Received this at my grandmas funeral. What an icon. pic.twitter.com/EhxhzHJfoZ
— gracie perryman (@qrracie) October 18, 2022
On Twitter, Gracie Perryman shares a wonderful photo from her grandmother's funeral. The grand lady exits the stage with a joke. Would you like to have a conversation with her even now? The ouija board will let you drop in to say hello at your local seance.
Nobody’s gonna pick on the band kids any more!
— Nathan Pryor (@nathanpryor) April 23, 2021
I built my buddy a chainsaw clarinet, combining his two passions into one ridiculous multi-tool: the Clarisaw! Or would that be the Chaininet? pic.twitter.com/PQ0ibZiw7o
Nathan Pryor comes from a "DIY family" and grew up making things, many of which are useful. The chainsaw clarinet is certainly one of those for the times in life when one desires to make music, but also clear away brush and cut up firewood.
Pryor made the instrument for a friend who is a professional clarinetist in a symphony orchestra, as well as the owner of a wood milling business. The saw is an adapted angle grinder powered by a battery and a motor from a drill.
This is as close to an example of why we exist as you can probably get.
— US Consumer Product Safety Commission (@USCPSC) October 12, 2022
Pryor's invention has gathered the strong approval of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, a US federal agency responsible for ensuring that unsafe commercial products stay out of the hands of consumers.
Amazing walnut carvings.. 👌 pic.twitter.com/H8YbOjqOe2
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) October 14, 2022
These dioramas are attributed to xiujun1314, a user of Douyin, a Chinese-language social network that I gather is identical to TikTok. The artist hollows out walnut halves with a craft knife and adds miniature hinges to allow them to easily open and close. Tiny homes exist inside. They're cozy due to space limitations, but full of useful furniture and homey decorations. Lights provide illumination for those cold nights when you want to crawl inside your shell and shut out the world.
And perhaps the rent is, at least temporarily, affordable.
It appears that teqball has been around since 2014, but it's new to me. The ideal player is an expert soccer player who can adapt to the small confines of a table tennis setting. The table is curved to allow it to bank shots into high arcs that the players must send to the other team with feet, heads, or chests.
Players can't touch the ball with the same body part twice consecutively and can't send the ball to the other side with the same body part twice consecutively. These subtle rules make the game even more athletically demanding than this short video reveals.
The US federation for this sport claims that about 2,000 players in 100 countries play teqball. World championships were held in 2017, 2018, and 2019. They hope that teqball becomes an Olympic sport in 2028.
The iconic sitcom Seinfeld is often described as a "show about nothing", or to, borrow a play title from William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing. It is fitting to let the Bard of Avon have a go at screenwriting for this comedy program. At McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Michael Leonetti and Nick DiMaso rewrite scenes from Shakespeare plays as though they were Seinfeld episodes. Here's a passage from Romeo and Juliet in which Romeo and Mercutio attempt to make a purchase from the Soup Nazi:
Romeo and Mercutio wait in line in a Verona alley.
ROMEO: Now, Mercutio, remember what I said: he’s very peculiar about his wares.
MERCUTIO: I’m aware. He’s wary of selling his wares.
APOTHECARY: NEXT!
Romeo and Mercutio enter the Apothecary’s store. Mercutio steps up to the counter.
MERCUTIO: Medium coma-potion.
Mercutio pays the assistant but notices his order is missing something.
MERCUTIO: Uh, excuse me… but where is the dram of poison?
ROMEO: Leave it, Mercutio.
APOTHECARY: You want such mortal drugs, little man?
MERCUTIO: I would very much like it, please.
APOTHECARY: ONE HUNDRED DUCATS!
MERCUTIO: One hundred ducats? For a dram?
APOTHECARY: NO POTION FOR YOU. RETURN HENCE, FIVE AND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS!
Read it all for selections from Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and the Scottish Play.
-via Debby Witt
Boing Boing describes this manual as something from "the handbook for a horror RPG", but I'm seeing similarities with the Monster Manual series from Dungeons & Dragons. I think that it's actually a fairly complete monster encounter manual for McDonaldland if only someone added stats and powers.
Browse through the 78-page document on the Internet Archive. It includes characters that have been slain, such as the French Fry Thatch (pp. 66-68), which has colors very inappropriate for fries, and CosMc the alien (pp. 76-78).
Visit your local McDonald's to mourn their loss. It's unlikely that you'll see Ronald McDonald himself. But if you do, keep out of his way, as urged on p.3:
Ronald resides in McDonaldland but is equally at home anywhere he goes. The other characters in McDonaldland look up to him, respect him, and are fond of him. Ronald is intelligent and sensitive, but always clown-like. He can do nearly anything, even incredible feats of magic. The antics of the other McDonaldland characters serve to complement Ronald's humor. They do not upstage him.
Ronald McDonald is the star.
You have been warned.
The original post has disappeared from the subreddit /r/relationships. This is most likely because the woman felt overwhelmed with shame at not immediately supporting her husband's spectacular plans for his remains after his death.
Novelist Herb Mallette proposes that a better option would be to have the skull placed next to the wife's nightstand so that he could watch over her as she sleeps. This would be far more romantic than resting on the mantle. I'll bet that if the husband had pitched this modification of his plan to his wife, she'd swoon with bliss and agree.
If she simply refuses to cooperate, then I think that the husband should have his cremated remains compacted into a jewel that will be embedded in the pommel of a cursed sword that will be used by his children to slay his still-living enemies.
I'm sentimental that way.
The most frustrating part of using a glue gun on a regular basis is how often it's necessary to reload. It's the flintlock musket of the crafting world.
Now it's time to change the crafting battlefield forever. Let's massively increase the rate of fire on a glue gun by converting it into a cycling 6-shot revolver. Vije Miller made a revolutionary improvement upon the classic glue gun by adding a servo that turns the 3D printed cylinder, chambering new sticks. The system is controlled by an Arduino Nano and 5 volt power supply built into the grip.
If you call Miller out into the street, you'd better hope that your first (and only) shot hits.
-via Hack A Day
Sometimes, it's not enough to travel to new places to relax. What you really need is actual, sustained, uninterrupted sleep for several hours. That can be hard to get, what with your brain deciding to 2 AM is the ideal time to process that time you of embarrassing, aggravating, or guilt-inducing memories. And when you're not listening to the noise inside your head, there's the noise coming from the outside world.
That's why some luxury hotels are developing rooms designed with sleep in mind. Pictured above is a suite at the Park Hyatt hotel in New York City. It has an AI-controlled bed that adjusts pressure points and temperature while you sleep, essential oils, sleep masks, and sleep-inspiring books.
CNN reports about other hotels that are getting into this market, with high-end sleep-optimal hotels opening in London and Coimbra, Portugal. Sleep, one researcher says, is often the first casualty of travel. Good travel planning should include making plans for how to sleep effectively. Hotels that design their experiences with sleep in mind can offer tourists an essential service.
-via Marginal Revolution
I love when neighbors place Free Little Libraries outside their homes, but this house in Los Feliz takes the cake. Ten years ago, the owner installed a bocce ball court in the median between the sidewalk and street, open to anyone who wants to play. pic.twitter.com/Z9NxgbZlN6
— L.A. Dork (@la_dorkout) September 25, 2022
The Little Free Library movement places book swapping libraries in public places. Take a book if you like and leave a book when you can. I find them helpful because the practice of actually throwing away books is so repulsive to me that Little Free Libraries give me a way to dispose of some books that are worth reading but for which I have no space
The movement has inspired other public sharing places, such as little free art galleries and, now, a little free bocce court. Los Angeles author Paul Haddad says that in the Los Feliz neighbhood of his city, there's a bocce court that one kind landowner makes available to passersby who would like to play a game.
-via Super Punch
Finished stitching this today 😇 pic.twitter.com/akwCVDZ8eT
— MJ (@somanyjets) October 5, 2022
Marianne Jetté, a professional theatre costume designer in Ontario, describes herself as “Baba Yaga but with may more glitter.” She weaves supernatural and folkloric themes through her cosplays and crafts. This funny cross-stitch sampler illustrates the dark side of this “cosplay witch”.
Jetté takes the classic “Don’t Do Cocaine in the Bathroom” cross-stitch meme and suggests that summoning demons may be an even worse choice when taking a sanitary break while visiting her home. But turn off the lights and glow-in-the-dark thread indicates that she’s totally chill with your lifestyle choices.
If you like her design, you can buy the pattern on Etsy.
-via Rebeccca Baumann
The Fisher & Norris Factory Museum in Tinton Falls, New Jersey is a private museum devoted to one subject: the anvil. This humble tool used by blacksmiths and best known for falling on top of coyotes is an object of fascination to Joshua Kavett, the founder of the museum.
A company named Fisher & Norris manufactured anvils until 1979. Kavett toured its defunct factory shortly before it was demolished and rescued many anvils from it. He became fascinated with anvils and this particular company and wrote the definitive history of it before opening his museum.
Are you in the mood for a love story? Here's one from Easdale, Scotland, where a woman named Margaret Stables is offering to give away a coffin that she had originally purchased for her husband. The tabloid Daily Record reports that Stables posted the offer on Facebook Marketplace. She purchased the coffin in the hope of burying her husband in it, but he hasn't died yet and the coffin is taking up a lot of space in their house.
The coffin is free, but you have to come to the Stables' residence to pick it up. It doesn't come with the pillow, as their dog has taken a liking to it.
Valentine's Day is a few months away, but consider this opportunity to get the perfect gift for a romantic partner early.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: Margaret Stables
Do you find it awkward to sell yourself during a job interview? Do you want a job that you're unqualified for and wouldn't be able to fake competence at during a job interview? If yes, then there are people that can help.
Business Insider reports that some companies that do a lot of remote work, hire people through online interviews, or overseas jobs are encountering proxies. These are people who pretend to be the actual applicants. Such applicants may pay stand-ins up to $150 per hour to disguise themselves as the applicants and bluff their way through interviews. This is especially common for knowledge workers, such as those in information technology fields.
Companies that are deceived by this practice run the risk of hiring incompetent workers or suffering reputational damage when the scam is exposed. So make sure that your proxy wears a really convincing mask.
-via Marginal Revolution
An experience from TikTok that really touched us last year. pic.twitter.com/RqP7UKXktf
— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) September 16, 2022
Actor Mandy Patinkin is most famous for playing the role of the rogue Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. His father died of cancer in 1972 when he was a young man and Patinkin was still grieving over the loss when he played Inigo in 1986.
One of the greatest scenes in the film shows Inigo slaying his father's murderer while saying, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch." As Patinkin explained in an interview several years ago, he was thinking about own father's killer when he performed in that scene.
The Princess Bride has touched the lives of millions of viewers over the years. One of them was a TikTok user whose father recently died of cancer. The father was a fan of The Princess Bride and Patinkin's character. In the above video, he connects with her to help her mourn her loss.
Patinkin seems like a genuinely sweet person. About a decade ago, he was giving an interview with a television station when the wife of a reporter went into labor. Patinkin understood that this event was of far greater importance than anything he had to say.
-via Althouse
