Behold the magnificent ugliness that is Mugly, the winner of the 24th annual World's Ugliest Dog contest. Like many of the past winners, little Mugly is a Chinese hairless dog. This isn't his first win, he previously won the title of Britain's Ugliest Dog in 2005. Link Via Laughing Squid
Jill Harness's Blog Posts
You probably already know what an albino is, but the opposite, known as melanism, is much less known. The look is still just as striking though, particularly in the case of the penguin seen above. See pictures of melanistic deers, lizards and more over at the link.
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If you love wannabe bluemen who are also nevernudes, then you'll certainly want to cuddle up with this adorable Tobias toy when you go off to bed at night. It was created by Michelle Coffee of Deadly Sweet, but don't expect to buy your own over at Etsy as it was actually created for an art show.
While a lot of people think all bats are creepy, I personally find them cute overall. That being said, these 10 bats still rank pretty low on the cute scale. Take, for example, the hammer-headed bat above:
Maybe “Moose-headed Bat” would be a better name but we've been warned never to insult moose... mooses... meece, whatever. Hey, ever wonder what the unwanted lovechild of Rocky and Bullwinkle would be like? Wonder no longer.
They have a point there.
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With a small enough dog and a tall enough counter, you'd think your food would be safe when left out...but with a rolling chair and a smart little Chinese crested pooch like this one, you'd be totally wrong!
Via I Has A Hot Dog
A few years ago, we featured a Hugh Turvey's X-rayed flowers and while those were certainly beautiful, this new set of floral X-rays by Brendan Fitzpatrick are amazing as well and the colorization work makes them simply stunning.
Link Via BoingBoing
When you watch a scary movie, it's easy to console yourself by simply recalling that "it's only a movie." The same can't be said of these news stories that are terrifying enough to become horror movie plots. Take, for example, the cell phone stalker:
There’s annoying phone calls, and then there’s what happened to three families in Washington State in 2007. The Kuykendall, McKay, and Price families underwent weeks of harassment that went far beyond your typical obnoxious caller.
It started with 16-year-old Courtney Kuykendall’s phone sending texts to her friends that she didn’t write. Then she and her mother and father, Heather and Tim Kuykendall, began receiving disturbing phone calls at all hours from a raspy voice that threatened to slit their throats and kill their pets. This quickly turned even more terrifying when they discovered that the caller seemed to know when they were and weren’t home, who was in the house, what they were doing, and even what they were wearing.
The family began receiving voice mails that consisted of nothing but their own conversations being played back to them. After a talk with a police officer about the harassment, the caller sent the family a recording of the conversation. When the family installed a new security system, the caller was able to tell them the code.
Even odder, the majority of the calls appeared to come from Courtney Kuykendall’s phone, even when it was turned off. Not that the phone being off stopped the caller anyway, as he was apparently capable of turning the phone on and off at will.
Although the Kuykendalls got new phones, numbers, and wireless accounts on three separate occasions, the calls continued to come. The police admitted that they were baffled while the Kuykendalls’ cell phone provider, Sprint, claimed that the events they were describing were impossible. Experts have speculated that the calls might have been the result of some sort of advanced cell phone hacking combined with a close knowledge of the family.
While there are some theories of how the cell phone stalker worked in the comments at the link, the idea is creepy no matter how it was done.
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Everyone loves The Joker and Daleks, but amazingly, if their creators followed their original plan, these are names we probably would never have known about because they were only supposed to appear once. Read about these and eight other villains and how they ended up becoming fan classics at the link.
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Unfortunately, this video is made up from pictures instead of video footage, still, it's pretty adorable and the song is a nice touch. Personally, I think that little skinny thing could use a few more nachos.
Via I Can Has Cheezburger
Sure most people want to spend their summers in Hawaii, Bermuda or somewhere else warm and sunny, but there are plenty of others who prefer their vacation destinations to be a little off the beaten path. Here are a few of the strangest tourist destinations in the world.
Back in 1870, the cemetery in Guanajuato, Mexico was quickly filling up due to a cholera outbreak. In an effort to help the city make some money and to help control the cemetery overpopulation, a law was passed requiring families to pay in order to keep their loved ones under ground. You could pay 170 pesos at once and be done with the matter or you could pay 50 pesos every year for three years –the option that appealed to many less wealthy families. Those who didn’t pay would have their loved ones disinterred and the mummified bodies were put on display in the Mummies’ Museum. Ninety percent of the bodies buried were eventually exhumed. In the one to three years that the bodies were buried, 2% of them became mummified underground.
The cemetery tax lasted all the way until 1958, but the museum is still open, as it became a popular tourist attraction all the way back in the early 1900’s. Business really started booming though after the 1970 movie Santo Versus the Mummies of Guanajuato featured popular masked wrestler Santo battling the mummies after they had come back to life. These days, the cemetery is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Mexico.
One of the creepiest draws in the museum is the body of Ignacia Alguilar. During the cholera outbreak, people were buried as quickly as possible to prevent further spread of disease. Unfortunately, Ms. Aguilar suffered from a condition that made her heart stop temporarily. While it happened a number of times with no ill consequences, it finally did her in when relatives thought she really was dead and buried her alive. Her body was exhumed facing down, her forehead covered in scratch marks and her mouth filled with blood.
Sources: Wikipedia and Mummy Tombs
Image Via bunchofpants [Flickr]
Despite the name, these caves don’t actually contain any glowworms. Instead, they are home to Arachnocampa, a type of fungus gnat that was originally believed to be related to European glowworm beetles. Even so, the Arachnocampa are definitely the biggest draws at this attraction thanks to their lovely bioluminescence. This is enhanced by the silk threads the creatures spin around their nests, which capture the animal’s natural glow, attracting insects which are trapped in the threads, and thus, providing dinner for the gnats.
Tourists come to visit the gorgeous glowing gnats and enjoy the stunning cave system itself, filled with ample stalactites and stalagmites. Organized tours even include a boat ride under the glowing gnats, which seems like the most romantic time anyone could have floating underneath a bunch of gnat nests.
Source
Image Via Tim Parkinson [Flickr]
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Guanajuato Mummy Museum
Back in 1870, the cemetery in Guanajuato, Mexico was quickly filling up due to a cholera outbreak. In an effort to help the city make some money and to help control the cemetery overpopulation, a law was passed requiring families to pay in order to keep their loved ones under ground. You could pay 170 pesos at once and be done with the matter or you could pay 50 pesos every year for three years –the option that appealed to many less wealthy families. Those who didn’t pay would have their loved ones disinterred and the mummified bodies were put on display in the Mummies’ Museum. Ninety percent of the bodies buried were eventually exhumed. In the one to three years that the bodies were buried, 2% of them became mummified underground.
The cemetery tax lasted all the way until 1958, but the museum is still open, as it became a popular tourist attraction all the way back in the early 1900’s. Business really started booming though after the 1970 movie Santo Versus the Mummies of Guanajuato featured popular masked wrestler Santo battling the mummies after they had come back to life. These days, the cemetery is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Mexico.
One of the creepiest draws in the museum is the body of Ignacia Alguilar. During the cholera outbreak, people were buried as quickly as possible to prevent further spread of disease. Unfortunately, Ms. Aguilar suffered from a condition that made her heart stop temporarily. While it happened a number of times with no ill consequences, it finally did her in when relatives thought she really was dead and buried her alive. Her body was exhumed facing down, her forehead covered in scratch marks and her mouth filled with blood.
Sources: Wikipedia and Mummy Tombs
Image Via bunchofpants [Flickr]
Waitomo Glowworm Cave, New Zealand
Despite the name, these caves don’t actually contain any glowworms. Instead, they are home to Arachnocampa, a type of fungus gnat that was originally believed to be related to European glowworm beetles. Even so, the Arachnocampa are definitely the biggest draws at this attraction thanks to their lovely bioluminescence. This is enhanced by the silk threads the creatures spin around their nests, which capture the animal’s natural glow, attracting insects which are trapped in the threads, and thus, providing dinner for the gnats.
Tourists come to visit the gorgeous glowing gnats and enjoy the stunning cave system itself, filled with ample stalactites and stalagmites. Organized tours even include a boat ride under the glowing gnats, which seems like the most romantic time anyone could have floating underneath a bunch of gnat nests.
Source
Image Via Tim Parkinson [Flickr]
Bolivian Witch Market
You may have seen these characters here and there, but even if you have, chances are you haven’t seen their entire cartoon catalog unless you’re an avid animation fan. Still, just because these characters are lesser known doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve your attention. So sit back and relax and enjoy learning a bit about a few characters that played a surprisingly big role in the history of animation.
You may not recognize his face and you probably didn’t watch many of his cartoons, but you’ve almost certainly seen Bosko’s face here and there and with good reason –he was one of the first early stars of the Looney Tunes and starred in over forty shorts. Animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were working at Disney when they first drew up the character in a style they thought would suit the new “talkie” movement at the theater. In fact, when the first Bosko cartoon was released, it was the first animation to include synchronized speech.
If you’re trying to figure out what kind of critter Bosko is supposed to be, well, he’s a human. In fact, when the animators registered the character at the copyright office, they described him as a “Negro boy.”
While Bosko's designs may have been based on minstrel show portrayals of African Americans, many Bosko cartoons feature Bosko and his girlfriend Honey acting more like Mickey Mouse cartoons than racial caricatures, although the cartoons featured far more singing and dancing than a typical Disney cartoon. Interestingly, throughout the early 30’s Bosko rivaled Mickey in popularity and it wasn’t until later on that the mouse surged ahead.
At both the start and the end of their popularity, the characters seemed more like characters out of a minstrel show though, particularly after the redesign he was given when Harman and Ising moved the character to MGM in 1933.
A big part of the reason Bosko isn’t a cartoon icon in modern times is the fact that Warner Bros. tried to sweep the potentially racist Looney Tunes characters under the rug. In fact, when the characters were reintroduced to the public in a Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon, the are shown as dog-like creatures instead of their original form.
Sources: Wikipedia and Gawker
Here’s another face that probably looks familiar although you probably haven’t actually watched too many of his cartoons. Buddy was the second star of the Looney Tunes series and was born when Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. and took the company’s biggest cartoon star with them. It wasn’t long before producer Leon Schlesinger hired new animators, resulting in the birth of Buddy, who animator Bob Clampett fairly critiqued as “Bosko in whiteface.” Like Bosko, the Buddy cartoons largely focus on music and portray the character’s interactions with his girlfriend and his dog. Buddy starred in 23 cartoons, but he has been largely forgotten in modern years as he was mostly a knock off of Bosko, who wasn’t even that strong of a character to start with.
Continue reading
Bosko
You may not recognize his face and you probably didn’t watch many of his cartoons, but you’ve almost certainly seen Bosko’s face here and there and with good reason –he was one of the first early stars of the Looney Tunes and starred in over forty shorts. Animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were working at Disney when they first drew up the character in a style they thought would suit the new “talkie” movement at the theater. In fact, when the first Bosko cartoon was released, it was the first animation to include synchronized speech.
If you’re trying to figure out what kind of critter Bosko is supposed to be, well, he’s a human. In fact, when the animators registered the character at the copyright office, they described him as a “Negro boy.”
While Bosko's designs may have been based on minstrel show portrayals of African Americans, many Bosko cartoons feature Bosko and his girlfriend Honey acting more like Mickey Mouse cartoons than racial caricatures, although the cartoons featured far more singing and dancing than a typical Disney cartoon. Interestingly, throughout the early 30’s Bosko rivaled Mickey in popularity and it wasn’t until later on that the mouse surged ahead.
At both the start and the end of their popularity, the characters seemed more like characters out of a minstrel show though, particularly after the redesign he was given when Harman and Ising moved the character to MGM in 1933.
A big part of the reason Bosko isn’t a cartoon icon in modern times is the fact that Warner Bros. tried to sweep the potentially racist Looney Tunes characters under the rug. In fact, when the characters were reintroduced to the public in a Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon, the are shown as dog-like creatures instead of their original form.
Sources: Wikipedia and Gawker
Buddy
Here’s another face that probably looks familiar although you probably haven’t actually watched too many of his cartoons. Buddy was the second star of the Looney Tunes series and was born when Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. and took the company’s biggest cartoon star with them. It wasn’t long before producer Leon Schlesinger hired new animators, resulting in the birth of Buddy, who animator Bob Clampett fairly critiqued as “Bosko in whiteface.” Like Bosko, the Buddy cartoons largely focus on music and portray the character’s interactions with his girlfriend and his dog. Buddy starred in 23 cartoons, but he has been largely forgotten in modern years as he was mostly a knock off of Bosko, who wasn’t even that strong of a character to start with.
Sure, swimming pool bars are fun, but your shoulders are bound to get burned as the rest of you starts to prune. If you prefer a more even pruning, then maybe you'd prefer this imaginary pool invented for this ad promote waterproof watches. Of course, the real reason you'd never want to swim in an underwater bar is because you know at least a few patrons would pee in the water and that's really not a good thing in a place where you happen to be drinking.
Via Geekologie
Mini-eco's Kate is quite the paper knitter. After all, not everyone could make an adorable invader this wonderfully. Of course, if you want to do the same, you can learn how on her website. As for potential uses for these cute little works, she suggests using them as gift toppers in place of bows -something I'm sure any geek would appreciate.
Link Via Geek Crafts
"Verily," I say, "'tis what it's all about" and I'm not just quoting that from the last line, the hokey pokey really is what it is all about and in the verse of the Great Bard, nothing could be better.
Link Via Geeks Are Sexy
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