Friday, redditor gatorb888 posted a picture of a woman using a shopping basket at Target. That’s not a long-handled cart. That’s the rack where the store stacks the baskets.
Apparently she’s not the only person who does this. Within a couple of hours, coreymans posted another example. Is this going to become a thing?
It didn’t take redditor allofthethings13 long to zip over to Target and illustrate how it's supposed to be done. So the next time you go to Target, there might not be any baskets at all, because someone is using them all -and the rack, too!
This person spends over three minutes cutting a carrot, but the end result is worth it. No, she’s not going to cut her fingers off, although that’s the impression you might get as that blade gets close to them. The artist is not identified, and I’m not even sure it’s a woman, but she has nice fingernails. The video is titled Cooking Class Heroes, but I would bet she’s a teacher instead of a student. You may want to skip through some of the middle parts, but do not miss the end. -via Boing Boing
Positive, offensive, self-discipline, self-control, physical health: those are awfully big words for a three-year-old! This white belt is reciting the student creed at Premier Martial Arts in Leeds, UK. Isn’t her speech just the most adorable thing you've seen today? -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Nat Love was born a slave in Tennessee in 1854. When he was 15, he left for the adventure of the West. The untamed frontier offered more freedom for a black man than anywhere in the established states. Within a few years Love became a crack shot, won rodeo titles with his cowboy skills, and earned the name Deadwood Dick. Or did he? The account of his life comes from his autobiography.
Love’s shooting skills had been honed over the course of seven long years on the cattle trails. In his 1907 autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick,” which remains the main source of information on his life, Love writes, “In those days on the great cattle ranges there was no law but the law of might, and all disputes were settled with a forty-five Colt pistol. In such cases the man who was quickest on the draw and whose eye was the best, pretty generally got the decision.” He had become adept with firearms to defend himself and his trail mates against rustlers, Native American raiding parties, saloon brawlers and stampeding animals. The mighty buffalo were still abundant on the plains, and hunting them served as both sport and a source of food on the trail. Love relied on the mass-produced, repeating firearms that defined the era: the Winchester lever action rifle and the single-action, six-shot Colt revolver. ”It was of the greatest importance,” Love writes, “that the cow boy should understand his gun, its capabilities and its shooting qualities.”
Although there is no doubt that Love was a skilled cowboy, many of the published accounts of those days are filled with self-promotion and unlikely celebrity encounters. Ben Nadler picks apart Love’s book at Narratively against a backdrop of what we know is true about black cowboys in the American West. Even after you discount the most unlikely parts of the autobiography, what’s left of Nat Love’s life story is still utterly fascinating. -via Digg
In case the print is too small for you, the inscription on the trophy says “2015 Trophy Making Championship 1st Place.” This short interlude of strangeness is brought to you by Justin Boyd at Invisible Bread. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Last month, we posted How to Fall in Love, which described a process that tends to make people fall for each other. It consists of a series of increasingly intimate questions followed by staring at each other’s eyes for four minutes straight. Soul Pancake decided to try out the four-minute staring part of the exercise, using a dozen volunteer couples who ranged from two people who just met to a couple who’ve been married for 55 years. The results won’t surprise you, but it’s awfully sweet. At least I’m not surprised; the first time I met my husband, I stared into his eyes for about two seconds and was hooked. -via Viral Viral Videos
Disney Princesses star in animated children’s fairy tales, and as such they were simplified and prettified to appeal to the audience. But what if those movies were costume period pieces? This video shows what women wore during those historical eras. Most are dressed as the wealthy, happily-ever-after royalty period of their lives. For some strange reason, Ariel from The Little Mermaid was left out. The results are opulent but far less sexy than what we’re used to. The accompanying article at Buzzfeed explains how the dates and countries of origin were determined, and gives more information on the fashions selected.
You might not hear them so much anymore, but songs from commercials are a serious part of the soundtrack of pop culture. Here are the stories behind some of the most famous ones.
Jingle: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”
Story: Singer Leslie Pearl had one minor hit in 1982- “If the Love Fits Wear It,” which hit #28 on the pop chart. After that, she moved into songwriting. Among her compositions are “You Never Gave Up On Me,” a Top-5 country hit for Crystal Gayle; and “Girls Can Get It,” a Top-40 hit for Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. After that, Pearl moved into jingle writing. In 1984, she wrote the most-played and most famous song of her career: a jingle for Folgers canned coffee. It’s been used in ads for more than 25 years, making it one of the longest-running jingles of all time.
Story: Since the mid-1990s, Old Spice commercials have used just six whistled notes, but that six-note melody was originally the ending of an earlier jingle called “The Old Spice Sea Shanty,” written in1953 and used for decades. (Sample lyrics: “‘Old Spice means quality’ said the Captain to the Bosun / Ask for the package with the ship that sails the ocean.”) Veteran jingle writer Ginger Johnson borrowed the melody from an old Scottish bagpipe folk song called “Scotland the Brave.” The whistling was performed by jazz musician Jean “Toots” Thielemans, who also provided the whistling in the theme song of The Andy Griffith Show and played the harmonica on the Sesame Street theme song.
Happy Lunar New Year! In the 12-year Chinese zodiac, we’ve said goodbye to the year of the Horse, and now we are in the Year of the Sheep. Or is it the Year of the Goat? The word in Chinese is 羊 (yáng), which can either mean sheep or goat -or an antelope, for that matter. It’s not such a big deal in China, but English language news outlets are somewhat confused.
“I’ve never thought about that question before,” Chen Xufeng, an office clerk in Beijing, told Xinhua. “Do we have to tell them apart? I’ve seen more goats in zodiac images, but I prefer to buy a sheep mascot, as sheep are more fluffy and lovely.”
The prevalent theory goes that because Han Chinese culture developed in regions where herders and goats prevailed, the zodiac talisman must be a goat. The animal is indeed common in traditional New Year art. But sheep have their proponents, and they have become more common in cutesy cartoonish decorations for the celebrations.
Zhao Shu, a folklore expert at the Beijing Institute of Culture and History, said in a telephone interview that the debate was silly. The creature in question arose as a general symbol of plenitude and good fortune, partly because the Chinese character yang shares roots with the one for auspiciousness, he said.
If English speakers are caught up on whether it is a sheep or a goat, that is their problem, Mr. Zhao added.
One reason it’s so important to learn world geography, national geography, and map reading is that you will be able to spot the many times that someone uses a map hilariously wrong. A list at Vox has three sections: Maps that give no information, maps that are just wrong, and maps used on TV that should have thoroughly embarrassed the graphic arts department. The map I chose to illustrate them was the one that made me laugh out loud. There were others that would have, if I hadn’t seen them before. Some of the others just made me cringe. We really need to emphasize geography in schools more. See the rest of the maps at Vox. -via mental_floss
Psst: Do you have three minutes to watch The Princess Bride again? Here’s a parody song by Boncage that takes you through the fight scenes and more set to the tune of “You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito. You already know the story, but you can see the lyrics at the YouTube page. As you wish. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The Krewe of Chewbacchus continues to raise the weird factor for Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The Krewe isn’t limited to fans of Star Wars; all science fiction and pop culture fandoms are welcome. The parade this year featured floats and costumed characters from MST3K, The Call of Cthulhu, Doctor Who, The Neverending Story, E.T.: the Extraterrestrial, Sharknado, and My Little Pony, among other sci-fi worlds. Uproxx has rounded up a collection of photographs from the 2015 Chewbacchus Parade -the ones that weren’t too blurry, at least.
Prankster Blake Grigsby (previously at Neatorama) and friends installed a closet at Chicago’s Union Station, stuffed with 2,000 plastic balls. Unsuspecting passersby were tempted to open the door, and got a surprise. Some panicked, while others were delighted- especially the kids! I have to wonder how many people rushed out each time to pick up all 2,000 balls to stuff back into the closet. -via Tastefully Offensive
David Goldberg owns a hardware store in Bethesda, Maryland. Last summer he built a motorized toilet as a parade entry, and eventually won several awards for his creation. He calls it “Loo-cy.” When it came time to shovel all that snow on the sidewalk in front of his store, Goldberg figured Loo-cy could do a better job of it than his shovel. So he attached a plow to the front and cleared the whole block in no time! Now, don’t you wish you had a toilet snowplow? -via Uproxx
Grand Theft Auto veteran Navid Khonsari swerves into Tehran, Iran, circa 1979. The revolution will be played.
Tehran, September 1978. Black Friday. You’re young and reckless, a photographer in the middle of a protest against the shah. Your friend is beckoning you toward the front of the crowd. You try to force your way through a group of people. You want to be at the center of the action. Then the soldiers begin shooting.
Navid Khonsari is developing a video game about the Iranian Revolution, and he needs it to be exciting. You have to watch who you trust and how you talk to people—your family, the woman in charge of the revolutionary headquarters, the storekeepers who sell lemon and cheesecloth to protect your face from teargas.
“The line should be, ‘Oh, I played this sick game, where I was throwing rocks at these soldiers, and then I had to navigate the crowd once the soldiers started shooting,’” Khonsari says. “And then, ‘Oh, and it was about the Iranian Revolution, which was kind of crazy.’ ”
Khonsari knows how crazy games are made. For five years at Rockstar Games, he contributed to blockbuster titles in the Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto series, some of the bestselling games in the world. As a cinematic director—working on storyboards, directing voice actors, and shooting motion-capture scenes—he made games feel more like movies. Now, he has gone indie with his own company, iNK Stories, and his job is closer to a game designer’s—creating a sweeping vision for his new game, Revolution 1979, and finding the right people (and the money) to execute it. He thinks that games can do more than entertain, and he’s not shy about his role in making that happen. “What I’m creating is the template for how future generations are going to be engaging with history,” he says.
