It's time for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What is he saying in this empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Have fun and good luck!

Update: The winning line is "The overworked elfs on strike holding Santa will never suspect we attack with a Christmas trebuchet!" Congratulations, drewp, who wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

You can probably guess that fruitcake will be on a list of not-so-welcome traditional Christmas foods. This list also covers figgy pudding, green bean casserole, and lutefisk.

To make lutefisk you catch a cod, take out the bones, skin it, salt it, and hang it out to dry for several weeks until it hardens and smells like a dumpster. Then, bring it inside and soak it in lye for several days. (Yes, lye) Lye will turn cod into a gelatinous blob that slithers down your throat.

Have you ever eaten lutefisk? Does anyone like it? Link -via Breakfast Links

Many of the iPhone generation used a Speak and Spell toy as their first computer. Now, thanks to Etsy seller blakemedia, you can hark back to those carefree days with a iPhone sticker that looks just like a Speak and Spell! Guaranteed to make all those who see it smile. Link

A 3-year-old cat named Pepper used a trick worthy of Houdini to escape from a burning kitchen in Stoke Gabriel, South Devon, England. Frightened by an exploding microwave, he leapt to a window and nudged the catch open with his nose. Neighbors noticed smoke billowing from the open window and alerted the fire department. Homeowners Phil and Sharon White are grateful the fire was contained.

Phil said: "There is some damage but nothing compared to what it could have been."

Phil's wife Sharon added that Pepper is a law unto himself and has a fiery streak. "But all is forgiven now, " she said.

She said that neighbours also deserve credit.

Sharon said: "We are thankful that they did not just dismiss it as a bonfire. They rallied around and even directed the fire service here through the narrow lanes."

Pepper is still a bit spooked by his ordeal. "But he is still managing to eat plenty of food," said Sharon.

Link -via Arbroath

(YouTube link)

We featured the Bowen Beer Bottle Band last Christmas performing "Do You Hear What I Hear?" The second annual Bowen Beer Bottle Band video features an expanded lineup of performers in "Angels We Have Heard on High." Link -via Buzzfeed

Japanese researcher Ryuma Niiyama has been working for years on a robot that can run like a human on two legs. The 2010 version of the robot has made great strides (pun intended) compared with earlier prototypes.

He calls his robot Athlete. Each leg has seven sets of artificial muscles. The sets, each with one to six pneumatic actuators, correspond to muscles in the human body -- gluteus maximus, adductor, hamstring, and so forth [see diagram below].

To simplify things a bit, the robot uses prosthetic blades, of the type that double amputees use to run.

And to add a human touch, Niiyama makes the robot wear a pair of black shorts.

The first such robot, built in 2007, couldn't take one step without falling. Athlete, on the other hand, can sprint three to five steps before falling over, as you'll see in an unintentionally humorous video. Link -via DiscoBlog

(College Humor link)

How different the classic Christmas tale of Rudolph would be if modern cosmetic surgery had been available to the reindeer of the North Pole! -via Gorilla Mask

Nick Brewer appeared as Robot Santa at SantaCon in New York City. It was his second year as a robot Kris Kringle, with an updated costume he calls Santabot 2.0.

Construction of Brewer’s Santabot outfit took about a month, not including the crash course in using an Arduino board for the electronics. Arcade-style buttons on his chest controlled various features, including lights, voice-changer (“Destroy! Destroy!”), sound system, LOL shield (scrolling, “What is love?” along with holiday messages) and the well-loved but short-lived candy dish that emerged from his 8-bit belly.

People got a little rough on the cardboard at times, but overall Santabot was mobbed with admirers, so much so that Brewer didn’t even make it to the main SantaCon convergence area at Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain.

“We got so bogged down with people and pictures it got to the point we couldn’t make it across the street,” Brewer said.

See several videos of Robot Santa in action at Underwire. Link

(Image credit: Jess Alford)

The National Air and Space Museum, a part of the Smithsonian Institution, keeps these very special jingle bells as a part of history.

These bells are part of the harmonica and bell set carried by astronauts Walter "Wally" Schirra and Tom Stafford aboard Gemini 6 in December of 1965. The mission was to test the docking and maneuvering capability of the Gemini spacecraft.

Approximately five hours after the successful maneuvering of the the two spacecraft to within six inches of each other, astronauts Schirra and Stafford played "Jingle Bells" with these instruments and pretended to see a UFO called Santa Claus.

Forty-five years later, they are on display in Washington as part of the "Apollo to the Moon" exhibition. If you can't go, you can see a lot of history at the Smithsonian Institution's website. Link

(Image credit: Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum)

Dr. Phil Plait has published his selections of the best astronomy pictures of 2010. Not only will you see awesome pictures, but each has an explanation, like the full version of the cropped picture you see here.

Whenever a new type of instrument is used to examine the skies, surprises are guaranteed. And when the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) started scanning the heavens in 2010, it returned one amazing view after another. My favorite by far is this one, showing NGC 1514, a dying star shedding material.

This image, in the far-infrared, is very different than optical shots of the nebula, which show it looking more like a disk. It's not certain just why this object has these two rings, but it's likely that dust ejected from the dying star is slamming into gas previously thrown off. That older gas is most likely in an hourglass shape, common in such objects. Perhaps the dust is hitting the inside of that hourglass figure, making the rings. Maybe it's a different reason entirely. We don't know!

See also 14 at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -Thanks, Phil!

(YouTube link)

Wikileaks knows what you're getting for Christmas, and they are going to spill the beans! A duet from Dan and Dan. -via mental_floss

I didn't know until just now, but December 14th is Monkey Day! {wiki} The day is set aside to raise awareness about monkey issues, monkeys in the news, and ways you can help monkeys (apes and other primates are included as well). In honor of the occasion, holiday founder Casey Sorrow put together a roundup of monkey news, links, and videos from the past year for your education and entertainment. Link

(Image credit: 123 Greetings)

In order to turn on the Christmas tree lights, you have to connect all the bulbs and wires by rotating them. Not an easy task, but if I can do it, certainly you can! You will be timed for points, which should only concern you if you are the competitive type. Link

(YouTube link)

A public service announcement from the Best Friends Animal Society. -via The Daily What

Hmm, this looks like someone doing a steampunk version of Star Wars, doesn't it? Wrong! These are real antiques.

This pair of early rescue masks, shown above, dates from between the mid-1800s and World War I. They look a bit familiar, right? Almost a 100 years before Darth Vader and 3-CPO hit the big screen in “Star Wars” in 1977, these two smoke helmets were worn by firefighters carrying our rescues in smoke-logged buildings. The buzz among collectors is that George Lucas’s designers must have found inspiration in these smoke helmets and other like them. In fact, one well-known 19th-century manufacturer was named Vajen-Bader—you could easily get the name Vader from that.

The mask on the left is German; the one on the right is French. Maybe the resemblance is coincidental, or maybe George Lucas and/or his designers saw these masks at one time or another. Link -Thanks, Ben Marks!