When fredmiranda.com forum user sbv20 found himself with a broken Canon 17-85 mm zoom lens after the aperture became stuck he decided to have a little bit of fun: he took it apart!

And thankfully, he documented his disassembly of the zoom lens for all of us to see: Link - via Gizmodo

This happened a couple of months ago, but I just found out about it: a sting nabbed Daniel "World's Greatest Dad" Everett trying to set up a sexual encounter with an underaged girl!

This afternoon, Everett was arrested in Novi where he is alleged to have appeared to meet the minor for sex. He was arrested wearing a T-shirt with the words, "Worlds Greatest Dad" on the front, a sad reminder that Internet predators come from all walks of life.

Link

More criminals arrested in funny T-shirts at The Smoking Gun. I hope to God no one is ever arrested wearing a Neatorama T-shirt!

Hooray (and a barrel of simians!) - it's time for this week's Neatorama and Hobotopia's Caption Monkey game. But first, the story of the wheelbarrowful of orangutans. From the Daily Mail:

Orphaned by Man's folly, [the orangutans] are unable to rely on their parents to teach them the ways of the animal world. So every day at the rescue centre which is their home, they are wheeled into the forest to learn.

Link (with loads of baby cute orangutan photos!)

Okay, onto the game: funniest caption will win an original Laugh-Out-Loud Cat comic by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford. One caption per comment, please. You can enter as many funny ones you can think of.

Oh, don't forget to check out Adam's blog for inspiration. Good luck!

Being "green" is popular these days, but did you know that about 10% of the population don't care a whit about the environment?

Here's an interesting article by Jim Edwards for Brandweek about the "Never Greens":

The Never Greens don't buy green products, don't remember green advertising when they see it and are irritated by it even if they do, according to Mintel.

Never Greens also showed up in a survey by Shelton Group, an ad agency for BP Solar, the oil giant's renewable unit. About 26% of Americans are hardcore skeptics, according to Suzanne Shelton, the CEO of the Knoxville, Tenn., firm. They tend to be upper-income, middle-aged, conservative males, she said.

Modified from photo by Cyril Ruoso/Minden PIctures

Chimpanzees don't forget a face - or for that matter, a behind as well. A new study by Frans de Waal of Emory University and colleagues showed that chimps have butt-recognition ability:

In a recent experiment, captive primates were able to identify photos of their acquaintances' rears and match them with the right faces.

The ability suggests that the animals possess mental "whole body" representations of other chimps they know.

Each participating chimp was flashed a picture of another's bum, with visible genitals, then shown the face of the derriere's owner and another face of the same gender.

Both males and females were successful in this anatomical match game, pairing faces and posteriors with much greater frequency than chance alone—but only if the photos showed chimps they already knew.

Link - Thanks Jessica Wolf!

Are you sick and tired of squirrels running in the buff? Have you had to cover your children's eyes when the tiny streaker rears its naked butt? Want to help him hide his nuts for the winter?

Here's something you can do to help promote small animal decency: buy some squirrel underpants (also good for hamster, frogs, and gerbils).

From Archie McPhee: Link - Thanks Tiffany

It's getting harder to become naturalized US citizens; the new civic component of the citizenship test now has conceptual questions rather than simple memorization ones:

The new civics list, a pool of 100 possible questions for a test of up to 10, omits the old "How many stars are there on our flag?" and "Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights." Taking their place are questions like: "There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them," and "What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?"

"It's more about really knowing something that you would get from living here ... rather than just reading about it and being a bookworm," said Joey Hornbuckle, 17, of Newnan, Georgia.

Others, including Ethiopia native Anteneh Workneh, addressed an issue that immigrant advocates have raised: Conceptual questions and answers might require a higher level of education and greater English-language dexterity.

Photo: Jason Hanna/CNN

Link - Thanks Tiffany!

Artist Michael Chesko has been lovingly carving a true-to-form model of Midtown Manhattan:

This scale miniature of Midtown took 2000 hours to complete. As reference, he used blueprints, old photographs, digital reproductions,
and satellite images. On a good day, he'd work his way through four city blocks. The entire model is 36" x 30"... a good deal smaller than most office desks. At the 1:3200 scale, the Empire State Building Chesko's favorite skyscraper) roughly reaches the dizzying height of a Campbell's Soup can.

Tinselman blog has more: Link

Previously on Neatorama: Gargantuan Scale Model of Shanghai in 2020

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch blog posted a "March Madness" basketball-style bracket to help guide you through what have happened to some of the biggest names in Wall Street. It's supposedly created by someone named Mark Slavonia, a general partner at investment firm Sansome Partners. Link (Full pic here)

Your organ has never looked so retro-chic ... behold, the Thomas 2001 Electric Organ, on display at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles. Link

Artist Bertrand Planes slowed down a typical clock mechanism 61,320 times and re-numbered the clock face, so each minute represents a year, to show how many more years are left in a typical life. Link - via Swissmiss

Photo: National Maritime Museum

Those curious tiny houses on wheels are bathing machines, a movable contraption popular in beach resorts in the 19th century:

... bathing machines allowed women to change their clothes in private, reach the waters without parading through open stretches of beach in their bathing suits, and then frolic about in relative privacy and without violating contemporary notions of modesty. Queen Victoria certainly had one, and like it, these caravans of propriety, of social mores too foreign for our contemporary eyes, were simple wooden structures. Lest they invite voyeurs, they were built without windows, otherwise there were little ones inaccessible to prying eyes. Some were made of canvas and still others were very luxurious affairs, but all of them were on wheels, pulled in and out of the surf by horses or brute human power.

Link (Compare that to King Alfonso XIII's bathing machine ...)

Privacy schmrivacy. Self surveillance, now that is an idea! Fitbit, a start up in San Francisco has built a small sensor that tracks your movement 24 hours a day so you can record steps taken, distanced traveled, calories burned, and even how long you sleep!

The device uploads your data wirelessly over the web so you can compare your "movement record" with those of your friends. Link - via Technology Review

Last year, Jim of Evolving Web blog went to Beijing and ate at a restaurant there when he noticed some unusual menu choices: wikipedia!

So, after much discussion, here is what we think happened.

"Hey I'm making the new menu, what's the english name for those flat crispy mushrooms?"

"Um, there isn't one."

"Well what should I put down here?"

"I don't know, look it up in wikipedia."

"What?"

"Wikipedia!"

Link - via Language Log

Photo via Arbroath (who knows what it's all about?)

Hooray! It's time for this week's Neatorama and Hobotopia's Caption Monkey game. Funniest caption wins an original Laugh-Out-Loud Cat comic by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford.

Contest rules are simple: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment, please. You can enter as many as you can think of.

For inspiration, check out Adam's blog. Good luck!