But not just any air. It was air from Williamsburg, a neighborhood of Brooklyn. Yes, that Williamsburg--the hippest, coolest place on earth. If you want to live inside Lena Dunham's TV show Girls, then you move to Williamsburg. If you want to put that interdisciplinary studies degree to surprisingly profitable use, then you move to Williamsburg.

Dan Ozzi lives there. He has access to the local air. You do not live in Williamsburg and therefore do not have access to that air. But Ozzi is (or was) willing to sell you a bag of premium Williamsburg air. In a very funny article on his experience, he explains:

Since my salary as a brandegizing synergist at a boutique marketing firm barely covers the maintenance fees at my loft as is, I decided to sell a few items on eBay—some rare shoegaze vinyl from Record Store Day at Rough Trade, an extra bike seat, an unopened mixology set. But then I thought: What could be cooler than owning a sample of air from the trendiest zip code on the planet? So on Monday night, I listed a sampling of Williamsburg’s finest oxygen on eBay.

He started the bidding at $39.99. As you might expect, a bidding war erupted immediately, driving the price as high as $20,100 before eBay's administration inexplicably shut down the auction and Ozzi's account.

So: no Williamsburg air for you.

But there is hope. Consider that Williamsburg, for all of its hipness, is aging. The spotlight is moving away. And I think that I know where. And I think that I know how to profit from that change. If you are interested in a bag of authentic air from Flatonia, Texas, let me know. If you have a shipping address, I have a PayPal account.

-via Daily of the Day

Super Epic Cats, which previously brought us a cat with telekinesis, now unveils its latest invention: the Catzooka. I want one! What software does it use?

(Video Link)

-Thanks, Jessica Danielson!

NASA's New Horizons probe is revealing pictures of the most distant planet in our solar system with unprecedented resolution. Many people are seeing other images in the scarred surface of the planet. You can find an excellent list of them at BuzzFeed.

But I think that Rob Beschizza and Heather Johanssen of Boing Boing have discovered the most truly startling find: the Disney character Pluto (for whom the planet was named, as that company owns it) appears in the surface of Pluto. I'm deeply impressed with Disney's imagineering here.

-via Popped Culture

Internet prankster Obvious Plant adds helpful signs and labels in public places, often in stores that are unaware of his helpful contributions. In the past, he's added fanciful descriptions at a pet store and realistic section makers at a bookstore. Now he's contributing to sales at a grocery store by adding tips for shoppers. Rubbing up against other customers sounds like a great idea. I'm going to try that report back on the results.

Could it be? Is it really? Yes, it's a . . . toaster!

What is going to make you happy in life? Time-saving home appliances. Flashbak rounded up advertisements from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s showing women overcome with joy upon receiving or using new advanced vacuum cleaners, ovens, and refrigerators. As these paired ads from Toastmaster prove, the more pieces of toast that you can toast simultaneously, the happier you will be.

(Photo: Rakuten)

Rocket News 24 calls this marvelous cake a Baumkuchen. It’s popular in Japan, but originally from Germany. From the inside and outside, it’s a remarkable facsimile of a real watermelon, complete with seeds in the pulp.

(Photo: dareyanen23)

It’s made on a spit. The baker adds layers of batter onto a spinning rod until it becomes a thick mound of cake. It has rings like a tree, which is why the German name for it means “tree cake.”

(Photo: Christines2)

That’s what the bakery Pâtissez in Canberra, Australia calls its extreme milkshakes that are as big as your head and filled with everything they can think of to stuff inside. If it’s in the bakery, why not shove it into the milkshake? Sure, add ice cream and syrup as well. But don’t stop there. I want a chocolate fudge milkshake with an entire Boston cream pie as a garnish, followed by whipped cream and a single cherry.

You can see more pictures of people enjoying the “Freakshow” at BuzzFeed.

We’ve all done or said something so embarrassing that we’ve wanted to kick ourselves in the head. But that wasn’t the motivation for Puskar Nepal of Nepal who holds the Guinness World Record for kicking himself in the head the most number of times in a single minute. He hit the 134 mark in a demonstration at Kantipur City College in Kathmandu. Puskar hopes to win records that will bring honor and glory to his homeland:

I'm now so passionate about Guinness World Records that I aim to set more than 100 records. I believe my records would help promote my country, birthplace of Lord Gautam Buddha, around the globe. Also I want to prove that people from a small and poor country like Nepal can also do anything. I want to be inspiration of the people of my country.

(Video Link)

Now ain’t that a kick in the head?

Lou Lou P's Delights is a bakery in Leeds, UK. When carefully shaped and decorated, its loaves of bread look like cats!

(Photos: AFP/Reuters)

On the left is American actor George Clooney. On the right is Japanese gorilla Shabani. Both have sent many female hearts aflutter with their rakishly good looks. The BBC calls Shabani the "metrosexual gorilla."

Well, hello there, miss. Welcome to my cage. Would you care for a drink?

Shabani, 18, lives at the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens. In March, he came to the attention of young Japanese women on social media. The BBC reports how women describe him:

Ikemen: It's the Japanese slang for "handsome guy". The word is a combination of "I-ke" (pronounced "ee-kay"), which is an abbreviation of a word meaning "cool" or just "good", and "men" derived from the English. […]

Dark and brooding: According to local media reports, many women who flock to see Shabani in action are using words of admiration often attributed to the likes of George Clooney or Hugh Jackman or Japan's own Ken Watanabe - "shibui" (meaning "bitter") and "nihiru" (derived from the English "nihilistic") both used to describe "dark and brooding" men.

Unfortunately, ladies, Shabani is taken. He's already married--to another gorilla 24 years his senior! He has a son, too. But you're welcome to visit him at the zoo. Just expect cold stares from his wife.

-via Oddity Central

This penguin is so terrified of water she is having swimming lessons http://t.co/eaVvkouLwJ pic.twitter.com/7YvmKYUyGP

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 13, 2015

Just jump in, Charlotte. You're a penguin, so you've got to swim. All penguins can and you're old enough to join them.

But Charlotte struggles to overcome her fear of the water. So this king penguin that lives at the Birdland Park & Gardens at Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, UK, is getting swimming lessons. Alistair Keen, her zookeeper, is giving the lessons himself. The Telegraph reports that she's doing well:

Mr Keen said: "Initially Charlotte was absolutely terrified at the prospect of getting her feathers wet.

"I know penguins can't fly but she was making a pretty good attempt in her bid to avoid taking the plunge.

"In the wild the chicks only learn to swim by following their parents in to the water so I, as her adopted dad, felt obliged to get in and try to show her how it was done.

"At first it didn't seem like she was ever going to get the hang of it, she certainly hasn't taken to it like a duck to water."

The Charleston RiverDogs is a minor league baseball team in Charleston, South Carolina. The team employs Titus to retrieve bats from the home plate after batters have dropped them. He does a fine job contributing to the team, which was smashed by 12-2 in this game against the Kannapolis Intimidators.

(Video Link)

-via Tastefully Offensive

If you want to score any money on the street with this classic con, then you've got to improve your skills. Hamlet the cat knows exactly where the pill is. You're wasting his time and you'll waste your money if you try to hustle money this way.

(Video Link)

-via Huffington Post

The blog Flashbak takes us way back to the golden age of made-for-TV movies: the late 1970s. Back then, it was possible to attract big stars for widely-watched movies made for broadcast.

Who would have been cast for the major roles in Game of Thrones in 1977? Flashbak is right that Michael Landon (Charles Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie) would have been an excellent Ned Stark. Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin on Star Wars) would be perfect as Tywin Lannister, as would Ricardo Montalban (Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island) in the role of Stannis Baratheon.

Kolja Clemens calls her design Tempelhof after the old airport of West Berlin. It commemorates the Berlin Airlift of 1947-48. The hangers are shaped like the C-47 Skytrains that delivered essential supplies into the besieged city at Tempelhof. The hangers are made of aluminum, just as the Skytrains were.

-via Oxot