Miss Cellania's Blog Posts

The Patron Saint of Murderers

There's a saint for everything, even murderers (although our source says "repentant murderers"). St. Julian the Hospitaller is the patron saint of clowns and circus workers, innkeepers, fiddle players, jugglers, childless people, and murderers. How he got that designation is a story that may remind you of Oedipus Rex. Julian had a curse on him that said he would kill his parents. To avoid this destiny, he walked away from home and kept walking for 50 days. He obviously did not read Sophocles' play, because that was his first mistake. Then he settled down and married.

Throughout all this time, however, his parents had been diligently searching, and their efforts were finally rewarded when they happened upon their son’s castle. Unfortunately, Julian was away on a hunt, but his wife welcomed them with great joy. Indeed, so pleased was she to meet her in-laws for the first time that she honored them with her home’s master bedroom as their quarters.

Returning home much later, Julian discovered the couple in his own sbed and assumed it was his wife with another man. In a mad rage, he killed them both, thus fulfilling the prophetic jinx. When his wife, who’d been to church, informed him of his tragic error, Julian grew despondent and despaired of his salvation. Nevertheless, according to one medieval version of the story, his wife offered unyielding encouragement. “Well I know that God is so merciful and so kind and loving,” she insisted, “that if we serve Him all our lives without anger and without envy, I do surely believe that he will grant us mercy.”

The couple spent the rest of their lives trying to make up for the murders, and became known for hospitality and aid to travelers. You can read the story of St. Julian the Hospitaller at Catholic Exchange.  St. Julian's story is one of 15 Unusual Patron Saints you can read about at Mental Floss.


7 Ways to Maximize Misery

There are any number of people who will give you advice on how to be happy. But honestly, there are many things you can do to create happiness, and some tactics will work better than others for any one particular person. CGP Grey takes the opposite tack and explains how you can make yourself miserable. These things are scientifically known to work. 

(YouTube link)

"Oh," you say, "but I've already done all those things." Well than, congratulations, you should be miserable. At least you know why. -via reddit


The Last Jedi: A Tribute to Luke Skywalker

Now that Luke Skywalker is an middle-aged Jedi master, with a history that spreads across the entire Star Wars saga, and is the main focus of the next Star Wars film, it's time to enjoy a supercut that's all about Luke.

(YouTube link)

Heroes Fan Productions made this short film that rearranges Star Wars footage to tell Luke's story… so far. -via Geeks Are Sexy


The 50 Best TV Themes of All Time

Paste magazine has dared to rank a list of TV theme songs from as far back as anyone can remember to today. They're all there in playable videos for your listening pleasure. You really can't deny that the songs featured are good, but you probably have a favorite that's not included on the list, and of course you can argue about the rankings. Check out the list and let us know of any egregious omissions. Or you can just enjoy them. -via Metafilter, where you'll find links to dozens of egregious omissions.


10 Times $10 Changed It All

(Image credit: Alex Eben Meyer)

Never scoff at the life-altering power of a single Hamilton.

1. A HOUSE

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a program called the Dollar Home Initiative. It’s not a gimmick: When single-family homes go into foreclosure, the Federal Housing Administration tries to sell them. If they can’t book a sale within six months, they make them available to low-income families for just $1.

2. A MOVIE FRANCHISE

In the early 1980s, a producer named Gale Anne Hurd bought the rights to an unknown movie for $1. The movie was The Terminator, directed by James Cameron, whose only feature at the time was Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. He’s regretted the deal ever since.

3. A WHOLE NEW LOOK

Stand-up comic Sara Blakely was irritated by the white pants in her closet. “Every time I went to put them on, I had issues,” she said. Instead of using them as a comedy bit, she tackled the problem. She took scissors ($1.99) to pantyhose ($2.49) and cut off the feet. Then she slipped on the slacks over the hose. The result: finally getting to wear her pants without unsightly lines, and a new invention—Spanx.

Continue reading

The Crazy House of Dalat

You may have seen a picture of the Crazy House in Dalat, Vietnam, but you need to see more because it looks different from every angle! It's even changed since we posted about it in 2012. Jürgen Horn and Mike Powell made time to take a tour and see every thing from the roof to the new construction in progress.  

Conceived by Vietnamese architect Đặng Việt Nga, the Crazy House opened in 1990 as a guest house. Her creation immediately made a splash on the architectural scene, with its cave-like rooms and organic tree-like passageways (mostly) drawing praise. Throughout its life, the Hằng Nga (as it’s officially known) has undergone continuous renovations and expansions; a new aquatic-themed room was being crafted during our visit.

Read more, and see pictures and video of the Crazy House of Dalat at For 91 Days.


Googly-Eyed Street Art

Bulgarian street artist Vanyu Krastev has been busy highlighting the various objects -many of them broken- on the streets of Sofia by adding googly eyes.The result us a comical parade of pareidolia. How can you not feel sorry for a drainpipe or a trash can when it's looking right at you?

Krastev imagines faces in everything from mailboxes to stains on a wall, and with the eyes, so can the rest of us. See 43 pictures of Krastev's google-eyed creations at Bored Panda. -via Metafilter


Cream by David Firth

You might know animator David Firth as the creator of the legendary Salad Fingers, or from the memorable music video we posted a few years ago. He has now posted an eerie new short film that's an ad campaign parody for a product called "cream."     

(YouTube link)

The promises of the product start out mundane, but quickly escalates into the bizarre. Cream is not only a cure-all, it performs miracles! You'll start to wonder how the story can get any weirder, and then it does, again and again. -via Metafilter


The Top Five Pizza Delivery Guys in Movies

The pizza delivery guy is a trope in porn films, but in mainstream movies, TV, and music videos, he gets little respect. But how can you not love them fellows who bring a delicious, hot, tasty pizza right to your door? And the few that have names or lines seem to fall into tough luck to further the movie plot. Who's your favorite pizza delivery guy from the movies? Can you think of any at all? You'll remember them fondly when you see this list at TVOM. With video evidence provided.


Students Dump Paper to Celebrate Last Day of School

Seniors at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona, toss paper down the stairs to celebrate the end of school. It's more paper than you imagine.

(YouTube link)

Senior Jordan White captured the video, which went viral on Twitter. Witty_Squirtle is the class valedictorian, and created a reddit account to explain what's going on in the video.

Hi, student at Basha High School, a.k.a the school seen in the video above, here, created a Reddit account just to explain to you guys what's going on because Twitter is a firestorm and Reddit is usually better at that sort of thing.

This is known as the Paper drop, a very long time school tradition at Basha where all the seniors gather in the F Building stairwell after the second bell of C lunch on the last day of school and toss every paper, yes every paper, that they have saved up over 4 years of attending the school. Each year students bring trash bags full of paper to the school and dump them all at once. The "waterfall" you see in the video was only a little of a probably 5-10 minute drop of paper.

Afterwards, seniors slide down the stairs and go outside to where they take pictures, say goodbye to teachers, and say goodbye to the school for one last time as graduation is done at Arizona State University. While the seniors are reminiscing, underclassmen from across the school, as well as a teacher that brings a leafblower every year, gather the papers up into trashbags to be RECYCLED while the janitors talk and watch along with everyone else.

Basha High School is a fantastic place that's had its ups and downs, but this one event brings together everyone from geek to jock into one, single, Basha Bear student body.

The seniors will graduate tonight. -via reddit


12-Year-Old Ventriloquist

America's Got Talent returned for season 12 last night with a lineup of first round acts that delighted the audience. One was 12-year-old Darci Lynne Farmer, who managed to sing a song without moving her lips and operated a puppet at the same time. In the old days, we called this ventriloquism.

(YouTube link)

She got a golden buzzer for that one! There were also some other acts you may be familiar with (since we've posted them here) include Puddles the Clown and Jokgu the piano-playing chicken. -via Tastefully Offensive


The Final Beatles Concert

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

The Beatles were coming to the end of what was to be their last tour. The date was August 29th, 1966. And if any date ever earned the title "the end of an era," this truly was it.

At 5:27 pm, the Beatles plane arrived in San Francisco. The Fab Four had a clear destination and a mission to fulfill.

After playing over 1,400 gigs together, John, Paul, George, and Ringo all knew that they were going to play their final concert that night. (Note of clarification: John, Paul and George had played over 1,400 gigs together, since 1958. Ringo, not having joined the group until 1962, played fewer.)

The 1966 tour hadn't been easy on the boys. They'd been physically assaulted in the Philippines by mobs of angry citizens after their unintentional "snubbing" of presidential spouse Imelda Marcos, faced outrage in Tokyo by playing rock 'n' roll music at the consecrated Budokan, and there were still harsh reverberations stemming from John Lennon's "We're more popular than Jesus" comment, which had shook up and infuriated much of the western world.

Another by-product of the Beatles concerts was the sad fact that the boys were worsening as musicians. The screaming fans' deafening shouts had all but completely obscured any actual music being either heard or played. John would often deliberately change a song's lyrics, just for sport ("I want to hold your gland," etc.). Poor Ringo Starr couldn't hear what was being played and had to watch his bandmates rear ends swinging back and forth to get the beat of the song.

Continue reading

The 20th-century War on Women's Swimwear

In the 19th century, train travel and then the automobile enabled people to take trips to the beach. But while men stripped down to their body-hugging swimwear and went right in, women were supposed to cover up their foems, even in the water. Elaborates costumes were designed for beachwear that were barely less than a woman would wear on city streets. That wasn't good for swimming, or even staying afloat. But some woman pushed the boundaries, and gradually styles changed. See a timeline of photographs of women's swimwear as it evolved over the last hundred or so years at The Week.


An Honest Trailer for Catwoman

Wonder Woman opened in theaters this weekend, and both audiences and critics love it. Screen Junkies decided that it was a good time to look back at a really bad superhero film designed around a woman: the 2004 Halle Berry film Catwoman. This will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

(YouTube link)

Once you've relived the horror that was Catwoman, you'll be aching to see the critically-acclaimed Wonder Woman. -Thanks, Lacey!


Will Robots Take Your Job?

More and more occupations are being automated, first manufacturing jobs, then engineering careers, and now more and more service jobs. The future is wide open, as computer hardware and software are enabling machines to do jobs previously reserved for think and breathing people. An interactive site called Will Robots Take My Job? invites you to enter your occupation and find out what the future holds. There's a 10% chance that a robot will take your radio announcing job, but that's mainly because the automation revolution happened there years ago. How about a blogger? It didn't even recognize that as a job! Check out your career here.  -via The Daily Dot
 


Email This Post to a Friend
""

Separate multiple emails with a comma. Limit 5.

 

Success! Your email has been sent!

close window

Page 894 of 2,623     first | prev | next | last

Profile for Miss Cellania

  • Member Since 2012/08/04


Statistics

Blog Posts

  • Posts Written 39,341
  • Comments Received 109,554
  • Post Views 53,129,968
  • Unique Visitors 43,698,034
  • Likes Received 45,727

Comments

  • Threads Started 4,987
  • Replies Posted 3,730
  • Likes Received 2,683
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
 
Learn More