Look at this adorable puppy! Except… she’s not a puppy, she’s a kit. Rylai is a red fox (Vulpes vulpes), barely a month old. She was selectively bred to be white, and is not an albino. Her owner Jennifer has an FAQ on Facebook that answers a lot of questions about Rylai and fox ownership in general.
At such a young age, Rylai has drawn quite a following on Facebook and Instagram. No doubt she’ll grow to be a beautiful adult vixen. -via Scribol
When you have to load a truck onto a ship, and all you have is a narrow pier instead of a cargo loading dock, you do what you have to do. I wouldn’t consider this for one second, but then, I don’t have to load a truck on a ship from a pier. This was recorded somewhere in Brazil. -via reddit
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
A jargon-free mini-opera in 4 acts
Words by Marc Abrahams
This opera had its premiere Thursday evening, October 3, at the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.
The Original Cast
Opera Director: Margot Button
Singers: Margot Button, Jane Tankersley, and Michelle French, accompanied gamely by Nobel Laureates Richard Roberts, William Lipscomb, and Dudley Herschbach
Pianist: Greg Neil (playing with a broken hand!)
Narrator: Karen Hopkin
ACT 1 -- Listen Up!
NARRATOR (spoken): The 87th First Annual Meeting of the International Jargon Conference is about to begin! The first scheduled event is a breakfast session. As the opera starts, the conferees are busy substituting food for thought. Let's join them now, as the secretary calls the conference to order.
[MUSIC: Prokofiev's "March From The Love of 3 Oranges"]
[NOTE: The CONFEREES are always munching on food, except at those few moments when they are actually saying something. So are the CONFERENCE SECRETARY and the CONFERENCE CHAIRPERSON. Some of the CONFEREES also are taking notes, or at least pretending to.]
CONFERENCE SECRETARY:
Listen up! Listen up! Finish eating -- listen up!
Listen up! Listen up! Listen up!
CONFERENCE CHAIRPERSON:
Listen up, now, Jargon Conferees!
I will shout
All about
How to say
In the most grand sort of way
Anything nasty or gray.
Just use a...
Cliché.
Mark Tretter went to Iceland for spring break and was astonished at how windy it was. This video was recorded at Budir. He thinks he’s going to demonstrate taking a drink, but first he has to figure out how to stand up and stay in one place!
The wind was blowing at 75-80 miles an hour. -via Tastefully Offensive
Now that summer is unofficially here, you might be thinking about getting a swimsuit. Good luck! Summer clothing sold out a month ago. I tried to find a pair of good sandals and the local store had nothing close to my size.
Oh well, watch this video, which should be called The Evolution of the Swimsuit, as only about half of them are bikinis, and wish you could get one from the 1940s. (via Viral Viral Videos)
The annual Festival of Moros y Cristianos in Alcoy, Spain, commemorates the struggle between the Christians and the Moors in the 15th century. Different groups dressed a Moors and Christians participate in elaborate processions for two days and re-enact a battle on the third day. The overtones of genocide seem a bit strange to Americans, and Mike Powell brought it up.
Our Valencian friends were surprised by my concerns, and assured me that Moros y Cristianos is a positive event, honoring a shared history; that there’s no rancor or gloating sentiment behind the processions. And now that I’ve attended Alcoy’s festival, I suppose they’re right. There wasn’t any real difference between the groups dressed as Moors and those as Christians; both wear flamboyant costumes, both smile and wave at the crowd, and both are cheered equally. It’s just another excuse to get dressed up and have a party.
And what a party! Besides parading and fighting, there was music, dancing, confetti, and drinking. You can see the Moros y Cristianos festival in video and many pictures at For 91 Days.
On Sunday, people gathered at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten to observe Memorial Day, as they have for 70 years. Those buried there were the liberators of the Dutch in World War II. Each American grave was “adopted” by a Dutch, Belgian, or German family who has tended it ever since. There are people on a waiting list to became grave caretakers if they are ever needed to take over.
At the cemetery’s annual commemoration, 6,000 people poured onto the 65-acre burial grounds just a few miles from the German border, including scores of descendants of American war dead who had traveled here from all over the United States. They were eager to pay tribute to parents or grandparents who had died to defeat the Nazis. But they also wanted to thank the Dutch families who had been tending the graves of their loved ones, often passing the responsibility from one generation to the next.
The Washington Post has the story of the cemetery’s founding in 1944, and tales from some of the descendants of those buried there, and of the caretakers of the graves. You may wish to bring a hankie as you read about the way the Dutch feel about the Allies who saved them so many years ago. -via Metafilter (where you'll find even more stories)
(Image credit: © Raimond Spekking /
The building used to be the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv, Israel, until it was the site of a suicide bombing in 2001. Israeli street artist Dede (previously at Neatorama) saw something promising in the shell of the structure- a giant set of of choppers, or wind-up teeth. He says,
30m wide x 10m high piece, The abandoned Dolphinarium, Tel-Aviv, 2015
Without any doubt the biggest art challenge I have ever had. This piece was hard to achieve.
Stormy nights, high rollers from the ground, the all deal. But it had to be done, I had this vision for almost a year now.
This landmark is found in the middle of continuing ownership arguments, another real estate bite in Tel-Aviv's view.
Note the wind-up key at the right. It’s not as big as it should be for the building, but that’s fixed with a little forced perspective. -via Laughing Squid
Wherever you go today, don’t forget your towel! Today is Towel Day, a date set aside to remember author Douglas Adams and his works, particularly The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For the occasion, the astronauts of the European Space Agency (ESA) show how they celebrate on the International Space Station. Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (previously at Neatorama) reads about the importance of the towel from The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while floating in space. Don’t panic!
We’ve seen plenty of “video game invades real life” videos, but this takes it up a notch with over-the-top violence and destruction, even though it all takes place at Grandma’s house. Contains a little NSFW language. And plenty of subtle references for hardcore players.
It’s from Danny and Michael Philippou, twin brothers from Adelaide, Australia (previously at Neatorama), who do this for fun even though many of the stunts are really dangerous.
The Philippou brothers refuse to put ads on their videos. They’ve now received funding from Screen Australia, Australia's national film support agency. If you liked this, you might want to check out their other videos. -via reddit
Thelma and Louise was a 1991 road trip film with a difference: the two road buddies were played by women (Susan Saradon and Geena Davis). The adventures they found themselves in all followed from the fact that they were women in a man’s world, but it was far from what most people think of as a “chick flick.” Twenty-four years after its release, let’s look back into the making of the film. There’s a lot to learn, like how that astonishingly hot young unknown actor ended up in the middle of it. Credit Geena Davis.
3. GEORGE CLOONEY AUDITIONED FIVE TIMES TO PLAY J.D.
Clooney was on the short list for the role that eventually went to Brad Pitt, and became his big break. “The funniest thing is, I didn’t watch that movie for a long time,” Clooney admitted during a Q&A at the Telluride Film Festival. “I was really stuck doing a lot of bad TV at that time. And I had auditioned and auditioned, and it got right down to Brad and I, and he got it. And I just couldn’t watch that movie for a couple of years ... When I saw it, I thought actually that was the right choice. [Brad] was really good in it, and I would have f***ed it up somehow."
4. BRAD PITT WAS PAID $6,000 FOR HIS WORK IN THE FILM.
That was in 1991. Just five years later, he earned $10 million for his work in Barry Levinson's Sleepers.
5. GEENA DAVIS HAD A HAND IN CASTING PITT.
Geena Davis admitted that she kept messing up her lines when auditioning with Pitt because he was so attractive. When Scott and the casting director were discussing who to cast, she reportedly jumped in: "The blond one. Duh!” Julie Strain was hired to play Davis’ body double in the movie, but Davis opted to shoot her sex scene with Pitt directly.
There’s lots more, covering the script, casting, and the ending they did not use, which you can see in the article at mental_floss.
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad. These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?
The lawyer glanced from his client to the three greedy young faces across the room. "You're sure you want to do this?"
"Of course," Derwood Dewdit replied. "I have no children. It's only right that my niece and nephews inherit my estate."
"That won't be for many, many years," Asa Dewdit said. His sister Bebe agreed as did brother Cecil. They watched, fascinated, as Uncle Derwood signed his new will.
Nothing happened until late afternoon. The lawyer was browsing through the books in the third-floor library when he heard Derwood's voice raised in a blood-curdling scream. For a few seconds, he sat in shock. Then he bounded down the stairs.
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad. These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?
Miranda Rich could hardly wait to move into her new house. In fact, a trio of workmen were still making their final repairs and installations on that April morning when Miranda brought over her expensive entertainment system and stacked it in a corner of the living room.
The next day, Miranda arrived to find the electronic unit gone. The only thing left behind was a strip of black plastic tape the burglar had used to hold open the latch of the rear kitchen door.
"Looks like a crime of opportunity," the officer from the burglary unit told her. 'All three workmen were here and saw the system. All three of them heard you on the telephone, setting up a dinner date for last night. Knowing the house would be empty, one of them simply taped open the latch and came back later."
No fingerprints had been left behind, and the officer didn't hold out much hope. But he interviewed the suspects anyway, hoping two of them would have ironclad alibis.
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad. These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?
The air in Prairie Flats had been calm all morning. But by noon the wind had whipped up out of the east, and just a half-hour later a small, rainless tornado was pummeling the farming community, its funnel leaving behind a path of destruction and at least one fatality.
The body of Allie Brinker was found lying in a ditch. There was a gash in the young woman's forehead and a trickle of blood that had fallen in neat round drops onto the ground. Not far away, a broken, bloodied fence post led the police to an obvious conclusion. The wind had torn up the post and sent it flying into her head.
"I blame myself," Allie's Uncle Nate told the neighbors. "She was at my place, playing with her one-year-old niece. Just as the wind was picking up, Allie decided to run back home across the fields. I told her to stay. The radio was warning of twisters. I should have stopped her."
The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad. These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?
(Image credit: Flickr user Sean Lamb)
Stan Rogers winced at the flesh wound in his left shoulder, feeling lucky to be alive. "My partner and I were delivering a payroll to the logging camp," he told the officers at his hospital bedside. "It was late at night when the car broke down. I pulled over. Benny got out but I stayed inside. Those are the rules.
"A minute later, a passing motorist stopped to help. Benny and this guy checked the engine, fiddling with the connections. A couple times it almost started. I couldn't see their faces because they were standing right in front and the headlights were slung low. But I saw when the guy pulled the gun from his jacket.
"He shot Benny in the chest, just like that. Benny stumbled off to the side and collapsed. The guy came around to the driver's side. Me, I kept trying to start the engine. He must have known about the payroll 'cause he opened the rear door and grabbed it right off the backseat. He slammed the door and was coming up to me when the engine finally turned over. I slipped it in gear just as he got a shot off." Stan winced again. "Gee, if I hadn't run into you guys I might've fainted or bled to death."
The highway patrol brought in two lone motorists whose cars fit the description Stan had given of the killer's vehicle. Neither suspect had the payroll bag, and the murder weapon was found back at the scene, wiped clean of prints. The only hope for an arrest lay in Stan's memory.
