Jay Ohrberg is the master designer of extreme cars. He was the one who built Kit, the car featured in Knight Rider, the Ghostbusters ambulance, the car in Robocop, and several iterations of the Batmobile. Oh yeah, and the Pink Panther car you see above. Somewhere along the way, he began to obsess about the limits of extreme cars: the widest, the longest, the most massive. And that's the origin of that limousine you saw on the early internet that you were sure was the result of image manipulation.



The limousine was real, held 72 passengers, and was 30.5-meters (100 feet) long. It sported a pool, a hot tub, a mini golf course, and a helipad, among other features. The limo made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. That was decades ago- what happened to the world's longest car since then? Find out where the limousine has been, and see plenty more of Jay Ohrberg automobile designs at Messy Messy Chic.

This song comes across as rather silly at first, but once you get into it, it's a wonderful story. A cowboy, who also happens to be a pumpkin, is dedicated to his cattle. He's a pacifist yet still a hero, seeking neither revenge nor accolade. He just does what a man's gotta do. Or what a pumpkin's gotta do, in this case. You'll also enjoy the villain, Cowboy Cat. "Pumpkin Cowboy" by Brian David Gilbert (previously at Neatorama) and performed by Jonah Scott was inspired by the purchase of a somewhat-smiling pumpkin toy at a flea market. But you already figured that part out, didn't you? -via reddit

Country music singer, actor, and national treasure Dolly Parton grew up in Sevierville, Tennessee, in a big family, so she learned to cook a long, long time ago. Now Duncan Hines has teamed up with Parton to bring you a line of her Southern-style cakes in mix form, with frosting, too! In March, you'll be able to find the Dolly Parton Baking Collection, including her Southern-style Banana Cake mix, Southern-style Coconut Cake mix, Creamy Buttercream Frosting, and Creamy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting at your local grocery store. Yeah, if it's Southern, you can expect plenty of butter.

Once the mixes are available, use them as ingredients for Dolly's recipes. Duncan Hines has posted a recipe for Dolly's Favorite Coconut Cake, which appears to be just the instructions from the box, and Dolly's Favorite Banana Puddin' Cake, which is a souped up version of the Banana cake mix, in which you add pudding and bananas to make it taste like Southern-style banana pudding. Why you would want to do this instead of just making banana pudding is your own business. -via Mental Floss

We've had a lot of fun in the past with medieval bestiaries, full of inaccurate depictions of animals. This was a result of world travelers who brought stories back to Europe of the amazing animals they encountered. Artists tried to recreate these animals from their descriptions, but were not all that successful. Those travelers could have been inadequate describers, or the animals they spoke of could have just been so far out of the artists' experience that they couldn't do the subject justice. If a witness had actually tried to sketch out the creatures they'd seen, the artist's finished product may have been more accurate, but for some reason, that wasn't a thing. As it was, medieval artists always seemed to start with a dog and add features they were told about, at least for land animals. For sea creatures, they started with a fish and added what they were told.

But that's not all that's going on in this video. We also learn about some weird myths these exotic creatures became burdened with. Who knew you could distract a tiger mother with a mirror? Or that pelican babies ate their parents? -via Laughing Squid

The biggest single-day disaster in the history of the District of Columbia occurred one hundred years ago, on January 28, 1922, but few even know about it today. It wasn't an act of war or terrorism, and that may be the reason it's been mostly forgotten. It was the night the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed.

What has since been called the Knickerbocker Storm was a blizzard that raged through Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and left 28 inches of snow on Washington, D.C. The storm was over by the 28th, and 200 or so people trudged through the snow and paid 25 cents to watch a movie at the Knickerbocker. It was still a slow night- the theater had a capacity of 1700. It also had a flat roof. The weight of all that snow caused the roof to come down in one piece, killing 98 people and injuring 133. Read about the Knickerbocker Theatre disaster at Smithsonian.

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Nothing's more fun than a music video made with Star Wars clips, especially if it's by the masters of the genre, Auralnauts. "Everyone in Star Wars Getting Ready to GO" is an original song by Scott Beetley and Auralnauts. The lyrics are at the YouTube page. Besides the song, the magic here is the absolute perfect clip choice for every lyric. That brings up the question: were the clips chosen to go with the lyrics, or were the lyrics written around the clips? This music video is an excerpt from their latest parody called Star Wars Ep. 7: Banana Time. It's long, but worth every minute. -via Boing Boing

As if February didn't have enough holidays: we have the Lunar New Year on the first, Groundhog Day on the second, the Super Bowl on the 13th, Valentines Day on the 14th, and Presidents Day on the 21st (Mardi Gras isn't until March first). Our friend Ron Gordon, keeper of the calendar holidays, informs us that February second is Trumpet Day. How's that? The date is written 2/2/22, which sounds like four notes of a classic trumpet fanfare!

Gordon is having a contest for Trumpet Day, which has been in the works since 2013. Now the time is here, and  they are looking for "the brassiest, classiest, sassiest way to celebrate the day!" Share your Trumpet Day ideas or celebration and win both money and bragging rights. Send in your entries by noon on February 15 to rongordon135@gmail.com or mail to

Ron Gordon
Box 5133
Redwood City, CA. 94063

The Trumpet Day Contest features our largest prize ever----$2,222---with nary a decimal. The prize will be shared by lots of folks---we will have 2+2+22 plus “to” plus “too” plus “two toooo!!” winners. Our best holiday math suggests that means Fifty-Two people will divide the prize---no one gets really rich, but all can brag and tooot their own horns about their brilliant accomplishments.

Read more about Trumpet Day at the Trumpet Day website.

Frederick Miller wanted to buy a home in the area he grew up in, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, that was big enough to accommodate reunions of his huge extended family. When his sister sent him a listing for a 10.50-acre estate called Sharswood, he jumped on the opportunity, and bought it in 2020. Only then did Miller's sisters start to dig into the history of Sharswood. It was once a 2,000-acre tobacco plantation owned by Charles Edwin Miller and Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller, and in 1860 was home to 58 enslaved people.

The family's genealogy records go back to 1870, when their Miller ancestors lived on land that would have been on the larger plantation of the time. The 1860 census only listed the number of slaves by gender and age, but there were matches with the later records they had. The plantation has ancestral ties to new owner Frederick Miller and his many relatives.

Thinking about what their ancestors may have endured in captivity is painful. Although the Miller men who owned the property never married, the descendants of those enslaved at Sharswood believe they had children with women on the property. They wonder about ancestors who would have had no say in that. That some of them are descendants of the enslaved and the enslaver is a real possibility. They have thought of all of that. And more.

“When I saw the cabin, a feeling came over me like I believe I’m home,” said Dexter Miller. “I could feel my ancestors, and it almost brought tears to my eyes. I can picture them sitting around the fireplace, and the stories they were telling. I’m in the presence of my ancestors hundreds of years ago who lived here and slept here and birthed here. But I also think about what happened around that big oak tree. Were my ancestors beaten there? Hanged there? That’s crept into my mind. You never know.”

Read the story of the Millers and their discovery of their family legacy at Sharswood at Tell Us USA. -via Metafilter 

(Image source: Zillow)

I was not familiar with the term "jet bridge" until I watched this video, although I have used them many times. It's the hallway that swings out from an airport terminal to a plane so that passengers can board without climbing stairs. It's an innovation that makes all the difference in the world for people who use wheelchairs. However, in the cutthroat world of budget airlines these days, it's considered a luxury that can be cut to save some money. Airports charge the airlines per-passenger fees which can vary depending on whether a jet bridge is used. Planes are also charged parking fees (by the minute) which are higher near the terminal or at a jet bridge.

Personally, I don't mind climbing stairs to get on a plane, but when the plane is parked a half mile from the terminal and there's no bus or luggage transport, it can get a a bit annoying. Simple Flying explains what's happened to the simple luxury of the jet bridge.   -via Boing Boing

Amy Schneider is on a months-long winning streak on the game show Jeopardy! On Tuesday, she surpassed Matt Amodio to become the second-winningest contestant on the show when she won her 39th game (Ken Jennings is still the champ, winning 74 consecutive games). How long will this continue? A few people know, including Schneider herself, but she's not telling anyone.

See, Jeopardy! tapes a week's worth of shows at a time, and they air a couple of months later. So that's a long time to keep a TV spoiler to yourself. The show doesn't stipulate secrecy as a requirement, but encourages it to make the game more fun for viewers. As it was, Schneider held a small party for friends when her first episode aired. They were excited when she won, but had no idea how many times she would go back to defend her title. And they still don't. Ken Jennings' boss was in on his winning streak, since he had to miss work again and again for TV tapings. They collaborated on stories to tell other employees about his frequent absences. Now imagine that Schneider won enough money to retire from her job -which could happen. Quitting months before anyone knows why would be an obvious spoiler. What would you do? Read how Schneider and other big Jeopardy! Winners deal with the tension and temptation to tell at The Ringer. -via Digg

The eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano on January 15th was huge. The nearby nation of Tonga was flooded by a tsunami, covered with volcanic ash, and cut off from the internet for days. What have we found out about it since then?

Scientific analysis has revealed the actual size of the eruption, and the massive number of lightning strikes inside it. We have a possible trajectory of the ash flung skyward. We have pictures from Tonga, which you would have thought were taken with black and white film if it weren't for the blue of the ocean. The eruption's shock wave traveled around the world four times. Astrum brings us up to speed on the Pacific eruption and what we've learned about it so far. The last minute of the video is an ad.

You can recreate a player piano scroll, or the drum on a music box with the online generator Music Box Fun! Place your notes along the grid on a 15, 20, or 30 note scale and see what happens (if you need sharps and flats, select the 30-note scale). Bryan Braun tells us how he came to build this toy. Yeah, you could pull out a score from the piano bench and build it quickly, or just fool around like me, or if you know a bit about music you can show off your chops with a familiar tune or even an original.  

People who know what they're doing have shared their creations. To get an idea of what it could sound like, here's the theme from Jeopardy! And here's "Bohemian Rhapsody," although you'll want to speed up the tempo to listen to it. If you make something with this, let us know!  -via Laughing Squid

The Eternals is the 26th movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After an exciting opening in theaters last fall, it made $402 million worldwide and was the tenth highest grossing movie of 2021. That would be a great run for most movies, but The Eternals is an MCU film with a bunch of well-known actors, so the box office was a disappointment. Reviews were mixed, and The Eternals is currently the lowest-rated Marvel film on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. So what happened? Screen Junkies fills us in with their Honest Trailer. Their verdict? It's dumb.

When a prison is replaced or decommissioned for one reason or another, what do you do with the building? These are often very old and very solidly-built institutions, but hard to convert to offices on a government budget. So they are sold off to private interests. A surprising number of such buildings are converted into hotels, where the building's history is used to promote the business. After all, who wouldn't want to stay in a prison cell? Yeah, there have been extensive renovations, and many of these hotels are luxurious, despite the names. But there are a couple that cater to their history in their aesthetic, too. Pictured here is the HI Ottawa Jail Hostel in Ottawa, Ontario, which retains a lot of the flavor of being imprisoned.

The brick-walled cells have been freshened with a lick of paint and modern furnishings but still have metal bars and iron doors. There are now handles on the inside, though, so there’s no risk of being locked up for good. Regular guided tours typically take visitors around the building, rated as one of the most haunted in North America. With the gallows, where death row prisoners were hanged, soberingly on display, that reputation is perhaps unsurprising.

Whether it's your particular kink or you're just looking for some place different to stay during your travels, there's a prison hotel for you. Learn about 16 hotels that were once jails or prisons in a list at Love Exploring. -via Fark

Tom Scott takes us on a visit to the International Coca Quarantine Centre. You can tell it's in England by the way they spelled "center." But why does cocoa have to go into quarantine? It's not the chocolate that they're worried about, but the cocoa plants that grow it. What's more, there are quarantine facilities for banana plants and potato plants and other crops before they can be certified safe for shipping to research facilities or to farms around the world.

We certainly don't want a repeat of what happened to bananas, when Panama disease wiped out the Gros Michel variety, leaving us only the Cavendish, and what may still happen to Cavendish bananas.