Some of the greatest comedy fiction on the web can be found in Amazon reviews. For example, 1,082 of 1,089 people found this review of the Victorio Kitchen Products 571B Banana Slicer helpful:

For decades I have been trying to come up with an ideal way to slice a banana. "Use a knife!" they say. Well...my parole officer won't allow me to be around knives. "Shoot it with a gun!" Background check...HELLO! I had to resort to carefully attempt to slice those bananas with my bare hands. 99.9% of the time, I would get so frustrated that I just ended up squishing the fruit in my hands and throwing it against the wall in anger. Then, after a fit of banana-induced rage, my parole officer introduced me to this kitchen marvel and my life was changed. No longer consumed by seething anger and animosity towards thick-skinned yellow fruit, I was able to concentrate on my love of theatre and am writing a musical play about two lovers from rival gangs that just try to make it in the world. I think I'll call it South Side Story.

Banana slicer...thanks to you, I see greatness on the horizon.

And there's lots more: 99 reviews of the banana slicer, from different points of view (plus responses). You'll want to read them all before you consider purchasing this product. Link -via Metafilter

DeviantART member bubug drew the Lannisters from the TV series Game of Thrones as if they were conceived and drawn by Charles Addams. That is, like The Addams Family! Link -via The Mary Sue

The British feline charity Cats Protection named Jessi-Cat, from Davyhulme, Greater Manchester, their Cat of the Year. Jessi-Cat's owner, 7-year-old Lorcan Dillon, has an anxiety disorder called selective mutism, which makes it difficult for the youngester to express himself. Jessi-Cat was just the therapy he needed, and Lorcan has learned to express himself to the cuddly cat.

Jessi-Cat was crowned overall winner after first winning the Best Friends category, chosen by celebrity judge, ex-YES keyboardist and star of Grumpy Old Men Rick Wakeman.

Cat lover Rick said: “All three cats have been a huge support to their owners, but Jessi-Cat is my winner. The bond between Jessi-Cat and Lorcan is incredible and it has clearly had a hugely positive impact on Lorcan’s home and school life. Jessi-Cat helps Lorcan to communicate and express emotions that ordinarily Lorcan wouldn’t be able to do.”

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Lorcan and his mum Jayne Dillon, 44, of Davyhulme, Greater Manchester, were at the awards ceremony to accept Jessi-Cat's prizes – a star shaped trophy, three months’ supply of cat food, a year's supply of Verdo Cat Litter and a framed photograph of Jessi-Cat.

Awards were bestowed in other "cat"-egories, such as Hero Cat and Rescue Cat. The award for Celebrity Cat, chosen by an internet poll, was Simon's Cat, Simon Tofield's animated pet. Read about all the awards at the Cat's Protection website. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Paul Maven Photography)

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Sit up straight and pay attention: do not eat paste, and do not take your pants off in front of the other students. Your parents will not be there. Some teachers are jerks. Some will be strange shapes. Cut teachers some slack. -via The Daily What

Artists, filmakers, and authors often get into the habit of leaving a "calling card" -some quirky element that they've grown fond of- in many of their works. If you learn which ones are which, and you'll be able to identify their works even when their name is not attached. Or you might just enjoy being able to spot one. For example: Chris Van Allsburg's books always had Fritz in them somewhere.

As a kid, this writer had a full collection of Van Allsburg’s books, and always made a game of finding Fritz, a little white bull terrier with a black spot over one eye (“a most unusual and appealing dog”) hidden in each one — sometimes as a real dog, sometimes as a toy or picture or other artifact. Fritz is based in part on Winston, a real-life dog owned by Chris Van Allsburg’s brother-in-law, who “had an accident that sent him to the big dog kennel in the sky at an early age.” Aw.

Ten such artists and their calling cards are explained at Flavorwire. Link

See also: Woody Woodpecker's Movie Cameos

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ScreenJunkies put together an honest trailer for The Hunger Games. I learned more about the story from this than I ever did from my kids, who have all read the books and seen the movie. Link -via FilmDrunk

Space is one thing you don't find easily in a city like Zhuzhou, Hunan province, China. But there is space on the rooftop of the Jiutian International Square shapping mall, and the owners have places four villas with lawns up there. The developers say these are not intended for sale, but they are not the only rooftop houses in the city -and other buildings have people living in such structures. Link -via Geekosystem

I don't know where this is, but the lettering on the sign look Cyrillic to me. Maybe you can translate. There's no way this window job could have been easier (or better) than just replacing the originals where they were! -via Arbroath

Update: Neatoramanaut Philip 2 got us a translation of the Russian sign: "State Committee for Construction." You couldn't ask for a better punch line!

Artist Rik Allen makes these beautiful sculptural spaceships and rockets from metal and blown glass. There are even a couple of robotic creatures in his gallery! They pretty much embody the term "retro-futuristic." Link -via Boing Boing

Now that the Games are over and the athletes have gone home, what was waiting for them? In some nations, Olympic athletes are heroes, win or lose, while other nations could care less, at least officially. Either way, Mom will be happy to see you. Especially in Trinidad and Tobago.

The tiny island nation is happy just to be recognized as a competitor. The team may not have won a single game at the 2006 World Cup, but they were welcomed back with parties, national honors and financial rewards, and that was just for making it through the prelims. That bodes well for the 2012 T &T team, which became the most decorated in the country's history with four medals this year. So far, they've had a holiday in their honor, and gold medalist Keshorn Walcott has had a lighthouse, a plane, and a housing development named after him.

Meanwhile, one nation made both the best list and the worst list. You can probably guess which before you read the article at Foreign Policy. Link -via Digg

(Image credit: Flickr user Tab59)

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Once again, Ignoramusky adds the perfect music to a kitten video to make it something more than the sum of its parts. As far as I can tell, the name of the kitten is Филиус (Filius). See more pictures of him. -via Metafilter

Previously: More videos by Ignoramusky

The Mars Curiosity rover had its eyes wide open as it landed on the red planet. Meaning, the forward-facing camera was taking color images as it landed. In a couple of videos released by NASA, you can see the heat shield falling away from the rover, the heat shield slamming into the planet, and the dust of Mars stirring up as the rover itself touched down. See the videos, and read an astronomer's account of why they are so amazing, at Bad Astronomy. Link

In 1955, geneticist Helen Spurway discovered the phenomenon known as parthenogenisis: how some species procreate without a male. Spurway was studying guppies, but wanted to know if parthenogenisis, or "virgin birth," happened in humans. A call went out through the British magazine Sunday Pictoral to find possible cases. They found Emmimarie Jones, who had an 11-year-old daughter named Monica with no known father. Tests available at the time showed that Monica had many genetic traits eerily identical to her mother's, except for a skin transplant, which both mother and daughter eventually rejected.

Eight months after the search for a virgin mother had been announced, the Pictorial published a world exclusive on Emmimarie and her daughter. The full details of their tests were also revealed in The Lancet, which published “Parthenogenesis in Human Beings” by Dr Stanley Balfour-Lynn of Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London. On the skin grafts, The Lancet concluded that they indicated that Monica’s genes did not in fact match her mother’s, despite all the previous evidence to the contrary. Yet there was a scientific curiosity here. What any parthenogenetically conceived child certainly could not have, unless they had mutated, were any genes that had not come from the mother in the first place. This is why the skin graft from a virgin-born child would be expected to take when implanted on her mother, but one from the mother would not necessarily take on her child. Yet, the opposite had happened in Emmimarie and Monica’s test. What on earth was going on?

In such a case, Balfour-Lynn wrote, interpretation was very difficult, making rigorous proof impossible. True, the Joneses had failed the most stringent test, but that didn’t negate the validity of the first three; it only muddied the waters. The study concluded that Emmimarie’s claim that her daughter was fatherless must be taken seriously. “Doctors have been unable to prove that any man took part in the creation of this child”, screamed the Sunday Pictorial.

But modern DNA tests were not around in 1956, and no DNA samples from the women exist now. However, subsequence advances in science throw doubt on Emmimarie's story. Read the explanation at the Telegraph. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science

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Nellie the sea otter lives at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington. The otters are given toys for entertainment and enrichment, and here you see Nellie stacking them back in order, after which she hands them back to her keeper. Before you know it, our factory robots will be replaced with otters, who will work for clams. That is, until they tire of the novelty and just want to float in the water, holding hands with a friend. -via reddit

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The clip is from 1960 film The Time Machine, produced and directed by George Pal, based on the H.G. Wells novel. Yes, you've seen this movie probably more than a few times. But did you ever see Woody Woodpecker in it? He's there, for an interesting reason.

When director George Pal first came to the United States from Hungary, animator Walter Lantz helped him obtain U.S. citizenship. As a tribute to their friendship, Pal inserted Woody Woodpecker into most of his films

See a list of these cameos at Futility Closet, with hints to help you find him. Link -via Nag on the Lake