What happens when you die? The people who know the answer to that are dead, and they’re not telling us anything. A skit from Chris and Jack takes a look at what may be in store for this one guy when he buys the farm.
It’s a little reminiscent of the classic scene of St. Peter meeting you at the Pearly Gates to announce your final disposition. Except it’s not like that at all. -via Viral Viral Videos
Someone in Gothenburg, Sweden, drew a large penis in the snow in Kungsparken (King's Park). But it wasn’t just snow -it was in the moat that was covered by ice that was then covered by snow. When park employees tried to erase the drawing, they saw the ice may be too thin to walk on. The park’s director told the local media that the image would remain until thawing weather. The drawing, and the park’s attempts to erase it, were photographed from a nearby building that has a great view of the park.
Meanwhile Anneli Hulthén, the city's Social Democrat mayor made her more opinionated thoughts clear when she skated into the debate on Twitter.
"I can't comment in a way that makes sense. Or, in plain language, who cares," she posted.
Apparently, no one thought about throwing a rock into the pond to break the ice, or spraying water on the drawing, or using a boat as a sledge. Any of those ideas would have solved the problem at hand.
But then this happened: The “snöpenis” has been obliterated. Emilian Sava used a long-handled brush to to sweep the snow on the moat and remove the artwork. Then he was overcome with regret when he found out how popular the original drawing had been. There's even a Facebook fan page for it. So he took a snowblower and recreated it in the park in a much larger version! A video is available in this story, although the link has a large NSFW image at the top. The video contains the drawings as well, so may be NSFW.
(Image credit: Emilian Sava via YouTube)
As fashions change, so do automobiles. We’ve only had them around in mass quantities for about 100 years, so Mode did another in their 100 Years series featuring cars. Nice expensive cars, that is.
Which decade is your favorite for vehicles? I’d take any of them! -via Tastefully Offensive
Limbitless Solutions is a non-profit that harnesses the latest technology to help those with disabilities. They designed and 3D-printed a prosthetic arm for 9-year-old Star Wars fan Alvin Garcia Flores. When the arm was ready, they enlisted the help of the Central Garrison - 501st Legion to do a special presentation to Flores at Gateway Elementary School in Omaha. Darth Vader himself showed up to give Flores his new arm!
School principal Terry Burton arranged for both the custom-made arm and the Star Wars presentation. That’s the kind of principal you don’t forget. If you think about it, it’s no surprise that a boy missing an arm would feel a special connection with Star Wars. In that universe, bionic arms are commonplace. Limbitless Solutions is doing their part to make them more commonplace in our world, too. -via Geeks Are Sexy
(Image credit: The 501st Legion at Facebook)
This little guy is learning to come when called, just like the big dogs! But it’s not always easy when you’re that little.
Looks like someone has been landscaping. One more shrub to go! I’m just glad this isn’t an old septic tank hole, because those are truly dangerous. -Thanks, hearsetrax!
You instantly recognize what a bomb looks like: a bowling ball with a fuse attached. We saw Wile E. Coyote blow himself up numerous times that way. You may recall the funniest scene ever from the Batman TV series movie, pictured above. And if that picture ever came up on your computer with a “fatal error” message, you got an instant stomach ache. But bombs don’t look like that. At least they don’t now. The popular image goes way back, way before Looney Tunes. Atlas Obscura traces the bomb shape in popular culture back to the beginning, to see how that image became a universal symbol for a bomb.
Do you recall sitting in a movie theater, really getting into the action on the screen, and then you hear a song. A song you like, maybe, but it was a bit jarring because it had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. The lyrics said nothing about the scene, the tempo may have been wildly inappropriate, and it might even have been anachronistic. You remember that scene because the music selection was so odd. Maybe that scene you remember will be on this list of wildly strange music choices that only made the movie more memorable, at TVOM.
Two guys, Leland and Holland, were taking a bunch of marijuana from Las Vegas to Bozeman, Montana. The problem is that they indulged in some along the way. Then they got paranoid and became convinced that the police were following them. They were so bothered about it that they called the Rexburg, Idaho, police and asked them to “just end it.” In other words, they turned themselves in.
There were no police following the men, but they never caught on to that detail. The police dispatcher was very helpful, as were the policemen who met the two men and arrested them. -via Viral Viral Videos
“I will finish what you started.” We were all aware of that pledge long before we saw The Force Awakens, because it was a central part of the movie trailer. But we jumped the gun a little in thinking we knew what he meant. This is the latest from Down the Upward Spiral by Corey Giacco.
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham got together in 1968 to perform as The New Yardbirds. They meshed so well that they continued playing together for years as Led Zeppelin. Now, whether you consider yourself a die-hard Zep fan (as I do) or you don’t know much about them at all, you’ll enjoy reading some tidbits about the group.
7. THEY HAVE BEEN SUED FOR PLAGIARISM A COUPLE OF TIMES.
Folk singer Jake Holmes claimed he wrote “Dazed and Confused” in a 2010 lawsuit. Holmes opened for The Yardbirds in August 1967. The next day, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty and bassist Chris Dreja both bought Holmes’ debut album with his song “Dazed and Confused” on it for the band—which included Page—to practice and play their own version of it. Page was credited as the sole writer of the song when Zeppelin recorded it for their first record.
“Whole Lotta Love” was accused of being based off of Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love” (performed by Muddy Waters) and the Small Faces’ “You Need Loving” only because, as Page once explained, Plant referenced the “You Need Love” lyrics in “Whole Lotta Love.” Dixon was given a co-songwriter credit after a 1985 lawsuit. Plant admitted in a 1990 interview that his lyrics weren’t original. “I just thought, 'Well, what am I going to sing?' That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for.”
The iconic “Stairway to Heaven” is also a part of an ongoing lawsuit. The band Spirit has claimed the arpeggio opening is too similar to their 1968 instrumental “Taurus.”
11. PAGE LIVED IN ALEISTER CROWLEY’S FORMER HOME.
In 1971, Page bought the former Loch Ness, Scotland home of the British philosopher and occultist Crowley. Page claimed it was haunted, not necessarily because of Crowley, but because of its previous owners. "t was also a church that was burned to the ground with the congregation in it,” Page told Rolling Stone in 1975. “Strange things have happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley. The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there, and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down." The guitarist was a fan of Crowley’s, having Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt” inscribed in the run-off groove of the original Led Zeppelin III vinyl records. Page was believed by some to worship Satan because of these connections; Page never confirmed.
The rest of the list isn’t quite as awful. You’ll find it all at mental_floss.
(Image credit: Jim Summaria via Wikimedia Commons)
In 1669, alchemist Johann Joachim Becher proposed that fire was caused by an element called phlogiston. Anything you could set alight, he claimed, contained this substance and the only way to put a fire out was to “dephlogisticate it”—that is, burn it to ash. This theory prevailed for nearly 100 years, until Joseph Priestley debunked it by discovering a little thing called oxygen.
Check out this neuroscience dress!
The print on this dress is based on the art of the incredible science artist Tartuferi in 1887 who drew what he saw through the microscope. I redesigned the print myself, it is printed locally in San Francisco. And what more fun color to make it than hot pink! This print is what eye neurons looks like at a cellular level, so cool!
Shenova is an Etsy store that digitally prints fabric for clothing that shows off your dedication to science, technology, engineering, or math. They have dress prints that show off circuitry panels, space/time warps, bismuth crystals, red blood cells, DNA, space, blueprints, and more! -via Everlasting Blort
You probably remember Vat19 for their strange and enormous candies. They also sell putty of all kinds. For a publicity stunt, they filled a bathtub with clear putty to see what sitting in it would be like. You can’t really call it “bathing,” despite using a bathtub.
This was not a good idea for the volunteer. They had to speed up the video of him sinking into it because it took so long! He could barely breathe, because the stuff is barely liquid. Getting out was much more difficult. It does look cool, though. -via Geeks Are Sexy
(Image credit: kzsoltdanko)
This is the Gooderham Building, also known as the Flatiron Building in Toronto. Completed in 1892, it was originally the headquarters for Gooderham & Worts distillery. It’s a historic landmark now, but still has working offices inside, and a pub in the basement. Let’s take a look at the backside.
(Image credit: Flickr user Alex Guibord)
The cool trompe l'oeil mural was painted by Derek Michael Besant in 1998. The name of it is, surprisingly, The Flatiron Mural. The image mirrors the Perkins Building across the street. It sure adds a point of interest to a plain rear wall! -via reddit
Joe Sill made a beautiful little Star Wars fan film. This is set on the beleagured planet Jakku, where a man and his daughter Kara are traveling to a desert community. But the skies are full of action.
You start to wonder why it’s just a father and daughter; at the end we realize what happened to Kara’s mother. -via Boing Boing
