In this image thought to be taken by photographer Jules Antoine, it has been suggested that Vincent van Gogh is seen here, in conversation with Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Félix Jobbé-Duval. André Antoine stands between the artists. 

This recently discovered 1887 melainotype is what some experts believe to be a photo of Vincent van Gogh, in fact the only photo of him as an adult. Van Gogh hated photography and supposedly refused to sit for any photo portraits throughout his life. The only two known photos of him are taken at ages 13 and 19.

Though the idea that it is indeed van Gogh in the picture is controversial — van Gogh museum in Amsterdam says that it can’t be the artist due to his acknowledged hatred of photo portraits and “because it simply does not look like him” — nevertheless, others disagree. The photo generated enough interest to be sold at auction this past weekend. Though the sale price hasn't been made public, an estimate was between $136,000 and $170,000.

See a close-up of the man thought to be van Gogh in the photograph and read more on this story at Colossal.

(vimeo link)

What a treat -a new remix from Eclectic Method featuring Captain Jean-Luc Picard! The rhythm of this video reminds me a bit of The Picard Song, does it you? -via Boing Boing

This kitty’s layin’ down some sweet beats and dropping’ the bass for ya in this Vine from TripTrapChill™. He's lucky the cat didn't do an all-scratch riff. -via Everlasting Blort

Now this is different! For the first time in 33 years, a cat has been given the "Hero Dog" award by a Los Angeles animal shelter. And wait till you hear what she did to win the award: she attacked a dog.

Last year, Tara the cat saw her owner, 6-year-old autistic boy named Jeremy Triantafilo, got attacked by a neighbor's dog. Tara body-slammed the dog and chased it away. The incident was caught on Triantafilo's home security video, which Miss C posted on Neatorama.

"We were so impressed by Tara's bravery and fast action that the selection committee decided that a cat this spectacular should be the National Hero Dog," said Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Los Angeles, to WPVI.

As you'd expect, the word "Dog" on the trophy was scratched out and replaced with "Cat."

Blade Runner | Image: Warner Bros.

Often it appears as if mainstream Hollywood filmmakers are out of fresh ideas. Between all of the reboots, comics brought to life, sequels and other new presentations of largely unoriginal content, one has cause to wonder. While the subject has been prior cause for debate, there are always new takes on the not-so-new premise pool in film. Care to opine? Before you do, take a look at this list of 139 movie sequels currently in the works and see if it feeds your thought process. 


Beetlejuice | Image: Geffen Films

Photo: Gail Worley / Worleygig

Actually, she's not ... but it's amazing how our modern brain interprets that situation, right?

Gail Worley of the awesome blog Worleygig (seriously, check it out) went to The Met and saw this 1855 marble statue "Indian Girl, or The Dawn of Christianity," by Erasmus Dow Palmer. Like many of us, she immediately thought "doesn't it look like she's checking her Instagram feed or catching up on Tweets?"

It turns out that the object that the Indian Girl was looking at is a crucifix, not a smart phone. Could've fooled us, though.

If you think cats don't listen, try having a raptor as a pet. We really don't know how the Flintstones did it, because dinos are big jerks!

It started out so innocent, so geeky, so interesting, and then took a dark turn really fast. I love it when webcomic artists send each other guest comics to publish on each other's websites, because that’s an easy way to discover new artists. This one is by John Sutton at The Petri Dish, published at Pie Comic.

(Image credit: Betsy Gregory Photography)

Look at this fierce team of four- and five-year-old softball players! They play ball in Edmond, Oklahoma, and have a great time together. The only thing these girls love more than playing softball is the movie Frozen. So they named their team Freeze. 

(Image credit: Betsy Gregory Photography)

One of the moms, Betsy Gregory, is a photographer. She thought it would be a hoot to take team pictures combining the girls’ two interests. Every one of them already had an Elsa costume, so they donned them for the picture. No, they don’t wear their evening gowns for games. However, they do have hats with blond braids attached! Learn more about this adorable team and see more pictures at Buzzfeed.

There are merry pranksters all around us, people who enjoy messing with the minds of their fellow human beings and making the world an interesting, albeit a bit chaotic, place to live.

These funsters derive pleasure from pushing our buttons or blowing our minds, and they get a kick out of knowing their pranks tripped someone up, if only for a moment.

Artist and merry prankster from Milwaukee Mark Gubin decided to mess with people flying into his fine city by painting a massive “Welcome To Cleveland" on his roof back in the 1970s, and it's still screwing with airline passengers to this day.

Here's the story behind his pranky paintjob:

According to a 1985 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there used to be a Northwest Airlines route from Denver to Cleveland that used Milwaukee as a layover, and the airline was obliged to pre-emptively reassure passengers via the PA system that they should not worry—the plane had not skipped the intermediate destination.

Gubin’s quotations in that article are priceless. One of them goes, “There’s not a real purpose for having this here except madness, which I tend to be pretty good at.” He also said, “It was all tongue-in-cheek, just for fun. Living in the world is not a dress rehearsal. You better have fun with it.” That’s for sure.

-Via Dangerous Minds

(YouTube link)

Watch this stunt that combines skill, trust, luck, and balls. Dutch singer David Achter de Mole was performing with his group John Coffey at the Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands and went “crowdwalking” on the hands and shoulders of concertgoers. Someone throws a beer -in a cup- and he deftly catches it and drinks it like that’s nothing. Sweet! -via Tastefully Offensive

Image: Richard Jones

There's a joke in here somewhere!

Richard Jones of Palatka, Florida, and his family were walking along the Oaklawaha River in the Ocala National Forest, when he spotted a racoon on top of an alligator.

Jones told WFTV that his son had startled a raccoon, which stumbled into the water and hopped on top of the alligator nearby. "I snapped a lucky picture right when the gator slipped into the water and before the raccoon jumped off and scurried away. Without the context you'd think the raccoon was hitching a ride across the river. Pretty amazing."

Chances are you’re tired of seeing, and hearing about, Kim Kardashian and the rest of her clan, because they’ve been dominating the entertainment media for way too long.

But would you grow tired of seeing Kim K self obsessed selfies if they were immediately recreated by a pug?

No, you couldn’t possibly grow tired of that! Doug the pug is quite the poser, and he does an incredibly accurate impression of Kim when his people dress him up for a selfie.

Doug the pug is our only hope of removing the Kardashian regime from their gilded throne, so become one of Doug's followers on Instagram and Facebook and let a new dog have their day in the sun!

See many more amazing Doug the pug selfies and a behind the scenes video at Mashable (all images via Mashable)

Sure you love your girlfriend. But do you love her enough to dress up as a girl to take her exam?

A twenty-year-old student in Kazakhstan named Ayan Zhademov was caught impersonating his seventeen-year-old girlfriend when he impersonated her to take her university entrance exam.

According to Yahoo News, Zhademov wore a black wig, put on make up and her dress and went to the exam hall. He was foiled when an eagle-eyed exam administrator spotted and questioned him. The boyfriend's cover was blown when he tried to speak in a high voice, but "We suspected it might be another woman that had taken the candidate's place, but we never suspected it was a man that had taken her place. At least not until he started speaking."

Zhademov was fined, but the news went viral in Kazakhstan and he was named "romantic-of-the-year" for trying to help out his girlfriend. A local businessman has stepped in and paid the fine.

Photo: Jae C. Hong

Crazy cat lady ain't got nothing on this! Photographer Jae C. Hong snapped this photo of Laura Mart roaming around CatConLA (yes, a convention for cat lovers whose motto is "It's like Comic-Con ... but for cat people") in a cat dress.

And what a cat dress it was. As explained by Sue Manning of AP over in this article at SF Gate: the dress is "a ballgown she crafted from a patchwork of 300 fabric cat photos, its skirt several feet wide." And as if that's not enough, Mart also wore a furry hat and a long tail. Purrfect!

That dress just screams "check meowt" now, doesn't it?