A mother tries her best to deal with a son who is addicted to video games. GLUED is a short film by several third year students at the Bezalel Academy of the Arts in Jerusalem. They documented the process of making the film on their project blog. Link
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Learn about these strange creatures that are fish shaped like a horse that gestates its babies in the male's body. And better yet, see lovely pictures of seahorses from all over the world at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Choh Wah Ye)
Have you been to NeatoBambino lately? Just in the last couple of days, we've posted two new rap songs about dealing with children. Even if you aren't a parent, you'll get a kick out of the clever wordplay.
The Parent Rap involves the whole family, though Mom and Dad are in control. "When it comes to Candyland, I'm a stone cold player."
In Daddy Skills, a young father explains his new life to his old buddy. "Say, dude, look at you, all mature and wise."
Other recent posts show you some neat kid-friendly crafts, like a toy car made from a bottle, a school bus made from a Twinkie, sushi made from recycled plastic, and a flying saucer made out of breakfast! Check them all out at NeatoBambino. Link
Your life changes so much when you become a father. In this music video by Sam D. feat. DJDave, one friend explains how it is to his childless buddy. The song is downloadable; you'll find several links at the YouTube page. -via Laughing Squid
Did you know there are over 400 species of sharks? The dangerous sharks seem to get all the publicity, especially suring Shark Week. Find out how much you know about the different shark species by taking the Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You'll be given six sharks. All you have to do is match the name with the picture. Yes, I got all six right. Link
After you take the quiz, read our previous Shark Week feature The Ten Weirdest Sharks Ever. Link
Cartoonist Rachel Arnow thinks Shark Week is shortchanging the audience. Manatees can be ferocious, too! Check out her comic Man vs. Manatee. Link -via Tastefully Offensive
An entomological adventure tale
by Stephen Drew, AIR staff
NEWS ITEM: “An Israeli woman swallowed a cockroach and then a fork she used to try to remove the insect from her throat. The winged cockroach jumped into the 32-year-old woman’s mouth as she was cleaning her home in a village in northern Israel this week… [a] surgeon at the Poria Hospital in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, removed the fork with laparoscopic surgery, a minimally invasive procedure performed through a tiny incision on the patient’s abdomen.”
— from a wire service report by the Associated Press, July 10, 2003
There was a young woman who swallowed a roach.
No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was a young woman who swallowed a fork
That wriggled and jiggled when she applied torque.
She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach.
No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was an incision into a gal’s tummy
Occasioned by something that made her feel crummy.
She felt bad because she had swallowed a fork.
She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach.
No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
There was a winged cockroach who had some adventures
That started when he flew through some woman’s dentures,
And ended with him dissolved in gastric juice —
The doctors came too late to set the roach loose.
The doctors arrived when the woman felt crummy.
They drilled through her tummy to fish out a fork.
She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach.
No one knows why she swallowed the roach.
And no one knows what to make of these affairs,
And nobody really much cares.
BONUS: The traditional song "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly"
_____________________
The article above is republished with permission from the July-August 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
Back in 1958, when Hunter S. Thompson was 21 years old and no one called him a gonzo jounrnalist yet, he wrote a letter to Jack Scott of the Vancouver Sun trying to land a job.
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.
Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.
By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.
I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)
Nothing beats having good references.
Oh, there's more to the letter. Read the whole thing, plus context and the article that inspired it, at the Toronto Sun. Link -via Nag on the Lake
It can be annoying when non-students drop in unannounced. This happened at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. -via Buzzfeed
Marlo Thomas wrote the story of a group of nine women in West Tennessee who decided to honor their grandma by doing something for their neighbors in need. They pooled a little cash each month, and started a tradition of anonymous giving. That was 35 years ago.
And then the women started listening. They’d eavesdrop -- all with good intentions, of course -- at the local beauty shop or when they were picking up groceries. And when they heard about a widow or a single mom who needed a little help, they’d step in and anonymously pay a utility bill or buy some new clothes for the children.
“We wanted to help as much as we could,” Mary Ellen said, “without taking away from our own families, so we became coupon clippers. And we’d use green stamps. Remember those? We’d use green stamps and we’d make sure to go to Goldsmith’s department store on Wednesdays. Every week they’d have a big sale and you could spend $100 and walk away with $700 worth of merchandise.”
The Nanas would find out where the person lived and send a package with a note that simply said, “Somebody loves you” -- and they’d be sure to include one of MaMaw Ruth’s special pound cakes.
The more people they helped, the bolder they became.
“We gave new meaning to the term drive-by,” Mary Ellen said with delight. “We’d drive through low-income neighborhoods and look for homes that had fans in the window. That told us that the people who lived there didn’t have air-conditioning. Or we’d see that there were no lights on at night, which meant there was a good chance their utilities had been turned off. Then we’d return before the sun came up, like cat burglars, and drop off a little care package.”
The "9 Nanas" kept their works secret from even their husbands for decades, but now that the secret is out, they've expanded their business of spreading happiness. Read the whole story at HuffPo. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Happiness Happens)
YouTube user dondrapersayswhat took clips from 295 movies to make a supercut of the lyrics to Sir Mix-a-Lot's classic 1992 song "Baby Got Back." Unfortunately, the famous intro that Alex loves to quote is not included. The movies are named in the closed caption (CC) subtitles. -via Metafilter
A strange case of a woman with a hand amputation lends credence to the idea that our brains know what our bodies should be like, even if our bodies vary from the norm. The woman, referred to as RN, was born with a deformed right hand that had only three fingers. That's all she ever had. Then when she was 18, her hand was amputated after an auto accident. Like many amputees, she eventually began to feel she had a "phantom hand."
"But here's the interesting thing," says Paul McGeoch at the University of California, San Diego. "Her phantom hand didn't have three digits, it had five."
RN was aware of a full complement of fingers, but her phantom thumb and index finger were less than half the usual length.
With training using a mirror box trick – a tool that creates the visual illusion of two hands – McGeoch and V.S Ramachandran, also at San Diego, managed to extend her short phantom finger and thumb to normal length.
McGeoch says this study indicates that there is a hardwired representation in the brain of what the body should look like, regardless of how it actually appears in real life. It shows us more about the balance between the external and innate representations of a limb, he says.
Read more at New Scientist. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Flickr user Andrew Catellier)
Fire ants are the geeks of the insect world. They seek out technology, particularly electric gadgets. And they have super powers, such as the ability to survive being cooked in a microwave oven. Don't believe me? Watch this clip from the BBC program Supernatural – The Unseen Power of Animals. -via Everlasting Blort
You may be one of those people who prefer the Winter Games to the Summer Games because the skating, sledding, and skiing all come with a risk of a slip and fall. You may have even avoided all the sunshine and brotherhood of the Olympics television coverage. For you, The Guardian has a gallery of images featuring the slips, falls, and screwups of the London Olympics. Warning: contains faceplants, falling horses, and one bloody face. Link -via Breakfast Links
(Image credit: Paul Hanna/Reuters)
It's Shark Week! You can celebrate by drawing a cute little shark on your notes, chalkboard, or even email. Mark Anderson of Andertoons makes it easy with a short tutorial on drawing a cartoon shark. Link -Thanks, Mark!
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