his life. He’d like to have those years back.

In 2010, he contributed to Joseph Galliano’s Dear Me project, which invited 75 celebrities to write letters to their 16-year old selves. The correspondents included Suze Orman, Gene Hackman, William Shatner and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. King used his to try to get his younger self straightened out before he made terrible mistakes.

-via 22 Words

What would you tell your 16-year old self?

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It took twenty years for Walt Disney to create the Haunted Mansion. The whole thing actually began well before Disneyland came into being. Disney had always wanted a spooky haunted house attraction for the theme park (he even commissioned Disney Legend Harper Goff to draw some sketches), but Disneyland opened in 1955 without it.

Three years later, Disney decided to expand Disneyland and the effort to create the Haunted Mansion began in earnest. The first plan for the mansion called for an old New Orleans-style antebellum manor with boarded doors and windows and overgrown with weeds and dead trees. Disney, however, didn't like the idea of a run-down building in his park and said, "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside."

Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion

Disney put Imagineers Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey in charge of building the Haunted Mansion special effects. The two had plenty of ideas and apparently often left the special effects running all night long. The night cleaning crew were spooked and complained to the management, who in turn, asked Crump and Gracey not to scare them off.

But instead of leaving the lights on and the special effects off, Crump and Gracey decided to connect their "spectral effects" to a motion-detector switch. When the duo came in the morning, they found a broom hastily left in the middle of their studios. The Imagineers had to clean their studios by themselves from that point on, as management told them that the night cleaning crew were never coming back.

Bonus Fact: The Real Ghost that Visited Haunted Mansion Creator Yale Gracey

When they were working on the Haunted Mansion special effects, Crump asked Gracey whether he had any experience with the supernatural. "Oh yeah, I had a ghost read to me when I was 10 years old," Yale replied without hesitation, as reported by Disney History Institute.

Crump told the story, which went like this: When Gracey was a child, he and his mother went to visit relatives on the East Coast for the summer. They lived in a big old house, and Gracey and his cousins would sleep together in a large bedroom, with an old lady who lived in the closet. The lady would come out and read stories to the kids, under the condition that the children do not talk about the lady to the grownups or she'd disappear forever.

At the end of the summer, Gracey's mother asked him what he liked best about the vacation and the small boy replied, "The little lady that lives in the closet that reads to us every night." Gracey's mom was surprised and the children were mad at him, saying "No, no, Yale, she'll never come back."

Crump said that Gracey's mother was so concerned that she went to the local history society and found a photo of the woman who lived there. When she showed it to the kids, they said that she was the lady that lived in the closet.

Did Gracey make the whole thing up? Disney History Institute reported that Crump swore that this was exactly as Gracey had told him. "Yale would never make anything up. He was about as straight as they come," Crump added, "As far as I'm concerned it's true. It can't be any truer than that."

(Video Link)

When sitting on the bench, this costume actually looks rather wolflike and fairly uncreepy. When the wearer is actually moving around though, the effect is pretty horrifying in a werewolf kind of way. This would be a great Halloween costume certain to give nightmares to anyone who saw it in action.

The impressively real suit, made by Youtube user radywolf, is made from faux fur that was airbrushed with wolf coloring. Even more impressive -he completed the piece when he was only 19.

Via Pets Lady

(YouTube link)

Matt Hirst couldn't figure out how his pets Dexter and Gizmo were escaping the kitchen while he was at work, so he set up a camera to spy on them. If you are in a hurry, skip to about 1:30. There, you'll see the cat use both paws to turn the doorknob!

When this breakthrough spreads to other cats, we're all in trouble. It will certainly mean my winter heating bill will soar, because cats only care about opening doors. They couldn't care less about being able to close one! Note to self: never position the cat tree near a doorknob.  -via Arbroath

(YouTube link)

Three men face potential felony charges after they filmed themselves turning over a rock formation in Utah's Goblin Valley State Park. They posted a video of the incident on Facebook, in which the rock is pushed off its pedestal, and the men high-five each other. The men are unnamed in the story, but are tagged on Facebook as  Dave Hall, Glenn Taylor and Dylan Taylor. They talk about how they saved some child from potentially being hurt by the precariously-balanced rock. Utah state park officials say there will be consequences for their actions. A criminal investigation is underway. -via Viral Viral Videos

Emily Bear/Official Photo

This. Is. Phenomenal.

Emily Bear is an accomplished pianist and composer. She's composed over 350 pieces for the piano and six albums - including one produced by jazz legend Quincy Jones that hit number 3 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Chart - and performed at the White House and Carnegie Hall. And she's only twelve years old!

Andrea Bear, Emily's mother, said that the girl showed extraordinary musical talent from the cradle. "As a baby, she would sing back lullabies to me in perfect pitch. By 18 months, she was experimenting constantly at the piano. At just past 2 years, my mother thought it was my [older] son playing. She was composing tangible pieces since she was 3. By the time she was 4, she was having pieces published and distributed by Hal Leonard."

The wunderkind's list of achievements goes on. At the age of 5, she had her concert debut, and one year later, she was invited to play at the White House. Then, at the tender age of 9, Emily made her Carnegie Hall debut, performing her own orchestral composition with a 110-piece orchestra and a 220-voice choir.

Emily's first appearance on the Ellen Show in 2007 (she's only 6 at the time).

We've written about Pablo Stanley of Stanley Colors blog before on Neatorama, but the man is on a roll! Great job, Pablo! In this new panel, he illustrated one of the most iconic songs ever recorded, Imagine by John Lennon.

It's probably impossible not to read the cartoon and have the song not pop into your head. It's now probably going to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, but hey, at least it's a catchy tune!

Sing it with me, "Imagine there's no heaven ..." (Love this song? Did you know that the lyric and concept came from Lennon's wife Yoko Ono? But Lennon said that, "in those days I was more selfish, more macho and omitted to mention her contribution." Read more about Imagine in this article by Eddie Deezen, "Imagine: John Lennon's Signature Song.")

If you wonder who the guy named "Milk" in the fourth from last panel, that's San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the United States in 1977. Milk was assassinated in 1978, just 11 months after taking office.

The woman named Anna in the third from last panel is Russian journalist, writer, and human rights activist named Anna Politkovskaya. She reported about the Chechen conflict and published several books critical of the current Russian government. In 2006, Politkovskaya was shot and killed in her apartment complex. Her murder remained unsolved until today.

The meaning of Imagine is a hotly debated topic, but Pablo noted in his blog, "This is NOT an anti-religion/atheist propaganda comic. The comic and the song (at least as I understand it) [try] to communicate that no matter your faith, we should all share the world in peace ... As silly as that sounds."

View the original comic over at Stanley's website.

Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos is a Tumblr blog filled with hilariously ghastly examples of pictures of homes for sale.

If you're selling your own home, it may be worthwhile to hire a professional to take photos of the property. Or, at least, put on some pants before taking pictures of a room with mirrors in it.

Link -via David Thompson

Doc Holliday is most famous for his friendship with gunslinger Wyatt Earp and for his participation in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But he was also a dentist, having earned a degree from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. He practiced in various places in the American West, earning little as his patients were wary of the dentist's tuberculosis. Holiday opened a saloon in Las Vegas in 1879. Now a dentist chair found in Las Vegas and inscribed with the name John Holliday is up for auction.

The oak and leather mounted dental chair of Doc Holliday and associated equipment. Accompanied by a framed letter on Baker Gulch Mining Co., Las Vegas, Nevada stationary dated Oct 20, 1908. Statement of Donation: "When I rented my office above the apothecary on the Plaza, I removed a dental chair to make room for my own furnishings.I later noticed the name John Holliday on this chair. .........I now have learned that this is the same John Holliday, the famous shootist of a few years prior....I have also been informed that this was the last location that he practiced dentistry. I give this chair to the city free of charge in hope that a display of archives or a museum may use this infamous artifact. To this I affix my signature and seal. "

Well, maybe a museum will buy it. At the time of this writing, the bids are up to $2,000. Link -via Boing Boing

Google is celebrating the 66th anniversary of the Roswell Incident with a Google Doodle game featuring an alien lost on Earth. Click on the Google logo in their search page to activate the game, or bookmark the permanent link to play anytime. That's a must for me, because I'm stuck between a chicken and a barn. Link -via Metafilter

The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.

Ever heard of North Sentinel Island? Probably not …even thought's one of the most unusual places on Earth. What makes it so odd? The people -they've been there a long time, completely cut off from the rest of the world.

MAROONED

Late on the night of August 2, 1981, a Hong Kong freighter navigating the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal ran aground on a submerged coral reef. The ship, called the Primrose, was hopelessly stuck. But there was no danger of it sinking, so after radioing for assistance, the captain and crew settled in for a few days' wait until help arrived.

The following morning, as it became light, the sailors saw an island a few hundred yards beyond the reef. It was uninhabited, as far as anyone could tell: There were no buildings, roads, or other signs of civilization there -just a pristine, sandy beach and behind it, dense jungle. The beach must have seemed like an ideal spot to wait for a rescue, but the captain ordered the crew to remain aboard the Primrose. It was monsoon season, and he may have concerned about lowering the men into the rough sea in tiny lifeboats. Or perhaps he'd figured out just which tiny island lay beyond the reef: It was North Sentinel -the deadliest of the 200 islands in the Andaman Island chain.

SOME WELCOME

A few days later, a lookout aboard the Primrose spotted a group of dark-skinned men emerging from the jungle, making their way toward the ship. Was it the rescue party? It seemed possible …until the men came a little closer and the lookout could see that every one of them was naked.

Naked …and armed, but not with guns. Each man carried either a spear, a bow and arrows, or some other primitive weapon. The captain made another radio distress call, this one much more urgent: "Wild men! Estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons, are making two or three wooden boats. Worrying they will board us at sunset."

A WORLD APART

(Image credit: Captain Robert Fore)

After a tense standoff lasting a few more days, the crew of the Primrose were evacuated by helicopter to safety. They were lucky to get away: It was their misfortune to have run aground just offshore of one of the strangest islands on Earth, and probably the very last of its kind. Anthropologists believe the men who appeared on the beach that morning in 1981 are members of a hunter-gatherer tribe that has lived on the island for 65,000 years. That's 35,000 years before the last ice age, 55,000 years before the great woolly mammoths disappeared from North America, and 62,000 years before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza. These people are believed to be the direct descendants of the first humans out of Africa.

The outside world has known about North Sentinel Island for centuries, but the islanders have been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world all that time, and they fiercely maintain their isolation to this day. No one knows what language they speak or what they call themselves -they have never allowed anyone to get close enough to find out. The outside world calls them the "Sentineli" or the "Sentinelese," after the island. It's estimated the the 28-square-mile island (slightly larger than Manhattan) is capable of supporting as many as 400 hunter-gatherers, but no one knows how many people live there.

Girrebra by Anthony Moreno | More Mixed Up Animals T-Shirts

Here's a T-shirt that'll make people do a double take! Anthony Moreno cleverly combined some hybrid animals for his Mixed Up Animal T-shirts, available at the NeatoShop: Link

View more designs by Anthony Moreno | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Oliver Burton, 10, is fighting a form of bone cancer. He wanted to have tea with Queen Elizabeth II. Unfortunately, she was not available. But Helen Mirren, the actress who portrayed the Queen in a 2006 biopic and in an ongoing stage production, was. Tara Brady of The Daily Mail writes about Dame Mirren's in-character meeting with Oliver:

Catherine and father James were so delighted that their son actually thought the actress was the real Queen.

His father James Browne said: 'She stayed in character for the whole thing. Oliver thought she was the real Queen, and well, that's good enough for us.

'She was really lovely. She did the whole thing - had a butler there, was dressed in costume and did it all properly for him.

'She sat in Oliver's wheelchair and gave him her big chair. She had a glass of coke together and biscuits and little sandwiches and they even brought in her corgis from the show, Coco and Roco.

'She was wonderful and in some of the photos you do a double take because she really does look like the real Queen.

'She knighted him and told everyone that they had to call him Sir Oliver. He had a brilliant day.

He took his British flag and got her to sign it and just waved and waved it all day.'

At the link, you can see photos of their meeting.

Link -via The Mary Sue

(Image: Panthé Pictures)

Photo: Francisco Mignorance

Francisco Mingorance snapped this photo of a fennec fox walking against the wind in the Sahara Desert in Morocco, and submitted it to the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. Link - via In Focus

Instructables member peinkc spent only $15 building this portable fire pit. After removing the interior rubber and plastic components from the shopping cart that he legally acquired, he built a bottom pan out of cookies sheets and fitted mesh spark screens along the sides and top. The bottom rack provides a convenient place to store logs.

Link