Be careful what you wish for. You may get it! From Doghouse Diaries. Link -via Tastefully Offensive
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
This cat is thinking: "Man, being her companion is hard work! But I'll keep pushing on…" -via reddit
How much of a college football fan are you, really? This year's Heisman Trophy winner will be announced this Saturday. Mental_floss is challenging you to recall the other winners of the past thirty years in today's Lunchtime Quiz. How many of their last names can you rattle off in 6 minutes? If you can name any of them at all, you've got me beat! If you can name half, you can consider yourself a true football trivia buff. Link
There's no indication of who made this flow chart, but it sure is a handy guide to hang in a shared bathroom. That is, if any of your roommates will actually read it! Link
Chanukah is next week, which gives you just enough time to perfect your latkes (unless they are already perfect, in which case a little practice still doesn't hurt). In a post titled The Complete, No-Nonsense, Slightly Neurotic Guide to Making Great Latkes, Max Falkowitz of Serious Eats gives you more than just a recipe; he explains the tricks behind making real latkes that aren't potato pancakes or hash browns, plus warnings about the many things that could go wrong and how to avoid them. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Max Falkowitz and Sam Soboliewski)
"Gangnam Style" by PSY is the number one most viewed YouTube video ever -but that's just the original official music video. Another metric of its success is how many other people went to the trouble of making their own version of the video, and we will probably never know exactly how many of them there are. Patrick Peris spliced a bunch of the best of them together. There's a list of source material at the YouTube page. -via Digg
Are you worried about drinking too much coffee? Officially, the American Medical Association says moderate coffee drinking is no problem, as long as you lead an otherwise healthy lifestyle. But they are most likely just being careful in their wording.
"What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can," says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. He's even developed a metric for monitoring your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day. From there, he says, "If you drink that much, it's not going to do you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot."
How? It could reduce your chances of developing diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, depression …and the list goes on. Read about some of the beneficial effects of coffee at the Atlantic. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Fatma .M)
Photography and Film professor Cy Kuckenbaker was so impressed by how many planes landed at the San Diego airport that he set up a camera to catch them. Then he took footage from 4.5 hours and combined the landings into one 30 second film. It's not compressed or time-lapsed; it's more like a work of art, as each plane was overlaid with the others. Link -via The Daily What
While Tammy Williamson undergoes treatment for cancer, her family waits in the lobby. That's when her son, 8-year-old Martin Williamson plays the harp for other patients, staff, and other families who wait. It's his contribution to her recovery, and it means a lot to everyone who hears his music. Link -via Arbroath
This bobcat is an art piece made by refurbishing old taxidermy. DeviantART member Phoenix-Cry explains:
This started as a very poorly tanned bobcat hide, the fur had slipped off half of the face, and it had some major shed and stretch issues.
Rather than just toss this amazing cat into a local landfill to rot I have added leather and metal to places where the fur fell out.
Get a closer look at the big picture at the DeviantART page. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Bathroom Reader.
Think writers of magical tales that enchant children are all sweetness and light? Margaret Wise Brown hunted rabbits and collected their severed feet while writing The Runaway Bunny, Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang between James Bond thrillers, and Maurice Sendak modeled the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are on his Brooklyn relatives whose bad teeth and hairy noses he detested. Here's the dark side of other famous kid-lit authors.
AUTHOR: Kay Thompson
CLAIM TO FAME: In 1955 Thompson wrote Eloise, a tale about a pampered, mischievous little girl who lives with her British nanny, her dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee in the penthouse of New York City's elegant Plaza Hotel. Eloise and its three sequels (along with a lucrative line of dolls, records, toys, luggage, and clothing) made Thompson a media star.
THE DARK SIDE: Thompson, who'd had a meager career as a singer, actress and songwriter, finally achieved stardom with Eloise and she had no intention of sharing the spotlight with anyone. From the beginning, she insisted that her name be on every Eloise book, above the title, as on a marquee. When she heard a rumor that Eloise was based on her goddaughter, Liza Minelli, Thompson snapped, "I am Eloise!" She was equally put off by the attention her collaborator, Hilary Knight, was receiving for his illustrations. She responded by canceling the nearly-finished fifth book in the series and blocking further printing of the Eloise sequels, putting Knight in dire financial straits. (After Thompson died in 1998, the books were re-released, and Knight started receiving royalties once again.)
AUTHOR: Shel Silverstein
CLAIM TO FAME: Silverstein wrote several books that became children's classics, including The Giving Tree, a bittersweet fable about the relationship between a boy and a tree. Since its publication in 1964, the book has sold more than five million copies and has been translated into 30 languages.
There are festive Christmas sweaters, ugly Christmas sweaters, and tacky Christmas sweaters. Then there are those sweaters that just make people go "Huh?" Wear them ironically or cluelessly, or even proudly in the case of the Slayer holiday sweater pictured, for Christmas or all year 'round. Link
Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca was an exciting place to hang out, There was one problem: it was fictional. But the 1942 film Casablanca made it in real in the minds of fans, including Kathy Kriger. Kriger went further than just enjoying the movie -she went to Morocco and opened a nightclub.
“After 9/11, I thought people would become xenophobic and anti-Muslim,” Kriger says. “I thought that Rick’s Café, just by existing, would show that there was something different about Morocco if an American woman like me could do this all by herself.”
To realize her dream, Kriger drew from every source she could think of — family, friends, and, especially, the film — to ensure her homage was as close to the “original” as possible.
“I’ve watched the movie hundreds and hundreds of times,” she says. “I would also watch it to keep encouraged…I was seeing my goal flashing on the [screen].”
Rick's opened in 2004, with details as close to the movie version as possible, down to a grand piano playing "As Time Goes By." Kriger wrote a book about the adventure of opening a business in Morocco. Read more about the new Rick's Cafe at National Geographic Intelligent Travel blog. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
(Image credit: Cotton Coulson and Sisse Brimberg, Keenpress)
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