If you think having to "share" your bed with your pet cat is bad, that's nothing compared to what Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen has to do: the sanctuary worker shares her South African home with really, really big cats: four cheetahs, five lions, and two tigers!
Riana bought her first cheetah, Fiela in 2006, after realising the big cats were in trouble and heading for extinction with only 1000 left in Africa.
She left her full time job working for the department of justice - a position she had held for 22 years - and found temporary employment on a game ranch where she could raise her beloved big cat. [...]
The cats in Riana's own home are truly part of the family and are allowed to roam freely.
Imagine the size of their litterbox! Amy Oliver of the Daily Mail has more: Link (Photo: John Lienbenberg/Barcroft Media)
The concept behind the cute Monkey Kick Off Flash game from Miniclip is maddeningly simple: just press a key or click your mouse button to get the monkey to kick the ball. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is ... except when you're trying to beat someone else's score.
See if you can beat my top score (4194, which is woefully low as compared to the top players of Monkey Kick Off): Link
The following is an article from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader Who says that comic books don't contribute much to literature? Here's a few choice phrases, which origin can be traced back to comic strips:
Security Blanket
Pioneering child psychologist Richard Passman is given credit for identifying the phenomenon of children habitually clutching or carrying a favorite toy for comfort and security. Charles Schulz first used the concept in June 1, 1954, Peanuts comic strip by giving Linus a blanket to carry everywhere he went. Linus called it his "security blanket." The term is now used by psychologists to define a child's (or anyone's) excessive attachment to a particular object. (Photo: Time Magazine 1965 cover)
"We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us"
Pogo Earth Day Poster by Walt Kelly (image via Wikipedia) After winning the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812, Commodore Oliver Perry wrote in a dispatch to General William Henry Harrison, "We have met the enemy, and he is ours." Walt Kelly, author of the comic strip Pogo, reworded the phrase as "We have met the enemy and he is us," in the foreword to his 1953 Pogo collection The Pogo Papers. The meaning: Mankind's greatest threat is ... mankind. The quote became better known when Kelly used it on a poster he was hired to illustrate for the first Earth Day in 1970.
The Heebie-Jeebies
Billy DeBeck coined the term in his hugely popular 1920s comic strip, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, about a community of backwoods hillbillies and moonshiners. It first appeared in a 1923 strip where Barney tells someone to "get that stupid look offa your pan. You gimme the heeby jeebys!" It meant "a feeling of discomfort." Other phrases coined by DeBeck: "horsefeathers," "hotsie-totsie," and "googly-eyed" (after Barney Google, who had huge, bulbous eyes). The strip also gave us the nickname "Sparky," from the name of Barney's horse, Sparkplug. (Many young comic-strip fans were given the name "Sparky," among them, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.)
Palooka
Joe Palooka by Ham Fisher - via Wikipedia It came from the main character of the 1920s strip Joe Palooka. Joe Palooka was a boxer - likeable but dumb, a trait that probably came from repeated blows to his head in the ring. Soon after the strip's debut, any big, dumb guy might be called a palooka.
Milquetoast
"Milk toast" was a simple dish (toast served in milk) frequently served at soup kitchens in the 1920s. Harold Webster named the main character in his late 1920s strip, The Timid Soul, Caspar Milquetoast. Thanks to the comic strip, by the 1930s the word "milquetoast" had become common slang to describe anybody who, like Milquetoast, was weak and timid.
Sadie Hawkins Day
The First Sadie Hawkins Day, by Al Capp It's from Al Capp's L'il Abner. One day a year in the comic strip's rural setting of Dogpatch, single women would chase the single men around. If they caught one, they got to keep - er, marry him. The day got its name from Sadie Hawkins, the first woman in Dogpatch who caught a husband that way. High schools in the United States still hold "Sadie Hawkins Dances," to which the girls invite the boys.
In Bill Holman's 1930s strip Smokey Stover, the title character rode around in a bizarre-looking two-wheeled fire engine (with a fire hydrant attached to it) that Smokey called a "foo fighter." The term was used by World War II pilots for any unidentified aircraft (including UFOs). The phrase became popular again in the 1990s when it was used as the name of the rock band Foo Fighters.
The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader. Proving that some things do get better with age, the latest Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with 600 pages of fascinating trivia, forgotten history, strange lawsuits and other neat articles.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
Who doesn't love giant squids? Whether you are fascinated by Kraken, love reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or you are actually into teuthology (that's the study of cephalopods), we've got you covered!
The super-talented Nathan Mazur of scaredofbees (great stuff there, btw) has designed the perfect T-shirt for you. Here's the tentacle-y fun shirt from the Neatorama Online Store: http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?i-love-teuthology-shirt-pid414.html
More I Love Science designs:
NEW - I Love Forensics
I Love Math (now also available in black)
I Love Science, and others also in Onesie/Kids
We're also slowly but surely building the web's best selection of geekstastic Science T-shirts and cheeky Scientists Do It T-Shirts - so check 'em out!
The picture below shows two monkeys. Set your computer monitor to maximum brightness and then stare at the centre of the picture for about 30 seconds without moving your eyes. Next, look to a white wall and blink a few times. The monkeys should suddenly transform into a perfect picture of Darwin!
God bless the feminists! Fighting what they deem as a sex discrimination of sorts, women of all shapes and sizes in Malmö bared criticisms to win the right to bathe topless in the city's public swimming pool:
The breast issue has proved divisive, with political wranglings leading to the question being struck off the agenda at an earlier meeting in April.
These political cleavages remained on view right up until Wednesday's meetings with disagreements on both the left and right sides. [...]
According to Forsberg, some on the council had lobbied for wording which would have required women to keep their nipples covered, but Forsberg explained that attempting to enforce such a rule would have been too complicated.
"We don't define what bathing suits men should wear so it doesn't make much sense to do it for women. And besides, it's not unusual for men to have large breasts that resemble women's breasts," he said.
I'm glad that the city's sports and recreation committee has finally provided the proper support for this important matter. Rest assured, Neatorama will keep you abreast of the situation: http://www.thelocal.se/20250/
Four-year-old Turkish boy Muhammet Dirlik is one lucky boy: he was hit by a car, which sent him tumbling down a flight of stairs. But what seems like a surely fatal accident left Muhammet unscathed.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube], and quick, someone stop M. Night Shyamalan before Signs or The Happening happens or we're doomed!
Perhaps this is the way to deal with Somali pirates, and get a little R&R at the same time: a Russian luxury cruise line is offering wealthy customers the chance to hunt pirates!
Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.
When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.
Passengers, who can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo, are also protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.
Update 6/26/09 - It's a hoax, though I think the proposed (morbid and not to mention unethical) solution is still a matter of interesting debate - Thanks rb!
Forget aliens, the real culprits behind mysterious crop circles in Tasmania are far weirder: stoned wallabies!
"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.
"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
I know, I know, people who blog in glass houses shouldn't throw stones or something like that. And though we're typographically-challenged here on Neatorama, we just can't resist this news from Channel 7 News Fox WSVN TV:
After painters misspelled the word "school" on the road, the sign has become the talk of the town, especially for students who attend class nearby.
Students who attend Goulds Elementary School have no problem spelling the word "school," however, whoever painted the word on the pavement spelled the word incorrectly.
Children who are learning to read and write are recommending that whoever painted the misspelled word go back to school.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI124318/ - via Dave Barry's Blog
It seems that the St. Mary's Church in Wimbledon village has maneuvered itself into a rather tight spot: church officials let tennis fan park their car on top of graves for £20!
The Church later apologized:
Reverend Mary Bide said that although the cars look 'odd', they were only parked in the oldest part of the graveyard and funds raised would make a 'valuable contribution to the Church and the Diocese'.
But the church has since apologised for the car parking arrangement and has stopped the use of the churchyard.
'Over many years, during the Wimbledon Championships, the parish of St Mary Wimbledon has offered this service to the public,' a church spokesman said.
'Each year three designated charities benefit from some of the money raised by allowing the cars to park and the rest goes towards work within the parish. Sadly, this year, some cars were parked in inappropriate places.'
Artist Pete Dungey did an unofficial survey to find out who is the most famous Alan (and Allen) in England ... and then etched the resulting names onto a set of allen (get it?) wrenches. Here's the project, cheekily named Alan Wrenches (links are mine):
Think that all that texting is just a big waste of time? Think again! For 15-year-old Kate Moore, texting sure does pay:
"Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text during school! It pays off," 15-year-old Kate Moore said Tuesday after winning the LG U.S. National Texting Championship.
After all, she said: "Your kid could win money and publicity and a phone."
For the Des Moines, Iowa, teenager, her 14,000 texts-per-month habit reaped its own rewards, landing her the competition prize of $50,000 just eight months after she got her first cell phone.
Moore, with a speedy and accurate performance, beat out 20 other finalists from around the country over two days of challenges such as texting blindfolded and texting while maneuvering through a moving obstacle course.
In the final showdown, she outtexted 14-year-old Morgan Dynda, of Savannah, Ga. Both girls had to text three lengthy phrases without making any mistakes on the required abbreviations, capitalization or punctuation. Moore squeaked through by a few seconds on the tiebreaking text, getting the best two out of three.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jjBoZx5Xa2k8KUgHq8Io4Dt5VkJAD98S2SNO5 - via Technically Incorrect (Photo: Frank Franklin II/AP)
Margaret
Mary Alacoque grew up in a family of fervid cheese-haters, which wasn't
exactly unusual for the time. Cheese had a bad reputation in 17th-century
Europe. People all across the continent were horrified by its stench and
denounced it as indigestible. They blamed the fermented curd for everything
from sickness to moral corruption. So, when Margaret Mary's brother took
her to join a convent in Burgundy, France, in 1671, he secured one key
condition for her stay - that under no circumstances should she be compelled
to eat cheese.
And yet, as soon as he left, the nuns started leaning on poor Margaret
Mary. Like self-flagellation and celibacy, they believed eating cheese
was a way of mortifying the flesh - giving up earthly pleasures to be
closer to God. Margaret Mary struggled for days to overcome her fear.
She wept; she writhed; she wished for death. Then, at last, she decided
she had to "conquer or die." So, Margaret Mary prayed for strength
and ate some cheese.
Unfortunately, her experience with the dairy was as horrendous as she'd
feared. Margaret Mary later recalled, "I have never felt such repugnance
to anything." Still, for eight years after that first trial, she
ingested cheese every single day as an ascetic ritual. And as the years
passed, her visions intensified. Today, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is
known for her vision of the Sacred Heart - the image of Christ's heart
pierced, aflame, and crowned with thorns. Such momentous revelations don't
come easy, and she couldn't have done it without the vile cheese.
2. The Intellectual: Sor Juana Inés De la Cruz
Meanwhile,
across the ocean in the 1650s, a Mexican girl named Juana was struggling
with the opposite problem. Little Juana was an aspiring scholar and, like
most children, loved eating cheese. But when she heard it would make her
stupid - a superstition of the time - she was forced to choose between
her appetite and her intellect. Juana renounced the delicious dairy, proving
that her "desire to know was stronger than the desire to eat."
Unencumbered by butterfat and lactose, her intellect flourished. By the
time she was 8 years old, Juana had taught herself to read Plato, Aristophanes,
and Erasmus in Latin. At age 13, she was paraded around the Spanish courts
as a child prodigy. She wrote volumes of prose and poetry, from religious
verse to scientific treatises, and earned the moniker "The Tenth
Muse." And though she had many suitors, Juana took the veil at age
18, giving up men in addition to her favorite food.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is revered today as a proto-feminist
and the first female theologian of the Americas. Although she never regretted
the sacrifices she made for her studies, a certain longing always remained
in Sor Juana. As an old woman, she wrote, "I envoy those who say
that the urge to study has cost them nothing," and perhaps heaving
a sigh for the lost cheese of her youth, she added, "The desire to
know has cost me dearly."
3. The Martyr: St. Perpetua
In
the the early 3rd century, Vivia Perpetua converted to Christianity, even
though the Roman emperor Severus had outlawed the fledgling religion.
Perpetua was arrested, and she faced a grim decision - either renounce
Christ or meet a gruesome death. Perpetua chose the latter.
While she stewed in prison before her execution, she experienced a vision
of a white-bearded shepherd who offered her some sheep's milk cheese.
In the dream, Perpetua ate the cheese. Then, just as she heard the word
"Amen," she awoke to the taste of overwhelming sweetness. The
vision of heavenly curd reassured her of God's purpose and prepared Perpetua
to die for her faith, which she soon did. Perpetua was publicly flogged,
trounced by a cow, and then hacked to death in a botched decapitation.
But the account of her vision - believed to be the first Christian text
written by a woman - inspired millions and secured her legacy as one of
the most influential martyrs in history.
4. The Gambler: Diana Duyser of Florida
Even
in our jaded and secular age, cheese hasn't quite lost its religious relevance.
In 1994, a humble Floridian named Diana Duyser bit into her grilled cheese
sandwich and was shocked to see the face of the Virgin Mary staring back
at her.
Although initially frightened by the image, Duyser composed herself and
stashed the holy leftover in a plastic box filled with cotton balls. Then
she placed the box at her bedside table and left it there for a decade.
According to Duyser, those 10 years were filled with good luck as she
won regularly at local casinos. More impressively, her grilled sandwich
didn't mold.
In 2004, Duyser decided to share her miracle with the world and posted
the sandwich on eBay. To the bewilderment of many, it sold for $28,000.
The buyer, Golden Palace online casino, appreciated its pop-culture significance
and showcased the grilled cheese until 2006. Today, the holy sandwich
resides in a safe deposit box in Austin, Texas. Golden Palace proudly
claims it still hasn't decayed.
Although Duyser has been ridiculed for her devotion to a grilled cheese
sandwich, her faith has never wavered. "I would like all people to
know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God,"
she insists. And while money and fame have faded with Duyser, she still
carries with her a timeless memento of her little cheese miracle - a tattoo
of the sandwich inscribed near her heart, paid for by GoldenPalace.com
The article above, written by David Clark,
is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Mar/Apr
2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss'
website and blog for more fun stuff!
