Miss Cellania's Blog Posts

Bluegrass Rhapsody


(YouTube link)

Another of the many ways Queen's classic Bohemian Rhapsody is performed, this time by Hayseed Dixie, from their new album Killer Grass. Link -via Arbroath

How Movies Are Dubbed

Blockbuster movies are often released in several nations at once, and we are used to selecting from several languages on DVDs by now. How much work goes into making other languages work in film? Slate explains how they do it.
The foreign actors' voices have to match the age, texture, and comedic sense of the original. For a big celebrity such as Johnny Depp or Jim Carrey, a single actor in each country will dub all of the star's films. Koichi Yamadera, for instance, is the official Jim Carrey of Japan. Studios also sometimes employ local celebrities, like when Disney hired the French singer Charles Aznavour to do the voice of Ed Asner's protagonist in the movie Up. On rare occasions, the original actor will do the dubbing himself. Viggo Mortensen speaks Spanish, so he did a Spanish dub for Hidalgo. For the Castilian dub of G-Force, Penélope Cruz was unavailable, so her sister, Monica Cruz, got the job instead.

The mechanics of the process are also explained, as well as tricks some voice actors use to tweak their performance. Link

Upside Downy Face



Photographer Brouton Stroube hung his subjects up by their feet before taking a portrait. The result shows some weird gravity effects that you don't expect when seeing the pictures turned upright. Link -via Buzzfeed

Kitten Rescued by Champion Climber


(YouTube link)

A kitten was stuck on a concrete ledge high above the ground in Spokane, Washington. 60-year-old Kay Leclaire passed by jogging and heard the cat cry for help. So she decided to climb up and get him. The trapped kitten lucked out, since Leclaire is a champion climber who has scaled Mount Everest and holds a record as the oldest woman to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. The kitten was adopted almost immediately after his rescue. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81611402.html -via Fark

Trading Places, Coming to America, or Beverly Hills Cop?



Three of Eddie Murphy's funniest movies came out in the mid-80s. In this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are challenged to identify twelve quotes. Did they come from Trading Places, Coming to America, or Beverly Hills Cop? Despite (or maybe because of) the fact that I've seen all three movies again fairly recently, I only scored 33%. Link

Three Points (at least)


(YouTube link)

Monta Ellis of the Golden State Warriors lands a basket. He's been "trying to extend his range". I think maybe he succeeded. Link -via Unique Daily

Creating Hospitals from Thin Air



Doctors Without Borders is setting up shop in Haiti to provide medical services to those affected by the earthquake. They will use an inflatable hospital.
It's exactly what it sounds like: a temporary hospital with inflatable components that can be deployed whenever needed. Doctors Without Borders has been employing them for years, including an impressive inflatable nine-tent, 120-bed center in Pakistan following a 7.6 magnitude earthquake there in 2005. The hospital post-and-beam frames can be made from the same fabric in inflatable lifeboats. Nylon interior and exterior walls leave space for air to create an insulating effect.

Link -via Cynical-C, who has a list of resources for sending donations to Haiti.

First Person Tetris



In First Person Tetris, when you rotate a block, you rotate the entire game! By the time you think you've figured it out, the dizziness begins to set in. It's quite addicting. Link -via Boing Boing

Chimpanzee Investor Outperforms Russian Bankers

A Russian circus chimpanzee named Lusha picked stocks that tripled in value over a year's time. Lusha was presented with cubes representing 30 different stock options and selected eight to invest money in by picking the cubes. Her chosen portfolio outperformed 94% of Russian investment funds!
'She bought successfully and her portfolio grew almost three times. She did better than almost the whole of the rest of the market,' said editor of Russian Finance magazine Oleg Anisimov.

He questioned why so-called financial whizz-kids are still receiving hefty perks for their expertise .

'Everyone is shocked. What are they getting their bonuses for? Maybe it's worth sending them all to the circus.'

Link -via Blame it on the Voices

Balkan Hippo on the Loose

A female hippopotamus named Nikica swam out of her enclosure at a private zoo in Plavnica, Montenegro when flood waters rose over the fence. The two-ton hippo has stayed close to the zoo, but cannot be rounded up until the flood recedes.
A spokesman for Montenegro's natural disasters commission, which responds to floods, said the law required animals that can endanger human lives to be killed. But state veterinary authorities said they were not entitled to kill animals.

Zoo owner Dragan Pejovic insisted Nikica is not dangerous, "unless someone attacks and kicks her."

He said that her movements were being tracked by the zoo's private security and that she was "tame and peaceful".

Pejovic added that Nikica now had nowhere to return because the zoo, on a small island in a lake south of the capital, remains flooded. She was being fed with loaves of bread and bales of hay at a swimming pool of a restaurant owned by Pejovic and his brother.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images)

Earth's Coldest Temperature Ever

The temperature at Russia's Vostok research station in Antarctica read -128.6F (-89.2 C) during the winter of 1983. This is the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth. The winter temperature at Vostok averages a mere -54F. Why the mercury dipped so low has puzzled scientists for 26 years.
But scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in Russia were able to solve the mystery with a computer model developed to simulate the future evolution of the Antarctic climate, along with weather charts and satellite imagery of the area.

They found that relatively warm air that normally flows over the Southern Ocean onto the high Antarctic plateau almost came to a halt during this period. A flow of cold air circling Vostok was preventing the mixing of this warmer air from lower latitudes, isolating the station and causing near optimum cooling conditions.
Adding to this was the absence of a heat-trapping cloud cover and the presence of a layer of tiny particles of ice suspended in the air (known as diamond dust), allowing more heat from the continent's icy surface to be lost to space.

Link -via reddit

Woman Keeps Pet Snowball For 33 Years

Prena Thomas of Lakeland, Florida has an unusual "pet" she keeps in her freezer -a snowball! She made the snowball in 1977 and has kept it frozen safe in a bread bag ever since. Thomas occasionally takes it out to show to friends.
Thomas said that over the decades, she has never had a power outage that would destroy the cold hunk she says is precious to her.

"It's just like a little pet," she said.

Thomas made the snowball during a rare Florida snowfall 33 years ago. Link -via Fark

Scanning for Fever



You'll be on video at Narita International Airport in Tokyo, but not for security purposes. An infrared camera scans incoming international passengers looking for people who may have a fever! Those who show signs of a fever are interviewed and may be given medical treatment. Link

(image credit: Lazlo Thoth)

Mario Jumping



If you've ever been to Retro Sabotage (featured previously at Neatorama), then you know Mario Jumping will not be like any other Mario game you've ever played. The payoff is well worth the effort. Link -Thanks, Tof!

A New Look at the Pyramids

A new set of tombs have been found near the great pyramids of Egypt, belonging to the workers who built the pyramids 4,000 years ago. The discovery points away from the idea that the monuments were built by slaves. Instead, Egyptologists now believe they were paid professionals, according to Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," said Hawass in the statement. "If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."

Evidence from the site, Hawass said, indicates that the approximately 10,000 laborers working on the pyramids ate 21 cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms in northern and southern Egypt.

Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

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