Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss tests your knowledge of zombie movies, specifically those that end with ...of the Dead or ...of the Living Dead. You'll see two movie titles; you decide which one was a real movie. I scored about as well as you'd expect by random guesses, because I have no clue. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25913

This shower head has 96 programmable LEDs of various colors to provide a surreal shower-in-the-dark experience. Sounds pretty cool until you realize that this experience will cost you over four grand US. £2,799.00, to be exact. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

The first draft of Star Wars was pretty awful. Mystery Man on Film takes a closer look at the 1974 version in which the young hero is Annikin Starkiller, Luke Skywalker is an elderly general, and Darth Vader is a minor character.

LEIA
Will we make it? Is there any hope? Stay with me... I love you.

Starkiller is slightly shocked at this outburst. The princess starts to cry and clings to him for support.

STARKILLER
No-one is going to die...so stop acting like a child, and start behaving like a queen. What is this silly talk of love? You belong to the people of Aquilae, and my job is to return you to them, nothing more. Now straighten up and get into a lifepod.

She's deeply hurt by his callousness. She breaks away from him and runs down a hallway into a lifepod. He is tired, and angry at the whole incident.

It makes you wonder what difference it would have made if George Lucas had rewritten the prequels a couple more times. Link -via Metafilter

Xenon {wiki} is the heaviest non-radioactive noble gas. It affects your voice like sulphur hexafluoride (previously at Neatorama) and can get you high like nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Don't try this at home; just watch these guys breathe it. Link (embedded YouTube clip)

The musical South Pacific was a Broadway hit and then a blockbuster movie. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental floss will show how much you know about this classic. I was surprised to score 82%, because it's been a long time since I've seen it. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25878

Despite being incarcerated at a federal prison in Kentucky, Jonathan Lee Riches has made it into the Guiness Book of World Records. He was named as the person who has filed the most lawsuit ever. So what did he do next? He filed a lawsuit against the folks at Guinness!

In the injunction filed in Richland, Riches – who acknowledges he is receiving treatment for mental-health problems – said: “The Guinness Book of World Records have no right to publish my work, my legal masterpieces.”

Those include lawsuits against New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, former President George W. Bush, Somali pirates, Britney Spears and Martha Stewart, according to a Wikipedia page dedicated to Riches’ litigious exploits.

He’s also filed lawsuits against Plato, Nostradamus, James Hoffa, “Various Buddhist Monks,” the Lincoln Memorial, the Eiffel Tower and Three Mile Island.

In his latest court filing, Riches wrote about how he sued Black History Month, the president of Iran and butter substitute I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!

Link -via Arbroath

If you are one who is willing to suffer for fashion, you might have a pair or two of the stylish "skinny jeans". If so, you need to know about meralgia paresthetica, or “tingling thigh syndrome.” It feels as if your legs have gone to sleep, or it may cause a burning or tingling sensation. The syndrome is caused by pressure on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.

“The nerve, in some people, is susceptible to compression,” says Dr. John England, a New Orleans neurologist and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The femoral cutaneous nerve, he explains, runs from the outside of the pelvis and through the thigh. “It is a pure sensory nerve — it doesn’t go to muscles or provide strength. Anything that is tight around there could potentially compress the nerve that goes there.”

The situation is exacerbated if you are also wearing high heels. It's almost always a temporary condition. Just remove the jeans and the nerve will regenerate. Link -via Buzzfeed

(YouTube link)
This little guy looks like a cartoon character! He's a Pygmy Jerboa {wiki}, of which there are several species native to Asia. -via Arbroath

Scientists have announced the top ten new species first described in 2008.

On the list are a pea-sized seahorse, caffeine-free coffee and bacteria that live in hairspray. The top 10 new species also include the very tiny (a snake just a slither longer than 4 inches or 104 millimeters), the very long (an insect from Malaysia with an overall length of 22.3 inches or 56.7 centimeters) the very old (a fossilized specimen of the oldest known live-bearing vertebrate) and the very twisted (a snail whose shell twists around four axes). Rounding out this year's list are a palm that flowers itself to death, a ghost slug from Wales and a deep blue damselfish.

Shown is Opisthostoma vermiculum, a tiny land snail that curls on four different axes. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Reuben Clements)

Four pieces of homemade cracker, and you've got this cute and delicious sheep! Design*Sponge has the recipe and instructions. http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/05/bahhh-licious.html -via Unique Daily

David Traver of Anchorage, Alaska won the World Beard Championship on Saturday with his 20.5 inch beard. 300 competitors were in Anchorage for the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships, and about half were competing for the beard award. Traver's beard was dyed several colors and woven into a snowshoe shape.

With his beard stylist, Ledjha Carson, Traver months ago started brainstorming a beard shape that was "out of the box," he said. They considered eagle wings, moose antlers and a sled dog team before settling on the snowshoe. It took Carson 90 minutes to weave it the day of the competition.

"She wanted it right. She was very meticulous," he said. "But my neck is still stiff."

Traver, who is 43 and works as a driver for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, got into facial hair competition locally about 10 years ago with the Mr. Fur Face competition during Fur Rendezvous. After that, he got involved with the South Central Alaska Beard and Moustache Club, which bid to bring the international championships to Anchorage this year -- beating out Liechtenstein. He dedicated his win to his father, David Traver, who died in September

Traver is willing to shave off his award-winning beard to raise money for his favorite charity, Covenant House. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: ACVB / Rebecca Coolidge)

A seven-legged calf was born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado on Thursday.

Veterinarian Lee Meyring delivered the animal and called its condition a birth anomaly.

“I’ve been in practice for 14 years, and I’ve only seen one other calf with a fifth leg,” Meyring said. “And so this one’s definitely the most bizarre I’ve seen. It’s just a twinning process that had an incomplete splitting of the embryo, then the fetus.”

The mother seemed to be OK, Lynn said. The calf lived only 10 minutes, she said. One of the seven legs had two hooves. The calf had two spines but just one head. The veterinarians don’t plan to examine its organs.

They have, however, contacted Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Warning: article contains a picture of the dead calf. Link -via Unique Daily

(image credit: Matt Stensland)

We've featured quite a few science tattoos on Neatorama, but this is one for the books! Do you know what these equations represent? Find out at The Loom. Link

Now that Terminator Salvation is in theaters, Cracked has attempted to create a timeline that explains how the various time-travel plots work. Some things to remember:

1. Time travel in a Terminator movie is like plumbing in a porno: a very loose excuse to get to the action.
2. Anyone expecting accuracy is missing the point (and having much less fun than everyone else).
3. With that said, here is our attempt to construct a sensible time line of the franchise.

Note: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not included in this project. Link -via Digg

Have you ever received a disconnect notice for owing a balance of $0.00? Rich and Alisa got one from Comcast. They're not quite sure how best to resolve the problem. The entire letter is posted at Consumerist. Commenters suggested sending a check for $0.00, or sending a check for a few cents and then demanding a refund. Link -via NYC Educator