Quick: who voiced the sultriest pig of all, Miss Piggy? Would you believe that it was an old bald guy with glasses (Frank Oz)?
Asylum has a short yet highly entertaining post about the five voice actors whose faces certainly didn't fit the characters they played: Link
Peter Teske and Luciano Beheregaray of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, have just solved one of nature's most enduring mysteries: how seahorses evolved to swim standing up ...
Seagrasses, which thrive in shallow water, spread rapidly through these newly formed environments. The researchers think that the ancestors of modern seahorses followed.
Horizontally swimming fish living in seagrass beds don't blend into the environment well and are easily picked off by predators.
A solution seems to have evolved in seahorse ancestors: the upright body shape, which enables seahorses to seamlessly blend in with surrounding seagrass.
(Photo: Robert Sisson / NGS)
After the big real estate bust in Phoenix, Arizona, a new trend is afoot: a boom in the market for foreclosed homes, where investors buy properties then lend it back to the (former) owners turned renters:
With this sweltering desert city enduring one of the largest tumbles in housing prices for any urban area since the Depression, there is an unrelenting stream of foreclosures to choose from. On some days, hundreds are offered for sale at the auctions that take place on the plaza in front of the county courthouse.
There is also a large supply of foreclosed families who can no longer qualify for a loan. And that is prompting a flood of investors like Mr. Jarvis, who wants to turn as many of these people as possible into rent-paying tenants in the houses they used to own.
Real estate got just about everyone into trouble in Phoenix, and the thinking seems to be that real estate is going to get everyone out.
The low end of the real estate market here — and in some equally hard-hit places like inland California and coastal Florida — is becoming as wild as anything during the boom.
David Streitfeld of the New York Times has more: Link
(Photo: Joshua Lott / NY Times)
Marc Price of Nowhere Fast Productions sparked a media frenzy with his first feature film: a low-budget a zombie flick titled Colin. And when Marc said low-budget, he meant low-budget. The whole thing was shot for $70, and the zombies came free with the help of Facebook!
Tom Foster wrote the story for CNN:
"When we say it's a low budget film, people presume a couple of hundred thousand [dollars]. People can't figure out how it's possible. What Marc's achieved has left people astonished."
It was by advertising for volunteer zombies on social networking site Facebook, borrowing make-up from Hollywood blockbusters and teaching himself how to produce special effects that thrifty director Price was able to make the film for less than the price of a zombie DVD box set.
"The approach was to say to people, 'OK guys, we don't have any money, so bring your own equipment,'" the the 30 year-old director told CNN.
With help from a makeshift band of friends and volunteers, Price shot and edited the feature -- which ingeniously spins the zombie genre on it's head by telling the story entirely from the zombie's perspective -- over a period of 18 months while working nights part-time as a booker for a taxi company.
Online social networking was an invaluable tool in both generating buzz and cheaply sourcing the undead: "We went on Facebook and MySpace and said 'Who wants to be a zombie?'" Price told CNN. "We managed to get 50 brilliantly made up zombies and stuff them into a living room."
Here's a lesson for all you tough guys: don't stick a gun in your pants to impress friends, lest you shoot off your manhood!
Lukas Neuhardt, 27, had forgotten to put the safety catch on when he stuffed the gun into his trouser pocket to impress pals in Saarbruecken, Germany.
He told paramedics that a masked mugger had blasted him in the crutch in a bungled robbery.
But police found a hole in his statement when they saw that the gunshot had miraculously left his trousers intact.
"Instead there was a charred hole in his pocket so either it was the shot of the century or he did it himself," said a police source.
It's not so unusual when we hear that an old, rich man marries a beautiful woman young enough to be his granddaughter.
What is unusual is when they divorce because she can't keep up with him. That's what happened to Kristin Georgi, a 22-year-old blonde who married 84-year-old lumber magnate Joe Hardy:
The lavish lifestyle could not overcome the newlyweds' incompatibility. Georgi said they divorced because Hardy's life was too fast for her -- not because of their difference in age. The couple announced their divorce in August 2007 and approved by a judge in April 2008.
"Everyone asks, 'Wasn't it weird?'" Georgi said. "It really wasn't because he was very young at heart. So, he was very hard for me to keep up with ... When you climb on your own jet for the 10th time and everything in four days -- Europe was crazy -- and we were in each place for a day and a half. It was a bit too fast-paced for me," Georgi said.
Georgi said she left the relationship with some money, but she believes that size of the settlement vindicates her.
Georgi said the demands of such a lavish life took her away from her first love, saying she chose [her son] Matthew over marriage.
The stereotype has always been there, but a recent study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provided a hard number to the startling phenomenon of teen pregnancy in the American Latino communities: 53% of young Latina get pregnant in their teens, twice the national average:
In 2007, the birth rate among non-Hispanic whites ages 15 to 19 was 27.2 per 1,000, and 64.3 per 1,000 for non-Hispanic black teens in the same age range. The teen birth rate among Hispanic teens ages 15 to 19 was 81.7 per 1,000. [...]
Three-quarters of Latino teens said their parents have talked to them about sex and relationships, but only half said their parents discussed contraception.
The survey also found that:
• 74 percent of Latino teens believe that parents send one message about sex to their sons and a different message altogether to their daughters, possibly related to the Latino value of machismo.
• Latino teens believe that the most common reason teens do not use contraception is that they are afraid their parents might find out.
Moni Basu of CNN has more on the findings: Link
A 40-foot finback whale that washed up on Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has a very unusual anatomy: a gigantic swollen tongue!
What really stands out is the whale's swollen tongue, which looks like a giant balloon sticking out of its mouth.
C.T. Harry of the International Fund for Animal Welfare told the Cape Cod Times the tongue was swollen by gas created in the decomposition process.
Marine biologists may do a necropsy, but not so soon:
"You don't want an open carcass on the beach on a busy weekend," Harry told the paper.
(Photo: David G. Curran/SatelliteNewsService)
A gastric band (the LAP-Band) is a restrictive band placed around the patient's stomach that gives the sensation of a full stomach after eating smaller portions of food, thus letting the patient eat less and lose weight without going hungry.
But fitting the band requires surgery, with potential side effects - so here's a novel idea: making obese patients believe that they have an "imaginary" gastric band through hypnosis!
A therapist convinced Marion Corns, 35, she had had surgery to fit the band by talking her through the procedure while in a trance.
Hospital smells were even pumped into the room to boost the effect.
Housewife Marion, who has slimmed from 15st 6lb to 11st 7lb, said: “Bizarrely I can even ‘remember’ being wheeled into theatre, the clink of the surgeon’s knife and smell of the anaesthetic.”
She spent £780 on five sessions with a therapist at the Elite Clinic in Marbella after her weight ballooned despite trying numerous diet aids.
Afterwards Marion felt her stomach had tightened and she was full up on just a small portion of food.
Phew! It's. Finally. Done! It's Friday before Memorial Day and we've packed and shipped out every single orders of the latest Mystery Sale. (Thank you to everybody who participated - You've really helped support the blog!)
It has taken us just a little over two weeks to ship, which is a significant improvement over the Mystery Sale back in February. While many of you got your shipments within just a few days, some of you are still waiting. The latest wave of shipments will take a few business days to arrive (a bit longer if you're outside of the United States because of customs clearance). I appreciate your patience - your packages are on their way! Meanwhile, we'll continue to work to improve the item selections and shipping time.
Many of you have gotten Adam Koford's latest book, the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out. At the list price of $12.95, it's a steal! Plus, be sure to check the front jacket - Adam has kindly signed a Neatorama book plate you can affix to the book. It's surely going to be a collector's item! ;)
I've been slacking on my posting duties on Neatorama - so, I'm looking forward to getting back on that horse ... after I catch my breath!
Three Blind Mice Feltidermy by girlsavage [Flickr]
Forget taxidermy, feltidermy is all the rage (added bonus: it's less fatal for the animals involved). Here's a Flickr gallery of wonderful felted animals by Kate of Girlsavage: Link | If you want to buy one, here's her Etsy shop - via reducedfiguration
Image via Cutesypoo
What do you get when you mix crafty people and Star Wars? Why, an art show called Stitch Wars, of course. It is coming to the Bear and Bird Gallery in Lauderhill, Florida, in July 2009.
The website isn't active yet (it just redirects to the Bear and Bird Gallery's website), but I can't wait to see what crafty Star Wars fans came up with ...
In his series Die Macht Der Bilder (The Power of Images) series, German photographer Markus Georg replicated famous landmarks using everyday materials. I like this one the most: Stonehenge made out of pants on a clothesline.
http://www.markusgeorg.com/macht.php - via swissmiss
I'm loving this limited edition print featuring 19 of Christine Berrie's vintage camera colored pencil drawings. It's available from her Etsy shop: Link (don't miss her equally wonderful micro cars poster!) - via Modish
