This year marks the 40th anniversary of Star Wars. The world has changed a lot in those years, so it's nice to have a familiar world of light side vs. dark side, Jedi vs. Sith, and Rebel vs. Empire to submerge oneself in. Some of the first children who grew up with Star Wars are now introducing their grandchildren to a galaxy far, far away. Some of those first-generation fans are now working to send humans to Mars.
This film is an homage to not only the creators of this universe but to all the childhood imaginations that were changed forever. From Paul Constantakis. May the fourth be with you. -Thanks, Paul!
For Star Wars Day, BL Burgers in Australia is offering a limited edition burger called "Return of the Chedi." For $17 (not that outrageous in Australia) you get a beef patty, smoked cheese kransky (that's a sausage), two other kinds of cheese, pickles, and ketchup, on a "galaxy milk bun," which is the strangest thing about this burger. Look at those colors! Buzzfeed sent a couple of people out to try it and give us their impressions of the burger.
The real estate market is ridiculous these days. Even a dump costs way more than it should. What can a young adult do if they want to buy their own home? Save, shop, and still be rejected. The choices are unaffordable or uninhabitable. No one is building starter homes anymore -there's not enough profit in it.
I hate to sound like a geezer, but the first house I bought was very much like the fixer-upper he was shown. I spent tons of time and money fixing it up little by little, and still lost my shirt trying to sell it after the housing bubble burst. And now I have a kid moving back in with me because her rent's too high, even with three roommates. -via Digg
We constantly make jokes about how cats hold humans in contempt, that they consider themselves our overlords. Recent research shows that ain't necessarily so. At least some of them are just acting like they don't care, so they can wrap us around their little finger. Or claw.
Researchers at Oregon State University offered 38 cats a choice between food, a toy, an interesting smell (catnip, a gerbil) and attention from a human.
Thirty-seven percent preferred food to anything else. Eleven percent liked toys, and one cat was preoccupied with the smells of catnip and gerbils.
But 19 of them — half! — preferred the company of humans above all, choosing them over other entertainment possibilities.
But wait, my cats prefer my company because I will eventually feed them. They know that. Perhaps they know us too well. -via reddit
Mustaches and beards were common among men in the first decade of the 20th century, but military regulations had them shaved clean -because it made a gas mask fit better, and chemical warfare was a real danger to those the front lines. But there were other dangers, especially when the quality of shaving brushes went down.
Before the war, shaving brushes were usually made with badger hair, the preferred bristles for lathering up. When the conflict interrupted the supply of high-quality badger bristles from Russia, suppliers cut a few corners. They switched to horsehair from Russia, China, and Japan—and skimped on a crucial step: disinfection. Instead of sending the hair to France or Germany to be cleaned and sanitized, they sent the tufts directly to brush manufacturers in the United States.
The headline may bring up memories of Walter White from the TV show Breaking Bad, but this time, it's John W. Gose of Sam Miguel, New Mexico. Gose taught science at schools in El Paso and Las Cruces up until 2016, when he was busted for possession of methamphetamine, and then manufacturing meth. Is it coincidence, or life imitating art?
Gose was arrested Oct. 2, 2016, during a traffic stop in Las Cruces. During the stop, police officers discovered a white, Styrofoam ice chest that contained glassware, rubber tubing and chemicals, which a lab later confirmed can be used to manufacture methamphetamine.
Investigators subsequently searched Gose’s property on N.M. 28 and found additional chemicals and supplies that suggested he was manufacturing methamphetamine.
Authorities determined that Gose was in possession of the ingredients necessary to yield at least one pound of methamphetamine, which has an estimated street value of $44,800.
No mention of what color the meth was. Gose pled guilty to the charges yesterday, and will undergo a diagnostic evaluation before sentencing is scheduled. You have to wonder if they suspect cancer. Read the full story at the Las Cruces Sun-News. -via Uproxx
The cast and crew of the upcoming movie Hard Powder is filming in New Westminster, British Columbia, not that far from Vancouver. The guys at Big Star Sandwich Co. took advantage of the shoot and put up a sandwich board saying Liam Neeson Eats Here for Free. Well, it doesn't take long for word to get around in a small town. They were quite surprised when Neeson showed up. Wonder what he said? According to m4jikthise,
I have a very particular set of dietary requirements. Dietary requirements I've developed over a very long career. Dietary requirements that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you serve me a gluten free vegan rye sandwich that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will get a refund.
Do you ever have one of those days? Or maybe all those days? Maybe the solution isn't caffeine. Maybe it's Netflix! Too bad you can't make yourself set the alarm for two hours earlier so you'd have time to watch a whole inspiring movie before you have to be at work. This is the latest from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
Kevin Kohler, the Backyard Scientist, made a huge mousetrap, just to smash things. It's so strong, he has to set it with a winch. What could possibly go wrong?
See what it does to watermelons, coconuts, and even a volcano! Luckily, he never tried it on the raccoons. Don't try this at home. -via Tastefully Offensive
Sandwiches used to be just two pieces of bread with something good between them. Some combinations were so good that they became classics. We've seen here that when the internet got involved, sandwiches became radical and outrageous. And every restaurant wants a good one as their signature. Now the different combinations of bread and filling are all over the place, so it's a good thing we have a handy chart to make sense of it all. This was posted at Know Your Meme, from a Tweet by @matttomic. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The Discovery Channel’s hit reality show The Deadliest Catch has been airing since 2005. In those twelve years, the crab fishing industry has changed considerably. Regulations enacted since then limit the number of crab boats and how much seafood each one can haul in. In the show's earlier seasons, it was a straight-out competition, with the expeditions' results as the climax.
The shift away from Derby fishing to crab quotas plays out in the reality series episodes. Top hauls were reported in several of the earlier episodes. By Season 13, which began airing in April 2017, the show has grown to focus on the volatile work, lives and relationships shared by the cast members. The series, with all its rough brawls, treacherous seas, equipment failures, grinding schedules, arctic storms, illness, painful injuries, and deaths at sea, is an epic saga of life. It’s not surprising that viewers live vicariously through these adventures and cheer successful hauls.
Many of those earlier hauls brought in eye-popping amounts of money (which had to cover expenses, be split among participants, and make up for less-than successful times). Relive five of the million-dollar hauls from The Deadliest Catch at TVOM.
Blackhurst said: “It’s obviously not a real thing… I haven’t got a smartphone.” In fact, when we spoke to him, he was using a Nokia C2.
He told us he was inspired by other text message memes on the internet which made him laugh. The best thing about it is he isn’t even a graphic designer – he made the poster on a text message generator online.
Blackhurst, a copywriter, is happy with the poster going viral, saying: “It’s been up a week, a mate of mine was at the pub yesterday and took a photo of it. I woke up this morning and thought ‘what the hell’s going on here?’”
Victorians were known for leaving behind some weird accessories, like mustache guards, lobster bustles, and tussie-mussies. And they were big on ritualized mourning. So when you see a bottle that purports to be a Victorian tear catcher, it just seems to fit right in with what you know. Victorians in mourning, it was said, stored their tears in a small bottle. When the tears started evaporating faster then they were collected, that meant that period of mourning was over. But in reality, there is no such thing as a Victorian tear catcher.
“People ask to buy them all of the time. At least a few people a week,” says Christian Harding, owner of The Belfry, an oddities and collectibles store in Seattle. Harding then must explain that the bottles most are looking for—blown, usually clear, glass decorated with patterns, gilding, and colorful enamel—are throwaway perfume bottles. But the “tear catcher” term has stuck, through a combination of historical accident and deceptive, yet effective, marketing.
The myth likely began with archaeologists and an oddly chosen term. Small glass bottles were often found in Greek and Roman tombs, and “early scholars romantically dubbed [them] lachrymatories or tear bottles,” writes Grace Elizabeth Arnone Hummel, who runs the perfume website Cleopatra’s Boudoir. Those glass bottles held perfume and unguents, not tears, Hummel explains. “Scientists have performed chemical tests on these flasks and they disproved the romantic theory.” But stories sometimes acquire their own momentum.
The idea of bottling up one's tears is just too good of a story to NOT use in marketing. Read about how tear catchers came about at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Katie Kierstead/Roses & Rue Antiques)
Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail. In another life, he ran ShortFormBlog.
Americans expect a glass of water by default with their sit-down restaurant meal. Why is it such a big deal, and how much water are we wasting, anyway?
Going to a restaurant is a game of expectations. We expect certain things out of the experience, based on the set parameters when we walk in the door. If we’re going to Mickey D’s, we expect our food pretty fast and fairly low-quality. If the restaurant doesn’t have a counter, we expect a menu at the table. And when we sit down at a restaurant—in the United States, at least—we expect a couple of glasses of water ready to go to help satiate our appetites. But why is that? And what are the ripple effects of having a glass of water sitting at our table before we’re ready to order? Let’s quench some knowledge.
Should water be served with a meal?
“Water always should be served, especially in this country. True, in France and in many parts of Italy, water is not drunk at all, because it is not fit to drink. But French etiquette demands that water be served at formal dinners. And American authorities on etiquette all include a glass of water in table settings.”
— New York Times food writer June Owen,writing in a 1957 column about the necessity of serving water with food ahead of a dinner, going against trends in Italian and other kinds of food to serve wine in a similar role. Owen notes that doctors recommend that we should drink water between meals. “But a sip of water in the midst of dinner clears the palate and quenches the thirst, which wine does not do,” she adds.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game," the most popular baseball song ever written, was actually co-composed by two guys who had almost no interest in baseball whatsoever. (Kind of like Ryan Seacrest hosting the Miss America pageant.)
In 1908, a 29-year-old vaudeville performer named Jack Norworth (he was famous for his spirited hoofing and blackface routines) was riding the New York subway. During his subway ride, he saw a sign that said "Baseball today at the Polo Grounds."
The song struck a chord and Norworth was immediately inspired. He thought, was there a better example of a nationally shared experience than going to see a baseball game? Always on the lookout for a commercial idea, he quickly scribbled down a verse and chorus. He titled his song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." (His original handwritten lyrics sheet is now in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.)
Norworth took his lyrics to a composer named Albert Von Tilzer. Von Tilzer wasn't much of a baseball fan either. Nevertheless, he knocked off a jaunty melody that fit Norworth's lyrics like a well-oiled glove.
