At the beginning of August in 1969, Colonel Edwin Aldrin, Jr. submitted a two-page travel voucher for expenses. The trip the previous month was from Houston, Texas, to Cape Kennedy, Florida, to the moon, to the Pacific Ocean, to Hawaii, and back to Houston. The total expenses were $33.31, which was approved.

It’s hard to read, but I believe there was a $1 per diem for 19.25 days, minus two meals at $2.25 each, 56 cents for travel from his home to Ellington Air Force Base and back, $10 for travel around Cape Kennedy, and $8 for something I cannot read. Now, if only there were a frequent flyer program in those days, he would have really racked up! Buzz Aldrin posted this to his Facebook feed. -via Bits and Pieces

Insects have superpowers -some more so than others. This is from the fairly new webcomic They Can Talk. -via Pleated-Jeans

If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!

In 1979, National Lampoon magazine printed a short story called “Vacation ’58” by John Hughes. He wrote it while snowed in by a blizzard in Chicago. The story is told from the point of view of the Griswold son, as it was based on a real vacation trip Hughes had taken with his family when he was a child. The trip starts off badly and becomes worse.

Mom pleaded with Dad to stop at a motel when we got to Springfield, Illinois. Several times he crossed completely over the median lines and drove in the opposite lane. Once, while going through a little town, Dad drove up on the sidewalk and ran over a bike and some toys. Mom accused him of being asleep at the wheel, but he said he was just unfamiliar with Illinois traffic signs.

He took off his shoes, rolled down the window, turned the radio way up, and made us all sing the Michigan State fight song. But after a few minutes we were all sound asleep, our new station wagon racing down U.S. 55 like a bedroom on wheels. I don’t know how far we traveled like that. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic at that hour so we didn’t hit anything. We finally woke up when Missy asked Dad to get her a drink of water and Dad said, “Go ask Mommy, Daddy’s sleeping.” I heard that and so did Mom, and she screamed and Dad slammed on the brakes, and the luggage tumbled forward onto the back seat and Dad’s golf clubs scattered all over the highway.  

“Vacation ’58” was Hughes’ big break, and led to him writing the screenplay for National Lampooon’s Vacation. He would later go on to write, produce, and/or direct movies such as Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. You can read the entire story “Vacation ’58” at The Hollywood Reporter. -via Digg

(Image credit: National Lampoon Inc.)

(YouTube link)

Apollo and Athena have never seen the ceiling fan in action before. They can’t figure it out!What is that? Why is it moving? Can I touch it? -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Have you ever wondered about the person the Smithsonian Institution was named after? It’s a rather peculiar story.

James Smithson (1765-1829) was a well-to-do English scientist who had never visited the United States. In his 1826 will, he left his estate to his nephew. But he ended his will with an odd clause that said if that nephew died without heirs, legitimate or illegitimate, the estate would go “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.”  When Smithson’s nephew died without heirs in 1835, the peculiar clause went into effect. On July 28, 1835, Smithson’s solicitors notified the United States government of the bequest. An 1835 article in the National Intelligencer told the public that a “gentleman of Paris” had left a bequest to the United States, for the purpose of endowing a National University.

That seems all very nice, but this was 1835, and the government of the United States didn’t know what to do with the bequest, or even whether they should accept it. The president handed the matter over to Congress, where they weren’t sure of the procedure for taking the bequest, or even if it was allowed by the Constitution. Some politicians had objections to receiving money from an Englishman. Read about the conundrum Smithson caused at (where else?) Smithsonian.

Redditor studercinema said his school recently got a new shipment of iMacs, and this is what they did with the boxes. The redesigned space-saving boxes lend themselves well to a 36-iMac human hamster wheel they call the iWheel. However, unless you get a mass shipment of computers, you should save the box in case you ever move your household or sell your computer.

This must be a wealthy school district. My kids’ school asks them to bring their own devices, and asks for donations of old equipment for students who don’t have one, and for the elementary computer labs. There aren’t any two computers in the lab that match.  

A female badger is recovering at an animal shelter in Rewal, Poland. She was found unconscious, surrounded by seven empty beer bottles. Two more were hidden in the bushes. Rewal is a seaside resort, and shelter workers believe the badger, now named Wandzia, stole the bottles from tourists, and opened them with her teeth. After two days of sleep, the badger is recovering, although still somewhat disoriented. She may be released into the wild this weekend. -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Fundacja Na Rzecz Zwierząt via YouTube)

The Batalla de Flores, or the Flower Battle, is the grand finale of a month-long festival in Valencia, Spain, every July to convince people to stay in the city during summer. It starts with a parade of floats full of ornately-dressed women and girls. They parade once for the judges, a second time to wave their tennis rackets, and the third time….

Wait… what was that about “tennis rackets”?

One might assume that onlookers have gathered along the Paseo de Alameda simply because they love a colorful procession, enjoy cheering on lovely falleras in traditional dress, and hope to see some interesting floats. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. This crowd is blood-thirsty. The only thing they really want, and the one reason they’re attending this event, is to hurl softball-sizeds flower at the falleras, and clock them right in their pretty faces.

That happens on the third go-round of the parade. The tennis rackets are defensive weapons to lob the carnations back to the crowd. Even after the parade, the flower battle continues, but it’s all in fun and doesn’t really hurt. Afterwards, the streets of Valencia are covered with a layer of colorful carnations. See a gorgeous collection of photographs of the Batalla de Flores (and a video) at For 91 Days.

Mark Hamill has been signing Star Wars photos and memorabilia for 38 years. I’m sure what he puts on them depends on the situation and how much time he has. Some of the bubblegum cards have surfaced with great jokes to go along with the autograph. Hamill no doubt has heard every Star Wars joke ever made, so there are more of these to be found. I particularly like this one.  -via reddit

Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? Are you tempted to go for “five minutes more”? Inventor Colin Furze (previously at Neatorama) has the ultimate wake-up experience for you! He built a bed that has a horrid alarm with lights and sound, but if you don’t jump up immediately, the bed will do that for you, too!

(YouTube link)

Of course, it works the first time, but Furze cannot help himself -the power is adjustable, so he has to crank it up. See a video of the process of building it at Sploid.

Quick -can you name all seven actors who’ve played Batman? There’s Adam West and Christian Bale and… were there really seven? Yes, but some of them were before your time. It started with Lewis G. Wilson in 1943 (pictured above).

Wilson was the first and youngest actor ever to play the adult Batman, and also the least successful. At 23, the unknown thespian donned the cape and the cowl in the 15-part 1943 Columbia serial Batman. While he looked the part of the dashing playboy, his physique was more Danny DeVito as the Penguin. One critic described Wilson as “thick about the middle.” Maybe that was why he wore his utility belt just below his chest. Critics also complained that his voice was too high and that he had a Boston accent. That, of course, wouldn’t be the last time someone complained about Batman’s voice.

Find out what happened to Wilson after his Batman role, as well as the other six actors who took on the part. Ben Affleck is not counted as one of the seven, because we haven’t seen him in action yet. You’ll find the roundup at Den of Geek.

Kids latch onto the strangest things, but sometimes you just gotta go with it. Grayson always turned his attention when an ad for New Orleans personal injury lawyer Morris Bart came on. It was his favorite thing on TV! His mother L’erin Dobra noticed his fascination.

“Before he could walk or talk, every time the Morris Bart commercial would come on, he was just fixated,” she says. “You couldn’t talk to him. You couldn’t do anything with him. He would just sit and stare at the TV. You could call his name, give him a toy. He didn’t care. He just wanted to watch the Bart commercial. He’s been that way ever since, and when he started talking he would say, ‘One call’ or ‘Bart, Bart, Bart, Morris Bart, Morris Bart.’

So when Grayson’s second birthday was coming up, his Dobra contemplated a party theme, and decided to focus on the lawyer. She contacted Bart’s office through his website, and they sent a cardboard cutout, a signed photograph, and some office swag. Dobra had Bart’s face put on the birthday cake. And it was all a super big hit with Grayson. See more pictures at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: L’erin Dobra)

A thousand Italian singers, guitarists, bassists, and drummers under the name Rockin1000 got together to play “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters. Watching that many people play and sing together -well- is spine-tingling.

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The stunt, a year in the making, is intended as an invitation to Dave Grohl and the band to come and play in Cesena, Italy. Do you think they will?

Oh, in case you'd like to hear the drums and bass only, here's a personal video taken on the scene without a direct music feed.  To hear only the guitar, here's a video from a guitarist with a GoPro.

Update: The Foo Fighters have responded.

Ci vediamo a presto, Cesena.... xxx Davide https://t.co/o3ThIE4QYV @rockin_1000

— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) July 31, 2015

In English, that means "See you soon!"

Update #2: Dave Grohl just uploaded the Foo Fighters’ response to YouTube.

(YouTube link)

A translation:

Hi Cesena! I'm Dave. Hi. I'm sorry, I don't speak italian... just a little bit! This video... it's amazing! Such an amazing thing... thank you! We are coming. I promise. See you soon... Thank you so much. I love you! Bye

You may think that you’ll never be a great writer. Maybe someone told you so. But some folks don’t listen to naysayers -they just keep at it until they get a chance to show their stuff. And even then, they don’t let failure stop them from working and improving. It’s the ones who dare who end up on that pile. This is the first panel of a story from Grant Snider at Incidental Comics. Go to his site to find out how it ends.

Before he became a movie star and then a politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger made his name internationally as a bodybuilder. He climbed the ranks from 1965 to 1970, and won international championships over and over from 1970 to 1975. Then he retired from bodybuilding to focus on his fledgling career in film. In 1980, he had to go back into training to bulk up for Conan the Barbarian.

The 1980 Mr. Olympia contest in Australia was just around the corner, and Arnold was asked to host the event, but he had other plans. One day before the contest — and to the dismay of the other competitors — Arnold announced himself as a part of the competitive field. Other bodybuilders like Mike Mentzer and Boyer Coe took offense to the 11th hour placement of Schwarzenegger, citing that he should have had to register months in advance like the rest of them. Ben Weider took the competitors into a private room at the Sydney Opera House to hear their complaints, but it was made official at the end of the meeting: Arnold would compete.

The other competitors were shocked and upset, as they had to register for the competition months earlier. But that wasn’t the only strange thing about the competition. Read the rest of the story at Uproxx.