The Criticker blog noticed something about movie titles: a lot of them have the word "American" in them. In fact, "American" is by far the most popular nationality in movie titles.

Check out the entire list of movies with the word "American" in their titles: Link - Thanks Juergen!

(Is that surprising? Aren't most movies made in America? Except for Bollywood ... those are in a class by themselves!)

Photo: michael hughes [Flickr]

Photographer Michael Hughes, who did the neat trompe l'oeil photography of souvenirs in front of landmarks (featured before on Neatorama here) is at it again: this time, he created what has got to be the world's largest "meet the staff" photo page!

The Teams project is progressing well with the unveiling of an eight metre by five metre print on the occasion of the official opening of the Hedwigshohe Hospital in Berlin, September 2007. Situated on the main axis and comprising 236 individual portraits organized systematically with colour backgrounds, the viewer can identify the Team membership of those whose functions enable a modern hospital to operate efficiently. (Source)

These award winning photos were taken with a vintage Hasselblad: Link [Flickr photoset] - Thanks xadrian!

Ricardo Gonzalez had to bring his two small children to work every day because he can't find a baby sitter. That in itself isn't bad, but Gonzalez went one step further: he locked his kids in a cage while he works!

Whenever Ricardo Gonzalez went to a job site in his pickup truck, he never let his small children out of his sight. So protective was the 35-year-old south suburban man, he kept his daughters in a makeshift cage inside the truck, officials say.

One of the girls told an investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services that her father locks them up because "he does a very dangerous job," according to state records reviewed by the Tribune. "My dad tightens both of us with his belt by my leg and my sister was [on] the other side of the cage tight with another belt."

The Chicago Tribune has the story: Link (with video) - Thanks Claire!

Last month, we posted 450 posts and got 7077 (legit, non-spam) comments on Neatorama. That's a lot - and unless you read the blog every day, it's easy to miss some great posts. So please indulge me while I look back at June and pick what I think are some of the most interesting posts of the month.

I wanted to write this post right at the end of June, but work got in the way (story of my life!) ... but better late than never - so here are my favorite Neatorama posts from June 2008, in no particular order:

10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents	Summer Reading Recommendations	Story of Life, told with Beds
It's All in the Presentation	Board Game Fun Facts, Part I and Part II	Holy Catchphrase, Batman!
Strangest Internet Cafes	The Neatorama Show I and II	The Underpant Worn by The Rat
Take a Stroll Down Computing Memory Lane	10 Operas You Didn't Know You Already Like	Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines

Techcult blog has an interesting post about the 5 scams that found fertile ground on the Internet. For instance, the story of how Tiger Telematics, the maker of Gizmondo handheld gaming device (left), lost $200 million in just 6 months:

The business history of Tiger Telematics (the makers of Gizmondo) makes Grand Theft Auto look like Barney Teaches Spelling. The “managing executives” of the company had over twenty-four years of jail time between them for frauds and physical violence, they bought an entire London “modeling” agency, have wrecked over a million dollars worth of sports cars and had the entire-extended-family-of-all launch parties featuring Dannii Minogue, Sting and Busta Rhymes (among others). All this spending was supported by the sales of shares, presumably to people who signed the cheques in crayon, because when a company is paying for parties with shares then that is not a company that plans to be around for long.

For 2005 the company effectively lost over a million dollars a day. You could light a hundred dollars on fire once a minute, every minute without eating or sleeping and still not achieve that level of loss - and I assure you that these guys found WAY funner things to do with the cash than that. It was a real life Brewster’s Millions. In what amazingly hasn’t turned out to be an April Fool’s joke, one of the original crew is now attempting to raise investment capital to relaunch the company (translation - there are a few types of champagne he hasn’t tried yet). Which just proves that there are people desperate to make money out of “those computer-game things” despite not even knowing how to Google somebody.

Link - Thanks Daniel!

Johnny Wright of our pal YesButNoButYes blog wrote a neat post counting down the 25 greatest monkeys (real and fictional) of all time.

This one to the left is Oliver the "Humanzee":

Oliver has been billed as "The Missing Link" due to his more-human-than-chimp face and his tendency to walk upright. Ollie has toured the world, bringing joy to countless millions. Genetic testing has allegedly shown that Ollie is not the missing link, but I'm not buying.

Link - More on Oliver at Rense - Thanks Johnny!

Good: Dancing with a bottle on one's head
Better: Dancing with, oh say, 3 bottles balanced on one's head
My brain asplodes: Watch Rosa dances to a Paraguayan folk music while balancing 10 bottles on her head!

An original video by Oddee: Hit play or go to Link [Metacafe] - Thanks Jorge!

For his art series VISUAL DNA, artist Daniel A. Becker converted the DNA bases G,C,A and T into various graphical interpretations. The result is surprisingly beautiful!

This one above is from the genome of Eudocimus ruber or the Scarlet Ibis: Link - Thanks Haj!

Photo: photosapience [Flickr]

Jerrold of BlogTO recounted his unique dining experience ("harrowing stunt meets gourmet cuisine" he said) some 115 feet above the ground, in Toronto's Dinner in the Sky event:

Until tonight, I'd never had quite a unique dining experience - one that required a safety briefing and the signing of a waiver. With papers signed, and with a group cheer with my fellow eager table-mates, we were in upward tow. In my stomach were butterflies, and underneath the shiny silver lid before me was a very special meal.

Strapped into my seat, dangling some 35m above the ground, being served champagne by a waiter sporting a safety harness, I tucked my napkin under my plate to keep it from taking flight and landing on some unsuspecting pedestrian's head below. Then I took my first bite of Summerlicious 2008.

It was surprisingly easy to quickly forget about the vertigo (the champagne was a good call) and within a few minutes everyone seemed to drop the jitters that come with, well, being suspended from a crane. Before long, we were all getting into the view and, of course, into the food.

Nosirreethankyouverymuch - I'm a weenie when it comes to great heights. Read more about it at BlogTO: Link - Thanks Jerrold!

Previously on Neatorama: Dinner in the Sky

This 4th of July, you can celebrate our nation's awesomeness by eating food that only America could have invented.

Like the infamous turducken, for instance:

Such a brilliant-but-simple innovation, it’s hard to believe that 5,000 years of civilization couldn’t create it without us. Take one turkey, shove a duck inside it, and then shove a chicken inside that. From there you’re on you’re own, although it’ s most preferably enjoyed with sausage stuffing in the very middle, deep-fried, and wrapped in bacon if possible. Bonus points if you can figure out a way to enjoy some form of melted cheese product with this monstrosity. Some people have pushed to have the turducken become the traditional Thanksgiving feast, while others have begun to enjoy it on Christmas. But this invention is so uniquely American that there is no better day to enjoy one than the Fourth of July.

Endless Simmer blog has the Top 10: Link - Thanks Brendan Spiegel!

Photo: The CJM [Flickr]

Omar of ohmz.net wrote to us about this excellent Pac-Man birthday cake and ghost cupcakes made by his friend Jennie: Link - Thanks Omar! They looked delicious!

The following is reprinted from Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again Thomas Paine was a writer, agitator, Anglo-American revolutionary, and professional troublemaker. They certainly don't make 'em like him any more ... Here's the life story of one of the most colorful characters of the American Revolution: Thomas Paine's life was pretty exciting to say the least. He was a central figure in both the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. During Paine's event-filled 72 years, he took on the British government and army, the French king, and anyone else he considered an opponent of liberty. Though Paine was entirely self-taught, his works - Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason, to name just a few - probably did more to advance the cause of democracy than those of any other modern writer. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE Born in England in 1737, Tom Paine was poor and badly educated. He grew into a cranky young man, unable to hold down either a regular job or a relationship. By his mid-20s, Paine had held and lost a string of positions and had been married twice. Thomas Paine's home in Lewes, England. Photo: Kto288 [wikipedia] Paine's life was at a low ebb when, in his late 30s, he found work as a customs officer. Customs men were held in low esteem (even the smugglers they were hired to capture were more popular.) The work paid little and was thankless - so Paine decided to do something about it. He had a passion for self-improvement and was constantly reading books on science, politics, and philosophy. Inspired by his reading, Paine organized his coworkers into a protest group to agitate for better conditions. He also wrote the first of his many political tracts, The Case of the Officers of the Excise. But Paine's attempt at a workers' revolt failed, and he was fired. SAVED BY THE BEN That was when things started to look up. Paine moved to London, and while there, got to know Benjamin Franklin (both men attended meetings of the same scientific society.) Franklin recognized Paine as a man of spirit and energy, and so recommended that Paine head for America, where his ornery nature would fit right in. Franklin even wrote Paine some letters of introduction. It was Paine's good luck to arrive in America just when the colonies' simmering squabbles with the mother country were coming to the boil. As someone who already had a grudge against His Majesty's government, Paine wasted no time in joining the fray. In late 1774, he found a job with the Pennsylvania Magazine and set about writing article after article denouncing what he saw as the inequality, injustice, and corruption around him. Aged 37, Thomas Paine had a new lease of life. LET'S GET RADICAL Up to the time, the main gripe between the British government and the American colonists was about why America's settlers should pay taxes to the British government when they were not allowed any representation in the British parliament ("no taxation without representation," as the saying goes). But as far as Paine was concerned, Americans shouldn't be negotiating for representation in the British Parliament - they should be demanding independence from Britain itself. Thomas Paine's pioneering role in passionately and powerfully arguing for America's independence should never be underestimated. On January 10, 1776, Paine published Common Sense, a 50-page pamphlet that laid out the case for American independence in no uncertain terms. It was an immediate sensation, with 500,000 copies sold. Common Sense heavily influenced Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence, published on July 4, 1776, just six months later. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK But after having written the script for the American Revolution, Paine found that his services were no longer required. He was given a number of minor political posts by the Continental Congress during the war, but just to keep him out of the way. Wealthy, politically ambitious Brahmins like John Jay and John Adams were not prepared to give a loose cannon like Paine any responsibility. Instead, Paine was encouraged to continue his verbal assaults on the hated British. Between 1776 and 1783, Paine reeled off 16 pamphlets designed to boost the war effort. They were called the Crisis Papers. The first of these, which begins with the famous line, "These are the times that try men's souls," so inspired George Washington that he ordered it read aloud to the troops during their darkest days at Valley Forge. THE $64,000 ANSWER At the end of the war, Paine found himself famous but poor. Although his pamphlets had sold hundreds of thousands of copies, Paine accepted no royalties from them, insisting instead that the price of each pamphlet be kept low enough for ordinary folk to afford. To alleviate Paine's poverty, his supporters in Congress put forward a bill offering financial assistance to the hero of the revolution. But the Brahmins blocked the bill. In the end, the State of Pennsylvania came to Paine's rescue by offering him a sum of £500 (which would translate to about $64,000 in today's U.S. currency). The New York State also pitched in, donating a farm for him in New Rochelle, now a suburb of New York City. RIGHTS PLACE, RIGHTS TIME So, having sort of single-handedly launched the American War of Independence, Paine turned his attention to Europe. Once again, his timing was perfect: Paine arrived just after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. When, in 1791, the British politician Edmund Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France, attacking the uprising, Paine hit back with The Rights of Man. PAINE SEES LONDON ... Paine's book was an immediate sensation, and has since been recognized as an all-time classic of political writing. It has sold more than 500,000 copies and was the best-selling book of the entire 18th century. The book didn't just defend the French Revolution, it attacked the monarchy, undemocratic governments, the rich, the powerful, and pretty much anyone else Paine saw as responsible for the misery around him - in Britain as much as in France. He then laid out his own plans for an alternative government, with policies including pensions for the poor, free education, and lots of other radical ideas. The British government was horrified by all this radical theorizing: Paine was declared a traitor and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Memorial coins were created with Paine's face on them, so that British aristocrats could set them into heels of their boots and grind Paine's face into the dust each time they went for a walk! PAINE SEES FRANCE ... But Paine had already fled. The French, recognizing a kindred spirit, had elected Paine to a seat in their revolutionary government, the National Convention. However, as in America, Paine managed to tick off his revolutionary colleagues. When the National Convention voted to execute the ousted king, Louis XVI, Paine was among those who protested. At this time the revolutionary government was under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a hard-line radical prone to chopping off the heads of anyone who got in his way. Paine was imprisoned in 1793, threatened with execution, and held captive until Robespierre's fall from power the following year. On his release, Paine published the Age of Reason, an attack on organized religion and his last great work. PAINE GETS KICKED IN THE PANTS Paine hung out in France until 1802, just to make sure the revolution was safe. (It wasn't. By this time, Napoleon had seized power and set up a military dictatorship). Fed up with the infighting among the French, Paine returned to America. But when he got there he wasn't welcome any more. America was no longer Britain's rebellious younger sibling, but a grown-up power in her own right. Professional revolutionaries like Paine were unwanted in a country looking for a period of peace and quiet. Outgoing president John Adams branded Paine as "that insolent Blasphemer of things sacred and transcendent, Libeler of all that is good." If that weren't bad enough, Adams went on to describe Paine as "a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf." NOT SUCH AS BAD GUY AFTER ALL Rejected by the country he helped to create, Paine turned to drink. He died penniless in 1809 in New York City. His obituary in the New York Citizen claimed, "He had lived long, did some good and much harm," which just goes to show how much history had been rewritten even during Paine's own lifetime. It was only in the mid-20th century that Paine's rehabilitation began. A Thomas Paine monument in New Rochelle, New York. Photo: Anthony22 [wikipedia] On May 18, 1953, a bust of Paine was unveiled in the New York University Hall of Fame, and since then, his reputation as a fighter for freedom and justice has been gradually restored, piece by piece. SOME LAST WORDS Thomas Paine was a writer of power and passion whose life-long quest was to make the world a better place. His words - such as these - are as relevant now as ever:

When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners; my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive ... When these things can be said, then may that country boasts its constitution and its government.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again. The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John's first plunge into history was a smash hit - over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

I snapped these photos a while back when a house nearby mine was rented by a movie shoot for a ridiculously large amount of money. Later, I found out that the house is supposedly (emphasis on supposedly, now) for an upcoming tween vampire movie Twilight, based on Stephenie Meyer's novel.

Anyhoo, here are the pics:

It took the movie crews one week to turn the house into what they wanted (complete with fake cactus as you can see in the background of the second photo) ... and after the shoot, they converted the house back into what it was (but with new paint, etc). Overall, it was a pretty neat deal for the homeowners! Now, anyone want to rent my house for a movie shoot? :)

This crazy traffic light is a 14 "lanterns" (that's the official term) found in the Central Business District in Melbourne, Australia.

More traffic light shenanigans at Traffic Signals

Update 7/3/08 - Thanks to Neatorama reader Lindsey, we have a better pic of the monster traffic light:



Lindsey said that the traffic light, which is located at a major intersection, is for cars, trams and bicycle lanes.

Talk about "cultivating drugs" - a couple in Nerang, Queensland, Australia, decided that the best way to grow their cannabis plants is to hide them in plain sight ... so they made them into hedges!

Sen-Sgt Symons said he had never seen cannabis shaped and trimmed into a hedge in his 25 years in the police service.

Neighbours looked over the fence in amazement as police dug up the manicured crop and removed it to be destroyed.

"They are a lovely couple," said one neighbour. "Who would have thought that hedge was grass? It just looks like an ordinary hedge in a suburban yard."

Link