Star Wars has become less humorous over time. Sure, there are still plenty of side characters thrown in to make jokes and sell toys, like droids and porgs, but our heroes have become too perfect to crack wise the way Han Solo did in the original trilogy. Let's go back to the days when main characters could be flawed while also brave and dedicated to the cause. For example, you aren't always going to have someone who knows every language in the galaxy to act as a spy. Your second choice would be someone who can take risks and think on their feet. That may or may not work out as well as you'd wish, but sometimes you don't have a choice. Then you have to rely on luck (also known as plot armor). In this well-made skit, our hero injects comedy into the Star Wars universe by simply being more realistic. This video contains a little NSFW language. -via reddit

Once upon a time, we made things for children that mimicked adult items, like toy dishes and tools, so they could learn to be adults. Now the world is making things that are clearly for adults that enable us to pretend we are children, like Happy Meals, house paint, revamped cartoons, elaborate LEGO sets, and now vodka.

The British distiller Au Vodka, which already produces vodka in various candy and fruit flavors, has launched Au Vodka Bubblegum, which not only tastes like bubblegum, it changes color from blue to purple when you add a mixer. Dilute it enough and it becomes pink! Au Vodka is not the first to sell a color-changing liquor- Empress 1908 Gin, which went viral in the summer, does the same for gin lovers.

Both liquors contain extracts of the butterfly pea flower, a plant that is already pretty adult. The flower acts as a litmus test by changing color according to the acidity of its surroundings. Its original blue color will turn purple or pink when a citrus mixer such as lemonade or grapefruit juice is added. Mixing these cocktails in front of an audience is a pretty neat bar trick. However, no floor show will get me to drink bubblegum flavored vodka.

While Au Vodka is promoting their bubblegum liquor on Twitter, it is nowhere to be found on their website. They must have sold out their entire inventory. Maybe they'll make more.

(Image credit: Au Vodka)

Dragons are large mythical reptiles that are found all over the world. Well, the myths are found all over the world, anyway. Strangely, medieval naturalists were writing about and describing dragons for hundreds of years before they realized these animals did not exist. So where did the idea of dragons come from? Possibly from Homer's Iliad.

Six passages mention the drakon, a creature that, from the context, is clearly a snake. Homer didn’t seem to be referring to any specific type of snake and neither did Aristotle, whose fourth-century BCE History of Animals noted that the eagle eats drakons.

That explains the name, but how did Homer's snakes become winged monsters that breathed fire? That took some time, and came about because of assumptions, miscommunications, and the inability of writers to distinguish fact from fiction. Read some of the steps in the long process of turning snakes into dragons at Jstor Daily.  -via Strange Company

The bar has been raised again. Tom BetGeorge always puts on terrific holiday light shows- we've been featuring his work for a decade now. His hobby of choreographing his Halloween and Christmas light displays led him to start his own business, and he's always looking out for new technology to impress the neighbors. For Halloween 2022, that includes an army of computer-controlled drones! They fly as far as 400 feet above the house (meaning they now need multiple cameras to record it all, including a drone camera). Also, BetGeorge and his family have moved from Tracy to a new house in Linden, California, with more room for the light shows. This year's sequence features a Stranger Things theme and music from Metallica, plus Ghostbusters. The combination of sequenced lights, video projection, and drones is truly over-the-top.

After the show, we get to see how big their new place is as they set the drones. And that solar array means they shouldn't worry about powering the lights. -via reddit

(Image credit: Daniel Mennerich)

If you've read Washington Irving's story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or if you've seen any of the five movie adaptations or numerous television versions, you are familiar with the terrifying Headless Horseman. And isn't Sleepy Hollow just the perfect name for a horror story setting? I case you didn't know, Sleepy Hollow is a real place in New York state. The village of Sleepy Hollow has embraced the fame that Irving's story brought.

(Image credit: Adam Jones)

October is the best time to visit Sleepy Hollow, as the leaves are at their peak, and also because that's when Sleepy Hollow puts on its best haunted village act. You'll want to be there for the annual Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, open through November 20, featuring more than 7,000 illuminated Jack O’Lanterns. Or hear a reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the Tarrytown house that Irving lived in.  

(Image credit: SurFeRGiRL30)

That's just the beginning of the wonders of Sleepy Hollow. You can visit any time of the year and see the places that inspired Irving's story, sites that figured in American history, the lovingly preserved downtown, and the many memorials to Irving and his iconic Headless Horseman. See what Sleepy Hollow has to offer visitors at Halloween and year-round at Messy Nessy Chic.

Edgar Allan Poe is known as a horror author, but he wrote about quite a range of subjects. His works included gothic romance, science fiction, and poetry, and he is credited with inventing the detective fiction genre. But all his stories were imbued with melancholy and existential dread of one kind or another. That may be because that's what he knew. His life story was filled with sadness, despite achieving literary fame. The life story of Edgar Allan Poe reads like a character he might have created: dark, bleak, and mysterious. This short animated version illustrates that pretty well. -via Nag on the Lake

Near the spot where Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma meet, just off Route 66, lies a four-mile road they call the Devil's Promenade. This is where a glowing light has been reported to appear in the night since 1881. There used to be a town there called Hornet, and the light is called the Hornet Spook Light. Documented sightings have described the light as small as an egg or as large as a washtub. It comes in various colors, and sometimes moves or changes shape. Sightings are relatively few and far between, but plenty of living people have seen it.

What could cause such a mysterious light? Some think it comes from the headlights of cars on the highway, but others say Route 66 is too far away. And headlights weren't a thing around there in 1881. Others blame swamp gas or a wandering spirit. The Army Corps of Engineers calls it a "mysterious light of unknown origin". Read about the Hornet Spook Light at BBC Travel. -via Damn Interesting

A challenge you can't resist! Or at least I couldn't. Turn your head away as each song starts and see if you can name that tune before you look at the title onscreen. Describing the Bugs Bunny scene doesn't count.  

I thought I would do better than I did. I knew some, and couldn't bring up the name of others. When composers just give their compositions numbers instead of unique names, it's hard to commit them to memory. But there were a few I don't think I've ever even heard before. I could identify the Nokia ringtone, but I didn't know it was based on an existing song. If you enjoyed that, here's round two.



I could name more of them in the second round. How did you do?

A Finnish cruise line bought a ship in 1980 and named it the Viking Sally. Its first six years as a cruise ship were uneventful, but in 1986, a man met two strangers in a bar, and was brutally murdered in his cabin later that night. Police found the perpetrator, who later escaped from prison and murdered again. In 1987, two passengers were sleeping on the deck when they were attacked. They were taken to a hospital where one of them died of his injuries. It was 30 years before the perpetrator was discovered, but he was never convicted.

Was the Viking Sally cursed? The ship was sold and renamed, but it was the same boat that ran into a massive storm in 1994 and sank, killing 852 people. It was the second worst European maritime disaster outside of war, only surpassed by the Titanic. Only 137 people survived. Read the story of the Viking Sally at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Mark Markefelt)

The fast-moving, action-packed animated short A Brief Disagreement by Steve Cutts (previously at Neatorama) is basically about two cavemen fighting -"mankind's favourite pastime" as the YouTube description puts it. They begin with rocks and progress to clubs, and get their friends to join in. Their weapons get ever more sophisticated, but their feelings toward each other are stuck in a stubborn battle where the goal is winning at any cost. I suppose that's why they remain cavemen, even armed with today's high-tech killing machines. -via Laughing Squid

The top websites in the world are Google, YouTube, and Facebook. It's been like that for years. But what if you eliminated those, and ranked websites within nations? Then you'd end up learning something new about the world. Hostinger did just that. In fact, they eliminated all search engines, since they are a "middle man" to get you to other websites. They also eliminated porn sites, which are now ranked fourth and fifth globally. After that, we find out that Wikipedia is the top websites in 43 countries, which is very believable. But not the US! Americans like to buy things, so Amazon is at the top. Reddit is the go-to website in Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines. You might not know Delfi; it is a news site based in Estonia that operates in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, and English.

You can see and enlarge the world map greatly here. Then you'll find some interesting data, like how Blogspot is number one in Bolivia, 9GAG is tops in Nicaraugua, and IMDb is the most popular website in Liberia. Hostinger also has maps for the top news sites, banking sites, and food sites around the world (DoorDash beats all recipe sites in the US). You can see the global reach of websites that were eliminated at Open.Trends. Data is not available from every country in the world. -via Metafilter

Yes his name is Steeve Ho You Fat pic.twitter.com/B3A9YFHI3O

— SB Nation (@SBNation) October 5, 2022

If you recall the erstwhile Name of the Year tournament, you are no stranger to odd sports names. We've almost gotten used to them. But in a world where people travel from different cultures, some legitimate names can still surprise us. The internet lit up today over a French professional basketball player who shone brightly in an exhibition game between Metropolitans 92 and G League Ignite. The game was broadcast to showcase the future top draft picks Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson. But all anyone can talk about today is Steeve Ho You Fat. 

Ho You Fat was born in French Guiana, where his father, of Chinese descent, runs a logistics company and his mother is an African dance teacher. He has been playing professionally since 2008. Ho You Fat is 6' 8" and weights a mere 198 pounds. His is a fascinating story, but what everyone wants is a jersey with his name. Ho You Fat might be able to monetize that desire and retire.

For those who love Die Hard but think it's just not Christmassy enough, the new film Violent Night will fill that hole in your holidays. This is no Bad Santa, but rather an action movie centered around Kris Kringle. David Harbour stars as a depressed, burned out Santa Claus who rises to the occasion when a child on his nice list is threatened. The movie also stars John Leguizamo and Beverly D'Angelo, among a group of younger stars. Someone described the movie after seeing the trailer as "if Die Hard and Home Alone had a baby." Violent Night will stage its world premiere at New York Comic Con on Friday, and open nationwide in theaters on December 2.  -via reddit

Katmai National Park in Alaska is holding their annual Fat Bear Week tournament today through October 11th. Which of the park's brown bears have gained the most weight during the summer to ensure a safe and healthy winter hibernation? You can't just ask a bear to step on the scales, so these bears are judged on appearance (from a safe distance). People who have been following the bears all summer have their favorites, but if you don't, you can read up on the contenders in their profiles. The bears that have been around long enough have names, like Holly, Otis, Grazer, Walker, and Chunk, but they all have numbers.

The first round matchups today pit Bear 335 against Bear 164, and Bear 747 against Bear 856. If either advance far enough in the tournament, they will probably earn their own nicknames. Voting begins at noon Eastern Time. Cast your vote for both matchups here. You can vote in different matchups each day as the tournament advances. The final championship round will be Tuesday the 11th, and the winner will be announced some time after that.

Whether you vote or not, you'll enjoy checking out the bears on the park's live webcams. 

Two hours later pic.twitter.com/rjRqvltV8k

— Chosen One (@BlueMyrtle1) October 1, 2022

In the wake of hurricane Ian, a boat washed ashore on the coastline near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. To warn people away from the wreck, the local police Tweeted what surely seems like a sociology experiment. They should have known what would happen. Or maybe they did.

You win.

— kathy catanzaro (@kicatanzaro) October 2, 2022

The rest of the Twitter thread is filled with people who really want to go near the boat, mainly because of the warning.

pic.twitter.com/KDEsDwRBFQ

— Cameron Bennett (@Cameroneous) October 1, 2022

From the comments, we can assume that the boat is now the site of the world's largest party, filled with people from all over who didn't know where Myrtle Beach was until this warning was posted.

pic.twitter.com/FyIHPhqA74

— Greg David (@IAmGregDavid) October 4, 2022

You can read the entire thread here. -via Everlasting Blort