Rock 'n' roll guitarists have been smashing guitars onstage since at least 1964, when Pete Townshend of the band The High Numbers got a bit upset and wanted everyone to know about it. The audience was impressed, and he repeated the stunt quite a few more times as the band became known as The Who. After that first time, it was always planned, because guitars are quite expensive. Other musicians followed, impressed by the sheer ballsiness of the gesture.

“I grew up lucky enough to have seen The Who in ’68. I saw Jimi Hendrix twice,” Kiss frontman (and avid guitar-smasher) Paul Stanley told AllMusic in 2016. “The idea of almost ritualistically smashing a guitar is something so cool and touches a nerve in so many people that it seemed like a great way to put a period or to dot the i or cross the t at the end of a show—that this is finite, that this is over, it’s the climax.”

Read why Townshend destroyed his first guitar onstage and how others put their own spin on live destruction, a custom that continues today, at Mental Floss. -via Digg

Raven is now 13 years old, and sort of retired from running trails. But she has led an amazing life. And she tells us about trail life quite poetically.

Celebrating the joys of mountain biking through the eyes of the trail dog, Raven takes us from her driveway memories in BC to the high deserts of Utah, to freshly cut South African trails and back again. We meet some of the feistiest, four-legged trail personalities along the way, who all enjoy the mountain bike world in their own way, just like us humans do, whether it’s hitting jump lines, lapping through the loam, or setting out to build new trail.

They're all good dogs, and the photography is amazing. Don't miss the credits. -via Everlasting Blort

contoh gangguan paling kejam pic.twitter.com/D7b8PeGfvq

— Patengggg (@ftnaziemh) May 2, 2021

Cats love boxes, and they tend to fit themselves inside a cat-sized shape on the floor, even if it's not a box. Cats will even sit inside fake squares. This presents a problem for Muslims. Set a prayer rug out, and the cat will be there. You can see plenty of examples in this Twitter thread.

What to do? The simplest solution has been to get the cat its own prayer rug. These miniature rugs have become rather popular in Malaysia and Indonesia, as you can see from this collection of images.



Now, that's a devout cat! -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Risa Andriana Putri)

The era of Game of Thrones spinoffs will begin in 2022, and we've already got a look at the prequel series House of the Dragon. Above you see a couple of obvious Targaryens, Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen. You can see more images and descriptions of the main characters here. What do these people have to do with Game of Thrones?

Regardless of if Game of Thrones‘ final season left you wanting more or wishing you could go back before any of that happened, HBO is obliging fans with a spin-off show all about House Targaryen, aka our girl Daenerys’ folks. Set a few hundred years before Dany ever laid eyes on Westeros, House of the Dragon presumably follows the events that take place in George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire and Blood, which recounts the history of House Targaryen, including their civil war, often referred to as the “Dance of the Dragons.”

If you'd like some idea how this family history plays out in the books (which may or may not be spoilers for the series), Uproxx has the details.

In 2009, Nadya Suleman achieved a Guinness World Record for multiple births when she had eight babies at once, and they all survived. Two instances of a woman giving birth to nine babies have been recorded, but none of the infants survived. But now a Malian woman has given birth to nine babies by cesarian, and they are all alive. Halima Cisse was told she was carrying seven babies; two more were a surprise.

Doctors in the West African nation had been concerned for her welfare and the chances of the babies' survival - so the government intervened.

After a two-week stay in a hospital in Mali's capital, Bamako, the decision had been made to move Ms Cisse to Morocco on 30 March, Dr Siby said.

After five weeks at the Moroccan clinic, she had given birth by Caesarean section on Tuesday, the minister said.

Cisse has one older daughter, who stayed behind in Mali with her husband. The nontuplets, five girls and four boys, are said to be doing well. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: the Malian Health Ministry)

The Carter Center shared a photograph of former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Roselyn hosting a visit from President Biden and his wife Jill. The initial reaction from everyone who saw it is What's going on here? The Carters look tiny while the Bidens appear to be giants. While the Carters are in their 90s, and people often become smaller with age, that doesn't tell the entire story. Maybe it's the wide-angle lens.

The presidential photo doesn’t have any EXIF data left to indicate exactly which lens was in use when it was taken, but it was obviously a wide-angle model. To say that it was simply “lens distortion” that makes the Carters and Bidens look disproportionate seems inaccurate.

Yes, there are other things going on here. The extreme distortion without obvious facial distortion is a confluence of several factors that are explained at Popular Photography. -via PopSci

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the French Riviera was a popular retreat for the wealthy elite -as it is today. W. Somerset Maugham called it “a sunny place for shady people.” And so that's where Amélie Condemine went to relieve the rich of their cash and jewels. She passed herself off as the Comtesse de Monteil, which gave her access to the finest hotels and resorts, and kept suspicions from her victims at bay. In fact, she operated for twenty years before she was finally arrested in 1908.

After her arrest, the comtesse became something of a folk hero in the media. Newspapers emphasized her pluck and daring, such as when she robbed the same Swiss banker three times. The third time, he awoke and raised the alarm, but she sprinted back to her room, where she pretended to be asleep and was never suspected. On another occasion, in Alexandria, the hotel accused her and an accomplice of theft; the pair fought the accusation in court and won a defamation suit against the hotel. While she was a criminal conning the wealthy, she was also portrayed as a woman of the people. Le Petit Parisien noted that her maid liked and respected her, and that she was a generous tipper.

Read the story of the Queen of Thieves at Atlas Obscura.

We love ranked lists of pop culture, but you always have to look at the source to decide whether one will be worth a look. This list of 100 sitcoms is from Rolling Stone magazine. They go back to the '50s, and aren't limited to American television, nor to broadcast TV, so the list had to be winnowed down from the mountain of shows that make us laugh.  

To choose the 100 greatest sitcoms ever, we first had to decide how to define the term. Sketch comedies were out, from the explicit, like Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show, to the more ambiguous, such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Ditto comedy-drama hybrids that ran around an hour — Freaks and Geeks, say, or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Half-hour dramedies presented a blurrier picture; we took those on a case-by-case basis, applying our own version of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Where Enlightened and The Wonder Years seemed to fall just too far onto the drama side of the line, for example, Atlanta and Better Things had enough comedy to qualify. This list is also composed entirely of English-language comedies, primarily American ones, with a handful of British and Canadian shows making the cut.  

So what's left? An amazing array of sitcoms spanning 70 years and several continents. Sure, you will disagree with their rankings here and there, but you'll probably appreciate that the top 20 are all golden. And you might find some new-to-you shows that you'll want to watch. -via Digg

Marvel initiates the rollout of Phase 4 of the MCU with a megatrailer that focuses on the human side of our favorite Marvel superheroes, which pulls us all in as we emerge from isolation and deprivation with a desire to return to human contact. That emotionally sets us up for an impressive schedule of movies over the next few years that will get us back into theaters. Marvel is making up for lost time. -via Metafilter

Many American know Cinco de Mayo (May 5) as a celebration of Mexico. The date is not Mexico's independence day, but rather a commemoration of the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. As such, it is more of a regional holiday in the state of Puebla. In the US, Cinco de Mayo is often an excuse to dip into stereotypes and chow down on tacos.   

But what America’s Cinco de Mayo misses is the traditional food of Mexico, named to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a recognition given to only one other cuisine (French). And, nachos with refried beans, cheese wiz and jalapenos is nowhere on the list or in the country. Taco Bell has even tried opening up in Mexico but each time has failed, simply because no one will eat there.

What makes traditional Mexican fare worthy of such a distinction? You won’t find cumin soaked ground beef hard shell tacos topped with iceberg and cheddar. But, you will find lamb barbacoa that has been smoked underground in banana leaves or carnitas topped with queso fresco, pickled onions and homemade salsa verde wrapped in a warm homemade corn tortilla that has been ever so lightly heated on a comal. And Puebla, just so happens to be considered by many, including Rick Bayless and Mark Bittman, as the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Therefore, learning about the authentic foods of the region would be an appropriate way to honor the region of Puebla. Smithsonian looks at the origins of three dishes from Puebla: Mole Poblano, Chalupas, and Chiles en Nogada, with links to recipes you can try yourself. Besides, tacos are for any day.

Tom Scott climbs to the top of a wind turbine so that we don't have to. We find out what it looks like inside, what the view is like from the top, how not to fall off, and for the purpose of the video, how to get down safely in an emergency. Now I'm convinced that all hard hats need a pair of googly eyes.

In the 21st century, any studio planning a summer blockbuster is looking to build a franchise. If it’s a hit, there will be sequels down the road. It wasn’t always so. George Lucas did not have nine movies planned out when Star Wars premiered in 1977. Today’s fans have valid criticism about how the final Star Wars trilogy should have been planned better, but that has nothing to do with what happened in the 1970s. And that sort of criticism has affected discussions of the 1985 movie Back to the Future.

Of course the irony in this is that Back to the Future was not planned as a trilogy; this was a “universe” structured around only one story, with its sequels acting as mere expansions on those initial foundations. Even the “cliffhanger” ending of the first movie, with Marty, Doc, and the original Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) piling into a now flying DeLorean to “do something about your kids,” was never meant to be more than a gag.

“We never designed the first Back to the Future to have a sequel,” director Zemeckis confirmed on the 2002 DVD release of Back to the Future Part II. “The flying car at the end was a joke, and it worked as a great joke and a great payoff. Everyone assumed we had this grand design like George Lucas did about Star Wars and had all these sequels. My only hope for Back to the Future ever was that it would make its money back.”

But of course it did, and there were two sequels that only made a trilogy in hindsight. Read how Back to the Future came about and how it ended up with two more movies at Den of Geek. -via Metafilter

Tom was born in 1896, and spent his first two years catching rats and mice in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was a scrappy cat, fighting other cats and generally doing whatever he pleased. Then he decided to join the navy. He wandered aboard the USS Terror and decided that's where he wanted to live.

Tom was immediately adopted by the crew of the Terror, and full enlistment papers were drawn up giving him the rank of rat killer and mascot. The papers were properly filed, and Tom’s life at sea as a member of the United States Navy began.

Following Tom’s service during the Spanish-American War, where he worked alongside other navy cats such as Tom of the USS Maine, the USS Terror returned to northern waters. Tom and the rest of the crew joined the receiving ship Franklin.

From the Franklin, Tom was transferred to the USS Monongahala, which at this time was a ship-rigged sail training ship for the United States Naval Academy. Life on board the ship was made as pleasant as possible for Tom, but as they say, you can take the cat out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the cat.

While Tom discharged his pest control duties well, he did not like taking orders, and eventually became a deserter. Read how he got away from his commanding officer and evaded a search to join another ship at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company  

Tic-tac-toe is a quick but rarely interesting game that usually ends in a draw, unless you are playing someone who is new to the game. That's why it's usually considered a children's game. If you want to memorize the best tic-tac-toe moves, you get that in less than two minutes here. The rest of the video is the theory behind mathematical games. -via Digg

Why would anyone build a church out of cast iron? Believe it or not, in this case, it was because cast iron is not as heavy as the amount of stone needed to create the large building. And a large ornate building was exactly what the Bulgarian Orthodox Church needed to establish a footprint in Istanbul.  

Although it looks like stone, the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church with its richly ornamented façade on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey, is made of iron. It was cast in Vienna, floated down the Danube and across the Black Sea on barges, and bolted together here in Istanbul in 1871. It is possibly the largest prefabricated cast iron structure in the world.

The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church is grand inside as well as outside. And while it may be the largest cast iron church, it's not the only one. See more of the Istanbul church and other cast iron churches at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Michael Kam Barngrover)