Japanese TV is a treasure. In this performance, tambourine master Gonzo shows off his stuff on the variety show Gaki No Tsukai.
This is actually the portion of the show in which the celebrity panel, shown in bellhop garb, is charged with keeping a straight face. The punishment came because they couldn't help but laugh. Gonzo's partner in the act is one of the show's producers. Gonzo went on to perform on the show Asia's Got Talent, where he got a standing ovation. -via reddit
It's been ten years now since Steve Molaro tried the Great Pizza Orientation Test. We covered it on Neatorama, just like every other existing website at the time. When Dominoes began online ordering, you could specify topping on the left half or right half, so he tested the limits of the system and ended up with the famous "None Pizza with Left Beef," no cheese, no sauce, and beef on one side. The pizza became an amusingly sad icon of our modern automated world.
In the near-future, there will be no human interaction necessary when purchasing assembly-line food like Domino’s. There may not be any humans involved at all. “Someday,” Molaro writes, the silently judgmental delivery man “will be a robot with a bad mustache and my life will be perfect.” That reality is closer than you think. At the end of August, Ford announced it was partnering with Domino’s to test pizza delivery in self-driving cars, with customers unlocking warming containers in the vehicle using unique codes.
The good news is that this automation allows for creative freedom unrestrained by social custom. The bad news is, well, creative freedom unrestrained by social custom. Robots don’t judge, or caution, you; they give you the pizza you ask for, even if what you ask for is not, technically, pizza. The man who earlier this year ordered a cheeseburger with no onion, ketchup, mustard, pickles, bun, or beef patty from a McDonald’s automated kiosk — and received, naturally, a single slice of cheese — is a spiritual heir to Molaro, and his “cheeseburger” is the more refined child of None Pizza With Left Beef.
I ordered a cheese. Not sure what I expected. pic.twitter.com/3MxyKHNIw4
— Connagh Hawkins (@coL_Merchant) March 13, 2017
That still beats the person who ordered a burger with no everything, received nothing, but was still charged 99 cents. An article at New York magazine looks at Molaro's experiment, it's influence, and the state of automated food ordering ten years later.
If you make it a habit to watch horror movie through the month of October, it only takes a few years to get tired of watching the same big hits over and over. With home video and streaming services, your choices are wider than ever, so you may as well try something different. But will it be any good? That's where recommendations come in. This is the story of Q: The Winged Serpent (pictured at the top).
The bizarre mind of B-movie master Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, God Told Me To, The Stuff) hatched this tale about the bloodthirsty rampage of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent, after it’s summoned by murderous cultists to roost atop the Chrysler Building in 1982 New York City. Naturally, this perplexes the police (David Carradine and Richard “Shaft” Roundtree, as well as at least one supporting player who goes undercover as a mime), but the best part of Q is Michael Moriarty as a ne’er-do-well jewel thief/wannabe jazz pianist, who stumbles upon the giant creature’s nest and attempts to use that information to his advantage. His bizarrely loosey-goosey performance has no business being in a monster movie, but it fits in perfectly nonetheless, and it’s so much fun to watch that it elevates Q from mere oddity to must-see oddball classic.
Check out a list at io9 full of movies you probably haven't even heard of, but will deliver new horror into your life. If you're into that sort of thing.
People spend over $9 billion on Halloween every year, and a big chunk of that will be for Halloween costumes. Keeping us supplied with scary, funny, creative, sexy, and trendy costumes takes teams of designers busy all year long. But they swing into high gear when a new meme pops up just before Halloween.
3. THEY CAN DESIGN AND PRODUCE A COSTUME IN A MATTER OF DAYS.
A lot of costume interest comes from what’s been making headlines in the fall: Costumers have to be ready to meet that demand. “We’re pretty good at being able to react quickly,” says Pilar Quintana, vice-president of merchandising for Yandy.com. “Something happening in April may not be strong enough to stick around for Halloween.”
Because the mail-order site has in-house models and isn’t beholden to approval from big box vendors, Quintana can design and photograph a costume so it’s available within 72 hours. If it's more elaborate, it can take a little longer: Both Yandy and Weeks had costumes inspired by the Cecil the Lion story that broke in July 2015 (in which a trophy hunter from Minnesota killed an African lion) on their sites in a matter of weeks.
11. DEAD CELEBRITIES MEAN SALES.
It may be morbid, but it’s a reality: The high-profile passing of celebrities, especially close to Halloween, can trigger a surge in sales. “Before Robin Williams died, I couldn’t sell a Mork costume for a dollar,” Weeks says. “After he died, I couldn’t not sell it for less than $100.” This year, designers expect Hugh Hefner to fuel costume ideas—unless something else pops up suddenly to grab their attention. “Last year, when Prince died, that was almost trumped by [presidential debate audience member] Ken Bone,” Berman says. “He became almost more popular than Prince.”
Another thing about selling trendy costumes is that a customer won't want to wear the same costume a year later, so there's another sale coming. Read more secrets from Halloween costume makers at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: MVASCO)
If you could decide how long you want to live, how would you answer? The longer your life is, the more likely you will spend the later years in illness and disability. Would it be worth it to add years on the end, or could we stop the effects of aging and stay young and healthy? This is a two-part video; the first part by Kurzgesagt, the second by C.G.P. Grey, although they could easily work as two videos by two different video producers on two different subjects.
The idea of living a lot longer than we do now opens up some philosophical questions. Would longer lives make us wiser, better community members, or encourage us to take better care of our planet? Or would it lead us to take time for granted? C.G.P. Grey looks at death and the meaning of life.
So what if we could conquer death? would the benefits outweigh the possible consequences? -via Laughing Squid
The Rice House, near Atlanta is up for sale. It covers 36,000 square feet and has eight bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, three kitchens, a private museum, a wine cellar, an indoor shooting range, and commercial-grade elevators. The price has dropped from $17.5 million to $14.7 million, so it definitely a bargain. But none of that is what makes this house stand out from the rest. It's the security features.
The master and guest bedrooms have ballistic doors that can withstand fire from an AK-47 assault rifle. The car vault is large enough to hold 30 vehicles and has an entrance designed to be concealed by a waterfall. Secret doors lead to a 15,000-square-foot bunker in which an embattled owner could conceivably hole up for years, with off-grid power and water drawn from three artesian wells drilled 1,000 feet into the ground. The house had its own security architect who spent two decades designing secure buildings for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Listing materials boast that it is “one of, if not the, safest home in America.”
Oh yeah, and it's never been lived in. While the house is completely constructed, there are some finals details that have yet to be added. You can see the Rice House inside and out at Sotheby's real estate listing. -via Digg
Musician and comedian Erik Helwig (Hot Dad) performs a touching tribute to his beloved cat Jax. First you think, this is silly. It doesn't even rhyme. Then you think, this is a pretty catchy tune. But before you know it, you think, aww, I know how you feel, cats will do that to you.
Over the course of the song you get to know Jax, a cat you've never met. You just might get a little teary. -via Tastefully Offensive
Dark Shadows was a Gothic soap opera that ran on ABC-TV from 1966 to 1971. Its most popular character was Barnabas Collins, a sexy, scary, and very wealthy vampire. The series was a sensation in its time, but by 1970 was starting to run out of steam. A feature film spinoff called House of Dark Shadows was released in September of that year. To promote the film, MGM naturally staged a beauty pageant. Of course they did. It was called the Miss American Vampire Contest. The genius part was that the top prize was a guest spot on the TV show.
Ads were placed in newspapers across the country, targeting girls, 18 to 25, who thought they had the right “vampire looks.” One newspaper story about the promotion, dredged up by the blog Dark Shadows in the Press, said that contestants would be judged by their interpretation of the vampire aesthetic, as well as “charm, poise, stage presence, and videogenic qualities for television.” One TV ad for the competition read, “It’s a contest you can sink your teeth into.”
Leading up to the release of House of Dark Shadows, regional beauty contests were held in a number of cities, from Dallas to Philadelphia to Miami. These prelims produced a handful of finalists, who traveled to Los Angeles to compete for the title on September 10, 1970. One of the judges for the New Jersey regional competition recalls her experience in the book The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection, saying, “It was fun for the first five minutes. After that it got terribly depressing. Some of the girls came in bikinis. Some of them came dressed as witches or vampires or dead bodies. One girl stood in front of me and just stared.”
You might be surprised to find out who won that beauty pageant, and what happened afterward. You can read all about it at Atlas Obscura.
We all have different opinions of human appearance that we are attracted to, and it's a good thing, because humans come in all shapes, sizes, and configurations. It's too bad that some folks, meaning those who have a stake in the results, want to push their particular opinions about attractiveness on everyone. The truth is that appearances are only for initial attraction. Afterward, you have to have something else to back it up. Remember, one of these days you'll have both failing looks and failing eyesight, but you'll still appreciate having a companion who thinks you're the bee's knees. You have to wonder what the King ever saw in the Evil Queen besides what the mirror reflected. If he was hoping to find a good stepmother for Snow White, he failed miserably. However, Suzy and the Magic Mirror might make great lifetime companions. This comic is from John McNamee at Pie Comic.
If you liked reading the roundup of true Halloween horror stories, now you have more true crimes to haunt your dreams. Cracked has a list of strange cases that may be murder or something else entirely, but no one has them figured out yet. In 1986, a truck driver and his wife crashed a load of 5,000 gallons of sulfuric acid while speeding down a mountain in Spain. When the bodies were identified, the truck driver's parents were notified. They asked if their grandson was okay.
It turned out the couple had a 10-year-old son, Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez, who was seen having breakfast with them that very morning. That at least explained the children's clothes, toys, and cassette tapes the authorities had found in the truck, but there was an even bigger problem now: There was no child.
We know what you're thinking. Since there were 5,000 gallons of sulfuric acid involved, maybe the poor kid got dissolved into nothingness? That's what investigators initially thought, but experts determined that this scenario was impossible. At the very least, some bones would have been left behind. So what happened to Juan Pedro? Also, what would compel his father to drive down a steep mountain pass at such a high speed? Hint: It rhymes with "brugs."
The story is more involved, but the child was never found. If he survived the incidennt, he'd be in his 40s now. And that's just one of six cases that get weirder as they go, at Cracked.
While real life is completely improvised, it takes exceptional talent to do it while being a fictional character. The best actors learned the art on their way up and continue to practice. Sometimes this results in pure magic. There are a lot of movies that include at least one scene improvised on the spot, but some rise above and become the one scene that people continually quote for years afterward. The newest ones we learn of is from The Dark Knight.
Heath Ledger owned the character of The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Batman movie. Apparently Ledger, during his last role before he died, immersed himself in the crazed Gotham villain. Ledger improvised several times during the film including the jail scene where he sarcastically claps after Jim Gordon is promoted to Police Commissioner. However, the unscripted scene that truly shows Ledger’s dedication to the film and the character is when The Joker blows up the Gotham Hospital. With his madman makeup and wearing a nurse’s dress, The Joker exits the hospital while blowing it up. Apparently the explosions did not all go off as expected. The expensive scene was to be done in one take. Ledger stayed in character, looks perplexed, shrugs and fiddles with the bomb’s remote control until the explosions continued. That’s dedication to the character.
See five classic film scenes that were completely improvised at TVOM.
Alluding to the human fertilization process as a squadron of Rebel fighters attacking the Death Star may seem silly on paper, but it works in the video The Beginning. Biologists Don Ingber and Charles Reilly at Harvard's Wyss Institute set out to make a hyper-accurate film of how sperm fertilizes an egg. They used real data from research, converted into animation. The purpose was to engage non-scientists, so they framed the process as a Star Wars parody. It was a cheesy idea that turned out to be sublime in the rendering. But even more interesting, the process of animating the sequence uncovered something new about the morphology of sperm.
By combining insights from Hollywood animation studios and empirical data from biology, Ingber and Reilly set out to create a hyper-accurate 3D model of a sperm cell. Their goal was to see whether cinematic storytelling based on data could be a way to engage people who might be turned off by numbers and dry technical papers. As a bonus, their pursuit of engagement through animation resulted in a scientific discovery about how energy is distributed in a sperm cell to make it move.
The short explanation of the energy distribution and how it was discovered is at Motherboard.
The following is an article from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy.
(Image credit: Flickr user Dave)
Good thing it’s pretty in the Sunshine State. At least the view will be nice as you try to outrun all of these dangerous things.
AFRAID OF LIGHTNING?
(Image credit: Flickr user NASA HQ PHOTO)
Then don’t go to Florida. A study conducted from 2004 to 2007 by the American Meteorological Society found that people are more likely to get struck by lightning in Florida than anywhere else in North America. The state averages 35 lightning injuries and seven fatalities per year, and “Lightning Alley,” a hot spot that spans central Florida from Tampa to Titusville, receives an average of 50 strikes per square mile per year. And right in the middle of Lightning Alley: Disney World. Even with lightning rods strategically placed throughout the park, a quick-moving storm in 2003 caught animal handlers by surprise at Disney’s Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction. Before they could move the animals to safety, a lightning bolt killed a 12-foot-tall giraffe named Betsy. Also located in Lightning Alley: Universal Studios, SeaWorld, Daytona Beach, and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where they launch spaceships.
AFRAID OF ALLIGATORS?
Emma Perrier was a 34-year-old French woman living in London who had just broken up with a boyfriend. She went online to meet someone new, and she did. She connected with an Italian man living in England named Ronaldo “Ronnie” Scicluna. Above you see their profile pics. But Ronnie was actually 53-year-old Alan Stanley, who didn't really want to date, but liked meeting women online. His dating profile, and the things he told Perrier, were a complete fraud. Of course, she eventually found out, since he never wanted to meet in real life, even though he didn't live that far away. But who was the man in the profile picture? Perrier used a reverse image search.
“Believe me I was scared to use it for the first time,” Emma said. She uploaded the photograph of Ronnie wearing his leather jacket. The results arrived in seconds: The man in the photographs was a model and actor from Turkey, called Adem Guzel. Emma was confused. She found his model-management website, an official Twitter account, and his Facebook. Adem’s closest connection to the United Kingdom was that he had studied at the Gaiety School of Acting in the nearby Republic of Ireland.
Perrier sent a message to Guzel, warning him that a man was using his publicity shots in a catfishing scheme. Guzel, who was then 35 and managing a hotel after a TV gig fell apart, returned her message. And that's where the story really takes off. The two are now living together in London. You can read the entire story at the Atlantic. -via Uproxx
This Sunday night will be the premiere of The Walking Dead season eight. It will also be the series' 100th episode. To celebrate (and promote) that milestone, producer, director, and effects guy Greg Nicotero teamed up with Michael Broom and John Wheaton to produce a series of The Walking Dead posters in the styles of posters you recall from classic movies.
"We had a really, really good time. I thought it was a great opportunity to celebrate that we've done 100 episodes, by looking at other classic titles and skewing them toward the world of The Walking Dead," he says of the series. "I found an opportunity to celebrate what I love about the show and what I know fans love about the show, too: the community of people who embrace the pop culture aspect of filmmaking and movies. I can't get enough of it. Being a collector of movie posters and props and things like that, it was just another opportunity to live vicariously through these movie posters that I love so much."
There are 17 posters in the series. You can see them all at the Hollywood Reporter. -via io9
