Maycee Kay Aycock and Sarah Marshall of Meredith College did not do well in the USA South Conference Championship golf tournament. The Meredith Avenging Angels were not going to be champions. Aycock and Marshall were the worst college golfers in America. Both women cried in the bathroom, when the mother of another player from another school told them they were heroes and shouldn't listen to the mean girls.

The full story is amazing. The Meredith College women's golf team started the year with six players, but by February was down to only two. They must have four players to compete in tournaments, and they must play a certain number of tournaments to be eligible for the championship. Furthermore, their conference had to have a certain number of teams to participate, and losing Meredith would cost the entire conference a shot at the USA South Conference Championship. Maycee Kay and Sarah answered a campus-wide call for players from coach Jimmy Hamilton and made the team, even though neither had ever finished a complete 18-hole round of golf. They didn't know the rules. Aycock had no clubs, and Marshall only had a child sized set.

Marshall scored 276 in one round of her first college tournament, which has to be some kind of record. In case you didn't know, the lowest score wins in golf.

"Did you ever see scores as high as ours?" they asked him.

"I didn't know scores got this high," he said.

But no matter how badly they played, and no matter how much they suffered, both physically and psychologically, they stayed with the game for the rest of the year. What Aycock and Marshall had done was save their team, and also saved their conference. You'll be glad you read about them. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Meredith College)

Elvis Presley died in 1977, but that's no reason he can't cover -and put his own style into- a song from 1992. This would have been a #1 hit for him.

Artificial intelligence is plenty scary when it tries to serve us misinformation or take away our jobs, but it's sweet when it's for purely entertainment purposes. Then again, I'm not sure how the Presley estate would feel about The King singing Sir Mix-a-Lot's song "Baby Got Back." That probably depends on whether there is any money to be made from it. A commenter at YouTube offered money if he could produce a full-length verion in time for his wedding. I felt inspired to laugh, and you will, too. This nonsense is the latest from Dustin Ballard, otherwise known as There I Ruined It. The tune is from Elvis' hit song "Don't Be Cruel," and the algorithm was programmed by MikeyNL1038.

Common sense would tell you that parents, and especially stay-at-home moms, look forward to the beginning of school in August so they can have some time away from hungry kids complaining that they're bored. Parents do often feel that way, but according to a study by three professors from Mississippi State University, mothers actually have a lot less free time during the school year.

On weekdays during the school year, moms average 25 minutes less sleep, 28 minutes less free time, and seven minutes less for exercise than they did during summer vacation. Fathers show this effect as well, but not as much.

See, during the school year, kids may be gone for six to eight hours, but every day requires a lot of prep, including getting children to bed at night and up in the morning, preparing breakfast (and maybe lunch), driving to and from school, managing extracurricular activities, and supervising homework. Generally staying on a strict schedule takes a lot of time and energy.   

The data came from the American Time Use Survey. Younger children didn't participate in the time survey, but teenagers ages 15-17 did, and it shows that school drains their time sleeping and unwinding as well. Read more details on this study at The Conversation.

Tom Scott is in the US now, and like most overseas visitors, had to buy health insurance to cover his trip. But he's not taking any chances by climbing on the world's first jungle gym on display in Winnetka, Illinois. The jungle gym, sometimes called monkey bars, was developed by Charles Hinton and patented by his son Sebastian Hinton in 1923. They story we didn't know was the scientific goal of the climbing toy. The reason it didn't make much difference to the children who climbed it was because by the time kids started school, they already knew how to climb trees, fences, and hills. The jungle gym just made it fun for everyone to join in together. Setting one on a school playground gave us the added thrill of possibly falling on gravel or pavement instead of plain grass or soil. Read the story of the first playground jungle gym at the Winnetka Historical Society.

You might have never heard of the marsupial mole. They live in Australia's deserts, swimming under the sand. They are weird animals, even by Australia's standards. They are tiny, blonde, have no visible eyes, sport strangely large claws, and their marsupial pouch is open on the back end, so that sand doesn't get in when they move.

Marsupial moles are only seen just a few times every ten years, so when artists James Young and Elliat Rich spotted one crossing the road near Uluru last week, it made the news. Young picked the mole up and carried it across the road, another 20 feet or so, and set it in a spot where the sand looked soft. It soon dug its way back underground. Oh yeah, they recorded video evidence.

This mole is considered rare because it's rarely seen, but it was taken off the endangered list because they leave tracks, droppings, and remains indicating there are plenty of them. They just stay away from us. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Elliat Rich)

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks made three romantic comedies together in the 1990s: Joe Vs. the Volcano in 1990, Sleepless in Seattle in 1993, and You've Got Mail in 1998. The first was a flop, and You've Got Mail has its fans but a terrible premise for a lasting relationship. Sleepless in Seattle was a masterpiece of the genre, having all the required elements and driving us to tears with a happy ending. The movie was released 30 years ago today, so you might want to jump back in time to relive that film and learn some interesting trivia behind it.

Some of the trivia has to do with the locations. It wasn't easy to get permission to shoot at the Empire State Building, and finally Leona Helmsley allowed the cast and crew in for six hours only. Seattle needed to be shown with rain, but it was the driest summer ever in the city when they shot the film, so water trucks had to be brought in to provide fake rain. And remember when the Empire State Building lit up with a Valentine heart? The movie did it with digital effects, but the building recreated it with real lights for the film's 25th anniversary.

That's just the beginning of the 30-item trivia list at Cracked regarding the film Sleepless in Seattle.

Sometimes we are totally impressed with things people eat in movies, and want to recreate those dishes. Binging with Babish is really good at showing us how to do that. But movies are also filled with odd meals that we remember a bit less fondly. These are desperation dishes, when a character has few ingredients and little choice but has to eat anyway.

A24, the movie studio that brought us Everything Everywhere All at Once, is releasing a cookbook of these desperation dishes called Scrounging: A Cookbook. The 54 recipes contained in it are less for epicures and more for movie fans who want to relive a cinematic moment. Remember the spaghetti from the 1960 move The Apartment? Jack Lemmon had no colander, but a tennis racket will do. Kevin made a 12-scoop sundae in Home Alone because there was no one to tell him not to. And if you've forgotten the Pixy Stix sandwich from The Breakfast Club, it's in there, too. Read more about these memorable if not delicious recipes at Mental Floss, and how to order the cookbook.  

This video was launched with the unfortunate name of "Why every radio station sounds the same". I thought that might be boring, because I don't even listen to pop radio anymore. But it turns out to be a very thorough explanation of music radio's evolution in the age of deregulation. Phil Edwards tracks my 24-year career as a radio disc jockey (a term I now have to explain to younger people) and the changes the industry went through. We've come a long way from WKRP. I went through all these changes until I decided to just go home and blog, because that was more fun. But that's a personal story, and if I say any more, I'm just asking for someone to respond "Okay, Boomer." In this history of radio, you'll recognize how radio has changed no matter what era you discovered it as the easiest way to add a soundtrack to your day. If you're at all interested, there's a fairly comprehensive list of source reading at the YouTube page. -via Kottke

You've seen pictures of these cool-looking vampire hunting kits. We posted about them four times between 2006 and 2011. One brought $14K at auction! They are purported to be 150-200 years old, and contain tools like a cross, a Bible, a stake, a gun, and bottles of what we may presume would be things like holy water and garlic. People who pay huge sums for these don't take into account that no record of such kits exist before the 20th century. Yes, they're fake.

But the takedown at Fake History Hunter has some intriguing details. While the kits themselves are not real vampire killing kits from previous centuries, the items contained in them often are pretty old. People who make these use very old wooden boxes, manufacture the bespoke linings, and fill them with antique objects that could be from different places and eras. As someone who collects old bottles, this makes me want one even more. But I wouldn't spend a lot of money for it. -via Strange Company

Covid really did a number on movie theaters, as it did to offices workplaces and dine-in restaurants. But movie theaters had been seeing a decline in attendance way before covid for reasons ranging from mass shootings to poor projection quality, and they aren't recovering much three years later. With attendance down, they raise prices to make up that revenue, and therefore attendance goes down again. Can you spot the problem with that logic? Really, which would you rather do: go to a theater and see the newest movie on opening weekend, sitting next to strangers and eating $10 popcorn, or wait a few weeks to stream it at home in your pajamas eating 50¢ popcorn, and put the movie on pause when you need to take a break? Roger Horton has many more reasons that theaters need to advertise to get you out of the house in this Honest Ad.  

The first thing we learn in World History class is that humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers until 10,000 years ago, when they discovered how to grow crops and then settled into permanent communities, which gave them time to develop civilization. But an archaeological dig called Nahal Ein Gev II in northern Israel near the Sea of Galilee is turning that idea on its head.

In 1963, a village was discovered here that flourished for about 200 years as a permanent settlement, although serious excavation only began in 2010. The residents have been identified as Natufians, a culture previously thought to be completely nomadic. They built stone houses, established a cemetery, and developed sophisticated tools- 12,000 years ago! Some of the finds include artifacts that indicate they may have used a rudimentary type of sewing machine and spindles to make string from fiber. They also made and wore jewelry. These indications of a permanent settlement hint that not only were the Natufians of Nahal Ein Gev II two millennia ahead of the presumed agricultural revolution, but that they built on technology that may be even more ancient.  

While these villagers had tools to cut plants, archaeologists aren't ready to say they cultivated crops. That brings up the question of whether permanent settlements may have preceded the development of agriculture altogether. Read about this intriguing village and what we learned about it so far at Smithsonian.    

(Image credit: Daniel Rolider)

A bear in Colorado Springs, Colorado, decided to pull a reverse Goldilocks and invaded a house, possibly looking for porridge. The bear entered through a broken window on the ground floor, and made his way upstairs. He apparently wanted to go back outside, but didn't realize that a second story window would have a different exterior. Neighbors caught a recording of the bear looking confused and hanging out of the upper window. The bear considered dropping to the ground, but then thought better of it and climbed back in. But he tried that window again with the same results. It turns out the bear had accidentally shut himself in a bedroom. A police officer opened the door so the bear could leave,  through the same downstairs window he entered. We suspect the police officer stayed as flat as he could behind that door.

Ryan MacFarlane was away that day and came home to missing pork chops and snacks and some minor damage, much less than he had expected. The bear had been implicated in several other house invasions in the area. -via Boing Boing

Ever since we saw The Jetsons in the 1960s, we've been waiting for flying cars. We aren't quite there yet, but we may see flying taxis at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris next year. And they will be powered by non-polluting electricity! The city is working on partnering with the German firm Volocopter to run their electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) to get people to the sports venues. These electric helicopters don't yet have the power necessary for long-range trips, but a city taxi service using them can cut trip times into fractions. That is, if they can nail down proposed routes and design a system for keeping the skies safe around other traffic. After all, there will be conventional helicopters in use, as well as innumerable drones.

Volocopter isn't the only company pioneering eVTOLs. American company Archer Aviation Inc. is poised to begin taxi runs in 2025, ramping up for full service at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Still, these taxi runs will be expensive, at least at first. Read about eVTOLs and where you might see them at NBC Sports. -via Fark

(image credit: Spielvogel)

Apparently in my absence my husband has hung cat-level wall art. So sophisticated 🧐 pic.twitter.com/xwVwWl89Xk

— Yvette Cendes (@whereisyvette) February 23, 2023

An entry in a list at Bored Panda tickled me, so I went to save the Tweet. In the comments below it, I found there was more to the story. Yvette Cendes had also posted the picture to reddit, where she explained what the art piece is.

The response inspired reddit's resident artist Shitty_Watercolour to contribute a rendering of the poor house cat expressing her desire to live like the cat in the photograph.

At which point the discussion turned to whether it is better to be a house cat in Boston or a stray in sunny Havana getting your picture taken. And that's as far down the rabbit hole I want to go today. However, I did check to see if Cendes printed out the watercolor and hanged it at cat level- no word on that. The Tweet is from Bored Panda's list called 50 Hilarious Boyfriends And Husbands Who Never Fail To Make Their Partners Laugh.

The Orient Express was a luxury train route taking passengers from Paris to Istanbul on a posh three-night journey. Between 1883 and 1977, wealthy travelers enjoyed fine dining, sleeper cars, and personal service from a staff of well-trained porters. The route became world famous, and indeed many of us only know about it through fictional stories that took place on the trains. But the demand collapsed when air travel took over. The route and the name were leased by another company, but full trips to Istanbul only occurred once a year.

However, a new company is joining them with the aim to bring back the luxury and nostalgia of the original Orient Express, with a proposed opening date of 2025. Getting the trains back together proved to be an enormous challenge.  At its peak, the service used more than 2,000 train cars, including sleeper cars, dining cars, lounges, and cars for supplies and baggage. It means a lot to get those original cars back, but they had been scattered to the four winds, and many are assumed to be unrepairable. The company hired train historian Arthur Mettetal, who is doing his Phd on the Orient Express (about, not literally on) to locate the original cars. Mettetal went to great lengths, including tracking down faintly recognizable blue cars with cream roofs in the background of internet photos. He once ventured into Belarus and faced an armed standoff to negotiate for original Orient Express cars. Read about his quest, and the efforts to collect and refurbish the luxurious train cars of the Orient Express at Messy Nessy Chic.

(Image credit: Honza Groh (Jagro))