Milo the Quaker parrot sings along with his human, Erica Croke. The song is a classic, "Bacon Pancakes" from the TV show Adventure Time. Milo must watch the show a lot, or he sings it a lot, or he just loves making -or eating- pancakes. You can see more of Milo at his Facebook page. -via Tastefully Offensive
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The worst tourist mosquito experience I know is Roanoke Island in North Carolina, and the best is at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. But when you go to Walt Disney World in Orlando, you're too busy having fun to notice the lack of mosquitos. The theme park is built on a swamp in Florida, so what gives? The truth is that Disney goes to great lengths to control the mosquito population. Rob Plays explains how that happens.
Francis (franktasia 2000) discovered that his potted plant had sprouted legs! Is it getting ready to run away from home? Is it Groot? Audrey 2? In case you're wondering, this is a dragon tree, or Dracaena marginata. Among the jokes, gifs, and advice in the comments are some adorable drawings of the plant, which were all done in a hurry since this picture was only posted yesterday.
Cannot reiterate enough how proud I am of my son, whomst has defied the restrictions placed on him as a plant pic.twitter.com/zAfRpbirP3
— franktasia 2000 (@tytonidaeus) June 17, 2018
Hope this hasn't been done yet! pic.twitter.com/hUu0CSZT1C
— Gojee (@GojiraSenpai) June 17, 2018
WHAT A GOOD SON YOU HAVE I hope he has many adventures!!!! pic.twitter.com/PrR1q4lTQb
— sana ˎ (@ilLuciinati) June 17, 2018
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YouTube has only been around for 13 years, but in that time has hosted some of the funniest, weirdest, most interesting short subjects you'll ever see. The ones that went wildly viral will be familiar to you, maybe all 100 of the ranked videos at Thrillist, which has embedded all 100 YouTube videos for your viewing pleasure. Stroll down memory lane with Charlie The Unicorn (99), Dramatic Chipmunk (84), Miss Teen USA 2007 (76), Trololo (68), Boom Goes the Dynamite (18), and many other viral videos you've forgotten about by now, but will make you laugh all over again. Then you can commence arguing about the ones they left off the list.
Penny restaurants were diners where you could get a decent meal without spending hardly any money. You could find them in some cities as far back as the turn of the 20th century, and they spread tremendously during the Great Depression. Penny restaurants were mostly run by charities, but the food wasn't free, because that would rob the transaction of its dignity.
T.M. Finney, who managed a St. Louis penny restaurant run by the local Provident Association, laid out the enduring modus operandi of charitable restaurants. “The aim of the scheme is to afford poor people to maintain their self-respect and reduce the number of beggars,” Finney stated.
At his establishment, every item cost a penny: A meal of half a pound of bread, soup, potatoes, pork and beans, and coffee only cost hungry customers five cents. Breadlines, where miserable hundreds waited hours for free food, were an all-too-common sight during the Depression. Penny restaurants were the dignified alternative.
Penny restaurants always appeared during times of financial trouble, but they reached their greatest prominence during the Great Depression. In 1933, unemployment was at 25 percent nationwide. A whole new cuisine of make-do was developing across the country, from starchy slugburgers to pork masquerading as higher-end chicken. At penny restaurants, food was simple and often meatless.
Some existing eateries got into the penny restaurant business as a hybrid, adding a section to their existing restaurant to serve the indigent. And at least one businessman could afford to give away free meals along with paid meals because the volume was so high. Clifford Clinton was some restauranteur, as one of his dining spots is still in business, although you can no longer get a free meal. Read about the rise and fall of penny restaurants at Atlas Obscura.
It seems like I spent the entire decade of the 1980s sitting in a movie theater. Even if you weren't born then, you've probably figured out from watching movies on TV that the '80s were a golden age for comedy, action, and science fiction movies for young adults. Illustrator Scott Park (previously at Neatorama) has designed a poster he calls EIGHTY2, or "80s", with 80 characters from 57 different movies from that decade. You'll recognize them all, even if you can't quite name them all. You can see a larger version of the image here, and buy a print here. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Wouldn’t you love to go see Dr. Lamar, who heals boo-boos with nom-noms? This billboard in Milwaukee grabbed a lot of attention. The website on the billboard is actually for the company that rents out billboards. They just proved how effective nonsense advertising can be! -via reddit
(Photo: Juan C. Levesque)
He's perhaps only an inch long. But in a year, he could be over 3 feet long! Juan C. Levesque, a graduate student and fisheries professional, says that the broadbill swordfish (Xiphias gladius) is called the "gladiator of the sea." In a 2014 article for the magazine Florida Sportsman, Levesque describes the life cycle of this fighting fish prized by fishermen:
On average, swordfish grow about 14 inches per year, but there are differences between the sexes. Female swordfish grow faster, live longer, and reach a larger size than male swordfish; almost every swordfish I weighed that was heavier than 200 pounds was a female. It has been reported that swordfish can top 14 feet and 1,400 pounds in weight, but these large fish are rare these days. In my 7 years collecting data on commercial fishing vessels, the largest swordfish I ever saw captured was around 500 pounds; it was caught near West Palm Beach, Florida.
-via Colossal
Ice skaters on Båven, a lake south of Stockholm, Sweden, spotted wild boars on an island in the middle of the frozen lake. They were trapped there, unable to gain traction on the ice and probably running out of food on the little island. So the skaters gently pushed the boars across with poles, like they were sweeping curling stones across the ice.
-via Huffington Post
After a trip to the grocery store, Jun (previously at Neatorama) cooks an omelet with chicken and rice while Haku watches respectfully from the top of the refrigerator. I wish my knives were that sharp, maybe I'd try that trick of rendering the chicken skin instead of using pre-skinned chicken as a shortcut. No way would my cats behave so well when chicken is on the menu.
It was hard to decide whether this should go into the Neatolicious sub-blog or the Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly sub-blog. While I got into the video because of the cat, I ended up hungry, so it goes with the recipes. -via reddit
Meanwhile in Australia, where people with charming accents are about to be killed by All of The Things, a storm is blowing in. In this NSFW-clip-due-to-profanities-shouted-by-two-nearly-lighting-struck dudes, Nick and Daniel are at Sydney's Oyster Bay. They've just spent the majority of ten minutes deciding not to take their boat out because they could "feel the static" of the impending electrical storm. Just then, they get confirmation of their decision by one Mother Nature. Learn more and see additional video at Yahoo 7 News Australia.