Anna Chojnicka, an artist in London, went into lockdown with the rest of her city last spring. She needed to be creative, so she began bruising bananas. She uses a stylus to lightly and precisely press into ripe bananas, bruising the skin. Every day, she makes a new banana image, some of which display amazing detail and shading.
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We were all impressed when, last month, redditor kelvin214 neatly arranged 518 blocks on top of one. Now he's blown away his own record with 1,002. There's no glue or other adhesives at work--just ordinary wizardry.
Here's a time lapse video of the erection process. At the 1:33 mark, having completed his work, the Jenga master brings it all crashing down.
-via Geekologie
Prudence Staite is a master chocolatier. She can make seemingly anything out of chocolate (and other foods) and does so with an artistic flair.
YouTuber Technomoan, who explores antique audio equipment, bought a Christmas music record from Staite's Etsy shop. It's literally made of Belgian dark chocolate and is completely edible. The sound quality is . . . well, not as good as a vinyl record, but remarkably strong for chocolate.
You can watch a longer version of Technamoan's video here.
-via The Awesomer
Love Hultén, an "audiovisual artist" from Sweden makes amazingly amusing and interesting machines. His most recent invention, which is sadly not up for mass production in time for Christmas shopping, is the VOC-25. It's a vocal synthesizer with 25 chattering teeth, one per key on the keyboard. It's inspired by a similar work by famous roboticist Simone Giertz.
-via The Awesomer
I know from watching Murder, She Wrote that the best thing you can do for yourself is not be related to Jessica Fletcher. But what if you have instead found yourself inside an Agatha Christie murder mystery novel? The rules are different. You have to adapt to avoid being murdered. Mystery novelist Maureen Johnson is here to help. At Crime Reads, she explains which people and places to avoid when you venture into a quaint English village:
The vicar
See previous note about the village church. When you see the vicar, run. If you are not dead yet, the vicar is obliged to kill you.
The newest resident in town
They don’t know the Old Ways yet and refuse to learn. They want to open up a Coolspa in that twee Grade Two-listed thatched cottage. They’re talking to you because no one else will talk to them. They’ll be a popsicle soon enough. Shun.
Anyone who leaves a voice mail
Do not leave voice mails if you are in a murder mystery town. It means you Know Something. Don’t leave them. Don’t hang around people who do.
-via Instapundit | Photo: Pixabay
Twitter user @NBastel posts this photo of a dormitory at Virginia Tech. Yes, those are accessible, not decorative, balconies over indoor space. According to redditor mchoward, who lived near this building during his time at Virginia Tech, the design led to precisely the drunken shenanigans that you're imagining:
About a decade ago, the people that lived in this building used to throw massive parties in this common area. It would get absolutely packed and the cops were always called. One time, the apartment complex sent an employee to take pictures. They then sent the pictures to all the residents to shame them ("Look at how dumb you all look!"), which included pictures of students pouring drinks from the balconies to the people below as well as students climbing into the ceiling tiles to get to different balconies without having to go down (apparently one person fell through the ceiling). Of course, no one was embarrassed by the pictures, and they sent them to their friends which resulted in even bigger parties.
-via Super Punch
"Get him, Santa!' And Santa Claus does do, tackling a suspect while an elf drew his handgun. This scene took place in Riverside, California, on Friday. Two police officers working undercover outside of a Target store spent their day arresting shoplifters as they left the store. Then they noticed three men stealing a car in the parking lot. NBC 4 News quotes Detective Paul Miranda about the incident:
The elf cornered one very perplexed suspect.
"When I looked over my shoulder I saw Santa running by me going after the second subject," Miranda said.
The driver got away but detectives say they know who he is.
As for the other two suspected thieves...
"They were apologetic and Santa is currently deciding whether they stay on the naughty list," Miranda said,
-via Dave Barry
Pictured above is a tripod that rests on top of the frozen Tenana River in Nenana, Alaska. People all over Alaska place bets on when they think the ice will break and the tripod will tip over, marking the reopening of the river in the spring. The person who gets closest wins the Nenana Ice Classic and a portion of the pot. Last year, the winner got $311,000. The rest of the proceeds went to charities.
The lottery began in 1917 to encourage town residents to watch the river during construction of a railroad across the river when broken ice could endanger the work. Now anyone in Alaska can buy a ticket for $2.50. Bailey Berg of Atlas Obscura writes about what this tradition means to the people of Nenana:
For two months a year, people place their bets in special red cans that are returned to Nenana in early April. There, teams of locals sort the guesses by hand, entering the tickets into an elaborate analog database that’s checked and cross-checked by myriad workers for accuracy. Even though there are roughly 100 employees working six- or eight-hour shifts, it’s so time consuming that in recent years the contest has been over well before the tickets are all accounted for. [...]
The Classic is a hold-over from Alaska’s more Wild West, pre-statehood years. Before becoming the 49th state in 1959, Alaska had a robust gambling culture. Membership in the union changed that. The Alaska Legislature legalized charitable lottery-style games in 1960, largely to allow the Classic to continue (and making it one of the oldest continuously running betting events in the country). Sixteen percent of all ticket sales are used for scholarship programs, local causes, and sporting groups, and a handful of larger medical charities. Last year the Ice Classic was able to donate $90,000.
Sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold winter night is one of the special joys of winter life. Yule log videos are a substitute for those of us who lack a functional fireplace. You can try videos with Lil Bub the cat, Nick Offerman, or the corpse of Darth Vader.
But this is 2020.
So it's more appropriate that this dumpster fire of a year feature a dumpster fire celebration. That's why AM/FM, an advertising agency in Edmonton, Alberta created this symbolic view of the year with Christmas carols playing softly in the background. The materials burned are themselves representative of 2020: CTV News quotes a partner in the agency:
"We filmed it for an hour straight and just threw stuff in a watched it burn," said Anderson. "It was interesting for sure."
Each of the 2020-related items were handpicked by the team and had its own backstory.
"Struggling with puzzles, not wearing ties, the White Claw craze. They were all just little inside things I think that our team shared and went through and it was a good laugh for all of us," said Anderson.
"The sourdough starter was hilarious to me because I couldn't get mine started for the life of me."
-via Dave Barry
Do you want to look sharp? McDonald's of Sweden knows that means that you're heading to the McDonald's branded barbershop in Stockholm. There, you can get the "Golden M" haircut.
Which looks like this. Fox News quotes a McDonald's representative:
“When we realized that people were wearing our Golden Arches, we had to act," said Staffan Ekstam, the marketing director at McDonald’s Sweden. "We started the M Barber Shop not only to guard our Golden M, but also to claim it once and for all. The salon is a celebration dedicated to our beloved ambassadors — a helping hand to guide them on how to keep their M’s in perfect trim, even when we can’t move around as freely as we usually can."
I look forward to a response by the hairstylists at Whataburger.
-via Dave Barry | Photos: McDonald's
Two friends were cutting a path in the woods to a hunting stand near Mallie, Kentucky. When they cut down one particular tree, the cut in the trunk poured out water for three to four minutes. And it's not just dripping water out; there's a lot of pressure behind that flow.
-via Born in Space
Here it is: the beloved bloopers from Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, now with subtitles. 🎄
— ❄️ Muppet History 🎄 (@HistoryMuppet) December 10, 2020
Enjoy the comedic genius of Frank Oz and Jerry Nelson. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/pXrmjdLWxK
It's March 30, 1977. Jim Henson and his colleagues at what would eventually become the Creature Shop are filming Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. The script calls for a drum to roll past Emmet and Ma Otter. It's not rolling correctly, though. But, in take after take, muppeteers Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz, stay in character.
-via Super Punch
Among the Thousand Islands (actually more than 1,500) at the headwaters of the St. Lawrence River between Ontario and New York is a tiny island named Just Enough Room Island. It's a privately owned summer resort that has just enough room for the single house that was built on it. Atlas Obscura describes it:
[..] Just Room Enough Island was purchased in the 1950s by the Sizeland family who were looking to create a holiday get away. They built a house on the tiny speck of land placing the walls right up to the edges of the island, creating a home that was just big enough to fit, and giving the island its quirky name. A pair of bench chairs were placed in front of the home and there was also a tree growing on one side. And that is all the room the island had.
Photo: Omegatron
Simone Williams of New York City has clenched the Guinness World Record for the largest afro on a woman. It has a circumference of 4 feet and 10 inches, beating out the previous record by 6 inches. The New York Post describes her nearly decade-long project:
It took Williams nine years to grow her now unmatched afro, after years of getting perms and straightening her hair from middle school up through college. “I chose to transition [to natural hair] around the age of 23. It began because I wanted to save the money spent at the hair salon to help with the costs of moving into my first apartment,” she said.
Appropriately, this stylish woman works as a fashion designer.
-via Oddity Central | Photo: Simone Imaani
Viewed a flat today and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about the back door... pic.twitter.com/uscUF7pLH9
— Jamie Wilkes (@jamwilkes) December 8, 2020
Jamie Wilkes, an actor on the TV series His Dark Materials, is shopping for an apartment. He viewed one with a hidden and ingenious back door. Entering the home from it may be hard, but exiting is quite straightforward.
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