A car was pulled over in Plattling, Germany, when police officers saw it was being driven by a skeleton! However, the driver was found to be a 23-year-old Brit named Martin Williams.

He told police he'd snapped up the plastic life-size model at a local flea market but strapped it into his front passenger seat because he thought it would be damaged in the boat.

A police spokesman said: 'It was only when we stopped the car that we realised it was a British right hand drive car - and the skeleton was therefore in the passenger seat.

"We could not make any charges against him as it is not illegal to have a plastic skeleton in your car."

http://austriantimes.at/news/Around_the_World/2011-07-29/35269/Ghost_Busted -via Arbroath

First off, it's awesome to have a Princess Leia costume. You know, with the buns and all. But how cool is it to have a Princess Leia costume made of duct tape? Yeah, that's what this is!



Lindsay Boo Barrasse made this out of tons of duct tape. She gives us some details about how it was done:

This past week, Neatorama focused on some big events in our feature articles. Comic-Con in San Diego had the whole internet abuzz! Sites from all over sent us links, but we had our own reporter covering the event. Jill Harness didn't disappoint, either, as she brought back tons of pictures. See the best of them in the post 65 Seriously Great Comic Con Costumes.

We also had The Final Shuttle Mission, which went up on the Spotlight Blog on Wednesday, since we wanted to present all those gorgeous photographs in a larger format. Thanks to Logan Kugler, Steve Pemberton, and Sean Tamblyn for bringing it to us.

Jill also continued her series on Disneyland attractions and their history with Neatorama Facts: Star Tours.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader brought us the story of America's playground in Coney Island: Dreamland by the Sea.

Paper Airplane Producers: Morning Types vs. Evening Types came to us from the Annals of Improbable Research.

And from mental_floss magazine, we got a bunch of interesting stories together in Ten Incredible Perfect Moments in the History of Editing.

Have you seen the new Captain America movie yet? We teamed up with Geeks Are Sexy this week to give away a Captain America Mystery Box! The prizes are not limited to movie swag, but also include stuff from the NeatoShop. The contest is still open. Yes, there are hundreds of entries, but you can't win if you don't enter!

Want more? Be sure to check our Facebook page every day for extra content, contests, discussions, videos, and links you won't find here. Also, our Twitter feed will keep you updated on what's going around the web in real time. And if you have kids getting ready to go back to school, get them something to make them feel special like a lunch box or backpack from the NeatoShop!

Shark Week starts this Sunday! Who's your favorite pop culture shark? I have several, and they're all here in a list of the greatest sharks from movies, TV, and even viral news. I bet you'll see some you'd forgotten about -like SNL's Land Shark.

One of the most classic recurring sketches in Saturday Night Live history, Chevy Chase's Land Shark character was basically a shark who would coerce its victims into opening their doors by pretending to be plumbers, repairmen or, in this clip, a member of Unicef.

Once the unsuspecting people opened their doors, the Land Shark would eat them whole, making a comment on the ridiculousness of the hysteria over sharks after the release of Jaws.

That's my favorite, but there are sharks for every generation in the list at Ranker. Some text NSFW. Link

The movie Cowboys & Aliens opens nationwide today, marking Harrison Ford's 40th credited movie role. In honor of the occasion, the National Post created 40 icons of Ford in his roles (although strangely all appearing to be the same age). Each is linked to an explanation of the role depicted. Link -via Buzzfeed

The August deadline for lifting the debt ceiling is looming. Will the US government default on its loans? Has that ever happened before? Yes it has -in 1979.

In the spring of 1979, Congress was in the midst of a similarly heated debate about raising the debt ceiling, Legislators eventually reached a last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling and (they thought) save the day, but something went wrong. The Treasury didn’t redeem $120 million worth of securities that matured in April and May.

In other words, the U.S. Treasury defaulted on its securities even though Congress settled the debt-ceiling issue. What happened? It’s not totally clear.

Here's the short answer: When all else fails, blame the computers. Read a more thorough explanation at mental_floss. Link

(Funny or Die link)

The Netflix rate hike is "literally the worst thing that has ever happened to white people." Jason Alexander at Funny or Die hopes to raise money to fight this disaster. -via Laughing Squid

Pony is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, and "A" is her student in Japan. They do lessons via Skype. As an exercise, Pony sends "A" strange found photos, and she writes a few sentences about each one. The result is a taste of Japanese humor rendered in intermediate English. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Scott and Tina Robbins called 911 after hearing a crash in the street outside their home in Salem, Indiana. A truck had hit a tree so hard that the vehicle appeared to be wrapped around it. The truck was driven by John Newcomb, a Seymour, Indiana police officer.

"He was sitting on the wall out of the vehicle, holding his head," said Mrs. Robbins. But that wasn't the only thing that stood out to the Robbins, it was the trailer Newcomb was pulling.

"It said DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Seymour Police Department- which made me think he was a police officer," said Mr. Robbins.

Not only a police officer, but according to the Seymour Police Department website, he is the School Resource Officer, responsible for seven schools, acting as a mentor and providing students with a role model. It even states that he conducts lectures on narcotics and alcohol and their effects on driving.

"He's not setting a good example for kids that see this," said Mr. Robbins.

Newcomb said he crashed because a dog in the vehicle distracted him. He was taken to the Washington County Jail. http://www.wave3.com/story/15170315/cop-pulling-dare-trailer-charged-with-dui -via Fark

Jay Koppelman submitted this shot he caught of a blue heeler in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to NatGeo.

Sometimes it seems that there are two completely separate worlds that are in existence: that of the humans and the other, which belongs to the animals. In this photo the humans are definitely unaware of all the interaction that goes on in the animal world just feet away. I wonder what's going through this dog's mind.

It was selected as the Photo of the Day at National Geographic, where you can see a larger version. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/blue-heeler-mexico/?now=2011-07-28-02:01 -Thanks, Marilyn!

(YouTube link)

Remember Mel Gibson's movie The Man Without A Face? This is what that tale of a isolated and introverted man would be about if it were made today, courtesy of Dan De Lorenzo & Ben Stumpf. -via The Daily What

Debbie Ritter at Uneek Doll Designs captures real people in doll form in a way in which anyone would recognize them. Each is hand-painted one at a time, and the selection is incredible! Where else could you get a doll that looks like Percy Shelley or Willie Nelson or Teddy Roosevelt? Pictured here are Thomas Edison, Madeline L'Engle, Jane Goodall, Edgar Allan Poe, Maya Angelou, John Adams, and Eleanor Roosevelt, all available at her Etsy shop. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Previously: Ritter's Susan Boyle Doll.

Yabba dabba do! You can get your very own Fred Flintstone replica automobile for the rock-bottom price of 2,200 Euros. Yes, it's a automobile, with a motor, so you don't have to power it with your two feet. It does have rollers instead of wheels, a cloth top, a wooden bench seat, and environmentally-friendly natural air conditioning. It's not clear whether this vehicle has an odometer, but the Paris owner says it has traveled 80,000 kilometers. Link -via J-Walk Blog

(YouTube link) (Original video source/Nico)

Take a 150-year-old British story, soak it in the culture of cute Japanese anime, and run it through the technology of Vocaloid audio recording and animation software, and you end up with a cartoon production that resembles a Broadway musical! -Thanks, Daniel!

Astronomers have discovered a new source of meteor showers, very likely from a comet, that may be coming to an Earth near you. While explaining why we shouldn't panic at the news, Dr. Phil Plait gives us a great analogy for understanding meteor showers.

If the path of the comet intersects the orbit of the Earth, we plow through that material at the same time every year. Think of it this way: imagine a racetrack, and you are driving around it. Now also imagine a long line of gnats flying across the racetrack. You would drive through that line of bugs at the same point on the racetrack every time, right? OK, replace you with the Earth, the racetrack with the Earth’s orbit, and the bugs with debris shed off a comet. Since the Earth returns to the same point in its orbit every year, if there is cometary debris there, we’ll smack into it at roughly the same calendar day every year.

This loose stuff from the comet burns up in our atmosphere, and we get a meteor shower.

Find out more about the specific new information from the Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance, or CAMS. at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link