Who's your favorite villain- the one we all love to hate? Who's your favorite Christmas villain? Put them together and you've got one weird but unforgettable mashup. We always knew Vader had a heart three sizes too small. Hoodwinked Toys combined Darth Vader and the Grinch for this one-of-a-kind Christmas toy. Yes, it's unique, there was only one, and it's already been sold. They could have sold hundreds if they were mass produced. However, you might be interested in some of their other action figures available, like the chocolate chip Wookiee. Still, I kinda would like to see the Chewie Lou Who, even though I know he doesn't exist.  -via Boing Boing

You're a mean one, Mr. Sith!

The Miss Universe pageant was held Sunday in Israel. Miss India, Harnaaz Sandhu, was crowned the winner. While people debate the very idea of beauty pageants for many reasons, one thing we can agree on is that the most entertaining part of the global pageant is the parade of national costumes. As I see it, they fall into three categories: a nice gown designed to make the contestant look good, an over-the-top Vegas showgirl-style contraption, and a costume that actually tries to convey something about the represented nation. Miss Malta, Jade Cini pictured above, is an example of having to carry a lot of national hardware. Miss Iceland represents the  latter category.

I like the costume worn by Miss Iceland, Elisa Groa Steinþorsdottir. The theme is the volcanoes of Iceland, and that's fairly obvious without her having to carry an extraneous structure. In addition to these categories, which sometimes blended into each other, the pageant saw some specific political messages from Miss Ireland and Miss Finland. Miss France channeled Josephine Baker in her costume. There were a few costumes that actually approximated historic dress from their nation's past. And of course, some that make you wonder what they were thinking. See a gallery of all 69 national costumes from the Miss Universe pageant at Buzzfeed.

Gingerbread is a confection that uses the classic "pumpkin spice" spices. But gingerbread men and gingerbread houses are a Christmas thing. The more you look, the more Christmas traditions you find, many of them having nothing at all to do with the birth of Christ or Santa Claus or even the solstice. It's like we threw all possible traditions in a bucket and eventually got rid of the ones we didn't like.

Long-time Neatoramanauts know about this one, as we posted the movie for your viewing pleasure in 2012. So what's the deal with a white Christmas, wrapping paper, and the Rockefeller Christmas tree? Cracked titled their latest pictofacts article 13 Unexpected Origins of Christmas Traditions, but many of them are just weird facts about the customs that surround Christmas. You'll learn something either way.

Don't you just hate when fans try to one-up each other? They call it gatekeeping. You can't be a real fan unless you know as much about Star Wars (or any other fandom) as I do! It's not a competition; it's supposed to be something we can enjoy. Yeah, this can apply to any fandom, but Star Wars is notorious for having way too many fans that not only hate other fans, but hate Star Wars itself.

This skit starts out angering us for just that. Rowan considers himself a knowledgeable and therefore "real" Star Wars fan, and he wants Ellie to admit she isn't a "real" fan because she can't possibly know what she needs to know everything about Star Wars. Then it's funny, because it's carried to a ridiculous degree. Then there's a twist. You don't want to miss it, in this skit from Viva La Dirt League. I know there's an old adage that applies here; probably several of them. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Mel Brooks was born in 1926, the same year as Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth. After serving in World War II, Brooks worked as a standup comedian, then a comedy writer for radio, Broadway, TV, and movies. He produced, directed, wrote, and/or acted in a series of films we will never forget, including The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs. He released a memoir this year, titled All About Me. Brooks revealed one of his secrets to success in an interview at The New Yorker.

I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out”… You say yes, and you never do it.

Kottke has an overview of the recent coverage of Mel Brooks' life and career that's really worth a look.

Wherever there is snow, there are snowball fights. They may be widely separated by time and distance, but when the snow blankets the ground, people want to play with it. Even a child with no elders instructing them will figure out that snow can be molded into a relatively soft ball for a short time, just perfect for throwing at someone.

Snowball fights are fun enough to be the subject of art, beginning around 1400 AD. These early artworks used snowball fights to depict the month of December or January in calendars, called The Book of Hours at the time. Snowball fights have also been used for comedy and political cartoons, and even to illustrate real fights that had some importance. See a gallery of 47 snowball fights depicted in art from all over the world (except the tropics) at The Public Domain review. You'll also get anecdotes about some of the more important snowball fights in history.  -via Nag on the Lake  

Years ago, my sister and mom started an “ugly ornament” exchange each Xmas, where they’d try to find the ugliest ornaments they could and give one to each other. It’s been hysterical to see what they come up with each year. I present to you a thread... starting with a TV Dinner. pic.twitter.com/UuV2O5sqmJ

— Julia Mordaunt (@juliamordaunt) December 11, 2020

Every family that celebrates Christmas puts their own spin on the usual traditions, or else starts their own. Years later, these an be cherished family memories, even when they are ridiculous. Julia Mordaunt tells us how her family's ugly ornament exchange got started.

And this is why I love my family so much! I highly recommend the tradition ! It brings our family a ton of laughs each year (like cry laughing) and lots of joy each year. Smoking pot helps too. And the fact that they keep them on their trees each year is amazing. Happy holidays!

— Julia Mordaunt (@juliamordaunt) December 12, 2020

If you look hard enough, you'll find that anything and everything can be made into a Christmas tree ornament. A zebra in a fancy skirt. A hippo wearing high heels. Over the years, these ornaments grew into collections for both the mother and the sister. Putting up the tree is a source of giggles for each ornament unpacked. And you can bet it's a real conversation-starter when guests come over. See all the ornaments in a ranked gallery at Bored Panda. You might even like some of them.  

William Clause and his wife Henrietta had a son in 1888. William had a sense of humor, so he named his son Santa. We have proof. Santa Clause lived in Saline County, Missouri, and worked as a plumber and a minister at the Church of God. He and his wife eventually had nine children, none of them named Santa.

Being a good man and the victim of nominative determinism, Clause spent at least a month every year writing letters, answering the mail that came to Santa Claus from good little boys and girls. He kept this up throughout his life, even when the postage bill meant hardship. Church and community members donated funds to help Clause keep the letters coming, as you can read about in a 1939 writeup in the Great Falls Tribune, in which they omitted the "e" in his last name. That was also the year that Clause decided to give up his clean-shaven look for the season and grow a beard so he could be a real Santa Claus for the children.

You can read about other men who filled Santa's boots at Find-a-Grave. -Thanks, WTM!  

In the past few days, reddit has seen a slew of images posted of meals from various institutions in an attempt to one-up each other either as to how wonderful they are (school lunches in Asian countries) or how awful they are (US military meals). Redditor blackthorn3111 appears to have taken the prize when he posted this pitcher picture with the title "I see your dinner and raise you a jug of water from the tap on USS Nimitz."

This seems a bit alarming, as the USS Nimitz is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. But there's a perfectly logical explanation. Redditor nanan00's comment rose to the top.  

Someone put a bottle of fluorescent dye for leak detection in the water.

This stuff is safe to drink but will make you pee neon green for a day or two... We use it for hydro testing pressure vessels and I have seen it used to test water lines.

That changed everything. Suddenly everyone wants a drink. There are plenty of resources on the web for fluorescent dye for leak detection, but if you plan to dye your water, you better make sure it is formulated for drinking water systems instead of, say, automotive or industrial use.

If you are going to study science at a university, sooner or later you will be assigned to clean out an old laboratory. That's what happened to archaeologist Tyler Murchie at McMaster University. A freezer he cleared out had soil samples taken from the Canadian permafrost around ten years ago that had never been analyzed. Murchie was looking for a new project, and became the lead author on the DNA findings in the soil samples.  

It was thought that woolly mammoths in Canada had died out around 13,000 years ago. But the frozen soil samples contained both plant matter that was carbon-dated to around 5,000 years ago and animal DNA, including that of woolly mammoths. That puts mammoths in Canada 8,000 years later than previously known. The samples also contain DNA from ancient horses and steppe bison. Read more about the findings at Smithsonian, or the science paper in the journal Nature Communications.

The Nobel banquet (Nobelfesten) is held annually on December 10 at Stockholm's City Hall. It is surely the most prestigious dinner party in the world, with toasts, speeches, entertainment, and three courses of food delivered with much fanfare to Swedish royalty and Nobel laureates. Both the 2020 and 2021 Nobel banquets were postponed due to COVID-19, and we hope that the Nobel Prize winners who missed out will be invited to future banquets.

A tradition began with the first Nobel banquet in 1901 of serving ice cream as the third course. Over time, the presentation of the dessert accompanied by sparklers became a tradition. Distinguished scientists from all over the world fondly recall the thrill of being served glace Nobel. In 1999, the ice cream tradition came to an end when the Nobel committee decided to let chefs expand the dessert menu. However, the dessert course is still presented by a parade of servers under the light of sparklers. More than 20 years later, ice cream is still associated with the Nobel Prizes, and Stockholm restaurants, including one in the basement of City Hall, serve glace Nobel.

But if you can't get to Stockholm, Atlas Obscura has a recipe so that you can make a version of Nobel ice cream in your own home.

Journalist and anchorman Brian Williams signed off for the final time last night after 28 years with NBC. You can see his farewell from last night's episode of The 11th Hour on MSNBC. We wish him the best in his retirement.

Over the years, Jimmy Fallon's crew at The Tonight Show has had at lot of fun with Williams' news footage, editing him word by word into popular rap songs (you might remember a few of these from years ago). Williams' particular delivery lends itself well to these projects. In honor of Williams' retirement, here's a compilation of seven of these edits. In my opinion, the best is "Bust a Move" by Young MC, which occurs about halfway through this video. Alex's favorite rap song, "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot is in there, too. But the others are glorious as well. This is technically SFW because the naughty words are bleeped. -via Digg

There are so many traditions surrounding the Christmas holiday that it's sometimes hard to keep up. My kids would regularly bemoan that I "forgot" some tradition that turned out to be just something I did last year on a whim. To them, anything done at Christmas was tradition. When you factor in the many countries that celebrate Christmas over a thousand years or so, you'll find that not all Christmas traditions were fun, festive, or philanthropic. Some that we've managed to drop were malicious, dangerous, or downright disgusting. For example, in the Middle Ages, wealthy folks would show off by serving a peacock for Christmas dinner.

“The colorful, plumed bird was often baked into a pie, or roasted with its head and tail still intact. Adding to the flamboyant display, the peacock’s feathers were reattached (or the skinned bird was placed back inside its intact skin), and its tail feathers were fully fanned out. Peacocks likely looked impressive on a banquet table, but the meat reportedly tasted terrible.”

Conspicuous consumption wasn't always pleasant. Read more about the peacocks and five other Christmas customs that we'd just as soon stay away from at Mental Floss.  -via Strange Company

Is there anything sadder than a T-rex in a Christmas sweater? Look at those tiny little arms; he can't take it off! But he doesn't seem to mind. The Natural History Museum in London dressed their animatronic T-rex in a jumbo size Christmas sweater, custom made of all recycled materials, meaning previously-used yarn and plastic bottles. Because you know the dinosaur species cared about the environment as much as they cared about Christmas. It's even got a turtleneck to keep him extra warm. Let's take a look at how the museum staff managed to dress this thing.   



The unique sweater design features four dinosaurs in festive green: T-rex, triceratops, stegosaurus, and diplodocus, walking among Christmas trees and snowflakes. You can buy the sweater from the museum's gift shop. Proceeds go to support the museum. They only have human sizes, however, so you'll have to knit one yourself to keep your own T-rex warm this winter.

Airlines fly over the North Pole all the time. I once flew to Hong Kong by going over the Arctic Circle, which looks really weird on a mercator map. But there are no commercial airline flights that go over the South Pole. Half as Interesting explains why.  

Note: this is about commercial airlines flying over the South Pole. Yes, Antarctica has airports, but you can't expect them to have mechanics and parts for your Airbus, much less accommodations for passengers. If you are a scientist at McMurdo and need to go to the South Pole, you will probably be taking a military plane. If you ask me, that's beats a dogsled any day. This video is only five minutes long; the rest is an ad. -via Digg