Pet rocks are way too old school, but not anymore thanks to ThinkGeek's new USB powered pet rock. The rock with a glued-on USB cord will only run you around $10.
Link Via Foolish Gadgets
Jill Harness's Blog Posts
Pet rocks are way too old school, but not anymore thanks to ThinkGeek's new USB powered pet rock. The rock with a glued-on USB cord will only run you around $10.
Link Via Foolish Gadgets
Ever think about which veggies look like our insides? This clever ad can help...not that you need to think about food anymore after your Thanksgiving feast.
Link Via Craftzine Image Via International Vegetarian Union
These little critters, known as puggles when they are babies, are notoriously hard to breed, but the Perth Zoo in Australia has managed to successfully breed them three years in a row. The zoo thinks it's now ready to start working on a reproduction program for their critically endangered cousins, the long-beaked echidna of New Guinea.
Link Images Via Lincoln Baker
These cool sculptures are made during an annual event called Canstruction. Teams of engineers, architects and students get together to make their inspired creations using canned food. After the public exposition of the artworks, the food is donated to local food banks and shelters.
Link Image Via Canstruction
A mother squirrel was caught on camera protecting her baby from the jaws of a large black dog. The first image shows the dog about to start pouncing and playing with the baby as the mother looks on, but then the rest of the series depicts the mother diving down and attacking the dog so the youngster has a chance to escape. It looks like all three parties involved came out mostly unscathed, but the dog might have some scratches where the squirrel bit him on the neck and face.
Link Image Via Daily Mail
Link Image Via Daily Mail
Up until now, scientists believed that coral only ate plankton and other micro-organisms, but a new discovery shows the mushroom coral can actually eat jellyfish almost its same size. Scientists were diving near the Israeli city of Eilat in the Red Sea, when they photographed the phenomenon for the first time.
Scientists have suspected that coral must eat microscopic baby jellyfishes, but this is the first time they were presented with evidence of the animal eating adult jellies.
Link Image by Omri Bronstein from the Tel Aviv University
"We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw it," Ms Alamaru, a member of the research team, says. "This is definitely unusual. As far as I know no other coral are reported to feed on jellyfish. However, some sea anemones, which are close relatives of corals, are documented feeding on other jelly species."
Scientists have suspected that coral must eat microscopic baby jellyfishes, but this is the first time they were presented with evidence of the animal eating adult jellies.
Link Image by Omri Bronstein from the Tel Aviv University
A massive army of Persian King Cambyses II was said to be swallowed up by the desert in the year 525 B.C. The army, containing a whopping 50,000 soldiers, made it to a desert oasis and then was never heard from again --until now.
Up until now, most historians thought this was mostly just a story, but the discovery of a massive collection of bones and silver and bronze jewelry in the desolate Sahara Desert has them reconsidering.
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"A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear," wrote Herodotus.
Up until now, most historians thought this was mostly just a story, but the discovery of a massive collection of bones and silver and bronze jewelry in the desolate Sahara Desert has them reconsidering.
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Looking to torture your four-legged friend with the sound of squeaking balloons and the feeling of extra bumpers that prevent him from getting comfortable? Look no further than this adorable, yet highly unfunctional dog grape costume.
Link Via Craftzine Image Via Doggie Stylish
Just in time for Halloween, adorable bats bundled up with their baby bottles. These little guys have a bad reputation, but how could you imagine anything evil from these beautiful babes?
Link Image Via Ugly Overload
This brain cake looks terrifying, but the process to create it is pretty cool. The brain folds are simply made of frosting and the blood is only food coloring. I think a simple way to make things even more delicious would be to used a raspberry puree in place of food coloring. Link Image Via kiffakitty
Still haven't got your Halloween costume yet? If you're willing to put a lot of work into the effort, consider this gory, historical and somehow, still beautiful headless Marie Antoinette costume.
Via Craftzine
Image Via Make Magazine
Technically, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should probably be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, as the book most certainly explores multiple galaxies, regardless of semantics though, the story is undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon. As a book, it has been translated into 30 languages and was voted the fourth most loved book in all of Britain. In honor of the book’s 30th anniversary, which took place earlier this month, Neatorama is presenting you a collection of facts related to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Whether you’ve read the book, heard the radio broadcasts, seen the movie or seen the TV show, there’s certainly something here you don’t know yet.
What’s In A Name?
Fans often abbreviate The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as HHGTTG, but Adams uses the abbreviation of H2G2, which is also used on the official BBC online guide. Other nicknames can include “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” “The Guide” or “Hitchhiker’s.” To make matters more confusing, when people use the full name, they are sometimes referring to the series and sometimes referring to the fictional book the series was named after. Just to ensure you’re entirely confused I plan to use all of the names in this article. Image Via Nicholas "Lord Gordon" [Flickr]
It’s As Multimedia As You Can Get
Fans of the series might know that the Guide started as a radio series (which technically makes H2G2 31 years old, since the first broadcast was 1978), which quickly spawned a series of 5 books, a TV show and a movie, but you may not know there were also a number of stage shows, a comic book adaptation and a computer game based on Hitchhiker’s. There was even a series of towels released with towel part of the first novel, which some fans consider to be the “official version” of the book (if you aren’t familiar with the works, then you may not know how important towels can be). In other works, these adaptations would end up being watered-down, mediocre versions of the original that don’t reflect the artist’s actual vision. Fortunately, most of the adaptations involved with the HHGTTG were done by Douglas Adams himself.
Time To Celebrate
The H2G2 has even spawned its own holiday. May 25 in Towel Day. Towels are, after all, one of the most important things an interstellar traveler can have with them at any time. If you’re wondering how to celebrate Towel Day - why, just bring a towel with you all day, of course! There are even two sites dedicated to Towel Day, the countdown site, IsItTowelDay.com, and the informational site, TowelDay.org. Here at Neatorama, we’ve even covered towel day twice before. Image Via JenT [Flickr]
In The Beginning, There Was Destruction
As mentioned above, the first incarnations of the Guide were in radio form. The first series actually was originally going to be called “The Ends of the Earth,” which was to be a six-part radio series. In each of the episodes, the story would end when the world ended – each time in a different way. When Adams started writing the first episode, he realized he needed an alien there to provide context and the alien needed a reason to be on Earth. In coming up with this reason, he finally decided to have the alien be a researcher for a "wholly remarkable book,” which would be known as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Eventually, the story ended up focusing on the book, which started up the whole crazy phenomenon. Later on, Adams claimed that he had already came up with the idea of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” while hitchhiking through Europe in his youth. Image Via Adam Foster Codefor [Flickr]
Sounds Good To Me
The series is notable for being the first BBC radio program to be produced in stereo and later in Dolby surround sound. Adams claimed he wanted the program’s production to be comparable to that of a rock album, and as a result, a lot of the program’s budget went towards sound effects. Speaking of rock music, the tune used on the radio, television, LP and film versions was “Journey of the Sorcerer,” an instrumental Eagles’ song from the album One of These Nights.
The World’s Most Inaccurate Trilogy Series
The novels were originally released as a trilogy, but then Adams came out with So Long, And Thanks for All The Fish, making the books “a trilogy in four parts.” Then he released Mostly Harmless and the series became “a trilogy in five parts,” the cover of which advertised itself as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy.” The blurb on the book went on to say, "the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word 'trilogy.'" At this point, fans continued to be hopeful that the series would eventually become “a trilogy in six parts,” but Adams died of a heart attack in 2001 before a sixth book was finished. Before he passed though, he had hinted that the newest novel he was working on, The Salmon of Doubt, may have been this sixth book. He said in an interview that Mostly Harmless was “very bleak” and that he would love to finish the “trilogy” on a “slightly more upbeat note.” Image Via Jenbooks [Flickr]
Inspired Inspirations
It’s only natural that any phenomenon as big as the Guide would have inspired some other works – of course, these works are particularly off-the-wall, just like the work that inspired them. Monty Python member Terry Jones actually wrote a novel, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic, based on Adam’s computer game, “Starship Titanic,” which was based on an idea in Life, the Universe and Everything. In 2005, Michael Hanlon published The Science of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, which covered important topics such as the Babel fish, parallel universes and space tourism.
Remember Your Memorabilia
There was tons of merchandise made for Hitchhiker’s over the years. Some of the favorite memorabilia items, as mentioned above, were towels with the Guide’s entry for towels. Then there were the singles released by Stephen Moore sung in the character of Marvin, the Paranoid Android, “Marvin,” Metal Man,” Reasons To Be Miserable,” and “Marvin I Love You.” My favorite though, was the "Beeblebear,” a teddy bear with an extra arm and head like Zaphod Beeblebox. Image Via ZoeARP [Flickr] Sources #1, #2, #3
If you've have a formal event coming up and need some fancy duds for your high-class baby, consider this fine baby tuxedo available at Corduroy's Closet on Etsy.
Link Via Craftzine Image Via Corduroy's Closet
Have you met the sea pig yet? He's a disgustingly fascinating creature that lives at the bottom of the sea and lives off of any rotting nastiness that falls to the ocean floor. Somehow he's still kind of cute though.
This little sea piglet is one of 15 animals Web Ecoist chose as the top strangest animals. The list is certainly worth a look.
Link Image Via Funster
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