St. Sweeper is driving out the bunnies and dirt devils! This 8-foot-tall aluminum sculpture is the latest creation from Joel Haas. He tells how the saint came about:
St. Sweeper was commissioned as a combination birthday and anniversary present. The client's husband sweeps but does not vacuum, dust, or mop. He sweeps. He loves to sweep. Their driveway is very, very, clean--brain surgery could be performed at a moment's notice in front of their garage. Inside the garage, he keeps a large collection of well worn brooms.
Medieval depictions of "St. George Slays The Dragon" inspired my design. Traditionally, St. George is depicted stabbing a spear downward at a sharp angle into a dragon about the size of a large dog. Centuries before movies and comic books--dragons were not thought to be so large.
The next time you have the occasion to think up a name for a new pet, you could go back, way back, to medieval times and use one of the names people used back then. Many dog and cat names made it into historical records.
In England we find dogs that were named Sturdy, Whitefoot, Hardy, Jakke, Bo and Terri. Anne Boleyn, one of the wives of King Henry VIII, had a dog named Purkoy, who got its name from the French ‘pourquoi’ because it was very inquisitive.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest Tale has a line where they name three dogs: Colle, Talbot and Gerland. Meanwhile, in the early fifteenth-century, Edward, Duke of York, wrote The Master of Game, which explains how dogs are to be used in hunting and taken care of. He also included a list of 1100 names that he thought would be appropriate for hunting dogs. They include Troy, Nosewise, Amiable, Nameles, Clenche, Bragge, Ringwood and Holdfast.
Oh, there's lots more, and names for cats as well, at Medievalists.net. Link -via Metafilter
Several thousand runners participated in Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, last week. Eric Strand wanted to scope out the route ahead of time. Or else he thought it wasn't challenging enough. So he started at 3AM and ran the entire race course backwards, from the finish line to the starting line …and then turned around and ran it forward! Lucky for us, he had a camera with him for the whole thing. Ultramarathoner Strand is training for a 100 mile race in August. -via Metafilter
Redditor sexytime26 posted a picture of her boyfriend's "stupid" new tattoo. I think it's awesome and clever! I'm sure he can go back and get the tattoo artist to add the proper apostrophe. Link
Erwin Beekveld made the original silly remix in 2005. Maybe you've seen it. AutomagicalMan made a high definition remake just today, in case you aren't familiar with the original.
Because today …or maybe it was Friday, who knows, it's New Zealand… Orlando Bloom finished his last day of shooting for The Hobbit movies as the elf Legolas. Peter Jackson had a little goodbye party for him, and this was part of it.
Our featured pet today is Blue, who lives with Neatoramanauts Nathan and Karen Moon in Tallahassee, Florida. He's either yawning or yelling! If it's yelling, we can figure out what he is saying.
Thanks, Nathan!
Do you want to see your pet on Neatorama? Just send us a picture of your dog, cat, goat, bird, lizard, or other pet to tips@neatorama.com and look for him/her here on the Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly!
Pop Quiz: When did America's Continental Congress pass the Declaration of Independence? No, not July 4th. When did they sign it? No, that wasn't July 4th, either. So what actually did happen on July 4th?
MYTHING IN ACTION
Most Americans believe that July 4, 1776, was the day that their nation began its road to independence from Great Britain. Well, not exactly. Think of the significant events from the American Revolution that you remember from history class: The Stamp Act? Eleven years earlier. The Boston Massacre? Six years earlier. The Boston Tea Party? Two years earlier. Paul Revere's ride, and the battles at Lexington and Concord? Fifteen months earlier. By the time Congress got around to its Declaration of Independence, the signers were less leaders than followers in proclaiming an obvious fact: that the American colonists were already fighting and dying for independence from England.
GO 4TH AND PROSPER
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to declare that the 13 American colonies were independent states and no longer part of the British Empire. The next day, John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife, Abigail,
The second day of July, 1776, will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.
He was mostly right about the celebration, but wrong by two days. After the vote, Congress spent the 3rd and 4th day of July fine-tuning and nitpicking the formal document that explained the reasons for declaring independence. Adams was also correct in that the vote was usually considered the significant event, and the post-vote follow-up was little more than paperwork. But for several after-the-fact reasons, that's not what happened.
As we mark the ten-year anniversary of the Tommy Wiseau movie The Room, how is lead actress Juliette Danielle coping with the fact that her first starring role was in a movie celebrated as the worst ever? Danielle was twenty years old when she got the part of Lisa, and had no idea how terrible the film was until she saw the premiere. For years, she avoided any part of it, even when the movie became a cult classic with monthly midnight showings -where people jeer at the screen.
At first, Juliette was stung by the press attention, particularly when it focused on her physical appearance. “On the Rifftrax"—that's the downloadable accompanying heckling track, led by former "Mystery Science Theater" host Mike Nelson—"they called me the ‘bloated corpse of Britney Spears,'" she said. “It’s funny when it’s somebody else but God, I was just in no way prepared for that.” A scene in which Juliette appears to have a bulging vein in her neck also received a great deal of attention, with fans yelling, “Kill it before it dies!” at the screen.
Eventually, Juliette set up a Facebook profile. There she wasn't heckled. Fans started posting photos on her wall of themselves dressed as Lisa; they told her how much joy the film brought them, how much fun they had at screenings; they quoted The Room to her and Juliette, to her surprise, found herself quoting it right back. She started watching cult movies like Troll 2 and Birdemic, and found that they gave her a renewed appreciation of The Room. She started attending Q&As after screenings. She started to entertain the notion of returning to acting.
“For a while I expected it to go away and I think that just would’ve made me a really unhappy person, waiting until I’m 75-years-old for this thing to go away,” Juliette said. “So I found that when I embraced it, it certainly made me a lot happier and more secure about the whole thing.”
Danielle has recently returned to acting, and is also trying out standup comedy. Read about Danielle's experience in making The Room and coming to grips with her notoriety at The Awl. Link -via Digg
What car you drive says something about you -even if it isn't true. Car stereotypes have been around for decades, but every once in a while they change enough to need an update. Jalopnik made a humorous chart detailing how those stereotypes have changed. The full chart is at the link. Please update your generalizations accordingly. Link -via Fark
Monday is Canada Day! Get your nails ready this weekend. Check out a roundup of 30 nail designs that use stamps, temporary tattoos, stickers, stencils, and freehand art to pay homage to Canada. The process for the design shown here can be found at Canadian Nail Fanatic. See the rest at Buzzfeed. Link
There's a complex interaction of chemicals that make your coffee what it is. And the result is a magical and delicious liquid ambrosia. -via Daily of the Day
What sorcery is this? Swedish artist Per Helldorff made this cup-and-ball automaton called The Gambler that takes the place of a carnival huckster. Keep your eye on the ball! From Per's Mechanical Cabinet. Link -via Everlasting Blort
Countless stories have taught us that people who use eyedrops should never keep superglue on the nightstand. But no one should keep superglue on the nightstand. A 64-year-old woman in Dunedin, New Zealand, called emergency services Thursday night, but could not tell them what was wrong.
"Ambulance received a call, but due to the muffled speech ... they were unsure whether it was a medical event or whether someone had been gagged," Senior Sergeant Steve Aitken said.
"Basically, she could only grunt."
Ambulance staff called the police, who went to the woman's home and found that she had mistakenly applied super-glue to her lips instead of her normal medication.
The woman panicked because the glued lips impeded her breathing. She was taken to a hospital and later released. Link -via Arbroath
Are you kidding me? Independence Day is this coming week? I haven't even bought fireworks yet! The Fourth of July makes us feel like summer is half over, but it's even more so for me, because my kids will start school the first week of August. Yeah, things changed when we got air conditioned schools. I guess we need to start finding some 4th of July trivia and recipes! But before we look forward, let's take a minute to look back on the great week we had here at Neatorama. We wouldn't want you to miss anything! Check out the feature articles from this past week:
Mystery author Hy Conrad presented another Whodunit this week, called The Postman Rings Once. Did you figure out who killed Henry Ligget? Did you recognize who's hands were in the picture? (Those are mine.)
Over at Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly, our featured pet was Tommy, who belongs to Neatoramanaut William Charnley. Send us a picture of your pet, so we can feature him or her on our pet blog!
In the What Is It? game this week, the mystery item is a set of tongs, but these are specially purposed for handling hops during the beer making process. No one guessed that until after the answers were posted, and then ladybugs jumped in with the correct answer, so she wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer this week came from Sunfall, who said,
It's the first face hugger prototype. Man, they wasted three actresses before hitting on the idea that making it from unyielding metal might not be such a good idea after all... But hey, that's why now we have Sigourney Weaver, so be thankful for the little thingamajig!
That's good for a t-shirt, too! See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
The NeatoShop is having a sale this week on Zoobies. Zoobies are adorable plush toy, soft pillow, and warm blanket rolled into one -a perfect baby shower gift. Check out the selection at the NeatoShop!
Remember, we have extra content and fun at our Facebook page every day. Check out or boards at Pinterest, too! You are also invited to follow Neatorama on Twitter and Instagram. And mobile users: Flipboard makes it easy to keep up with Neatorama.
Last September, we brought you the story of Obie, the dachshund who weighed 77 pounds. After his elderly owners could no longer care for him, was entrusted to Nora Vanatta, who designed a program to help Obie get healthy. Nine months later, Obie weighs a svelte 29.8 pounds! In April, he had 2.5 pounds of skin removed that he no longer needed. You can read about Obie's incredible progress on his Facebook page and at his website. Link -via reddit
