The last time I gave my tom cat a bath, I removed everything within a five-foot radius of the sink, and he still managed to damage things, namely my window screen and my arm. Can you imagine trying to bathe a mountain lion? Messi, a cougar in Russia, is getting his bath. I love the description:

The video consists of three parts: washing, rinsing and wringing.

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It turns out he meant three videos. The rinsing is here, and the "wringing" is here. There's even another for the drying process, which Messi does himself. Don't try this at home. Not only is it dangerous, but you shouldn't have a wild animal as a pet in the first place. You can see more of Messi at his Instagram page, I Am Puma. 

Always clear your browser history if there's a chance anyone else will be using your computer. You could be thoroughly embarrassed if anyone sees it. I took a peek after my husband used my computer once, and it almost bored me to tears. He had been comparing prices for tools and watching YouTube videos about the best way to reinforce concrete. I shudder to think what would be on my mother's computer. If anyone were to check my browser history, they would run away just looking at the size of it, but I can blame it all on my job. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Every home needs a Sarlacc that won't digest you over the course of a thousand years! This pillow is labeled as a "newborn/toddler pillow lounger," and I'm sure it's perfect for the child you want to raise right, but people without babies could easily find a use for it -like a pillow for your head while you are lying down watching a Star Wars movie. It's big, maybe you could curl up in it with a good science fiction book. It has four rows of teeth, and handles, so you can easily carry it and anything you want to feed it put into it. Get your Pit of Carkoon pillow from Etsy store BedHogShop.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

Lily Hevesh puts the "art" in domino artist. Her chain reactions are big and innovative, but above all they look amazing. Enjoy a kaleidoscopic compilation of her best 2017 projects.   

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So what's in store for Hevesh5 this year? She's a professional, so her calendar is filling up with gigs in advertising, movies, and events, but she's also going to college. After all, she's 19 now. -via Boing Boing

Who's the real hero in your life? The one who has what you need, who opens up new worlds to you, and who encourages your kids to be the best they can be? Who fights against ignorance and illiteracy every day? Your librarian! And now she's clad in a superhero cape, as she should be. This Librarian Action Figure is based on real librarian Nancy Pearl of the Seattle Public Library. That's some honor. The action figure was first developed in 2003 for Archie McPhee, and had a button you pushed to raise her hand to "shh!" you, but that's apparently been dropped for the newer version. -via Madam Jujujive

The 1984 Chuck Norris movie Missing in Action was rushed into theaters just a couple of months before Rambo: First Blood Part II, because they had the same plot. It was non-stop action and violence as Norris, as Colonel James Braddock, tears up Vietnam to free POWs who were kept after the war's end. Critics didn't think much of it, but audiences loved it and the movie became Norris' most popular film. There are things you don't know about Missing in Action that we'll learn now.

9. Chuck Norris made this film in honor of his brother.

He made this film to honor his brother Weiland Norris who was killed in Vietnam in 1970. This film must have brought back some memories.

7. This was the first of a five-film contract for Norris.

He made a million dollars per film over the duration of his contract. That seems like very little at this point but back then that was a great deal.

Never will $5 million seem like "very little" to most of us. But there's more trivia from behind the scenes of Missing in Action at TVOM.

We are taught about Civil War politicians and generals, dates and places, but the war was full of everyday people who did extraordinary things. The podcast Uncivil has stories of the Civil War that you won't hear in school and how they came to light, often using the descendants of the subjects to tell them. We also learn how those events left effects that are still felt today. For example, in the episode The Soldiers, Lauren Cook Wike sued for the right to participate in Civil War reenactments as a soldier, after being denied in 1989 because there were no women who fought in the war.  

CK: Lauren’s lawsuit against the National Park Service got a bunch of press coverage. And the story ended up reaching a woman who lived hundreds of miles away.

RG: I was living in Orlando at the time and I always read the newspaper in the morning: The Orlando Sentinel. And I picked it up one morning, and there was a picture of this girl in her civil war uniform.

CK: This is Ruth Goodier. And she was about to give Lauren some serious ammunition in her crusade.

Because that picture in the paper reminded Ruth of one she’d seen before in a family photo album. A photo of her distant uncle Lyons Wakeman who fought for the North in the Civil War. When Ruth was in her thirties, she found out that Lyons had a secret, hidden away in a box of letters in her cousin’s attic.

RG: It had been there ever since the end of the Civil War. Yeah.

JH: And for the longest time, the family felt uncomfortable about these letters -- they knew that Lyons Wakeman’s real name wasn’t Lyons, it was Rosetta. And he was born a woman.

Lyons Wakeman died of illness while serving in the Union Army. A bit of research led to other stories of women who fought. You can listen or read those stories here. But once you listen, you'll want to check out other episode of Uncivil. You can also read the story behind the podcast series. -via Metafilter

Watch a timeline of The Beatles morphing from photo to photo as they age from 1960 to 2017. In 1960, George was 17, Paul was 18, and John was 20. Ringo was also 20, but he didn't join the Beatles until 1962, which means Paul McCartney is the only one that appears in all 57 years. There was no year without music to accompany each shift, from either The Beatles or at least one of them as a solo act.  

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Angel Nene put this together from publicity photos, concert footage, album covers, interviews, documentaries, and one rather obvious cartoon. There's a list of the songs used at the YouTube page. -via Boing Boing

A couple of years ago, we learned how to trap a cat. Then, the trend was circular or hexagonal cat traps. But a family in Amsterdam experimented with a square cat trap. Will their cat Alvi fall for it?   

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If you mean fall in love with it, then yes. But it's not always a sure thing. The same experiment was presented elsewhere to Smoothie, who is more cautious about new things.

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If you snooze, you lose, Smoothie!  -via Laughing Squid

The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) opened in Philadellphia in 1850, but it wasn't until 1869 that its students were allowed to attend a clinical lecture at Pennsylvania Hospital. That occasion was treated as a sideshow by the male medical students of the University of Pennsylvania.

“When we turned up at the clinic, in what was then the new amphitheater, pandemonium broke loose,” Broomall said in a later interview. “The students rushed in pell-mell, stood up in the seats, hooted, called us names and threw spitballs, trying in vain to dislodge us.” Joanne Murray, Historian and Director at the Drexel University Legacy Center Archives and Special Collections, describes another account: “The men greeted the women students with yells, hisses, caterwauling, mock applause, offensive remarks on personal appearance, etc.”

It took some time for women to be accepted as medical students and doctors. But life inside WMCP was like other medical schools, with students dissecting cadavers and discussing medical procedures. They wore floor-length Victorian dresses and couldn't vote, but they were ambitious and intelligent. WMCP produced many groundbreaking physicians who went on to serve all over the world. Read about the early days of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania at Atlas Obscura.

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The video is Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but the song has been changed to a major key. There are other changes, too, with the result being a catchy pop song. The discussion at reddit is half people counting the ways the song was changed, and the other half is summed up as:

That’s messed up, but I like it.

It's been compared to works by Blink 182, Weezer, Gin Blossoms, The Police, The Spin Doctors, Boston, and other pop music bands. I can't see any of those, but "Teen Sprite" would make a great theme song for a TV series on the Disney Channel.

The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.

Throughout history, many leaders were given lofty nicknames- Catherine the Great or Richard the Lionhearted, for example. But not everyone could be Great or Magnificent. Some rulers got strange, and strangely specific, nicknames.

ALFONSO THE SLOBBERER

King Alfonso IX (pictured above) ruled Leon (now part of France) from 1188 to 1230. He was prone to fits of rage, and anytime he got especially angry, especially while in battle, he drooled uncontrollably, sometimes to the point of foaming at the mouth.

PIERO THE GOUTY

This family managed to keep their opinions to themselves until someone asked for them. Then it became a pile-on session! Dumb hair can be fixed, but his neediness and credit score are red flags. And grandma doesn't like his taste in music. Come on, it's just a standard part of a formal wedding, and rarely even used these days. So what's next? Are the vows going to be contingent on his contrition for these sins? And what's his family thinking when all this happens? I hope the photographer captures his expression for posterity. This nonsense is the latest comic from John McNamee at Pie Comic.

Robert Friedland graduated from college in 1974 and took over the supervision of an apple orchard his uncle owned. Friedland turned the farm into a spiritual utopian community, where hippies, Hari Krishnas, and Hindus could come together and grow apples. Steve Jobs, who had been a friend of Friedlands for a few years, often stayed there and worked to boost apple production.

Jobs lived in a renovated chicken coop whenever he was around. His residency was episodic, and his recurring task was to whip the Gravenstein apple trees back into shape upon his arrival, pruning, raking, and patching up the trellises. According to legions of Jobs fanatics, All One Farm is where he acquired what his admirers call his “reality distortion field,” a special charisma that caused others to suspend belief in the impossible. Jobs said later that the name for his company, Apple, was inspired by Friedland’s farm. “I was on one of my fruitarian diets,” Jobs told Isaacson. “I had just come back from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating.”

Read about the rise and fall of All One Farm and the influence it had on Jobs at Timeline. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: All One Farm)

Would you have the nerve to try setting up a domino fall while your dog watches? I think I'd put the puppy outside, or at least in another room. The temptation to play is so strong! Haru the Shiba Inu can barely contain herself as her humans set up a thousand dominoes.  

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But Haru was a good dog most of the time, and she was rewarded with the honor of knocking down the first domino when the setup was all ready. You can see more of Haru at Instagram. -via Tastefully Offensive