If you're expecting wet snow and freezing conditions, it might be a good idea to separate your  wipers from the glass, so you don't damage the rubber when you clean the windshield. In this case, it was a good idea just to identify which car is under all that snow! Redditor rhetstudent is in Erie, Pennsylvania, where they saw 53 inches of snow fall in 48 hours. She posted this picture, and talked about the snow in another thread. 

The mall is closed. The movie theater is closed. My work is closed. Everything is closed. This is super weird because we wouldn't close for the apocalypse.

We spent 2 hours digging out our car and shoveling the driveway and walk. There hasn't been a plow down my street all day because there are way more important streets to deal with.

Yesterday we got stuck on the way home from my boyfriend's dad's. Once we got out we helped other people dig their cars out for two hours.

Oh... and it's snowing again.

That should make you happy about getting only an inch or some very cold wind.

A kitten was born with two faces a couple of weeks ago in South Africa. The scientific term is diprosopus, or craniofacial duplication. It is attributed to abnormal activity of the sonic hedgehog protein. Cats with the condition are known as Janus cats.

Bettie Bee appears to be healthy so far. Since this picture was taken a couple of days ago, her two normal eyes have opened, while the connected eye where the two faces meet has remained mostly shut. Chantal Rushmer of Purrfect Friends Foundation has been feeding Bettie Bee by hand since birth, because she couldn't nurse properly. While she has two functioning mouths, they lead to the same stomach. You can follow Bettie Bee's progress at her Facebook page. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Bettie Bee)

Romantic relationships in Star Wars are rare and doomed to fail. If you are still trying to avoid spoilers for The Last Jedi, stop reading now, and don't watch the video. There's one main romance in each trilogy (so far), and the one we've seen in the new movie most resembles the passionate yet abusive relationship between Anakin and Padme in the prequels. It would have been enjoyable if they had a better actor to play Anakin. The thing between Han and Leia should have been the exception, as they don't represent different sides of the Force, and the fact that they eventually separated is just sad.

(YouTube link)

But this video from ScreenPrism is mainly about the light side and the dark side in The Last Jedi and the sparks that flew. It won't work out, which is the best thing in the long run for Rey. (via Digg)

(Image credit: Airtight Artwork)

Charleston, South Carolina, artist Matt Wilson crafts beautiful bird sculptures out of discarded metal kitchen tools under the business name Airtight Artwork. You can see some of them at Instagram. 

Influenced by natural elements, my art is a reflection of the environment in which I live. Using organic and recycled materials- bone, driftwood, scrap metal, etc, my sculptures depict continuous life cycles that consciously and unconsciously permeate our awareness. The upcycled work I create is a testimony to the belief of conserving and appreciating our resources, so that the environment in which we live will contine to be an environment in which we desire to live. My goal as an artist is to make artwork unlike art people have seen, while at the same time recognizable in the identity of everyday materials. I only hope the sculptures will inspire others to appreciate the simple, neglected items from which my creations are born.

(Image credit: Airtight Artwork)

When Wilson's works are available to buy, they'll be found at his Etsy shop. -via Laughing Squid

The following is an article from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy.

(Image credit: Miguel Soares)

Imagine a shiny screw—just a screw—tumbling through space. Ahead is a man, oblivious, protected only by his spacesuit. He takes a break from his work to admire the view of the blue-green Earth hanging in the blackness of… WHAM!—the screw pierces the man’s leg and shoots out the other side! He screams as the oxygen is sucked from his lungs …and the blood-red screw continues on its way.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

A vast junkyard of potentially lethal projectiles surrounds our planet, and it’s been accumulating since the 1950s. For decades, space programs in the United States, the U.S.S.R., and other nations followed a similar process: Build a satellite, attach it to a rocket, and blast it into space. Once out of Earth’s atmosphere, the satellite separated from the rocket and went into its planned orbit. But what happened to the rocket? No one gave it too much thought; after all, space is big, and rockets are tiny in comparison. And so, too, are the satellites, which had only limited battery life to begin with. So all that equipment floated in space, and there was no plan in place to dispose of it. Occasionally, leftover fuel would build up pressure in an unventilated tank and cause an explosion. When that happened, what was once a rocket transformed into a cloud of floating debris. And as more countries joined the space race, even more rockets and satellites were launched into orbit.

Today, in addition to about 900 operational satellites, there are nearly 2,500 derelict ones up there. The oldest of them is the second satellite the United States ever launched, Vanguard 1, which has been orbiting Earth since March 17, 1958.

You have to wonder what poor Jack did in another life to deserve this kind of punishment. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy! He could be waiting a long time. It seems even worse than when the Pass the Butter robot found out his purpose. This is the latest comic from Jake Like Onions.

The Pulfrich Effect is a way to present a video in both two dimensions and 3D -at the same time. How can they do that in a YouTube video? We don't have the glasses! Tom Scott explains why it only works in a motion picture, because time is actually part of the formula.

(YouTube link)

It's not new, so you may have seen this effect used in movies and never even realized it. The Pulfrich Effect is said to work better with the bigger sizes of video, and at higher resolutions. Try it in full screen mode to get a more pronounced effect. How does it look to you? I have poorer vision in one eye than the other, so I'm seeing some weird effects that are not easy to describe.  -Thanks, Edward!   

The award-winning 2006 Spanish film Pan’s Labyrinth was writer and director Guillermo del Toro's dream project, a fantasy that combined ancient mythology, religion, and politics. The critically-acclaimed movie follows a princess of the underworld who must navigate a maze and complete tasks to return home from the world of humans. If you loved Pan's Labyrinth, you'll want to learn more about it.

7. Stephen King squirmed when he saw the Pale Man.

To Del Toro this was the equivalent of winning an Oscar. Think of it, the master of horror squirming in his seat when he sees a fictional character. That’s when you know your story is good.

3. A lot of parents brought their kids to see this movie.

Eventually theaters had to warn of the graphic violence since this was not really intended as a kids’ film. 

Read more from behind the scenes of Pan's Labyrinth at TVOM.

The winner of the recently-concluded second season of Asia's Got Talent is The Sacred Riana, an Indonesian illusionist. Her magic tricks are fairly standard, but her presentation is quite unique. The best way to describe it is "creepy." It's possible that she won because the judges were just too terrified to give the title to anyone else. You can imagine her crawling out of a TV set in the movie Ringu.  

(YouTube link)

There are four completely different performances in this video, at 00:20, 5:15, 10:30, and 17:10. Riana doesn't reveal much of herself to the judges, but as they get to know her act, they become more apprehensive at what may come. You can see more of The Sacred Riana at Instagram. -via Metafilter

When Steven Spielberg directs Tom Hanks pursuing a con man played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie based on a true story, it's going to be a hit. And the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can was surprisingly funny, besides. The story behind the making of the movie was pretty amazing, too.

1. IT TOOK 22 YEARS FOR THE BOOK TO BE TURNED INTO A MOVIE.

The real Frank Abagnale Jr. published his memoir (co-written by Stan Redding) in 1980, and sold the film rights the same year. (It was Johnny Carson who encouraged him to write a book, by the way.) A decade later, producer Michel Shane optioned the book again, then sold the rights in 1997 to another producer, Paramount's Barry Kemp, who hired Jeff Nathanson to write the script. Finally, in 2001, Kemp, Shane, and Shane's partner Anthony Romano accepted "executive producer" credits so that DreamWorks could bring in its own producer/director: Steven Spielberg. The film was released on Christmas Day 2002.

7. THEY SHOT IN MORE THAN 140 LOCATIONS IN JUST 52 DAYS.

That's an average of almost three locations a day, many of them in and around Los Angeles, but quite a few in New York City and Montreal. And as anyone who's worked on a film set can tell you, even a move of a few blocks is a massive undertaking. Spielberg and his crew worked fast.

Read more about the production of Catch Me If You Can at Mental Floss.

Ken Lamkin of San Antonio, Texas, had a 16-foot-long animated inflatable Christmas decoration on his front lawn. It featured eight reindeer eating at a trough. But at 3 AM on Christmas Eve, a guy came by and took the whole thing! The theft was caught on camera.

"And we ran over and made some black and white pictures and mounted them on some cardboard, and this is what you have: our new Grinch-themed Christmas," he said.

But he didn't stop there. He has a projector that is playing the theft in his front yard.

You can see how the projection is used in this video clip. The altered lawn decor got the attention of the entire neighborhood, with one neighbor posting a picture at reddit. The local TV station did a news report -which aired right after a showing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff was built as a cruise liner in 1937, then repurposed as a hospital ship for the German navy in 1939. In 1945 it was pressed into service for Operation Hannibal, transporting both German military and civilian evacuees from areas where the Red Army was advancing. When the Wilhelm Gustloff left Danzig on January 30, 1945, it was carrying more than 10,000 people. Half of those were children. A Soviet submarine found the ship and launched torpedoes.

The first torpedo which struck Wilhelm Gustloff's bow caused the watertight doors to seal off the bow which contained the crews' quarters where off-duty crew members were sleeping. The second torpedo hit the accommodations for the women’s naval auxiliary located in the ship's drained swimming pool, dislodging the pool tiles at high speed, which caused heavy casualties; only three of the 373 quartered there survived. The third torpedo was a direct hit on the engine room located amidships, disabling all power and communications. Reportedly, only nine lifeboats were able to be lowered; the rest had frozen in their davits and had to be broken free. About 20 minutes after the impact of the torpedoes, Wilhelm Gustloff listed dramatically to port so that the lifeboats lowered on the high Starboard side crashed into the ship's tilting side, destroying many lifeboats and spilling their occupants across the ship's side.[11] The water temperature in the Baltic Sea at that time of year is usually around 4 °C (39 °F); however, this was a particularly cold night, with an air temperature of −18 to −10 °C (0 to 14 °F) and ice floes covering the surface. Many deaths were caused either directly by the torpedoes or by drowning in the onrushing water. Others were crushed in the initial stampede caused by panicked passengers on the stairs and decks. Many others jumped into the icy Baltic. The majority of those who perished succumbed to exposure in the freezing water.[14]   

German forces rescued 996 people, but that left 9,343 dead, including thousands of children. Read about the sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff at Wikipedia, and see plenty of pictures at The Daily Mail. -Thanks, Walter!

(Image credit: German Federal Archives)

The second movie in the third Star Wars trilogy is in theaters now, and the reactions from fans is split between those who love The Last Jedi and those who hate it. The middle movie of a trilogy is a unique position, in that it is free of the exposition of the first film, must provide a bridge to the third installment, and will inevitably be compared critically to the first film no matter what. The comparisons are even more brutal for episode XIII with seven movies coming before. But The Last Jedi has been compared most often to The Empire Strikes Back, which is episode five, the second Star Wars film produced, and the middle of the original trilogy. Now considered by many to be the best movie of the series, when Empire hit theaters in 1980 some fans were not at all happy with it. Starlog magazine printed fan reactions when The Empire Strikes Back was new. As ever, they were quite nitpicky, and are funny in retrospect.

Robert L. Beedy-Scarola:

Is Luke related to Vader? Most think so now that Vader came right out and said it. Well, I say, do you believe everything you hear? Vader may have lied just to enlist Luke to his side. Vader would then dispose of Luke once he got what he wanted.

Jeannette Vogelpohl:

Somebody should tell Harrison Ford that when a woman tells a man, “I love you,” “I know” is not an acceptable response. That scene was not funny, it was infuriating.

Of course, some fans loved the movie. Starlog itself offered a criticism of The Empire Strikes Back. Read more of the fan reactions to Empire and a comparison with what is being said about The Last Jedi (with spoilers) at A Critical Hit.

You might think this is a little morbid, but stick with it. It gets even sadder.

Grandma and her sweet charm foil death again in the end. What's sad is that Jake isn't there with her as he should be. If there's someone in your family who isn't surrounded by loved ones for the holidays, you could at least call them. This Christmas reminder is from Charlie Higson at Heck If I Know Comics. -via Geeks Are Sexy

In the American Midwest, some families follow the old tradition of hanging a Christmas pickle (Weihnachtsgurke) from the tree, hidden deep in the branches. It's often an heirloom glass ornament. On Christmas morning, the first child who finds the pickle gets an extra gift, or is allowed to open the first present, or receives other honor. The Christmas pickle is a tradition their ancestors brought from Germany. Or is it? Germans are often surprised to hear the story.

It seems that Germans don’t do the pickle thing at all. Cole says the pickle is hard to find in places where one would expect it to be ubiquitous (such as the Berlin Christmas market). Within Germany, it’s so puzzling that German newspapers have published articles explaining this tradition that’s supposedly theirs. In fact, a 2016 survey found that 91 percent of Germans had never heard of the Christmas pickle, and only two percent celebrated it. So if it didn’t come from Germany, where did it come from?

There are several plausible explanations for the tradition of the Christmas pickle you can read at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Christbaumschmuck der Firma Inge-Glas)