Babcock Ranch is a housing development about 20 miles inland of Fort Myers, Florida. Hurricanes are part of live along the Gulf coast, so avoiding flooding is a priority for home builders and buyers. Babcock Ranch is built with this objective in mind.

This Wall Street Journal video illustrates how the urban planners discarded the traditional grid model for streets to focus on water drainage. Their design includes large ponds that are connected through subterranean pipes and can be emptied prior to the arrival of a storm. Streets are intentionally built low so that they can serve as auxilarly drainage channels. Although this may leave residents isolated during a hurricane, it will increase the likelihood of preserving their houses.

-via Kottke

Kenji Abe, a product designer, offers this concept for a beer bottle for the beach environment. Although a flat bottom is suitable for resting on the table, a rounded one is superior for plunging into the sand for stable grounding. Alternatively, simply drink the entire bottle in one go and forgo the need to set it down anywhere.

The design is simple and superb. But an ER doctor, apparently sharing the experiences of other ER personnel, warns:

Hi, ER Doc here.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but do NOT even think about it. https://t.co/4GarlA9Jyw

— Sam Ghali, M.D. (@EM_RESUS) July 20, 2025

-via Instapundit

H-E-B is a grocery store chain in Texas and Mexico. It's one of the iconic businesses, along with Buc-ee's and Whataburger, that are associated with Texas.

Texans know what this image represents. H-E-B makes superb flour tortillas that my family buys weekly. If you time your purchase right, they're still warm. These tortillas are the basis for the quesadillas that are my standard supper.

Texas Monthly reports that, a few weeks ago, a viral TikTok video depicted a woman traveling through an airport with 200 H-E-B tortillas in her backpack. H-E-B took advantage of the publicity to produce a TSA-compliant bag wrapped to resemble its famous tortillas and distribute 5,000 fresh tortillas to travelers at the main airport of San Antonio.

Jakob Grosse-Ophoff is an artist in Rostock, Germany who uses a variety of media, including paint, but has become famous on the internet for his kinetic sculptures. These mixed media pieces amuse audiences while simultaneously commenting about human societies.

I'm especially taken with the broadly-named Humanity, which pokes fun at our tendency to destroy ourselves needlessly. Like most of Grosse-Ophoff's sculptures, the human form is rendered in roughly-hewn wood. I take this choice to present a timelessness to the human condition.

-via Massimo

The premise of Zillow Gone Wild is that there will always be eccentrically-designed homes for sale. That's why it keeps browsing for gems like this 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom home in central Tennessee.

No, it's not a leftover from the Cold War or the Y2K scare. In fact, this bunker complex was built this year.

David "DTJAAAAM" Ngo is a professional cosplay photographer who travels the world capturing images of the world's best costumes worn by enthusiastic performers.

At Colossalcon, he snapped photos of Macho Magnus, a cosplay merging the late "Macho Man" Randy Savage and the Transformer Ultra Magnus. Ohhhh yeahhh!

The cosplayer is Toby Hixson, a master creator who specializes in Randy Savage cosplays. These include designs inspired by Adam Savage, Sargeant Slaughter, Super Mario Bros., and the Mandalorian. 

CTV News reports that police officers in a town in southeastern Wisconsin pulled over a car and performed a search of the vehicle and its occupants. Inside, they found a gun, drug paraphenalia, and, most curiously, a bag labeled "definitely not a bag full of drugs."

There were drugs inside.

The driver and passenger were arrested on various charges, including being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of drugs.

I see from the photo that police also found a dice bag. It's appalling that carrying one could be considered a crime in the home state of the late Gary Gygax.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Pleasant Prairie Police Department

There are Ferris wheels all around the world, but Finland has a very Finnish take on the classic amusement ride. Finns love their saunas and coined the word. If you visit Finland, you'll have many opportunities to experience different types of saunas, including one that will give you a scenic view of Helsinki.

The SkyWheel allows you and up to four friends to languor in the steamy heat of a private sauna gondola as it rotates through the wheel. There's also a hot tub at the base of the wheel. The experience is a bit pricey with prices starting at about $280 USD per hour.

-via Weird Universe

Renzo Rage is a martial artist and, although he does not state it outright, a gifted physical comedian. On TikTok, he occasionally posts videos of himself performing ordinary household tasks, such as avoiding an obstacle, using movements inspired by different martial arts.

In this video, Rage closes the door to his refrigerator with tai chi, drunken boxing, karate, sumo, ninjitsu, and, best of all, the most dangerous martial art: bullshido.

The City of Dallas, Texas, like most cities, regulates the construction of new buildings in its jurisdiction. The permit office is in the process of moving to a new 11-storey facility. Staff had already started to move in but have, NBC 5 News reports, been forced to return to its old facility.

That's because the new building is not up to code. It lacks an occupancy permit and so, of course, cannot be occupied. The confusion is causing delays in the office issuing occupancy permits for the rest of Dallas, as well as, apparently, itself.

-via Megan McArdle | Photo: City of Dallas

Daphné Keraudren is a French and Greek artist who lives and works in Brussels. Her work includes many playful pieces of public furniture that are daring for their colors, forms, and riskiness. Pictured above is her Use at Your Own Risk Chair, which is one of five pieces that suggest taking chances with personal safety while going about in Amsterdam.

It's attached to a window and is found in Scandinavia. What is it? The answer is below the fold.

Someone put My Cousin Vinny dialogue over Skeletor and Evil-Lyn and its way too perfect pic.twitter.com/Ld4ZyY5nTj

— Todd Spence (@Todd_Spence) July 9, 2025

Mylo the Cat has, for a decade, remixed popular media online to juxtapose unexpected scenes and genres. His Muppet combinations have been a Neatorama favorite.

In this video, Evil-Lyn from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe argues with her supervisor Skeletor. The audio is from an argument between Joe Pesci's and Marisa Tomei's characters in the 1992 legal comedy My Cousin Vinny. Evil-Lyn is tired of Skeletor's busy career conquering Eternia and is ready for him to settle down into married life.

The Miami Herald reports that a Sri Lankan man was caught at an airport in Bangkok, Thailand attempting to smuggle three snakes in his underpants through a security screening. The trouser snakes turned out to be ball pythons, a protected species. Removing them from Thailand requires special permits.

This particular man has an extensive history of wildlife smuggling. He's also been accused of attempting to move "wolves, meerkats, black cockatoos, sugar gliders, porcupines, ball pythons, iguanas, frogs, salamanders and turtles" illegally. I have no information about whether he tried to sneak these animals in his underwear, too.

-via Dave Barry | Image: Thailand Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plan Conservation

Estonian gentleman Illimar Lepik Von Wirén tweets that a grocery store was built around a glacial boulder. This is a grocery store that is part of the Viimsi Shopping Center in the town of Haabneeme. Another photo of the rock suggests that it provides a space for a shopping cart-shaped sculpture.

Estonia has many "erratic boulders" left over from previous ice ages. They have government protection.

Photo: Nordecon