Tom Hanks has starred in many high grossing and extremely popular films, movies which will forever be known as "Tom Hanks movies" and therefore impossible to imagine with anyone else in the lead role.
He's also had quite a bit of luck scoring great roles, luck which may have run out had he starred in an awful movie like Super Mario Bros.- his replacement Bob Hoskins called the movie "his biggest disappointment in life."
It's also fun to imagine how different movies like Shawshank Redemption, When Harry Met Sally or Groundhog Day would have looked if they'd starred Tom Hanks:
What we have here are four Samoyeds, harmonizing like a barbershop quartet. Well, three of them anyway. In every quartet, there's one guy who wants to only take the solos. In this case, that's Biscotti.
Frozen dessert on a stick is a wonderful way to beat the heat, even if it drips sticky sugar all over you. But where did Popsicles come from?
The popular origin story for this frozen treat goes as follows: In 1905 in San Francisco, 11-year-old Frank Epperson accidentally left a wooden stirrer in a glass of soda powder and water on his porch one freezing night. The next morning, Epperson woke up to discover he had invented the Popsicle — something he initially named the Epsicle, a combination of his own name and “icicle.” Incredibly, it wasn’t until 1923 that it dawned on him that this could be a money-spinner, and he changed the name to Popsicle, reflecting that it was essentially frozen soda pop (early adverts billed it “a drink on a stick”). Fortunately, no one had a similar brain wave in the almost 20 years Epperson sat on it. But, despite patenting the Popsicle in 1924, he couldn’t quite break even and sold his idea to the Joe Lowe Corporation — which went on to make a fortune from the frozen treat.
Critics found problems with the origin story, both in the details and in the fact that frozen treats on a stick had been around for decades. But no matter, Epperson coined the word "Popsicle," and to this day it's a trademark worth suing over. There are other milestones in the history of the Popsicle, which you can read at Ozy.
Thomas Lupski was riding down Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, New York, Wednesday when a plane landed right there on the road, among regular traffic! This video contains NSFW language.
Jack Stratton has the right idea. You don't have to sell a million of anything to make a profit, you just have to find the perfect price point. When you do, the story just writes itself, so to speak. The reviews are just as funny. What you may not know is that Jack Stratton is the leader of the band Vulfpeck, and they've done this kind of thing before. According to Wikipedia,
In March 2014 Vulfpeck released Sleepify, a ten-track silent album on Spotify, in order to raise funds for an admission-free tour. The album generated $20,000 in royalties over a two-month period.[6][11] Subsequently Spotify removed the album stating it violated their terms of content.[12] The band's royalty generation scheme received international press coverage.[13][14][15] In July the band received the royalties and announced that they would follow through and organize a tour.[16]
In August 2014 the band announced the Sleepify Tour and released its fourth EP, Fugue State.[17] The EP's second track "1612" is styled after Wardell Quezergue's works and features Antwaun Stanley on vocals.[18] The admission-free Sleepify Tour was scheduled for September 2014. Tour locations included San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ann Arbor and New York City.[19]
The current version of the Amazon page says this item is currently unavailable. Did someone buy it? Or did someone make a stink over it to the Amazon overlords? -via reddit
Watch the weird way this bird flies! The original video from Al Brooks is 21 seconds long, but all the action happens in the first two seconds. What's happening is that the frame rate of the security camera synched up with the bird's flapping rate. You've seen that effect in wagon wheels in movies and helicopter blades in videos. The effect makes the bird seem to just float around eerily. -via reddit
John Farrier's recent DIY art project is a stained glass panel depicting an anime character. It's beautiful, but I'm not familiar with many characters, so I'd like an anime fan's take. Do you readily recognize the character? Is she well-known? The image source at DeviantART is a giveaway, in case you just want to know. -via John Farrier
People are adding geeky themes to their homes more than ever before, with superhero motifs being the most popular by far, but along with the trend comes repetition and boredom since many DIYers lack imagination.
This tutorial from DudeMom shows how to add fabric panels and a new paint job to an old dresser and make it look totally super, or if you'd rather buy than DIY the Super Hero Ceiling Fan Blades seen at the top of the post may be more your speed.
When military leaders draw up plans for operations meant to help them win a battle, if not the war, their plans are ideally designed to have maximum impact on the enemy with minimal friendly casualties.
However, these operations have a lot of factors involved that need to come together perfectly for the plan to succeed, so if there's a question of failure or repercussions they're likely to pull the plug.
The Nazi invasion of Switzerland seemed inevitable during World War II, and Switzerland even raised the draft age to 60 just to make sure they could defend against a Nazi invasion.
But in the end Hitler clearly felt the backlash from the German people for attacking a neutral country would be too great, and the rest is history!
This info packed video from Top Tenz discusses potentially impactful military operations that were scrapped at the last minute, revealing how wartime military operations can shape history whether set into motion or not.
Some people freak out when a clogged toilet threatens to overflow and pour poopoo water all over the bathroom floor, but before you reach in there by hand to remove the clog here are a few handy no mess techniques for unclogging a toilet.
The first technique is presented by One Good Thing by Jillee, who shows us the "Secret Plumber's Trick" to Unclog A Toilet- warm water and dish soap.
The other technique comes to us from South Korea, where they have come up with an ingenious way to unclog a toilet without a plunger- by using a sticker that seals the bowl and lets the clogger pump that clog away.
This one is strictly do not try at home unless you've got one of those South Korean toilet stickers, but it sure looks like a cool method for dealing with a clog!
When I was a youngster in Kentucky, I occasionally heard references to Newport as a "bad place," but didn't learn the details because the town was pretty far away. As an adult I visited the aquarium in Newport, and found it's a perfectly normal town. But it once held the title of "Sin City." It started with the Civil War and a lucrative prostitution trade. During Prohibition, it became a mecca for bootleg liquor, controlled by organized crime. Afterward, Newport was known for its casinos, strip clubs, and brothels. As the 1960s dawned, a citizens group, the Committee of 500, formed to find ways to clean up the town, and they stumbled into a spectacular scandal that did just that. Their plan was to elect a new sheriff, and they chose a clean-cut, all-American former NFL player from nearby Cincinnati named George Ratterman.
As a footballer, Ratterman cut an almost cartoonish figure of the handsome, corn-fed American hero, so he made a perfect law-and-order candidate for Newport sheriff. According to a 1999 article in the now defunct Cincinnati Post, by 1961, Ratterman was the married father of eight children, working both as a part-time sports commentator and in financial planning. He announced his campaign for sheriff of Newport in April of 1961, saying, “I am told that if I run for sheriff, I will be the victim of all sorts of personal slanderous attacks. But I say to our opponents, let the attacks start now, if they must. Let the battle be joined now.”
Just over a month later, he woke up in bed next to a stripper.
The investigation that followed made national news, prompted Robert Kennedy to send in federal investigators, and revealed Newport's organized criminal masterminds to be working on a Three Stooges level. Read the rest of the story at Atlas Obscura.
Two young boys, Noah and Stephen Ursrey, were caught in a dangerous riptide off the beach in Panama City, Florida, on Saturday. Several beachgoers went out to retrieve them and were also caught by the current. Four members of the boys' family also went out and were unable to return. Other beachgoers took things into their own hands and formed a human chain of around 80 people to reach the stranded swimmers. Jessica Simmons and her husband Derek swam out to the end of the chain to reach the Ursrey family and the others.
As Simmons paddled, the human chain grew, with 80 people stretching over 100 yards out to the distressed swimmers. Some of them couldn’t swim, Simmons said, but wanted to help and stayed in the shallows. Others stood in water up to their necks, waiting for Simmons and her husband to cover the last few feet so they could pass the swimmers to shore.
“I got to the end, and I know I’m a really good swimmer,” Simmons said. “I practically lived in a pool. I knew I could get out there and get to them.”
What Simmons found at the end of the human chain, she said, was shocking. Ursrey’s mother was exhausted, her eyes were rolling back and Simmons remembered her “drinking so much water” and “telling us to just let her go and save us.” Everyone was exhausted, the waves knocking them under. One by one, starting with the children, Simmons and her husband, along with a few other rescuers, towed the swimmers to the human chain, who then pulled them all to shore.
All ten people were pulled out of the water, and the human chain retreated together. Barbara Ursrey, the boys' grandmother, suffered a heart attack and was taken to a hospital where she is recovering.
When your occupation is selling deadly weapons in bulk, you can end up dealing with some pretty shady characters. Do you trust your customers? Maybe, maybe not, but business is business.
See, when you have an ulterior motive, you can't assume that the people, or things, you are dealing with don't also have their own ulterior motives. Good Business is a science fiction short that's shorter than the video indicates, by Ray Sullivan. -via Boing Boing
One of the things that makes us human is the ability to find a reason, or an excuse, to do what we wanted to do in the first place. We can rationalize any decision if we try hard enough. See, if she needed the sink for something she really wanted to do, she'd find a way to clear the glass out of it. Glass shards don't become invisible just because they're wet, and even if they did, you have a hair dryer around somewhere. But as it is, she's not going to get any argument from her husband, who clearly prefers pizza over salad and dishwashing. The is the latest comic from MegaCynics.
Being a newsreader isn't a very tough gig, and aside from the salary it doesn't seem to be a very rewarding job either, but the people want their nightly news so somebody's got to read it to them.
And so the newsreader faces the teleprompter and reads the lines, going through the motions until they can stand the TV news rat race no longer and they give up.
Doug Fernandez was a newsreader at KOAT in Albuquerque, New Mexico until the utter ineptitude of KOAT's production team caused him to toss in the towel.
Now he works for a clandestine organization determined to destroy all teleprompters...oh wait, it says here he still works at KOAT, I guess I was thinking of someone else...
