The first reason sad lolcats can be so powerful, Mankoff suggested, is their comedic structure. The meaning of a lolcat is rarely straightforward -- rather, there's a punch line of sorts, a layer of meaning you have to think about for a moment in order to grasp. So the punch line, the same thing that makes the lolcat funny, is what makes it sad. You could call these tragic strips.
A second major factor in the poignancy of the sad lolcat, I would argue, is the use of animals. The comic form is generally a prophylaxis against sentimentality. By articulating profound feelings through cats and marine mammals speaking garbled English, we're able to shroud genuine emotions in pseudo-irony -- which means those animals can evoke deeper emotions without fear of mockery or cheapness.
"Spike the Potato" is a highly amusing game for any party. All that is needed is a single large potato, a number of paper cones, and some needles.
The words “Last picture taken” before his or her death conjure up many emotions, whether in front of the camera or behind it. This list consists of 10 last time stamps in history taken of and by some fascinating individuals.
Biologist Doug Killam made the find while conducting a survey of spawned-out fall-run salmon on lower Battle Creek near the Northern California town of Red Bluff. (Salmon die after they spawn.)
"I have counted tens of thousands of salmon during my career, and this is the biggest I have ever seen," Killam said. "When alive, it could have weighed more than the largest Chinook officially recorded in California, an 88-pound fish caught in the Sacramento River."
Most of the salmon found in these surveys weigh 20 to 30 pounds.
A breathtaking story by Capucine. Starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a "popotamus" and a lion, and even a "tremendously very bad mammoth". There are also magic powers and an orange ring, but sometimes, "something goes amiss".
Bring your popcorn and enjoy the show.
On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more...
Street View technicians captured 360-degree photographs of the street with the scenes in action and integrated the images into the Street View mapping platform. This first-ever artistic intervention in Google Street View made its debut on the web in November of 2008.
