Just about every woman has a ring with jewels on it, but these rings on WebUrbanist are really unique. From the weird and creepy, like the belly button, tooth and pimple rings on the bottom row of the montage, to the cool projector, architecture and book ones on the top row, there are all kinds of fascinating looks for women brave enough to wear them.
Plenty of people have pet guard dogs, but not many can say their pet bird is also a guard animal. Fortunately, Jack Dukes does because Charlie, his parrot, managed to rescue him from burglars trying to get their hands on his prescription drugs.
Ordinarily, world record attempts at group activities seem boring to me, but the world's largest lightsaber fight, now that sounds pretty darn fun! The most recent attempt to break the record took place at Washington Square Park, New York City last Saturday. While the record hasn't been confirmed yet, there were at least 1000 people in attendance, so it sounds like the battle has a good chance of making it into the record books.
I don't know about you guys, but I can never seem to find anything worthwhile at garage sales. But maybe that's just because I wouldn't be able to recognize original Ansel Adams negatives or the original panels artpanels for the first Avengers comic book.
After all, these items are certainly out there as this great article on Mental Floss points out.
If you're one of those people who think insects aren't pretty, particularly big ones like the praying mantis, well then, you'd better take a look at this great BuzzFeed article that's sure to change your mind.
Halloween is coming up soon and what better time to talk about superstitions than a holiday focused on spirits and symbolism. Whether you’re superstitious or not, discovering the origins of these common beliefs is a fascinating look at religion and human psychology. So enjoy!
Friday The Thirteenth
The fear of Friday the thirteenth and the fear of the number thirteen are both so common that they each even have their own psychological names, paraskevidekatiaphobia and triskaidekaphobia, respectively. But who ever decided that one number is unluckier than any other or why it’s particularly bad for the thirteenth day of the month to happen to fall on a Friday? As it turns out, there are a lot of reasons behind the superstitions surrounding the mystical number.
In Christianity, there were thirteen people at the Last Supper, including Judas who has been rumored as being the last person to sit at the table. In Viking lore, Loki was the thirteenth god and in the story of Norna-Gest, when uninvited guests showed up at an infant’s birthday party, bringing the number of guests up to thirteen, the last of the guests cursed the child. Even ancient Persians were weary of the number thirteen because they believed the twelve constellations of the Zodiac would each rule the earth for a thousand years, but after the cycle ended (in the thirteenth millennia), the sky and earth would collapse into chaos.
Interestingly, the fear of Friday the thirteenth is actually a relatively recent development. In fact, historians have found no evidence that anyone ever had talked about “Friday the thirteenth” until the 19th century and the earliest mention of the evils of the date were seen in an 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini. Even then, the myth didn’t really get going until the 20th century, when Thomas W. Lawson’s novel Friday, the Thirteenth became a best seller. After the book became a household name, so did the stories about how unlucky the day was.
In reality, the idea of Friday the thirteenth being unlucky is most likely a result of the fact that both Fridays and the number thirteen are both considered unlucky. Friday has been considered unlucky since at least the 14th century, as Chaucer mentioned the superstition in The Canterbury Tales. The most likely reason for people to consider Fridays unlikely is that according to scripture, Jesus was crucified on a Friday. It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine that people decided that if Fridays are unlucky and the number thirteen is unlucky, then any time the thirteenth occurs of the Friday, it’s really unlucky.
The fear of Friday the thirteenth is still very common. In fact, around 19 million Americans are affected by a fear of the day and many are so scared that they refuse to leave their house on Friday the thirteenth. Accordingly, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that businesses lose around $850 million ever time the date rolls around on the calendar.
When I was a kid, I was told that this superstition came about because in medieval times it would cost an average person seven years to save enough money to buy a mirror. As it turns out, this is bull hockey and the origin of the superstition is a lot more spiritual and a lot older than the one I was told.
The Romans were the first people to create glass mirrors. They also believed that their invention had the potential to steal part of the soul of the person using it. If a person’s reflection were distorted while using a mirror, then their soul would be corrupted and trapped as a result. Fortunately, the Romans believed your soul could be renewed –after seven years time. Until that point though, the person would suffer from bad luck since they did not have a whole, healthy soul to fight off evil.
If a person wanted to shed their bad luck a little sooner, there were a few methods to free your soul including grinding all the pieces of the mirror into a fine dust or burying the pieces under a tree during a full moon. While these options seem a little challenging, they still seem way easier than waiting seven full years to get your soul renewed.
How does a crocodile turn bright orange? If you ask Snappy, the 8-foot crocodile at Roaming Reptiles animal park in Australia, he'll tell you the secret is attacking a water filter in your enclosure.
"Our guess is that it is something in the water such as iron or tannins from leaves or some red algae, that oxidises when it dries," Webb said.
Keepers say he's still healthy and acting as lively as ever, so it seems like he's just trying out a new look more than anything else.
I know it's been off the air for a while now, but the X-Files still has a huge following, enough that we even carry this great parody shirt in the Neatoshop. If you're a fan of the show, then you'll love the Mental Floss coverage of it.
Good news for those that love Jones soda and the webseries The Guild, you can now combine your two passions by purchasing six packs of limited edition sodas featuring your favorite guildies. While the price may be a little expensive at $13 a pack, at least it offers more variety than The Onion Limited Edition pack.
http://www.jonessoda.com/limited-editions/the-guild-limited-edition-soda-6-pack.html Via Geeks Are Sexy
If you've ever played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, then you know how much detail the developers put into creating the in-game books your character can read. That's why it's so darn amazing that Reddit user notadoctoreither put together all of the books from the game into one immense leather-bound book. While even the most die-hard fans might not want to flip through the pages when they could be out closing oblivion gates, you can now take time out of your non-gaming life to read the stories and history of the in-game world.
No, these aren't scenes from Avatar's Pandora, they are the China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, which may have been the inspiration for the film's stunning location. The drastic pillars are a result of thousands of years of erosion thanks to expanding ice in the winter. For more info on the park and more stunning pictures, be sure to visit the link.
Notice anything strange about this picture? It might take a second, but really look. If you haven't noticed yet -look at the guy on the left's leg. Now try to look at the painting and try to ignore that horrible mistake. It's hard isn't it. If you want to see more terrible art mistakes, be sure to check out this great Cracked article, but be warned, the artworks might be ruined for you forever.
