Die Hard is a classic Christmas movie, and now it's an illustrated children's book! Written by Doogie Horner with illustrations by JJ Harrison, A Die Hard Christmas: The Illustrated Holiday Classic is told in rhyme, in the style of A Visit from Saint Nicholas.
Yes, it's violent. After all, it's Die Hard, and you know the story. It would make a perfect gift for a family member, co-worker, or friend who has a sense of humor and a soft spot for John McClane. You can pre-order the book before its release date of October 17. See more pages from the book at Geeks Are Sexy.
Jumpy is a video game character who lives to jump. It's a good thing, because that's all he does. However, he can get frustrated when his controller isn't that great at jumping. And there's a tinge of envy when other character outperform him. Oh yeah, things can get worse.
But ultimately, Jumpy is a joyful story -and cute, too. Creator Anthony Falleroni also has a behind-the-scenes video about the making of Jumpy. -via Digg
Simon Tofield and Nicky Treverrow are back with another lesson on cats. This one is about adopting a kitten. They have special needs, compared to a older cats.
After all, you can never have too many cats! Especially when shelters are full of kittens (and older cats) who need homes. Get your kittens spayed or neutered when your veterinarian says it's time. As usual, this video is folowed up with a Simon's Cat cartoon.
It's a love story, in five panels, from Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal. Click the arrow on the right of the image to advance the comic. And let the romantic feelings wash over you.
On last night's edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel interviewed the Fleming family of Kerry, Ireland, about the viral fame that came with the bat that got into their kitchen earlier this week. Even the dog Basil was part of the fun! Tadhg can't help but get a few more digs on his father, as he did in the original video, and we get to see Derry dance. -via Mashable
In 1871, Ōyama Sutematsu was sent to the United States to get an education. It was a step in the process of opening up and modernizing Japan after a bloody civil war. A few years later, she became the first Japanese woman to earn a college degree when she graduated from Vassar.
On returning to Japan after graduation, Sutematsu found the nation had reverted to the old ways, and very few Japanese girls received any kind of formal education. So she set out to change that, which involved a lifelong struggle against the entrenched forces of Japanese society. Read the intriguing story of Sutematsu at Rejected Princesses. -via Strange Company
Malkia Park Rescue Station in Orechová Potôň, Slovakia, takes in exotic animals from circuses and private homes. The lioness here is named Malkia, too. She is a product of circus breeding, and was raised by humans. A rescue park is the only place that is safe for her to live, although I wouldn't trust it to be as safe for humans as this woman does.
We are used to three forms of chocolate: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. Barry Callebaut, one of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers and a chocolate research center in Zurich, announced this week that the three main types of chocolate have been joined by a new form they call ruby chocolate, made from the unique ruby cocoa bean.
The fourth type in chocolate offers a totally new taste experience, which is not bitter, milky or sweet, but a tension between berry-fruitiness and luscious smoothness. To create Ruby chocolate no berries or berry flavor, nor color, is added.
Ruby chocolate was unveiled at an industry event in China on Tuesday. I couldn't find any easily-accessible information on the ruby cocoa bean, but Eater says,
“This is classic marketing hype,” says Megan Giller, food writer, Eater contributor, and author of the new book Bean-to-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution. “We don’t yet know what Callebaut means by the ‘ruby cocoa bean,’ especially since no expert I’ve ever spoken to has mentioned a unique type of bean that comes from the Ivory Coast, Ecuador, and Brazil.” Giller has done some research and believes this new product is made from “a genetically modified bean, maybe CCN-51, that has been processed in a particular way to get that ruby color.” (Schrauth would not go into specifics regarding how the bean was developed, citing intellectual property.)
The FDA will have to approve the new chocolate before it goes on sale in the US, so we might not see it in stores until Valentines day of 2019. Barry Callebaut is focusing on marketing the chocolate in China. -via Laughing Squid
If you grew up watching Rugrats on Nickelodeon, you might identify with Tommy, Dil, Phil, Lil, Chuckie, Kimi, Susie, or Angelica. Now that you're an adult, can you imagine how they would turn out as grown-ups? Artist Isaiah Stephens (previously at Neatorama) not only imagined, he illustrated what each Rugrats character would look like as a young adult. As you can see here, the only way Chuckie could ever get his hair under control was to let it grow out. See all of Stephens' grown-up Rugrats at TVOM.
It's probably been a long time since you've even thought about The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and it's possible you've never even seen it. The groundbreaking 1953 film turned out to be a confluence of talent that gave rise to a renaissance of monster movies. It was based on a Ray Bradbury story. It was the first film in which the special effects were overseen by Ray Harryhausen. And it influenced Tomoyuki Tanaka as he produced another movie called Godzilla. Harryhausen talked about the movie's monster, a reptile called a Rhedosaurus.
3. THE BEAST ITSELF WENT THROUGH SEVERAL DIFFERENT DESIGNS.
“I had to create a mythical dinosaur,” Harryhausen recalled. In his early concept art, he fitted the reptile with pointy ears, a sharp beak, and webbed, human-like hands. Another design sported what Harryhausen described as “sort of a round head.” Unhappy with this particular noggin, he replaced it with a new skull modeled after that of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The monster was then given a distinctive, four-legged stance to prevent it from looking like a “typical” carnivorous dinosaur.
By the way, there’s a long-standing fan theory about this fictitious animal. In the film, our villain is dubbed the “Rhedosaurus.” You may notice that the first two letters in its name spell out the animator’s initials. Was this a deliberate homage? Harryhausen thought not. “I don’t know where his name came from,” he told Empire in 2012. “People say it’s based on my initials, but I don’t think it is.”
The picture above is called Feeding Flamingos by Alejandro Prieto Rojas. It won the top honor at the Bird Photographer of the Year awards, plus first place in the Bird Portrait category, from Nature Photographers Ltd and the British Trust for Ornithology. Plenty of other images were awarded in categories such as Best Portfolio, Birds in the Environment, Attention to Detail, Bird Behaviour, Birds in Flight, Birds in the Garden, and Creative Imagery. Andy Parkinson won gold in the Bird Behavior category with this image, entitled Fighting Coots.
Chile con queso, or just queso, is a staple of Tex-Mex cuisine. The classic recipe is based on processed American cheese with tomatoes and green chiles, often Velvet and Ro-Tel.
From the time it was introduced, Ro-Tel hitched its wagon to processed cheese, producing early advertisements that encouraged home cooks to make their “cheese dip” with Velveeta and Ro-Tel. That partnership continues today, with millions of dollars spent between Kraft and ConAgra (who now own Velveeta and Ro-Tel, respectively) each year in joint television advertising.
From there, chile con queso staked its place as a popular party dish. With Velveeta and Ro-Tel now widely available on grocery store shelves, home cooks could simply warm the block of processed cheese with a can of tomatoes to produce a dip that was always consistent, and always perfectly smooth. “The first recipe with Velveeta I could find was written in Lubbock in 1939,” says Fain. “From that point on, there was no looking back. It became the cheese to use for chile con queso. American cheese has more dairy in it, so you have to add stabilizers. You need starch and liquids to stabilize the sauce. And who doesn’t love processed cheese? It’s salty, it’s tangy, it’s delicious.”
But there are many different ways to make queso, and local preferences vary across the U.S. I make queso by stirring a jar of homemade salsa into a jar of store-brand cheese sauce. It's good with everything! Read up on the history and varieties of queso at Eater. -via Metafilter, where you'll find links to queso recipes.
One language’s long journey from humble to honorificabilitudinitatihus.
Long ago, English was considered a barbarian’s tongue. It was fine for the workshop and tavern, but unfit for philosophy, art, and matters of the spirit. Even in England, the Catholic church and universities used Latin, while French was the language of Britain’s royal court and legal system.
But with the 15th- and 16th-century Renaissance, a surge of scholarship brought advances to all areas of thought. Scholars realized that they could use the printing press with everyday languages— even the debased English— to spread ideas. An audacious project was born: Translators would make Plutarch, Cicero, and ancient texts accessible for this uncultured lot.
Trouble was, English didn’t have the words they needed.
One scholar was frustrated that “there ys many wordes in Latyn that we haue no propre englyssh accordynge therto.” Another complained that, compared with Greek, “our grosse tongue is a rude and a barren tong.” To fill in the gaps, translators started to borrow and create words based on Latin and Greek.
Have you ever turned the volume of a cat video up just to see how your cat would react? That could be traumatic, especially if cats, as we have always suspected, have a secret language of their own. Franklin came right out of a sound sleep, ready to be the hero! I hope this particular video has a happy ending, so that he can calm down again. My big orange tomcat would have just sneered and gone back to sleep. This is the latest comic from Pedro Arizpe of Port Sherry. His comics are in Spanish here, where the kitten's cry is "¡¡Miau!!"
In Brisbane, Queensland, recently, a possum was spotted eating the plants for sale in a hardware store. From the YouTube page:
"While wandering through the garden section of a hardware store, I was surprised to see a very special animal customer eating the tomato and strawberry seedlings. A native Australian brush-tail possum, which is usually nocturnal must have felt a bit hungry. He didn't appear to be frightened and seemed to relish the attention! Protected by law they can't move him more than 30 meters away from where he is found."
This video contrasts the many differences between the U.S. and Australia. First off, this is a possum, and he's cute. In America, our possums have an "o" in front of them, and they are ugly as sin. Second, no store owner here would put up with any critter eating the merchandise, but in Australia, they appear to be tolerated, and even cooed over. Third, it is autumn in America, and all the plants are gone from the stores. -via Tastefully Offensive
