This mounted Hello Kitty trophy is for sale from Etsy artist datamafia. It is one of 12 Bizarre Hello Kitty Products That Sign The Coming Apocalypse collected by our own Jill Harness at Inventor's Spot.

Link

I love the motto on the poster for this year's Jell-O Mold Competition from the Gowanus Studio Space: "Keep Calm and Wobble On." The 2010 winners have been selected! The grand prize was awarded to sculptor Shelly Sabel for her creation Aspic Ascension--Tastes Like Heaven. See all the winners at the contest site. Link -via Nag on the Lake

There are a lot of houses under foreclosure in Fresno, California, and many have cement ponds swimming pools that are currently empty. Instead of letting all that surface go to waste, skateboarders use the pools to test their skills, as we see in the short documentary Cannonball: Skating the Recession Pools by vimeo user California is a place. NSFW language. Link

A military fort, out in the ocean, with a moat! Fort Jefferson is a part of Dry Tortugas National Park in the waters off of Key West, Florida. Construction on the "fort in the middle of nowhere" was started in 1846. It was originally meant for the defense of the US, but during the 30 years of construction, some design features became obsolete for that purpose.

During and after the Civil War the fort began to be used as a prison for deserters and other criminals. In 1874 the army completely abandoned the fort after several hurricanes and a yellow fever epidemic, and it wasn't until 1898 that the military returned in the form of the navy, which used the facilities during the Spanish-American War. The fort was also used from 1888 through 1900 as a quarantine station, and was garrisoned again briefly during World War I.

Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: National Park Service)

The following is an article from Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.

Just when you think you've heard it all... someone comes up with something like this. It's from a little book called It's A Gas, by Eugene Silverman, MD, and Eric Rabkni, PhD. It's required reading for BRI history buffs.

In all fairness to the farters of the world, the greatest of them all was not by his passing of gas also passing a judgment. His completely conscious control of his abilities was confirmed by numerous chemical examinations, including two in published form. This man, a hero at bottom, was a gentle and loving father, a noble and steadfast friend, a successful and generous businessman, and a great stage entertainer. This unique individual, a phenomenon among phenomena, this explosive personality and credit to our subject, was christened Joseph Pujol, but invented for himself the name by which all history knows him: Le Petomane!

THE ART OF THE FART

Le Petomane could fart as often and as frequently as he wished. His farts were odorless. As other people use their mouths, Le Petomane had learned to use his anus. Furthermore, by constricting or loosening his anus he could vary the pitch of the air he expelled and by controlling the force of abdominal contractions he could control its loudness. With these two fundamental tools, simple enough but rarely seen, Le Petomane contrived not only to imitate a variety of farts, but also to make music.

He headlined at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the most famous nightclub in the world at that time, and brought in box office receipts more than twice as high as those of the angelic Sarah Bernhardt. He was one of the greatest comedians of the turn of the century The manager of the Moulin Rouge kept nurses in the theater to tend to female customers whose uncontrolled laughter in tight corsets often caused them to pass out as Le Petomane passed gas. Here was not a court fool at all, but the toast of civilized society.

DISCOVERING HIS GIFT

As a boy, Joseph had had a frightening experience in the sea. Holding his breath and ducking under water, he suddenly felt a rush of cold water enter his bowels. He went to find his mother but was embarrassed to see water running out of himself. Although he recounted this in later years, apparently as a child he tried to keep his terrifying experience a secret.

Early in his married life he was called to military service and in the all-male atmosphere of the barracks he recounted for the first time his strange experience in the sea. When asked for a demonstration, he agreed to try again. On their next furlough, he and his unit went to the sea. He did succeed in taking water in and then letting it out. This might have been viewed as mere freakishness, but combined with Joseph's gentleness and good humor, it struck the soldiers as a delightful feat.

Pujol, using a basin, practiced this art in private with water and, once able to control the intake and outflow by combined exertions of his anal and abdominal muscles, he soon began to practice with air as well. This, of course, was only for his own amusement and the occasional amusement of his fellow soldiers.

(National Film Board link)

The English title is From the Big Bang to Tuesday Morning, a 2000 film by Quebec animator Claude Cloutier. -via Everlasting Blort

Dr. Peter Kertesz is a dentist in London, England. He has a regular clientele of patients he takes care of during the day. But he also moonlights: Dr. Kertesz recently worked on the huge teeth in the powerful jaws of two tigers at the Dartmoor Zoological Park near Plymouth. One of the tigers had to be treated for a broken tooth. Both were anaesthetized before their dental appointment.

Dr Kertesz is one of only a few specialist zoo dentists in the world, a sideline to his day job of treating humans at his surgery in London's West End.

His animal career began more than 20 years ago when someone brought in their cat for treatment and he has carried out dental work on exotic species including whales, pandas and elephants.

Zoo curator Will Walker said: "We have had him twice before over the last couple of years to do all our bears and other tigers."

Dr. Kertesz is paid well for his bravery and expertise, as the bill for the two tigers was £4,500. Link -via Arbroath

People can pick up skills in the strangest places. Georgia Durante learned evasive driving techniques when she was married to a mobster and drove a getaway car.

Years of evading the police had taught Georgia how to drive like an action hero, so she formed Performance Two, a stunt and precision driving company and wrote a book about her life as a model and mafia wife. Her company has done stunts for over 100 movies and commercials, and she's personally doubled for both Cindy Crawford and Priscilla Presley.

Durante is just one of 6 People Who Turned a Life of Crime Into Legitimate Careers that you can read about at Cracked. Link

(vimeo link)

This is a sweet ballet -meaning the dancers are fruits, cupcakes, bonbons, and Gummi bears! This stop-motion video was created by Maira Fridman. -via Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

There is so much going on a Neatorama, we sometimes forget that neato stuff happens outside the site, too! This week, our fearless leader Alex was a guest on The Social Blade Show. Yeah, it's an hour long, but it's a talk show, so you can listen while doing something else. Skip ahead to the 31-minute mark for the Neatorama stuff.

John Farrier of NeatoGeek had a feature on the main blog this week, Landlocked Navies of the World and Johnny Cat gave us In the Movies: Drive-In Movie Theaters.

Alex was busy collecting Yankee Doodle Fun Facts for the holiday, and 5 Neat & Quick Facts About the Vuvuzela for the World Cup tournament.

There were more fun facts at NeatoBambino in the post Holy Moly, Roly Poly! concerning those little bugs that roll up in your hand.

From Steven M. Johnson's Museum of Possibilities, we learned about The Enemy at the Door and Sleeping on the Job.

The Bygone Practice of Foot Binding in China was a painful post for me to write, but a fascinating subject nevertheless.

From mental_floss magazine, you saw what happens When Propaganda Backfires, and from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, we had The Curse of the Little Rascals as a followup to last week's Little Rascals.



We added three new artists to the Art Blog: painter Dustin Timbrook, photographer Josh Martin, and folk art painter Ellen Eilers. Congratulations to Christine DePalma and Terry Barrall, who won calendars featuring Ellen Eiler's art in the contest we ran in Eiler's gallery post. See, there's more than one reason to visit the Neatorama Art Blog!

Oh yeah, we had lots more winners. Congratulations to Edward, who correctly guessed the "pain bullet" in the What Is It? game this week, and to DCMikeRotch, who guessed wrongly but entertainingly. Both won t-shirts from the NeatoShop.

NeatoGeek had its first caption competition this week. Congratulations to Augie, who won a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! So many people participated that the NeatoGeek caption competition just might become a regular feature.

We partnered with Fark to bring you this week's Tokyo Flash Treasure Hunt. Congratulations to winners nexusg4, hopscotch0623, numonohimax, and funkyeuph, who won prizes from Tokyo Flash or the NeatoShop.

At mental_floss, the How Did You Know contest wrapped up on Wednesday with all the answers revealed. Congratulations to overall winner Jimmy Luth, and everyone who won prizes from the NeatoShop!

You've still got a week to get your videos ready for the GTFO competition, in which an iPad is up for grabs! Get the particulars at our YouTube page.

The work of art is called dimply, "Eye." The sculptor is Tony Tasset, who modeled it on his own eye. Folks in Chicago get to see this 30-foot-tall eyeball until the end of October. Watch it being built in a video at Laughing Squid. Link

(Live Leak link)

This cockatoo's name is Billy, but they should have named him Houdini! -via reddit

Have you ever visited a casino on a Native American reservation? David Israel hasn't yet, but he likes to go prepared, so he found out as much as he could about the history and laws of Native American casinos. Here's a sampling:

7. Revenues from gaming are required to be used for tribal governmental and charitable ventures only. The revenues are exempt from federal, state, and local taxes, however there are exceptions. In the cases where the revenues are divided evenly and then distributed directly to tribal members, the federal government gets a nice cut. State taxes are often part of the agreements for large scale casinos.

8. There are 562 recognized tribes in the United States, only about 200 operate full scale casinos. There are approximately 150 additional tribes seeking recognition. Many complain that these tribes have no real membership and are only seeking to cash in on the casino business. Supporters of Native American rights point to centuries old treaties put in place to protect these unrecognized tribes. The Pequot tribe, which operates Foxwoods, received recognition in the early 1980s, after the last surviving member living on the reservation died and her grandchildren came together to recreate the tribe.

Read the rest in this post at mental_floss. Link

Pulsate is a web toy that doesn't serve any great purpose besides possibly amusing you for a few moments. Click on the field to create circles. As they expand and contract, they'll make music as they bump against each other. You'll want to experiment to determine the optimum number of circles and distance between them for the nicest tones. Link -via b3ta

The Solar Impulse (previously at Neatorama), an experimental electric plane with rechargeable solar batteries, has completed a 24-hour continuous flight, with no fuel. The flight proves that the plane's solar collectors can store enough energy through the day to last through the night.

Pilot Andre Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse onto the runway at Payerne airfield about 30 miles southwest of the Swiss capital Bern at exactly 9 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT) Thursday. Helpers rushed to stabilize the pioneering plane as it touched down, ensuring that its massive 207-foot wingspan didn't scrape the ground and topple the craft. The record feat completes seven years of planning and brings the Swiss-led project one step closer to its goal of circling the globe using only energy from the sun. "We achieved more than we wanted. Everybody is extremely happy," Borschberg told reporters after landing.

The flight proves that, theoretically, the plane could stay in flight indefinitely. The next goal: crossing the Atlantic. Link -via reddit