Here's a clever cosplay by a man named Alex showing Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup with their father/creator Professor Utonium. It's perfect! Link -via Look at this Frakking Geekster

It's amazing how far we've come in cake design. How much longer will we have to wait before we have a wedding cake that can actually fly under its own power?

Link via blastr | Cake by The Butter End Cakery

Kenny at Lensrentals.com was cleaning a bunch of UV filters and, for idle amusement, decided to mount them on a camera. Pictured above is a stack of 50. Then he and his co-worker Roger went out and took pictures. Below is one of them, paired with a shot without any filters. Link -via Technabob

It is very important to read those long, tedious license agreements -- especially from Apple. But that doesn't have to be a boring activity. For a podcast, Academy Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss read the iTunes user agreement in several different, dramatic voices. You can listen to excerpts at the link. My favorite is 'irritable German professor'.

Link -via Lowering the Bar | Photo by Flickr user Llima used under Creative Commons license

Don't worry! It's a whale shark. They're filter feeders and are known for non-aggressive behavior toward human divers. Mauricio Handler captured this image off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where these sharks gather during the summer.

Link -via Super Punch | Photo: Mauricio Handler, National Geographic

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Royal Enfield is an Indian manufacturer of classic British-style motorcycles. Much of the work is done by hand, including painting the iconic pinstripes and logo on the gas tank. This amazing video shows one plant worker -- or artist, I should say -- adding perfectly formed pinstripes completely freehand.

-via Boing Boing | Jay Leno Explores Royal Enfield

Dear Photograph is a blog that invites readers to submit photos of photos positioned over reality. Or, as the site's description puts it, "take a picture of a picture from the past in the present." Link -via Blame It on the Voices | Photo: Tom Freeland

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Calquon's computer has a very sensitive touchscreen interface. Even a fly can navigate reddit with it. But I didn't see him upvote anything. Come on, bug, contribute!

Link via Geekosystem

As usual, I can't top Jeremy Barker's introduction:

In 1972, a crack vaudeville unit was sent to off Broadway by a theatre court for a joke they didn't tell. These Muppets promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the Tony Awards they survive as Muppets of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The M-Team.

This cartoon was made by Amy Mebberson. You can see more works by her at the link. Link -via Popped Culture

According to Google Translate's rendering of a German-language news story, police stopped a van in northern Germany when they noticed that the rear doors weren't fully closed. There was a good reason why they weren't: the entire rear of the Sprinter van was filled with a Mazda. Don't worry! Mattresses and bedding covered the car to prevent it from getting any scratches.

Link (Google Translate) via Jalopnik | Photo: police

Ben Wilson finds wads of chewing gum discarded into the streets and sidewalks of London and paints them:

Mr. Wilson, 47, one of Britain’s best-known outsider artists, has for the last six years or so immersed himself in a peculiar passion all his own: he paints tiny pictures on flattened blobs of discarded chewing gum on the sidewalks of London. So familiar is he here, painting in any kind of weather, that he has become something of a local celebrity and mascot.

Wilson has become especially popular with the people of Muswell Hill, where he lives and has done most of his work:

In Muswell Hill, where he lives and which has his largest collection of chewing gum art, his pictures have become a chronicle of the neighborhood, a representation of its residents’ whimsies, sorrows and passions. Among the pictures dotted outside the post office, for example, are an R.I.P. painting for a postman and a picture of a tiger in honor of a postal worker who is from Sri Lanka.

To mark the closing of a Woolworth’s store a couple of years ago, Mr. Wilson crowded every employee’s name onto a piece of gum, along with a good-luck message from the managers. He painted another in which the employees thanked their customers. The two pictures are still there, even though the store is gone.

Link -via Super Punch | Photo by Flickr user salimfadhley used under Creative Commons license

I guess that's a dumb question. Of course you would! So, anticipating this widespread desire, Del Monte created a Hasselhoff-shaped popsicle for National Ice Cream Month. It's called the Hoffsicle.

Truly, we live in age of wonders. Link -via Vodkapundit | Photo: Del Monte

And it was quite good! Commencement addresses tend to range from tedious to unbearable, but O'Brien's speech before the graduates of Dartmouth College was both funny and practical:

Eleven years ago I gave an address to a graduating class at Harvard. I have not spoken at a graduation since because I thought I had nothing left to say. But then 2010 came. And now I'm here, three thousand miles from my home, because I learned a hard but profound lesson last year and I'd like to share it with you. In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting. What Nietzsche should have said is "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you watch a lot of Cartoon Network and drink mid-price Chardonnay at 11 in the morning."

Video Link and Transcript -via Ace of Spades HQ

The long-running French comic series Astérix features a lot of violence. Five medical researchers in Germany figured that there might be something valuable to learn from this data set, and so decided to conduct a formal study of the comic's brain injuries. Here's the abstract:

BACKGROUND:
The goal of the present study was to analyze the epidemiology and specific risk factors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the Asterix illustrated comic books. Among the illustrated literature, TBI is a predominating injury pattern.

METHODS:
A retrospective analysis of TBI in all 34 Asterix comic books was performed by examining the initial neurological status and signs of TBI. Clinical data were correlated to information regarding the trauma mechanism, the sociocultural background of victims and offenders, and the circumstances of the traumata, to identify specific risk factors.

RESULTS:
Seven hundred and four TBIs were identified. The majority of persons involved were adult and male. The major cause of trauma was assault (98.8%). Traumata were classified to be severe in over 50% (GCS 3-8). Different neurological deficits and signs of basal skull fractures were identified. Although over half of head-injury victims had a severe initial impairment of consciousness, no case of death or permanent neurological deficit was found. The largest group of head-injured characters was constituted by Romans (63.9%), while Gauls caused nearly 90% of the TBIs. A helmet had been worn by 70.5% of victims but had been lost in the vast majority of cases (87.7%). In 83% of cases, TBIs were caused under the influence of a doping agent called "the magic potion".

CONCLUSIONS:
Although over half of patients had an initially severe impairment of consciousness after TBI, no permanent deficit could be found. Roman nationality, hypoglossal paresis, lost helmet, and ingestion of the magic potion were significantly correlated with severe initial impairment of consciousness (p???0.05).

Link via Nerdcore | Image: René Goscinny

Ray Villafane's funny and spooky carved pumpkins are wondrous sights to behold. Make interviewed him about his background and what's involved in this craft. When asked about the tools that he uses, Villafane wrote:

99% of the carvings I do are done with various-sized ribbon loop tools. These are standard tools for clay potters and sculptors. The great thing about these tools is that they are not sharp at all, keeping it safe for kids. I use a paring knife to sharpen up the details in the end, but you would be surprised how far you can get without ever using a knife!

http://villafanestudios.com/wordpress/gallery/ -via Make | Villafane's Kickstarter Page