Michael Powell and Juergen Horn are continuing their living experiment in moving to a new city every three months, and writing about them on their blog 91 Days. Currently in Savannah, Georgia, USA, they visited The Old School Diner and got a lesson in Southern hospitality.
The evening really got going when Chef Jerome came out of the kitchen to greet us. He does all the cooking, and clearly enjoys meeting the people who’ve discovered his little place. The first thing he did was give us all big bear hugs. “You’re family here”. And he meant it! He took us on a tour around the restaurant, telling us about his life and work. We saw pictures of famous people who’ve eaten there, including Ben Affleck and Michael Oher (from the Blind Side). He showed us love letters he’s written to his wife over the years (complete with drawings) and into his kitchen and its wall-to-wall deep fryers. The staff clearly love him, and were just as friendly and welcoming as their boss.
I think we spent about an hour talking to Chef Jerome, and he even walked us out onto the carpeted driveway to say goodbye. “Don’t forget now! This is your home, and you are family when you’re here!” And as I gave him a final farewell hug, I didn’t doubt it. It was an incredible night, and the Old School Diner is truly a special place.
There are more photographs of the restaurant's eccentric decor at 91 Days. Link
An unnamed 81-year-old man went missing in Arbroath, Scotland. Two Coastguard helicopters were dispatched to search the seaside cliffs.
The man was originally reported missing to Tayside Police at 11.40pm after his wife became concerned and contacted her son who raised the alarm.
After hours of searching, the pensioner was eventually found safe and well in the flat next door to his own home, where he appears to have let himself in.
He had apparently let himself in. No one thought to check the neighbor's house until after the helicopter search had begun. Link -via Arbroath
Artists Benedetto Bufalino and Benedict Deseille installed these lights as part of the Festival of Trees and Lights in Geneva, Switzerland. Seeing these would surely "brighten up" the evening commute! Link -via The Daily What
It's always reassuring to buy a used car from someone who you think only went for Sunday drives -but appearances can be deceiving! This German Dutch ad for Volkswagen illustrates that point. -via The Awesomer
Quite a few college towns have a bar named The Library, so you can honestly say you were at The Library last night (The Office is also a popular bar name). However, there is a trend toward bringing books and bars together, particularly in Los Angeles. These are real taverns that are lined with books that patrons can read and discuss -or you can just bask in the literary atmosphere. Styleture shows us four such bars, like The Wellesbourne, pictured here. Link -Thanks, chris!
Ryan Andrew drew a wordless story about grief and fear ...and overcoming those fears. Each part is linked to the next part of the story. http://ryan-a.tumblr.com/post/1325972211/nif01 -via Metafilter
This is why no one goes to the Consumer Electronics Show anymore -because it's so crowded! This is the line to get into CES:Unveiled, the first event of the trade show going on now in Las Vegas. -via Boing Boing
During the Civil War, Confederate leaders didn't just want to defeat the Union Army, they wanted to create a giant Latin American empire.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, many Northerners and Southerners alike wanted the federal government to take a more aggressive approach to acquiring new territory. In fact, some private citizens, known as filibusters, took matters into their own hands. They raised small armies illegally; ventured into Mexico, Cuba, and South America; and attempted to seize control of the lands. One particularly successful filibuster, William Walker, actually made himself president of Nicaragua and ruled from 1856 to 1857.
For the most part, these filibusters were just men in search of adventure. Others, however, were Southern imperialists who wanted to conquer new territories in the tropics. Abolitionist forces in the North greatly opposed their efforts, and the debate over Southern expansion only increased tensions in a divided nation. As the country drifted into war, U.S. Vice President John Breckinridge of Kentucky warned that "the Southern states cannot afford to be shut off from all possibility of expansion towards the tropics by the hostile action of the federal government."
But Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 put an end to the argument. The anti-slavery president refused to compromise, and war broke out in April 1861.
CONFEDERATE COLONIES, SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Winning the war was clearly a higher priority for the Confederacy than conquering Latin America, but growth was certainly on the post-war agenda. Confederate president Jefferson Davis made sure the Confederate constitution included the the right to expand, and he filled his cabinet with men who thought similarly. He even hinted that the slave trade could be revived in "new acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande."
During the Civil War, Confederate agents attempted to destabilize Mexico so that its territories would be easy to snatch up after the war. One rebel emissary to Mexico City, John T. Pickett, secretly fomented rebellion in several Mexican provinces with an eye to "the permanent possession of that beautiful country." Pickett's mission ended in failure in 1861, but fate dealt the South a better hand in 1863. French Emperor Napoleon III seized Mexico, and the move provided the South with the perfect excuse to "liberate" the country after the Civil War.
Of course, Mexico was just part of the pie the South hoped to inherit. Confederate leaders also had their eyes squarely on Brazil -a country of nearly 4 million square miles and more than 8 million people. Prior to the outbreak of the war, U.S. Naval Academy founder Matthew Maury dispatched two Navy officers to the Amazon basin, ostensibly to map the river for shipping. Instead, they were secretly plotting domination and collecting data about separatist movements in the region. When the South lost the war, Maury refused to abandon his plans. He helped 20,000 ex-rebels flee to Brazil, where they established the Confederate colonies of New Texas and Americana. To this day, hundreds of descendants of the Confederados still gather outside Americana to celebrate their shared heritage of rocking chairs and sweet potato pie. In a strange way, a part of the Old South still survives -thousands of miles below the U.S. border.
(Image source: Os Confederados)
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The above article is reprinted with permission from the July-August 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
Astrophotographer Thierry Legault (featured previously at Neatorama) went all the way to Oman to take a picture of a solar eclipse. The shot he wanted was only available for a split second today, and he got it! Not only is the moon moving across the sun, but you can see other things in the picture (see the full-size version at the link). The small spot towards the bottom is a sunspot twice the size of the earth, and toward the top is something that looks like a TIE fighter. That is the International Space Station (ISS)! The Bad Astronomer explains how rare this picture is:
That’s why Thierry sojourned to Oman; due to the geometry of the ISS orbit, it was from there that he had the best chance of getting a picture of the station as it passed in front of the Sun during the relatively brief duration of the actual solar eclipse. But talk about brief; the ISS was in front of the Sun for less than second, so not only did he have one chance at getting this spectacular once-in-a-lifetime shot, but he had only a fraction of a second to snap it!
The ISS was only in front of the sun for .86 seconds during the eclipse. Link
Rocky Balboa vs. the Soviet giant Ivan Drago. The fate of the Cold War rests in his hands. That was 25 years ago already? I guess so! Rocky IV is the subject of today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I guess it was a long time ago -I only got 3 out of 10 correct! Surely you will do better. Link
Most insects have wings that appear to be transparent. Researchers from the University of Lund have found that they actually have rainbow colors, but the background of those wings makes all the difference in what the human eye sees.
“You hold the wing up against the light, so you can see the veins,” said study co-author Daniel Janzen, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “If you’re looking through a microscope, you try to get a clear view behind the wing. It’s the antithesis of getting wing color.”
The researchers studied wings under microscopes, against black backgrounds. But once Janzen, who breeds wasps for his research on caterpillar-parasite symbioses, started to look, colors could be seen by the naked eye as wings passed over insects’ black bodies.
This study looked at the wings of wasps and flies, and the team believes they may find similar results in other orders of insects. Link
Looking for a new job can be stressful enough without the interviewer throwing a curveball that has nothing to do with the position you are seeking. Many job interviews feature questions that are designed to see how fast you think, or how well you cope under pressure, but some of these questions are mind blowing!
2. “How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?”
6. “How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room”
12. “An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?”
20. “You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.”
The list at Glassdoor has links to possible answers from readers. I think the correct answer to many of these might be, "I don't know, but I know how to find the answer." http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/top-25-oddball-interview-questions-2010/ -via Austin Business Journal
Herschel Geguzin was born in Lithuania, but he eventually became Prince Michael Alexandrovitch Dmitry Obolensky Romanoff, the toast of Hollywood. His extensive travels, friendships, and brushes with the law left him with enough experiences to pull the wool over the eyes of many wealthy Americans. However, many others saw through him or found out about his masquerade, and didn't mind because he was so entertaining! Actor David Niven remembered the prince:
Niven, who was himself a man of preternatural charm and roguish tendencies, recognised a kindred spirit, and his account of Mike is notable for its penetrating insights. For Niven, the root of Prince’s unquestionable likeability was a humorous talent for the not-quite-plausible improvisation, the half-truth and the flamboyant gesture. When the British actor left Hollywood for Britain in 1939 to fight Hitler, Mike delighted in discussing his own alleged experiences of war, making him a present of a hand-knitted balaclava helmet (“Saved me near St Petersburg, old boy”) and a large blue and white spotted scarf with a burn in the centre (“mustard gas… Cambrai… silk is the only thing against it.”) The balaclava helmet Niven lost, but the scarf he kept long enough to consult a laundress about the mysterious mark of mustard gas it bore. “She told me that careless ironing was responsible for the burn.” [Niven p.154]
Eventually Romanov went legit and opened a restaurant in Beverly Hills that catered to his famous friends, many of whom invested in the business. How Romanoff achieved such acclaim is a fascinating story. Link
