Duetto buffo di due gatti {wiki} translates as "humorous duet for two cats". Just try not to giggle as two members of a boys choir perform this number at a concert in Seoul, South Korea. Then compare that to an animated version with two cats. Link (embedded YouTube videos)

After two years of economic blockade, the zoos in Gaza are suffering. Only one has a zebra, but there's something about this zebra that seems, um, un-zebralike.

"It's really a painted donkey," admitted Mahmud Berghat, the director of Marah, when asked about the creature. Making a fake zebra isn't easy—henna didn't work and wood paint was deemed inhumane, so they finally settled on human hair dye. "We cut its hair short and then painted the stripes," Berghat explained behind the closed door of his office.

It did the trick—if not for zoologists, then at least for legions of Gaza schoolchildren who have never seen a real zebra. When I asked him whether anyone had ever caught the ruse, the director admitted that two sharp university students had IDed the counterfeit creature. "But don't tell anyone," he said. "The children love him."

Most zoo animals have to be smuggled in through tunnels, but a zebra was too expensive for the Marah zoo. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Sharon Weinberger)

This anti-burglar mat works just like flypaper! Leave the super sticky mat inside your doorway when you leave or go to bed. If a burglar breaks in, he will be confounded and frustrated. He will probably free himself, but won't be interested in whatever else he thinks you might have in store for him. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course on the other hand that might just make them angry and want to tear up the place a bit, in addition to robbing you.

The anti-burglar mat will be on sale in Japan this fall. Link -via J-walk Blog

This is just as cute as it can be! You can make your own sliceable panda bread with a recipe translated from the original Chinese Japanese and posted at Perfect Pandas. Link -via Everlasting Blort

To celebrate the (temporary) return of the show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" mental_floss is featuring questions from the show in today's Lunchtime Quiz. But these are not ordinary questions; they are questions for which people have actually won a million dollars! So even if you get just one right, you can pat yourself on the back. I scored 67%. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29891

One of the charms of Britain is the array of friendly, locally owned neighborhood pubs and their interesting historic names.

Britain’s colourful pub signs speak volumes about the country’s equally colourful history, as well as depicting folklore, heraldry and social customs. Pubs were never named by accident and each sign invariably has a story behind it. The artwork on Britain’s pub signs is inspired by royalty and nobility, religion and the church, military heroes and battles, occupations and trades, myths and legends, sporting activities and pastimes, along with numerous other sources.

Read some of those stories at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

A sign on Highway 51 in Wisconsin points to exit 185. There are four words on the sign, and three are misspelled. "Exit" was correctly spelled.

David Vieth, director of the bureau of highway operations for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said the mistake was made by Decker Supply Company of Madison, which printed the sign.

The sign for exit 185 on southbound Highway 51 reads “Buisness 51 Rothschield Schofeild.”

Link -via Fark

By Sunday morning, the sign had been replaced. Link

(image credit: Corey Schjoth/Wausau Daily Herald)

(YouTube link)
Simon's Cat tries to catch a fly. From the drawing board of Simon Tofield. -via Metafilter

Previously: Cat Man Do, Let Me In, and TV Dinner.

It's an old trope in comedy that someone commits a sin and God gets their attention with a bolt of lightning. The real life version played out in the woods near Wert, Germany. Jens Gottlieb and his girlfriend Lisa Gruhn were feeling frisky, pulled off the highway, headed into the forest, and stripped naked. A bolt of lightning struck the ground near them! They started running as a torrential downpour began.

They lost their way and were spotted blundering around in the dark by another motorist in a parking space who called police.

Officers who arrived a short while later managed to find the naked and shivering pair and help them into dry clothes and took them home.

Bet they won't do that again. Link -via Buzzfeed

(image credit: Flickr user kainet)

You would be forgiven if you thought this picture was a soap bubble in front of an astronomical picture. This is a picture of a planetary nebula that was overlooked until this month. Astronomers say it is either spherical or column-shaped, in which case the camera is looking down the barrel of the column. Records indicate that the nebula, officially named PN G75.5+1.7 and nicknamed the "Cygnus Bubble", was recorded sixteen years ago during the second Palomar Sky Survey, but was overlooked at the time because it was so faint. Link -Thanks, healthylivinggal83!

(image credit: Travis A. Rector/U of Alaska Anchorage/Heidi Schweiker/NOAO)

37-year old Louise Bawn of Bristol, England was out for a night on the town and had changed her high heels for flats to relieve her aching feet. At home, she realized one shoe was missing from her purse. The £400 pair of Christian Louboutin shoes had been a gift from her husband. Brawn said she would go to any lengths to get the shoe back, and has retraced her steps, handed out flyers, and offered a reward for the safe return of the missing shoe. She has even places a classified ad with a picture of the shoe’s mate.

"When I realised that I had lost my shoe I was devastated, totally inconsolable.

"I've called Louboutin and they don't make that fabric any more, so they're irreplaceable.

"I suppose it's rather like Cinderella, only I've already got my Prince Charming, it's just my shoe that I'm after."

Link -via Arbroath

A later story revealed that Bawn owns over 100 pairs of shoes! Link

(YouTube link)
I thought I was going overboard by painting my kids' furniture weird colors. This guy built a Star Wars AT-AT Imperial Walker for his son to sleep in! The interior is accessible by ladder and by the 'escape hatch". -via Boing Boing

48-year old Viorel Firoiu of Orlea, Romania, admits he was drunk when he tried to cure his constipation by sticking a hammer in his rectum. He went to a hospital where x-rays revealed not one, but two hammerheads inside!

Dr Cristina Bontescu, spokeswoman for the local hospital where he turned up at the emergency unit, said: "He was a bit drunk and said he had been eating cherries that had left him badly constipated. He said he had a few drinks to dull the pain and then came up with the idea of poking a hammerhead up his backside in the hope of sorting out the constipation.

"But the hammerhead got stuck and then he came up with the idea of using a second hammerhead in order to try and get out the first - but then he lost the second one as well."

The hammerheads had to be removed surgically. http://www.austriantimes.at/image/7802/news/Around_the_World/2009-07-22/14921/Heavy_metal_cure_for_constipation

We all love Spongebob Squarepants! Even when he is (or maybe because he is) ridiculously annoying. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test your knowledge of Bikini Bottom trivia. I only scored 50%, but my kids aced it. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29579

John William Finn {wiki} of Pine Valley, California reached the age of 100 on Thursday. He was honored on the occasion by a biography in the Ramona Sentinel newspaper.

John William Finn is our nation’s oldest living recipient of its highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor (MoH). He is also the last surviving MoH recipient who earned his medal on Dec. 7, 1941, the last living recipient of the Navy’s MoH from World War II, and the only MoH recipient having his Navy rating, that of an Aviation Ordinanceman, to ever be awarded the MoH in the history of the United States Navy.

...when the attack came on that first Sunday morning in December, Chief Finn single-handedly mounted a 50-caliber machine gun on a stand on the base’s aircraft parking ramp and began firing on any attacking enemy aircraft that he could bear on.
John’s position was totally exposed to enemy strafing and bombing attacks, but he kept it up for more than two hours while under attack, despite being wounded five times and in severe pain. Fellow sailors implored him to seek medical care for his wounds, but John steadfastly refused to vacate his firing position until he received a direct order to do so from a superior officer.
Twenty pieces of shrapnel were removed from John’s body by the base’s medical staff

Finn was honored by local civic organizations last month. He is spending his birthday as a guest of George W. Bush and his wife in Crawford, Texas. Link -via Fark