It is becoming obvious that 2017 will be a really strange year for trendy Halloween costumes. The company Yandy provides many of the super-specific meme costumes that you see each year, always in a "sexy" version. This year, one of them is "fake news." How do you make a concept into a costume? Just print it on a sexy little dress. The mini-dress sports a newspaper print, with the word "fake" splashed across the front in red. It's a one-joke costume that your grandchildren will be scratching their heads over when they see it for the first time when your possession are distributed. Let's hope this is the lamest of the year's trendy sexy costumes, but I would bet there are more to come. -via Mashable
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
The doc is telling it like is. Every once in a while I try to think back to the time I wasn't at all careful running down the stairs and never thought about slipping in the shower. Back when my hip never hurt and I could see for miles and miles. Some of the changes are so gradual that they surprise you when you realize them, while others hit you like a truck. You just gotta keep telling yourself that getting older is better than the alternative. And try not to be so grumpy. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
In this edition of People Are Awesome, we see many women (and a few girls, and a even a baby or two) show amazing strength, skill, agility, grace, and overall athleticism. In other words, they are awesome.
Yeah, I'm impressed …and maybe a little bit envious, although I realize that these women have put in many hours, or even years, of work and practice to achieve these things. -via Tastefully Offensive
(Image credit: Cosplay Parents)
Steven and Millie Tani are a retired couple in Southern California. Their daughter is a cosplayer who encouraged the couple to try it out. And they did, for a Halloween party at Disneyland three years ago. On that occasion, they dressed as Carl and Ellie from the Pixar movie Up.
They caught the bug, and have been designing, making, and wearing costumes of superhero and Disney characters for special events ever since. Online, they are known as the Cosplay Parents.
The Tanis told Mashable,
"We are both basically very shy and introverted individuals, so when people started to ask to take pictures of us in our cosplays, we were first taken aback at the attention we were getting," they said.
"We [also] weren't sure how people would react to us as an older Asian couple ... but many have welcomed us and ... we are feeling more comfortable and have gained more new friends."
See the Cosplay Parents do Toy Story, Doctor Who, Frozen, Mary Poppins, Captain America, and more at Instagram and at Facebook. - via Laughing Squid
Shannon Selin is the author of Napoleon in America. In researching the book, she came across an English newspaper article by William Cobbett, who had lived in America a couple of times for several years. He was responding to questions from a man who was thinking about emigrating to the United States. First Cobbett declines to give advice on whether the man should go to America at all. But he makes his feelings clear.
As to the first, I give you no advice at all. I never have advised any one to go to America, and I never shall. I would wish every one to stay and take his chance with his country; for richer, for poorer; for better, for worse. …
However, the rest of his advice makes the U.S. and especially New York appear to be heaven on earth, especially in how affordable everything is.
The hog meat is far superior to any thing of the kind known in England. There is more than one reason for this; but the chief reason is that the pigs are fatted with that delightful thing, the Indian Corn, which is eaten in all its stages of growth by man, woman and child. The beef in America is as full fine as in England…. Butter is cheaper than in England. Cheese full as good, upon an average, as the English cheese, is at about two thirds of the English average price. Spices of all sorts, at a quarter part of the English price. Tea, at less than half the English price. Sugar, the same. Coffee at a third of the English price. The chocolate in England is at about six shillings a pound, at New York it is about fourteen pence, English money.
Cobbett explains how housing, furniture, clothing, and other goods are better quality at lower prices than in England. Read the rest of his advice here. You have to wonder why he spent the rest of his life in England. -via Strange Company
Wednesday was #AskACurator day on Twitter. Many museums had people ready to answers questions from the public. But this one started a war!
Who would win in a staff battle between @sciencemuseum and @NHM_London, what exhibits/items would help you be victorious? #askacurator
— Bednarz (@bednarz) September 13, 2017
The Natural History Museum in London fired the first shot.
We have dinosaurs. No contest.
— NaturalHistoryMuseum (@NHM_London) September 13, 2017
The Science Museum, also in London, fired back.
@NHM_London is full of old fossils, but we have robots, a Spitfire and ancient poisons. Boom! #AskACurator https://t.co/lsdOS3HqyO
— Science Museum (@sciencemuseum) September 13, 2017
And then it was on. They both started posting pictures of their exhibits in a game of one-upmanship which only the readers won. The whole thing got quite silly at times, but we saw some amazing exhibits, and both museums ended up looking pretty good. And they have a good sense of humor. See the entire battle here. -via Metafilter
In the early 1800s, several nations set out to explore what we now call the Pacific Northwest, and to take possession of those lands, despite the fact that the area was already populated by natives. In 1846, a line was drawn between the claims of Britain and the claims of the United States along the 49th parallel, except for a small part that followed "the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel.” The could be interpreted in more than one way, and between those two interpretations lay the island of San Juan. The British sent sheep to the island. The Americans sent a tax collector to bill the shepherd, Charles Griffin. The British refused to pay. The Americans sold the sheep for taxes owed.
For the next few years, tensions on the island stayed low, as Griffin oversaw the growth of the farm to close to 4,500 sheep, along with pigs and other animals. But in 1859 American settlers started arriving, intent on setting up their own farms. One brought 20 cattle. These newcomers did not take much stock in Griffin’s presence there. One new farm was located smack in the middle of one of Griffin’s best sheep runs.
Despite their best efforts, the humans on the island had managed to avoid direct conflict, but the animals were less discreet. In summer 1859, one of the pigs from Griffin’s farm discovered a plot of tempting tubers on the farm of American Lyman Cutlar and availed himself of the delights. Cutlar, having fended off this same pig before, could not stand for this theft. He shot the pig.
An argument broke out over the value of the pig, and before you know it, the American Army and the British Navy were facing off at San Juan Island. Read how the conflict played out at Atlas Obscura.
William Reed is a bodybuilder, and he's also colorblind. For his 66th birthday, his family all chipped in and got him a pair of Enchroma glasses that help a colorblind person to see colors. Reed suddenly sees the world as it is for the first time in his life. Yeah, it takes him some time to open the gift, so if you can't wait, skip ahead to 2:00.
His joy is hard to see under the dark glasses …until he starts sniffing. It's a change we can't imagine unless we've been in his shoes. Reed says the colors make everything look 3D, so being able to see colors as others do must make a difference in depth perception, too. -via Digg
Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, are considered as the Dark Knight trilogy. To some Batman fans, they represent the best incarnation of the Caped Crusader. Casual fans might not even think of them as a separate set of movies in the long line of Batman films. Either way, any Batman fan would be interested in knowing some trivia behind the Dark Knight movies. Here's a sample:
14. Christian Bale is the youngest Batman out of the bunch.
You might have thought Keaton or Kilmer were fairly young but they were still older than Bale when they put on the suit.
5. There’s no mention of the Joker in the third film.
It’s as though he’s just simply gone. Fans might have noticed had it not been for an already tense plot and the expectation of Batman’s fall.
Read the rest of the 20 interesting facts about the Dark Knight trilogy at TVOM.
One thing you can say about the movie It, it readily lends itself to puns. We've seen that once already, and now the IT department is involved. In this skit from The Late Late Show with James Corden, Corden is Pennywise, or in this case, It.
Sure, that one joke plays out pretty quickly, but goes in a different direction as Corden takes it upon himself to be helpful. The poor sap that called for IT help doesn't need that kind of freakout. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Have you ever wanted to emulate the look of saggy jeans while also keeping them securely in place? Then maybe the new Natasha Zinko High Waist Double Jeans are for you! They have wide legs, no hem, contrasting side stripes, and two zippers. And they are dry-clean only.
In an age of weird jeans, these are quite simply the weirdest jeans I have ever seen https://t.co/DSypOAr9Mm pic.twitter.com/v48EWBALAS
— Laura Bennett (@lbennett) September 14, 2017
Aren't they adorable? No, they are weird and not at all flattering. But then again, it doesn't matter what you think of the look. They cost $695 and they're sold out, the double whammy of conspicuous consumption, so these jeans are guaranteed to be popular among the trendy set. -via Boing Boing
Our friends at The Annals of Improbable Research have bestowed the annual Ig Nobel Prizes upon deserving scientists who caught our imagination with their fascinating but weird research. The 2017 Ig Nobel Award ceremony has just concluded at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. The winners include a study on whether twins can tell themselves apart, why old men have big ears, and if cats can be both a liquid and a solid. Continue reading for the complete list of winners.
My school took field trips to many factories when I was young. The only two I can recall now are the cheese factory and American Greetings, both because of the smell. The cheese factory turned us all off cheese for a few weeks. American Greetings made scented candles, cinnamon at the time, and the fumes burned our eyes and made our noses run. The workers were used to it. Neither of those experiences compare to a visit to a factory that makes surströmming, or fermented herring.
Great Big Story explains surströmming and how it is made. Aren't you glad to be watching a video instead of taking a field trip to this factory?
Some people are confused, others just want to be difficult. This comic from Megacynics could have ended after the second panel, but they had to get some digs into each other. In case you don't get "it," It is a movie. First base refers to the classic Abbot and Costello bit about baseball players with odd names, best known as "Who's on first?"
Maru the Japanese Scottish fold is ten years old, but he still loves his boxes, no matter what they are made of. His roommate Hana is all grown up, and still taking lessons from Maru. In this video, Maru confronts a see-through box, or what we'd call an aquarium.
We can clearly see that Maru, like all cats, takes the shape of his container, and is therefore liquid. -via Tastefully Offensive
Email This Post to a Friend