Miss Cellania's Blog Posts

Soap for Real People

You don't need soap that smells like eucalyptus, goat's milk, or even roses. Soap gets you clean, and maybe gets a laugh from someone who gets a flavor from the Whiskey River Soap Company. Check out the description of their new Grammar Police Soap.

Just wanted to shoot a quick message to let you know how impressed we all are that you finally figured out the difference between your and you're, thanks to Facebook trolls. True, it was something the rest of us learned in first grade, but what the hell. Welcome to the club, smarty pants. But as a club member, you now have to quit whining about everyone else's grammatical errors. Trust me, you're still making some.

They also note that it actually smells like a jelly donut. That's different. But there are plenty of other flavors, like soap for First World Problems, Frenemies, #Blessed People, Awkward Moments, Crazy Exes, Ceepy Uncles, and more.


An Honest Trailer for The Mummy (2017)

You may have completely missed the remake of The Mummy that came out earlier this year. I certainly did, or even if I'd heard about it, I've already forgotton it.

(YouTube link)

So it was a horror film starring Tom Cruise that people expected to resemble the 1999 Brendon Fraser movie. No wonder Screen Junkies had plenty to say about it in this Honest Trailer.


When Europeans Killed Others to Kill Themselves

Once upon a time in Denmark, some people wanted to commit suicide, so they murdered someone. They did the deed knowing that they would pay for their crime by execution. No, that doesn't make sense at all to us. People today tend to think of murder as a greater crime than suicide, although both are tragic, and a scheme to put them together is akin to double murder. But around the 18th century, it was a rational way to avoid eternal damnation, if you took the Lutheran church's teachings literally. The "loophole" went like this:

At the time, a common religious belief held that “if you took your life, you had absolutely no chance of going to heaven,” says Jeffrey Watt, a history professor at the University of Mississippi. But if you killed someone else, you could repent before the execution and have your sins pardoned, he adds, shedding light on the murderous intent. Essentially, you’d have a better shot at getting past the pearly gates if you killed someone else rather than yourself. And children were the preferred victims because they were more easily dispatched, and because folks believed that their young, innocent souls were more likely to make it to heaven, Watt explains.

Horrifying. The government of Denmark was on to these suicide-murders, but took some time and wrong turns to figure out how to stop them. Read about suicide-murders at Ozy. 


Hurricane Warnings in ASL

The right person for the right job is exceedingly important in times of crisis. Florida governor Rick Scott's press conference warning citizens about Hurricane Irma included a CDI (certified deaf interpreter) who "stole the show," according to many stories on the web. He may look funny, but every facial expressions adds meaning and nuance to the signs he makes with his hands.

(YouTube link)  

Contrast this event with a Manatee County press conference in which the ASL interpreter was not a trained professional. Jane Smith added captions to show us what words ASL speakers would see.

(YouTube link)

How did this happen? According to the Bradenton Herald, the man is not an interpreter, but has a deaf brother, so he knows a little ASL. He works for the county as a marine rescuer, and was drafted by the county to do the press conference, under protest. He's just doing the best he could. Imagine how difficult it would be to listen to one language and speak another language at the same time, even if you were fluent in both, without the proper training and practice. Certified interpreters are not only crucial, but under appreciated.-via Boing Boing


The Closest Address Twins

Address twins are two houses, or businesses, that have the exact same street address. Of course, most address twins are in different towns, but not always. The older a city is, the more likely there is some weird history which can lead to more than one street having the same name.

Paul Plowman admits he has a "bizarre interest in all things address-based," and he became interested in finding out which address twins were closest to each other. He used the resources that were available, and astonishingly, found quite a few address twins within a kilometer of each other. The two homes in the picture are both at 2 George Street, Accrington, Lancashire, UK. They are only 235 meters (about a sixth of a mile) apart. They have different postal codes, but that probably doesn't help a pizza delivery driver. Still, that wasn't the closest address twins he found. Two houses with the same street address in different towns were actually closer to each other! Read the saga of how Plowman found them at The Unusually Named Blog. -via Metafilter


Hide-and-Seek World Championship



The town of Consonno, Italy, was converted into a tourist draw, a vacation play land. But a landslide a few years later caused so much damage that the project was abandoned. The buildings that remained remained became a ghost town, and the perfect place to play hide-and-seek. In 2010, a group of friends did just that, and decided it was so much fun that would do it annually. That game has grown into the Nascondino World Championship. How does championship hide-and-seek work?

80 teams made up of 5 players will be divided into 4 rounds. There is 1 team of neutral seekers. Every team will be given an official uniform. The color of the uniform will be determined by the ancient practice of “Launch of the Bank Card”. Hide And Seek World Championship is played in rounds. Players are given 60 seconds to find a hiding place and must then reach home base (a large soft mattress) before the seeker and within the time limit.

The first to reach home base successfully is awarded 20 points. The second is awarded 19 and so forth.  Players eliminated by a seeker will not receive any points.  Players found cheating and players who don’t reach home base before the siren marks the end of the round will receive zero points.  Team points are tallied based on points of individual team members. The 20 teams with the most points will advance to the Finals, which will determine the winning team. The winning team will be awarded The 2017 Golden Fig Leaf.

You can see how the game is played in this video. The festivities this year were marred by a cold rain, but the participants had fun. The winning team was Mucche Arrosto ("Roasted Cows"), who were proud to bring the Golden Fig Leaf back to Italy, after a French team won in 2016. The top three teams were all Italian. -via Atlas Obscura

(Image credit: Nascondino World Championship)


Burn Out

Stella is an intergalactic mechanic who must make an emergency landing on a strange planet. It appears to be void of life. That is, except for the ghost.

(vimeo link)

But it's not a frightening alien story. Stella confronts a ghost of her past, and has an experience that gives her the impetus to push on and never give up. So what if she's a mechanic instead of an explorer? You never know when that will be the best thing to be. This short animation is from director Cécile Carre of the French animation school GOBELINS. -via io9


10 Things You Didn’t Know about The Movie Hot Shots!

The 1991 comedy Hot Shots! was a spoof of the 1986 film Top Gun. That's the part you already know. It follows the formula of "how many gags can we stuff in between the plot points of the original non-comedy movie" that worked so well for Airplane! If you liked Hot Shots!, you'll want to learn some trivia from behind-the-scenes.  

3. Lloyd Bridges replaced George C. Scott.

I kind of get the feeling that Bridges was chosen over Scott just because Scott hasn’t always seemed like the type to play comedic roles. Of course he did play the grandfather in Angus, but that was years later.

2. It was running joke that Saddam Hussein played himself in the movie.

Obviously this wasn’t the case but at the time Saddam Hussein was such a hated figure throughout the world that it was funny to think about.

Read the rest of the trivia list about Hot Shots! at TVOM.


Eternal Torment

The popular notion of hell is that it's a place of never-ending punishment for one's misdeeds on earth. That was inspired more by Dante's Inferno than by the Bible, but whatever. What constitutes eternal punishment could be very personalized -whatever grinds your gears the most, that's what you'll have to put up with for all eternity. This version of hell from Good Bear Comics stacks up pretty well in describing what would be eternal punishment for a Millennial. But then again, it could be a succinct description of college. The devil is in the details, so to speak. Notice the variable stairs, the toilet paper, and the fact that the only utensils you can eat your celery with are sporks. -via Geeks Are Sexy


Spiders, Fear, and Size

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!

(Image credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos)

Questions and Questionnaires About Fear of Spiders
compiled by Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff

Here is one way to measure people’s fear of spiders: Post flyers seeking individuals who are very afraid of spiders, and who are willing to be paid a small amount of cash to participate in a research project, said project turning out to be the repeated answering of survey questions before and during the following activities:

(1) approaching a live spider in an uncovered glass tank, initially standing 12 feet away from the tank.

(2) coming right up to the tank and using an eight-inch stick to guide the spider hither and thither for a marathonic two minutes.

(3) using a 5.5-inch stick to guide the spider thither and hither during a two-minute eternity.

(4) estimating as exactly as possible the spider’s size (by drawing a line on a card “indicating the length of the spider from the tips of its front legs to the tips of its back legs”).

Continue reading

Dancing in 80's Movies, Vol. 2

When video editor Robert Jones gave us the video Dancing in the Eighties, he mentioned that he had so many film clips that weren't used, he could make another video. Now he has! Enjoy some more awesome dancing from the movies of the '80s, when the mood would be lightened for everyone with a dance number or two in the middle, and a happy ending celebrated with another dance number.

(YouTube link)

This mashup features clips from 86 different movies, listed at the YouTube page. You've seen most of them. The music is "Hold Onto Our Love"from the movie The Last Unicorn. -via Tastefully Offensive


5 Police Cases That Basically Solved Crimes Using Magic

We giggle a bit at the implausible ways detectives on TV solve crimes, like the impossible "enhance" technique that allows us to see hi-res images on low-res security video. But crimes have been solved by thinking outside the box, in ways that may surprise you. They should have called this list five police "techniques," as there are actually more than five cases here. Several of them were solved by the presence of glitter.

Glitter might look all the same to you while you're trying to get that shit off your sweater, but there's reportedly "tremendous variation" in the stuff. Bulk glitter conglomerates can boast of having tens of thousands of different types to decorate your belongings, nether regions, and disgruntled pets as you see fit. Knowing this, one can see how leaving even one fleck behind after committing a foul deed can lead investigators right back to the exact Frederick's of Hollywood where you bought your sparkly apple-flavored nipple balm.

The first recorded instance of glitter being used as trace evidence happened at the end of the Cold War in Germany, when the U.S. Army's crime lab used it to solve a sexual assault case during a local celebration. Specific glitter from the victims' Mardi-Gras-like costumes was found on the clothing of the suspects. Another time, a killer in Alaska was nabbed in part because his estranged wife had dropped glitter in his car at some point, and some of it stuck to his victim. More recently, this method was used to bust a deadly hit and run driver who denied being at the wheel, but had a hard time explaining how the exact same cosmetic glitter she wore on her face wound up plastered to the airbag.

Read about glitter, glass. mosquitoes, and other odd ways police have found a perpetrator at Cracked.


The Axman’s Jazz: The Axeman of New Orleans

Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from history buff and Neatoramanaut WTM, who wishes to remain otherwise anonymous.

In the spring of 1918, New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA) was not exactly a city known for banking its fires. Although WWI was still in effect, the city’s motto then was as it is now – ‘Laissez les bons temps rouler’ – let the good times roll. And roll they did. NOLA had culture, a storied history, the country’s first movie theater, a booming financial district, any and all kinds of vice, Jax beer, jazz music, fine cuisine, the French Quarter, and Mardi Gras. NOLA was one of the nation’s busiest seaports, had a curious mix of wealth and poverty but relative overall prosperity, and was possessed of a diverse international citizenry and surprisingly good race relations for the day, thanks to its Cajun and Creole heritage. To its inhabitants, NOLA had all that one could want - and now it was about to have a serial killer.

Continue reading

The 25 Best Space Movies, Ranked

Outer space has always fascinated us, and has been a staple of movies since A Trip to the Moon in 1902. Which is your favorite? The Ringer takes a deep dive into space movies to rank the top 25 best movies about space, and A Trip to the Moon is not one of them -these are all great films. Sadly, only two of them are based on true stories, but that says more about our imaginations than it says anything about NASA. However, many of these movies inspired the scientists who are working on space travel now.   


Dad Builds a Palace For Dogs

Aaron Franks built a doghouse on his deck. That's a bit of an understatement. This is not ordinary doghouse! It's a three-level dog dreamland featuring stairs, three entrances, cubbyholes, beds, a pool, three swings, an umbrella, tunnels, a pirate wheel, a potty pit (complete with fire hydrant), and a water dispenser.

(YouTube link)

Franks also has a monitor in his bedroom so he can watch his four pit bulls enjoy their doggy mansion. His wife didn't realize the scope of the project, as he worked on it for two years. He may add more in the future.  -via Tastefully Offensive


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Profile for Miss Cellania

  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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