This might make you feel old, but Luke Skywalker is all grown up. Mark Hamill posted a picture of himself on Instagram that gives us a small glimpse of what he will look like in Star Wars VII. He’s mentioned before that he was “contractually obligated” to grow his beard out for the movie. His son, who, like everyone else, is not allowed on the set, took the picture. -via The Daily Dot
(Image credit: Nathan Hamill)
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Adam Barta recorded a techno song with additional vocals by Preston the Cat. This music video for the song is bizarre, surreal, and downright odd in an ‘80s kind of way. But it also has a whole slew of cute and funny cats in it. If you were to watch this video and gradually turn the sound down as you go, I would understand completely. -via Buzzfeed
Once upon a time, salmon swam upstream to spawn on their own with no real problems. It was exhausting, but it was their natural life cycle. In modern times, dams and other manmade water barriers have caused the fish no end of problems, yet they still try their best by instinct. Some dams are so high that wildlife agencies have been trucking salmon around the barriers.
But now comes the salmon cannon from the appropriately-named company Whooshh Innovations. It’s a vacuum-powered tube that shoots the fish 100 feet or so uphill on their journey (they have a 500-foot tube, but so far that’s only for frozen fish). What fun! As soon as the tests are done, some enterprising engineer is going to adapt these for water parks, just you wait and see. Read more about the salmon cannon at The Verge. -via Daily of the Day
When your life differs from everyone else’s, even a little bit, it can throw a kink into your normal everyday modern first-world problems. Okay, there’s no way this would be the worst part of his experiences, but going through those password prompts can dredge up bad memories. This is the latest comic from Doghouse Diaries.
Professional athletes are covered by journalists and sports fans closely, and when one of them is injured, and it happens quite often, it goes down in the record books. So when a pro athlete suffers a freakish, out-of-the-ordinary injury, they never get to live it down. In this week’s mental_floss video, Akilah Hughes (smoothiefreak) tells us about some really odd and memorable sports injuries
This is terrible! There’s a fox in the yard and he’s playing with MY TOYS! Get out of there, fox! Look at him. Stop having fun! If I weren’t cooped up inside the house, I’d show you what for! Yes, I would! Can’t you hear my bark? Get out of my back yard! That’s MY yard! -via Uproxx
It’s occurred to every reader of Superman comics sometime in their childhood: how can those smart investigative journalists who work at The Daily Planet not recognize the crime fighter they cover so often as the mild-mannered reporter in their midst who looks just like him? The only difference is the glasses, and the lack of spandex. The reason they never did is explained in the rest of this comic by Tony Wilson at Dorkly.
Shark Week has been a TV staple since 1988, but like many institutions, it has changed over time. What was once educational is now entertainment, but the Discovery Channel needs to make their intentions more clear for those who grew up thinking Shark Week was for information. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with throwing an occasional movie into the mix, but it’s easy to see that Jaws or Sharktopus is fictional. It’s not so easy for the general public to separate “mockumentaries” and “reality TV” from nature documentaries, especially after so many years of traditional educational fare about sharks. -via Viral Viral Videos
Mulder is a clever cat. He’s not only figured out how to open a door, he works around a trap (a tray of water) to do it. This is why we went from latched doors to round knobs, although I suspect that bears had more to do with it than house cats. -via Daily Picks and Flicks, where you can see another video of Mulder’s cleverness.
The 2014 winner has been crowned in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which writers compete to construct the worst opening line for a novel. The winner is Elizabeth (Betsy) Dorfman of Bainbridge Island, Washington, for this gem:
When the dead moose floated into view the famished crew cheered – this had to mean land! – but Captain Walgrove, flinty-eyed and clear headed thanks to the starvation cleanse in progress, gave fateful orders to remain on the original course and await the appearance of a second and confirming moose.
Dorfman received “about $150” for her prize. The contest site has winning entries in various categories such as children’s literature, fantasy, and crime, as well as runners-ups that are all hilariously bad. The contest takes its name from Victorian novelist George Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who started a novel in 1830 with “It was a dark and stormy night,” a sentence that has come to be shorthand for a hack novel. -via Metafilter
Fee Jeanes and her family moved to Bridport, Dorset, UK, 19 months ago, to a home near the bus station. Their 15-year-old cat Dodger quickly made friends with bus drivers and riders, who would even feed the cat occasionally. Jeanes recently found out her cat has been riding around on bus trips in his spare time.
"He is an old boy and is very friendly. At first Dodger kept going to the bus station because people there fed him tit-bits and scraps of food.
"But then he started climbing on board the buses because they are almost like greenhouses when it is sunny.
"Then last week I found out he had travelled to Charmouth and back, which is a 10 mile round trip.
"I hadn't seen him all morning until my daughter Emily told me one of her friends had just seen him on the bus at Charmouth.
The bus drivers know the cat well, and make sure Dodger gets off at his home stop when the day ends. The bus company says they do not encourage the cat to ride, but don’t mind if he does. As a senior citizen, he is eligible for free rides. -via reddit
(Image credit: Peter Willows/BNPS)
If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, you’ve no doubt already seen the preview trailer for season five, which begins in October. If you haven’t, you can see it here. But why watch the real thing when you can watch a LEGO version? YouTube member kristo499 went the extra mile to make sure this shot-for-shot LEGO trailer has all the fine details and that the characters are totally recognizable, even if they are minifigs. -via Warming Glow
She was born Betty Joan Perske in 1924, but the whole world knows her as Lauren Bacall, the woman who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle. Bogie and Bacall only made four movies together, but shortly after she starred with him in her first film, To Have and Have Not, they married. Bogie was 45 and Bacall was 20. They remained together until Bogart’s death in 1957.
Working with Bogart, 25 years her senior, the 19-year-old was so shy that she was often photographed with her head down, her eyes cast up— but that pose became known as The Look, a sultry trademark gesture to go with the equally sultry Voice. The chemistry between the pair was evident, unfolding on-screen as it did in real life. Within three weeks, the stars were having an affair. Seven months after the picture premiered, Bogart split from his third wife (actress Mayo Methot) and married Bacall. Their marriage produced two children and the most productive period of her career, including three more pictures together. There was The Big Sleep, the Raymond Chandler mystery in which society dame Bacall send's Bogie's sleuth Philip Marlowe reeling. There was Dark Passage, an innovative thriller in which the first half of the movie is seen from Bogart's point of view, so that pretty much all you see is Bacall through Bogie's eyes. And there was Key Largo, a sort of rewrite of their first movie, with Bogart and Bacall falling in love while standing up to gangster Edward G. Robinson. And that was all, but those were enough to ensure that Bogart and Bacall topped the all-time list of couples who sizzled on-screen as much as they did in private.
Bacall’s acting career spanned seven decades, and she appeared in the TV show Family Guy in 2014. The actress died of a stroke at her home in New York today. Lauren Bacall was 89 years old.
Sir David Attenborough brings us a nature documentary like no other, as he observes and introduces us to the herd behavior of …the Fangirl. Warning: this creature can be terrifying. When asked about the full documentary, one of the subjects had this to say:
“OMG! I can’t even.”
A Turkish farmer has built a scarecrow that rivals the Terminator in terror. To be honest, this terrifying mannequin was developed to keep bears away from crops. In addition to walking, or actually rolling around, spewing siren sounds, shaking its arms. and flashing its glowing eyes, it can also send 25,000 volts of electricity into an intruder! (Let’s hope that’s with low current, very painful even so.) Channel 9 has the story:
Inventor, Mustafa Karasungur, 46, told the Doğan News Agency his creation can also be used "as a mobile power supply", which is handy if you need to charge your phone between bear attacks.
"It can light a lamp for four hours," the inventor who has been tinkering with electronics over the past 30 years said.
Mr Karasungur's hopes of mass producing the robot may not come to fruition. There are fears the robot could attack and electrocute innocent passers-by because it is unable to tell the difference between animals and humans.
Which makes me believe the reporter in this video needs a substantial raise for going above and beyond the call of duty. -via Geeks Are Sexy
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