Larrimah is a small town in the Northern Territory at the terminus of the North Australia Railway. How small is it? It had a population of 13 people, including 70-year-old Paddy Moriarty, who spent most of his time drinking beer at the Pink Panther pub.  

Paddy took his place at the bar, filled with bric-a-brac and kitsch Australiana. On any given day, Paddy chatted with regulars and tourists who stopped by to have a drink or a bite to eat, or to get a glimpse of the croc. Some Larrimah residents would describe Paddy himself as an attraction at the pub, spinning yarns from his time on the ranches and greeting arriving tourists with a hearty, “G’day folks, where ya from?”

And so it was on that sweltering day, December 16, 2017, that Paddy sat down to nurse a series of cold XXXX Golds in his koozie — beers, it turned out, that would be his last. Paddy Moriarty and his dog were about to vanish without a trace, kicking off an investigation that would turn the town upside down and spark international media coverage. Initial concern for his wellbeing soon gave way to darker rumors of murder.

In this town — now down to 12 residents — everyone was a possible suspect.

Since no trace of Paddy nor his dog were ever found, the case was considered a murder. The clues were scant, but Paddy's history involved a menagerie with a crocodile, meat pies, a poisoned garden, and roadkill kangaroos. Was it the jealous bartender? Was it the tea house owner who feuded with Paddy for years? Was it the reclusive gardener she depended on for protection? Read the story of the missing man from Larrimah at Medium. -via Damn Interesting

You start to watch this film, and you'll say, "Hey! This isn't stop-motion animation! This is a stunt skiing video!" Well, why not both? The guys are doing their thing in real time, but the environment around them animates to fill their need for speed -and height! It's an experimental film from Swiss filmmaker Sämi Ortlieb and his fun-loving friends. You can read more about this project here. -via Digg

For every film produced by a major Hollywood studio, there are several that didn't get made. Sometimes it's just a rejected idea, sometimes a film lingers in development hell for years, and sometimes the project burns through millions of dollars before being abandoned. We often don't even find out why a movie doesn't get made. But quite a few of these unfinished projects became legends anyway.

2. Superman Lives

The names attached to this would-be Superman movie have made it notorious among film fans. Tim Burton was set to direct, with Nicolas Cage starring as the title hero and Kevin Smith co-writing the script. The project was eventually killed, but not before the studio burned $30 million on it. The most that survives of it today is test footage of Cage in the iconic suit.

16. Sylvester Stallone’s Poe

Prior to his days as an action star, Sylvester Stallone came close to portraying a literary icon. Stallone had planned to write and star in an Edgar Allan Poe biopic—titled Poe—early in his film career. He eventually accepted that he wasn’t the right person to play the macabre writer, but he got far enough to do some costume tests.

Read about many other movies that got off the ground somewhat but never made it into a theater at Mental Floss.

Have you ever thought about taking up cartooning? Or maybe you already do, but would like to expand your horizons. The Center for Carton Studies is offering a free One-Week Cartooning Workout, a free, self-directed course in stretching your creativity and making your cartoons better. The exercises for each day provide structure and tips without judgement or competition. You can even space the days out or spend several days on each exercise, if you prefer. Spoiler: there are actually eight days.

"The awful comic you make is always going to be better than the perfect comic you never make."  -Inky Soloman, CSS Legend

Even if you've never considered making cartoons or comics, this could be a fun way to stretch your brain. And who knows, you might change your mind and take up a new creative outlet!

-via Metafilter

The word "jumbo," meaning big, didn't exist before the elephant named Jumbo. He was a star in his day, although he did not live the kind of life an elephant should. Tufts University has the biography of the world's most famous elephant. Actually, this is more than a biography, because Jumbo had quite a story even after he died.  -via Kottke

Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk had a hard road to the 2020 Olympics. She just missed the medal cutoff in Rio in 2016, suffered an injury in 2017, was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, but fought her way back. In Tokyo, Andrejczyk won the silver medal.

On Wednesday, Andrejczyk posted on her Facebook page that she came across the fundraiser for 8-month-old Miłoszek Małysa, who had a serious heart defect and needed surgery, and she decided to auction off her lone Olympic medal to help raise money for his surgery.

That was last week, and the auction is now over. Read how it turned out at ESPN. -via Nag on the Lake

Get ready for heavy metal harp! Harpist Emily Hopkins got the heaviest distortion pedal she could find, normally for guitars, and used it with her harps. The resulting sound is like an electric guitar, but still different because of the way a harp is played. Hopkins tries different tunes with different settings, producing sounds ranging from rock 'n' roll to summoning demons from the depths of hell. -via reddit

Since 2014, a cat named Horatio has been the face of the Centre County Library & Historical Museum in Bellefonte, Centre Hall, and Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. Horatio is their Caturday star, dressing up as movie characters and literary icons in order to promote the library's books and programs. Horatio's owner, Lisa Shaffer, makes all the costumes that Horatio so patiently wears.



Of course, you will recognize the nod to Carol Burnett's greatest skit ever.



Horatio always looks like he's really enjoying his photo shoots. Bored Panda made a gallery of Horatio's 100 best pictures, or if you have the patience to look through years of them, you can see them all at Instagram.

Even though we never thought about it before, we all already know in our hearts how to recognize the soon-to-be-victim in a movie. It's when Alasdair Beckett-King (previously) puts all the clues together that we realize how easy that determination really is. That said, you may have to watch this short sequence twice to connect the first character with the last character. -via Laughing Squid

The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for 2021 has drawn to a close. Since 1982, the contest has been run by now-retired Professor Scott Rice of San Jose State University, in order to challenge writers and would-be writers to come up with the opening sentence to the world's worst novel. It's a tribute to author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, once a widely-read author, now mostly known for the contest that bears his name. The winners have been announced. The Grand Prize goes to Stu Duval of Auckland, New Zealand.

A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.

David Hynes of Bromma, Sweden, won the Grand Panjamdrum's Special Award.  

Victor Frankenstein admired his masterpiece stretched out on the lab slab; it was almost human, OK, no conscience or social awareness, and not too bright, but a little plastic surgery to hide the scars and bolts, maybe a spray tan and a hairdo, and this guy could run for President!

Read the winners in the categories of Adventure, Children's & Young Adult Literature, Crime & Detective, Dark & Stormy, Fantasy & Horror, Historical Fiction, Purple Prose, Romance, Science Fiction, Vile Puns, Western, and Odious Outliers, plus dishonorable mentions in each, at the contest site.

After hearing the requests for years, Disney is launching the first official Star Wars anime series. Star Wars: Visions is not canon, however. It's an experimental anthology series in which seven Japanese animation studios have free rein to tell nine stories. They range in the Star Wars timeline from before The Phantom Menace to after The Rise of Skywalker.

While purists say you should watch anime in Japanese to catch the inflections of the original voice artists (subtitles are fine), you will also have the option to see the English dub (featuring many well-known Western actors), so here's that trailer.



Star Wars: Visions will begin streaming on Disney+ on September 22. Read a description of each episode at Inverse.

If you're in high school, classes start really early. Redditor 1ew put this map together to show the average start time for high schools in each of the American states. View it full-size here. As you can see, they are going at it awfully early, despite research showing teenagers do not get enough sleep and benefit from later start times at school.

Some of these early start times are because schools share buses, and once the high school students are delivered, they go back and pick up elementary students. Starting earlier also gets high school students out of class earlier for extracurricular activities, jobs, and supervising younger siblings. Whether those are good reasons is up for debate.

My school, back in the day, started at 8:30, and the doors weren't even unlocked until 8:15. We still thought that was too early.

-via Digg

The 2009 movie Coraline is an "animated dark fantasy horror film," while still being cute and whimsical enough for parents to take their children to see it. While some kids were traumatized, those who've read the Neil Gaiman book the movie was based on say it was much darker and more terrifying than the film. I'm not sure where this was originally posted, but Just Sock Thoughts collected the discussion thread for a Facebook post. I have neither read Coraline nor seen the movie, but one part of the discussion jumped out at me.



Now that's what you call a cool literary tidbit! You can read the entire discussion about the difference between the book and the movie at Geeks Are Sexy.

We love to see pictures of cute cats and cute dogs, and when these worlds collide, they are even more adorable. Some dogs hang out with cats, some were raised by cats, and some might even think they are cats. What else would you think, when a dog climbs a cat tree, squeezes into a box, or leaps to feline heights?

See 50 dogs who are expressing their inner cat at Bored Panda.

(Upper image credit: MySoleM8isACat)  

Paul Taylor is crossing Britain on a moped in a quest to raise funds for the Institute of Cancer Research in honor of his friend Alexis Leventis, who died of cancer. What is extraordinary about his tour are the places he is going. To draw attention, Taylor is stopping in as many places with rude names as he can manage.

The expedition will take place in August 2021 and starts in Shitterton in Dorset on the 18th  and winds its way through salubriously named places such as Happy Bottom Nature Reserve, Ass Hill, Crazies Hill, Pishill, The Knob, Titty-Ho, Willey, Butthole Lane, Pensitone, Netherthong, Slack Bottom Road, Bedlam, Crackpot (I think I may have lived there in a past life) , Booze (there too), Pity Me (by this point you really should), Cocksburnspath, Wallyford, Brawl (and many others) before we arrive at the charmingly titled Twatt in the Orkney Isles.

The return journey includes delights such as Dull, Cockermouth and Cow Ark before our final destination , the aptly named Bell End.

Taylor calls the stunt the Moronic Moped Marathon, and hes already raised more than twelve thousand pounds! Read more about it at BBC news. Then check in at Metafilter for a catalog of links to rude place names, in Britain and elsewhere.