Darren Bryant scanned a catalog called Stromberg's Chicks & Pets Unlimited 1972, from which you could order chickens, dogs, skunks, raccoons, monkeys, anteaters, chinchillas, minks, owls, and even an ocelot! The pages are in a photoset at Flickr. Note that when you order a monkey, the clothing worn in the photograph is not included. Link -Thanks, Darren!
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Darren Bryant scanned a catalog called Stromberg's Chicks & Pets Unlimited 1972, from which you could order chickens, dogs, skunks, raccoons, monkeys, anteaters, chinchillas, minks, owls, and even an ocelot! The pages are in a photoset at Flickr. Note that when you order a monkey, the clothing worn in the photograph is not included. Link -Thanks, Darren!
Clinton N. Godlesky noticed that you can get souvenirs from every state, but those souvenirs are not necessarily made in that state -or even in the US! So he started collecting earth from states that he traveled through, and has samples from 34 states. If you have a hankering for a piece of Alabama or Oklahoma or Wyoming, it can be yours, for $1.99 for just a couple of teaspoons or more for larger size containers. You can even get a quarter representing that state added to your souvenir! This is one of those "why didn't I think of that?" ideas. http://www.statedirt.com/index.php -Thanks, Stratoblogster!
Look at this awesome Speed Racer Mach 5! It's authentic down to the last detail, but this is no cartoon, it's a full-size licensed replica from custom car wizard Mark Towle.
Our Speed Racer Mach 5 has it all, from the rotating front saw blades and push button chrome steering wheel to the custom M5 logo and red leather interior. Our Mach 5 is built for SHOW & GO implementing a California RUST FREE CORVETTE C-4 chassis to provide sports enthusiasts with the proformance, and handling only an American Made Corvette can deliver.
Oh yeah, you can buy it! Link
It's time for another Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! Fill in the empty speech bubble and win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Good luck!
Update: Congratulations go out to Kay Truman, who filled in the bubble with "Okay, so this wasn't the best way to find my contact..." She wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!
This pink-eyed katydid lives in the forest canopy in Papua New Guinea. It is one of the over 200 new species discovered by the Conservation International expedition to the Muller Range mountains last year. See more of the new species of frogs, ants, spiders, mammals, and plants, and videos of the expedition at Conservation International. http://www.conservation.org/explore/asia-pacific/png/muller_range/pages/muller_range_png.aspx -Thanks, Lindsay Walter-Cox!
(Image credit: © Piotr Naskrecki/iLCP)
PIUS II
Before becoming the Vatican's top dog in 1458, Pius "the coolest-pope-in-history" II was an adventurer who traveled abroad on spy missions for the papacy, a smooth-talking diplomat, and a prolific writer. (Think of him as a kind of medieval James Bond with a slightly different collar.) His Eurialus and Lucretia is still read today, partly because it's an excellent example of the epistolary novel, but mostly because it was written by a man who became pope-and it's dirty! Full of erotic imagery and surprisingly funny, it's comprised of salacious love letters between Lucretia (a married woman) and Euralialus, servant to the Duke of Austria.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
One of America's greats, Joyce Carol Oates, has become synonymous with high-falutin' literature. So what's a writer oft-nominated for the Nobel Prize doing with pulpy romance novels like Soul/Mate and The Stolen Heart on her resume? She never meant them to be: Written under pseudonyms "Rosamond Smith" (a feminization of Raymond Smith, her husband's name) and "Lauren Kelly," respectively, Oates was surprised and disappointed when her cover was blown by an anonymous source in 1987.
BENITO MUSSOLINI
If you're hoping for a heaving bosom or two, Benito Mussolini's The Cardinal's Mistress, serialized in a socialist newspaper long before he was an iron-fisted fascist leader, is bound to disappoint. While filled with purple prose, there's not a lot of action between the sheets. The story, about a cardinal's unhappy affair with a doomed woman, is mostly a soapbox for its author's anticlerical ranting. Sorry, Duce-propaganda makes terrible beach reading.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
In between all his Kurd-gassing, Kuwait-invading, and dissident-murdering, Iraq's own Great Dictator somehow found the energy to pen Zabiba and the King. Published anonymously after the first Gulf War, the book's authorship by Saddam was revealed by a Saudi newspaper in 2001. But was its provenance really a mystery? Not only was there zero criticism of the novel upon its release (the Iraqi press called it an "innovation in the history of novels"), the book's thinly-veiled allegories were a total giveaway: A kindly leader (Saddam) loves a beautiful commoner (the Iraqi people) who is raped by her cruel husband (the United States).
LYNNE CHENEY
Just another breathy melodrama when it was published in 1981, Sisters sold poorly and was soon out of print. So why are paperback copies selling on the internet today for $300? Because Sisters makes its author [former] second lady of the United States and vocal gay marriage ban advocate Lynne Cheney look like a big fat hypocrite. It's a lesbian romance set in the Old West that features lots of romance and sex-both in and out of wedlock-and promotes contraceptive use for women who want to remain "free". Asked to comment on Sisters by the New York Times, Cheney said "I don't remember the plot." Apparently, gay marriage is even more controversial now than it was in 1981.
Don't forget to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!
Before becoming the Vatican's top dog in 1458, Pius "the coolest-pope-in-history" II was an adventurer who traveled abroad on spy missions for the papacy, a smooth-talking diplomat, and a prolific writer. (Think of him as a kind of medieval James Bond with a slightly different collar.) His Eurialus and Lucretia is still read today, partly because it's an excellent example of the epistolary novel, but mostly because it was written by a man who became pope-and it's dirty! Full of erotic imagery and surprisingly funny, it's comprised of salacious love letters between Lucretia (a married woman) and Euralialus, servant to the Duke of Austria.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
One of America's greats, Joyce Carol Oates, has become synonymous with high-falutin' literature. So what's a writer oft-nominated for the Nobel Prize doing with pulpy romance novels like Soul/Mate and The Stolen Heart on her resume? She never meant them to be: Written under pseudonyms "Rosamond Smith" (a feminization of Raymond Smith, her husband's name) and "Lauren Kelly," respectively, Oates was surprised and disappointed when her cover was blown by an anonymous source in 1987.
BENITO MUSSOLINI
If you're hoping for a heaving bosom or two, Benito Mussolini's The Cardinal's Mistress, serialized in a socialist newspaper long before he was an iron-fisted fascist leader, is bound to disappoint. While filled with purple prose, there's not a lot of action between the sheets. The story, about a cardinal's unhappy affair with a doomed woman, is mostly a soapbox for its author's anticlerical ranting. Sorry, Duce-propaganda makes terrible beach reading.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
In between all his Kurd-gassing, Kuwait-invading, and dissident-murdering, Iraq's own Great Dictator somehow found the energy to pen Zabiba and the King. Published anonymously after the first Gulf War, the book's authorship by Saddam was revealed by a Saudi newspaper in 2001. But was its provenance really a mystery? Not only was there zero criticism of the novel upon its release (the Iraqi press called it an "innovation in the history of novels"), the book's thinly-veiled allegories were a total giveaway: A kindly leader (Saddam) loves a beautiful commoner (the Iraqi people) who is raped by her cruel husband (the United States).
LYNNE CHENEY
Just another breathy melodrama when it was published in 1981, Sisters sold poorly and was soon out of print. So why are paperback copies selling on the internet today for $300? Because Sisters makes its author [former] second lady of the United States and vocal gay marriage ban advocate Lynne Cheney look like a big fat hypocrite. It's a lesbian romance set in the Old West that features lots of romance and sex-both in and out of wedlock-and promotes contraceptive use for women who want to remain "free". Asked to comment on Sisters by the New York Times, Cheney said "I don't remember the plot." Apparently, gay marriage is even more controversial now than it was in 1981.
_____________________
From mental_floss' book Scatterbrained, published in Neatorama with permission.Don't forget to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!
You might remember how Randall Munroe of xkcd created a map of the internet in 2007. A lot of things have changed since then, so he made a completely new map to reflect the state of online communities today. Just a portion of the map is shown here. Go to xkcd and enlarge the map, and you'll find Neatorama in the inset of the Blogosphere area (in the Sea of Opinions), a tiny island off the coast near Deadspin and Lifehacker. Look around, and you'll see plenty of cleverness, such as Facebook's privacy controls isolated in a pool of lava, and a meteor crater where Craiglist's adult services used to be. Link -via Metafilter
Update 10/6/10 by Alex: Woohoo! Randall knows we're alive - Neatorama made it to this year's map, right alongside Boing Boing, Lifehacker, and Deadspin:
Hardcore homemade robots will go head-to-head in a fight to the finish at Combots Cup V, the annual championship for combat robots. On October 23rd and 24th in San Mateo, California, robots from one to 220 pounds will compete for a total of $3500 in prize money and champion bragging rights!
SEE heavyweight fighting robot behemoths like Last Rites and Sewer Snake wipe the walls with each other inside our custom built bulletproof arena!
THRILL to all the good parts of a NASCAR crash without all that pesky danger to human life! All the excitement of monster trucks, but up close and extremely personal!
FLAME THROWERS! SPINNING BLADES OF DOOM! HYPER-PSI STEEL FLIPPERS OF NASTINESS!
Also, it's educational for the kids, but you don't have to tell them that. You'll also be able to speak with the people who design and build the robots -and you have a combat robot, you'll want to enter! http://www.suicidebots.com/2010/10/05/combots-cup-v-looms-fighting-robots-live/ -Thanks, Simone!
(Image courtesy of Combots.net)
(YouTube link)
This clever stop-motion ad for Moleskine notebooks promotes their anniversary line of Pac-Man notebooks. Link -via The Daily What
Alton Towers is a popular theme park in Staffordshire, England. The resort recently opened a thrill ride called the Carnival of Screams, featuring "killer clowns" that reach for visitors. However, the new attraction is touching a sore spot with clowns, who are protesting at the park's gates.
The Carnival of Screams will only be open from October 16 through the 31st. Link -via Arbroath
One protestor, Fips the Clown, said: ”We are protesting because we feel the Alton Towers Resort’s new horror maze, Carnival of Screams, is an unfair depiction of clowns.
”It only serves to reinforce stereotypes of clowns as evil.
”I can’t believe this – it has taken us years to get over Stephen King’s ‘IT’ and now this just adds to further damage the reputation of clowns worldwide.
”This will do for clowns what Jaws did for sharks.”
The Carnival of Screams will only be open from October 16 through the 31st. Link -via Arbroath
Americans know that you are supposed to tip a waiter at a full-service restaurant 15-20% for good service. There is no obligation to tip at all unless the restaurant makes it mandatory, as they sometimes do for large groups. However, in the US, food servers are often paid below the minimum wages as tips are expected to make up the difference. What about outside the full-service restaurant? How much should you tip at bars or buffets or take out windows? This article at mintlife spells those out for you.
Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Dave Dugdale)
Whenever I go through the takeout dance with a host (she retrieves my food, I pay—inevitably with a credit card—and my eyes scan down to that darned gratuity line), I feel anxious. Am I rude if I don’t tip? A sucker if I do? What’s the proper percentage? (Surely not the full 15% to 20%.)
“I’ll leave a couple of dollars, maybe more if it’s a larger order and required more work by the host,” says Heather Chang, a former hostess at a San Diego gourmet pizza restaurant. What constitutes more work? “Things the host would’ve helped put together, like a salad or something that required fancy packaging.” If this turns out to be the case, 10% is plenty.
Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Dave Dugdale)
(YouTube link)
YouTube user lizardgirl797 raised a litter of nine baby skunks. This one, named Goober, was her favorite. -via Metafilter, where you can find more skunk video links.
It's a classic but tragic mistake. Irmgard Holm of Phoenix, Arizona has several eye drop medications because of cataract surgery, but what she grabbed was a bottle of superglue.
Her case is not as rare as one would hope.
Link -via Breakfast Links
"The bottles are identical and I am not young anymore, but I am not senile," says Holm.
She tried washing the adhesive out, but the quick-drying glue did its job and sealed her eye shut. Paramedics and hospital staff had to get it open and wash out her eye before major damage was done.
"They had to cut off the glue substance and it was all hard and in the eye, and I couldn't even see."
Her case is not as rare as one would hope.
The Food and Drug Administration will interview Holm later this week, and she hopes her case and the others will put pressure on glue makers to change their bottles' shape and size.
Link -via Breakfast Links
The Nobel Prize committee has announced the 2010 Nobel Prize laureates for Physics. The honor will be shared by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene". However, this is not the first physics prize for Andre Geim.
You can see a video of the levitating frog at Improbable Research. Link
Congratulations to Andre Geim, new Nobel Prize winner in physics. He becomes the first to win, as an individual, both a Nobel Prize (this year, together with Konstantin Novoselov, for experiments with the substance graphene) and an Ig Nobel Prize (in the year 2000, shared with Sir Michael Berry, for using magnets to levitate a frog).
You can see a video of the levitating frog at Improbable Research. Link
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