File this under irony: State Farm gave away some 800,000 cuddly "State Farm Neigh Bears" to show what good neighbors they are, only to recall them because the teddy bears' eyes could pop off and choke a kid.
Maybe they should change their motto to "Like a good neighbor, you know, the one who'll choke your kids, State Farm is there." I kid, I actually have a State Farm policy, and my agent has always been nice to me, though I'll be suspicious the next time I get a teddy bear from them ;)
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09156.html - via Rue The Day!
Yuri Lane has a unique musical talent: he plays the harmonica unlike any other people in the world. And if you think that harmonica can't ever be cool, just wait till you hear Yuri performs the beatbox harmonica.
Hi guys! I'm still alive - just really, really
busy with work (wow - just checked: I haven't posted nearly anything in
about a week!) Regular postings by yours truly will commence soon. Thank
you to the rest of the Neatorama authors who picked up my slack :)
Mystery Sale - All mystery sale orders have been shipped
as of the Thursday. If you live outside of the US, your package may take
up to a couple of business weeks to deliver (the postal service is usually
very quick, it's customs clearance that is slow). Interesting discussion
at the forum
on this topic.
Upcoming Queue - I have a backlog of neat posts from
the UQ that should've made it to the Front Page but didn't for some reason
or another. If you've recently posted to the UQ but didn't get your post
promoted, you may be pleasantly surprised in the next couple of days.
Call for models and designers - Thank you for everyone
who submitted their applications! Unfortunately, we have fewer spaces
than qualified applicants, so we have to make the painful decision to
whittle down the picks to just a few of you. I have the final picks pretty
much determined, and will email them in the next day or so.
Neatorama Layout - We're testing different layouts on
Neatorama, so you may see new ads, search bar, etc. floating in and out.
Laugh-Out-Loud Book Signing - Our friend and favorite
illustrator Adam "Ape Lad"
Koford will be signing copies of his new book The
Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out,
published by Abrams ComicArts and featuring an introduction by John Hodgman)
at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles
(7522 Sunset Blvd) 3 to 5 pm today. Go say hello!
Top 10 Blogs - Gerard Vlemmings of The
Presurfer, one of my favorite blogs on the Web, was asked by Blogs.com
from Six Apart to pick 10 funny, weird, strange, and interesting blogs.
We're honored to be one of 'em. The other 9 are also excellent: http://www.blogs.com/topten/10-favorite-funny-weird-strange-and-interesting-blogs/
- Thanks Gerard!
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First they engaged in risky business practices - including insuring trillions
in risky derivatives, then their meltdown helped trigger the global economic
crisis, then they asked for and got hundreds of billions in taxpayer's
money in a government bailout. So, what do they do next for a job well
done? Why, it's Bonus Time, of course!
What can you do? Get mad, and then get this T-shirt from Neatorama's
Online Store: http://shop.neatorama.com/store.php?economy-pg1-cid51.html
W00t! For today's Neatorama and Hobotopia's Caption Monkey contest, we have this incredibly cute photo via Megan Frost's awesome blog Cute Overload.
Contest rules are simple: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Funniest comment will win a free Laugh-Out-Loud Cat comic by Adam Koford.
For inspiration, be sure to check out Adam's blog (and be on the look out for his newest book: The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out) Good luck!
Update 3/19/09 - Congratulations to janedoh who won with this caption: "And to our left folks we have the rarely seen and endangered Boneless Panda."
Sorry to bring you the bad news, guys. Timothy Salthouse, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia studying cognitive aging, found that reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualization start to decline at age 27:
The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability.
Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60.
Professor Salthouse said his findings suggested "some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s."
Joel Scilley of Audiowood combines his love of music and woodworking into an amazing work of art: behold his custom turntable "Barky" made from a raw-edged slice of log!
Check out the rest of his turntables: http://audiowood.com/turntables.html - via cribcandy
Ever since the advents of the Internet, online publishing, and now blogs, people have tooted (is that the right verb? anyhoo ... ) the clarion calls of the immiment demise of print media.
And now, the economic crisis have finally pushed one large newspaper to go 100% "web only":
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, ending a 146-year run.
The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the newspaper, Seattle's oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.
The company, however, said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation's largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.
"Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. "But the bloodline will live on."
In a news release, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. said, "Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region."
Talkin' bout change, the Sci Fi channel is ditching the name they had for over two decades for something new: Syfy. Yes, you read that right. Syfy.
Why? Because "Sci Fi" is too limiting, apparently:
The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”
“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn’t capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”
Obamamania is a boon for businesses trying to cash in on the new President's popularity - and while we opt to skip most of 'em on Neatorama, I find this one fascinatingly irresistible to post: German frozen food company is marketing fried chicken tenders (with a tasty curry sauce) called "Obama Fingers."
Not wanting to miss the boat, a German food company has now gotten into the act. Sprehe, a company that has all manner of frozen delicacies on offer, has come up with a new product it calls "Obama Fingers." Far from being real digits, though, the "fingers" in question are "tender, juicy pieces of chicken breast, coated and fried," as the product packaging claims.
Fried chicken, in other words. With a curry dip.
"We noticed that American products and the American way of eating are trendy at the moment," Judith Witting, sales manager for Sprehe, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Americans are more relaxed. Not like us stiff Germans, like (Chancellor Angela) Merkel."
Charles Hawley of Spiegel Online has the story: Link - via Miss Cellania
John Almany David Crigger was surprised to find that his electric bill jumped to $350, so he decided to get even with his utility company:
That many pennies weighs about 170 pounds, so the two men worked to carry the duffle bags into BVU's Lee Highway office.
"We pulled into BVU about 2 (p.m.) and took the bags of unrolled pennies to the pay counter," Almany said. "To make my case better, I noticed a man just paid cash right before me. I laid my bill on the counter and told the lady, 'Here is my bill and I'm here to pay every penny of it.'"
After about 20 seconds of silence, Almany then explained what that meant.
"She seemed shocked and told me, 'We can't take that.' She said we'd have to wrap that up and repeated they couldn't accept it. I asked her if she was refusing my payment and she said she wasn't," Almany said. "They said they didn't have the manpower to count all those pennies and I said as much as BVU is billing its customers, they ought to have all the manpower they need."
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/03/virginia-man-pays-his-350-electric-bill-pennies - via Rue the Day (Photo: David Crigger / Bristol Herald Courier)
Previously on Neatorama: Don't Mess with New Jersey: Paying with Pennies Got Man Into Trouble
When the movie script calls for a product as prop, directors and writers often take this opportunity to create their own fake brand. Some are used only once, but quite a few become in-jokes that get propagated from movies to movies.
Our very own Stacy Conradt wrote a super-neat article about the 10 fake brands used by Hollywood. Take, for instance, this one:
1. Red Apple Cigarettes from Quentin Tarantino. There are plenty of directors and writers who create brands and use them across all of their movies and shows, but this one and Big Kahuna Burger, another Tarantino, are some of the most famous (read on for another one that I think ranks up there). Some people mistakenly think “Fruit Brute” and “Kaboom!” cereal are from the depths of Tarantino’s imagination, but those were actual cereals. Once upon a time, “Fruit Brute” was part of the Frankberry-Count Chocula-Booberry family.
• First seen in Pulp Fiction, Red Apple can also be spotted in the Tokyo airport when Uma Thurman walks by an giant advertisement for the brand. • A pack is tossed in the Gecko Brothers’ car in From Dusk Til Dawn. • Ted the Bellhop from Four Rooms smokes them. • In the Planet Terror part of Grindhouse, the BBQ owner tosses a pack to Wray.
