(L) B3ta user Mighty Nibus; (R) hYpe

Back in July, the B3ta community created some of the most creative movie poster mash-ups I've seen in a long while. As the two examples above show, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best (of course, it helps to be mad genius photoshoppers): Link - via The Litter Box by Johnny Cat

Then, of course, there's this one called Gorn with the Wind ...

Wha...? Is that ...? Really? Yes, it is. Behold the reusable Pokémon-themed maxi pad, made by Etsy seller NaturallyHip.

I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere. And while we're at it, this product certainly does add a twist to the Pokemon motto of "gotta catch 'em all," doesn't it?

Link - via The Zeray Gazette

For those of us who simply don't get Twitter or are tired of the Web's fascination with the 140-character microblogging platform, here's the anti-Twitter. Introducing macroblogging wonder Woofer, where each post has a minimum of 1,400 characters!

(And yes, the entire thing is a spoof/homage of Twitter, made by Join the Company)

Link - via InventorSpot and Rue The Day!

Asylum blog has a pretty nifty post about 10 really old dudes and their jobs. For example:

Oldest cop: Manuel Curry, 84
Sadly, Sergeant Major Manuel Curry died earlier this summer. But he did so as America's oldest active duty police officer, having spent 63 years patrolling New Orleans -- no picnic. In fact, Curry gained acclaim for holding his post during Katrina, even as many of his much younger colleagues either abandoned the city or joined in the looting.

Oldest plumber: Pierre John "Buster" Martin, 102
The London centenarian has garnered praise for his work ethic -- he refused to take a day off for his 100th birthday and, at 101, attempted to go to work the day after being attacked by a group of thugs. Although rumors have circulated that Buster is really only 96.

Oldest world leader: Robert Mugabe, 85
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe may be the number one argument for a mandatory retirement age: The former-revolutionary hero, and current oldest member of the heads-of-state club, is considered by many to be the world's worst despot.

Good ol' Mugabe! It's good that he's keepin' active with all the dictator stuff: Link - Thanks Alex!

I'm happy to see that VaroCMS, the engine behind VideoSift and Neatorama Upcoming Queue, continues to gain wider use on the InterWeb. Rommel Santor, the brainy genius and all round nice guy behind VaroCMS has just told me that NextRound.net now has its own "upcoming" feature: http://nextround.net/upcoming/

Ashleigh Brilliant, the most quoted author in the world (he's written over 10,000 wonderful quotes, all 17-words or less) is going to be on streaming Internet radio today, Wednesday Sept 23, 2009 from 9 to 10 AM Pacific, with Santa Barbara's AM 1290 with "Baron" Ron Herron. Here's how to listen in:

Make sure your speaker is turned on.

Go to www.newspress.com (This is the website of Santa Barbara’s main daily newspaper, which owns the radio station.)

Go down the right-hand column to the section headed “News-Press.” In that section you will see six small boxes, 2 rows of 3.

Go to the upper-right of those 6 boxes, which is headed “AM 1290,” and which says inside (in red in 2 rows) “AM 1290 LISTEN NOW”

Click anywhere in that box.

The sound should then come up, but may take some seconds before you hear it.

Also on Neatorama: Ashleigh Brilliant T-Shirts

Photo: Steve Stealey

Is that a 55-gallon drum or a BBQ smoker? Actually, it's both! Steve Stealey of Steve's Services - BBQ division in Carthage, Mo. came up with the idea of using a steel drum as a smoker and BBQ grill when he was on his way to a cooking contest, lost his cooker in transit, found a used barrel and the rest is history.

Link - Thanks Steve!

Be sure to check out Neatorama's Top 10 Coolest BBQ Grills (and More) (yes, all the way back from 2006)

Some dogs are well-trained, some dogs are really well-trained. In this Very Funny Ads video clip, Thailand's Chaiphak Training Center shows just how well they can train dogs (unfortunately, making their masters look bad in comparison ...)

http://www.veryfunnyads.com/?oid=26648&cid=26613

Talk about computer viruses! Sculptor Forrest McCluer took salvaged 30 old PCs from the landfill and turned them into sculptures of viruses (the biological kind). This one above is inspired by the T4 Bacteriophage:

The “T9 Track Virus” is another version of the T4 Bacteriophage. It consists of PC power supply cables, CD-ROMs, sections of 9-track magnetic tapes, and parts of floppy drives. When the piece is on display, McCluer scatters a pile of unraveled 9-track tapes under it to represent the bacteria cells destroyed by the T9 Bacteriophage Virus.

Link | More at Forrest McCluer's Website

Also at the Neatorama Shop: T4 Bacteriophage Plush Toy by Giant Microbes

Times are hard and even restaurants are penny pinching. But are these restaurant tricks valid or are they just cheating you, the customer? Ben Widdicombe told all in his Slashfood article 10 Dirty Little Restaurant Secrets:

10. Using Cabbage in Place of Seaweed

Says a former maître d' at an expensive Chinese restaurant known for its celebrity clientele: "The owner figured his customers knew nothing about Chinese food (he was right) and was a genius at saving money. A specialty supplier used to provide edible seaweed for the popular seaweed appetizer, but when that got too expensive the boss began experimenting.

"The 'seaweed' on the menu ended up becoming thin strips of cabbage leaf, deep-fried, and then rolled in equal amounts of salt and sugar. It's possible even cardboard would taste good if prepared like that, but the dish remained a bestseller."

7. Topping Pitchers of Beer with Seltzer Water

Don't think the fiddling is restricted to top-shelf liquors, either. "In sports bars that sell pitchers of beers, the thing to do is to top the pitchers off with seltzer after the table has ordered like the third one," a source says. "The drunker the guys, the more seltzer they get." [...]

4. Serving Rotten Meat

A steakhouse employee in New York says that sometimes not all the meat is as fresh as it should be. "It's an old trick to keep the steak that's past its prime and wait until somebody orders it well done or medium-well," the insider says. "The more you cook the meat, the more you disguise its flavor. When I'm eating out I never order anything higher than medium rare, because I know how the kitchen gets rid of bad meat."

Link

Care to share your own food service experience?

What time is it? If you have trouble getting back to your cubicle on time, simply set this Will Return Clock (yes, it looks just like those ubiquitous "will return" signs ... but with a clock) fifteen minutes ahead
... That way, you'd never be late!

http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?will-return-clock-pid532.html

Their customers always told Randy Joubert and Gary Nisbet, co-workers at a furniture store in Waldoboro, Maine, that they look similar enough to be brothers. They always laughed it off, but when Joubert looked for his birth parents, he found out that he's been working side by side with his long lost brother:

Prefacing his line of questioning with the statement, “Don’t think I’m weird,” Joubert asked his co-worker a few pointed questions based on names and dates gleaned from his own adoption records.

Seconds later, Joubert realized that the man who had been on the other end of countless couches, mattresses and recliners since July wasn’t just a co-worker. Nisbet was the long-lost brother for whom he had been searching. [...]

It’s a story that seems too perfect even for a movie: Two brothers, born a year apart, grow up in adoptive families in neighboring towns and attending rival schools. As adults, each lives in Waldoboro but spends 35 years not knowing about the other’s existence.

Then they end up not only working for the same small business, in this case Dow Furniture in Waldoboro, but also riding together in the same delivery truck day after day.

But strangely, the story didn't end there - check out this report by Kevin Miller of Bangor Daily News: Link (Photo: Gabor Degre/ Bangor Daily News)

Back in the middle ages, a popular form of torture is to force a poor sap to sit on a pointy stool called the Judas Cradle. You can imagine what that does to the guy's backside.

Fast forward to modern times and lo, this torture chair was transformed into an edgy "Stake-chair" by Russian designer Ton Guglya:

Stake-chair and stake-stool for those who like to be «on the edge». Practically it is very comfortable to seat on a glass cube (with round corners and a deepening in the top). Woody structure is actually wooden. If you doubt the historical authenticity of the torture stake — search it on the internet.

http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_file.asp?individual_id=189064&portfolio_id=2307757& - via a+.29

Photo: Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project

Archaeologists have found new clues from the Maya ruins of Kiuic in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula that may shed light on the collapse of the Maya civilization ten centuries ago:

... The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.

"The people just walked away and left everything in place," says archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson Miss., co-director of the Labna-Kiuic Regional Archaeological Project. "Until now, we had little evidence from the actual moment of abandonment, it's a frozen moment in time." [..]

When the team started exploring the hilltop palaces, five vaulted homes to the south of the hilltop plaza and four to the north, the archaeologists found tools, stone knives and axes, corn-grinder stones called metates (muh-TAH-taze) and pots still sitting in place. "It was completely unexpected," Bey says. "It looks like they just turned the metates on their sides and left things waiting for them to come back."

Let's tell the archaeologists to hurry up. 2012 is just around the corner ...Here's an interesting article by Dan Vergano for USA Today: Link

Forget tranquilizer darts - that's the stuff of Hollywood. Real police officers use taser, even on a wayward emu:

Authorities in Mississippi said they had to handcuff an emu and shock it with a Taser to remove the ostrich-like flightless bird from a roadway.

Oh, and they used handcuffs, too. I'm assuming they meant emu legcuffs: Link (Sadly, no photo of the cuffed emu)