Ventriloquism is often seen as cheesy, campy and outdated because people always relate it to dummy acts like Jeff Dunham, but the art of ventriloquism goes far beyond a mere puppet show.
And truly gifted ventriloquists are capable of doing some amazing things with their voices, like swapping voices with another ventriloquist as demonstrated by Rudi Rok and his friend Sari Alto in this fun video.
There ain't no overdubbing or audio tricks involved folks, just pure ventriloquistic vocal magic!
Directors use lighting and color to set the emotional tone of their film, changing these things up during the film to emphasize the way certain scenes should make the audience feel.
Usage of these elements is most effective when they're hardly noticed by the audience at all, so viewers feel the tension, dread or laughter welling up within them without really knowing why.
This episode of 4 Minute Film School by Aputure shows what a difference these elements make to the mood of a film, and how lighting and color are used differently according to genre.
Going away to college is exciting, terrifying and earth shattering all at the same time, and as teens turn into young adults they sow their wild oats like never before, resulting in epic memories both good and bad:
“In the first week of December, I saw a man dressed as Santa Claus sprinting across campus while being chased by a man in a green morph suit wearing a Grinch mask. They were both yelling and screaming about Christmas as they ran. It was so close to finals week, literally no one even turned their heads.” —makenziet3
“The BDSM club – Bible Discussion and Study Meeting. I literally had to go back to make sure I read that correctly. I go to a Christian university and yes, people are THAT innocent. After that, we now have to send all flyers to be reviewed.” —Ariana Coyne, Facebook
College days are chock full of surprises- pop quizzes, instant crushes, parties in the middle of the week, spontaneous makeout sessions and sudden breakups that leaves the dumpee feeling desperate:
“I once woke up to a drunk bagpiper, in his full uniform (kilt and all) playing a medley of Lady Gaga hits in my apartment complex’s parking lot. It was around 4am. He was trying to win back a girl who dumped him.” —Katie Copley, Facebook
And more often than not college craziness is fueled by alcohol and a sense of freedom most students have never felt before:
“Some friends and I were apartment hunting, and this guy was showing us his place. He moved this giant cardboard beer advertisement cutout and showed us a giant hole in the living room wall. We all looked at him simultaneously and he just shrugged and explained ‘battle axe’.” —brendalaylab
But the memories that really stick out for most college students are those moments when being free meant letting your freak flag fly high, knowing no one would judge you for nerding out:
“I was walking in the quad and I saw a tightrope strung between some trees. Then a big group of furries in full fursuits congregated around it, taking turns trying to walk the tightrope.” —ZeniaBlue
Many drivers start to worry when that little red gas pump light comes on, and unless they know their car's fuel usage well they start to wonder how far they'll be able to go before they totally run out of gas.
Most cars have about 1 to 3 gallons left when the gas light comes on, which is why it's good to know how many miles per gallon your car gets so you know how far you can go before it sputters out.
This handy chart created by YourMechanic shows how much gas is remaining, and how far the car can go, when the fuel warning light is triggered in the 50 best selling cars in the U.S., so you'll never have to pull a Kramer to find out.
Miami Vice launched the career of Don Johnson while simultaneously destroying the career of Philip Michael Thomas, but did you know the hippest of all 80s crime shows also introduced the world to Jimmy Smits, Benicio Del Toro and Ben Stiller?
Jimmy Smits appeared on the first episode of Miami Vice as Crockett's first partner Eddie Rivera, in Jimmy's first on screen appearance.
Miami Vice was also Benicio Del Toro's first stop in a storied career when, at age 20, he appeared on the show as "Pito, an ex-con-turned-thespian with a local theater group, Mi Vida Loca."
For Ben Stiller Miami Vice was only his third appearance on TV, and yet he was already developing the kooky fast talking persona he's known for today when he appeared as Fast Eddie Felcher on episode 2 of season 4.
Miami Vice was also a major starting point for tough guy actor Dennis Farina, who worked as a consultant for exec. producer Michael Mann after 18 years with the Chicago Police Department.
Mann liked Dennis so much he not only cast him as recurring character Albert Lombard on Miami Vice- he cast Dennis as the lead in Crime Story, one of the best historical crime shows ever made.
Lastly we have Liam Neeson, who was already a bit of a veteran when he appeared on the first episode of Miami Vice's third season as a former IRA hitman who woos detective Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago).
Liam used his appearance on the show in 1986 to launch his film career in Hollywood, and he would play a similar character a year later in the film A Prayer For The Dying.
The Pink Panther was the coolest cat on television in the 60s and 70s, and even though he's had quite a few different shows he's best known for The Pink Panther Show, which ran on NBC from 1969 to 1976.
NBC obviously had faith that the show would succeed because they had this far out custom built Panthermobile made for the intro of the show:
The Panthermobile measure 23 feet long, sports a seven-litre engine and a "Pleasure Capsule":
This part of the Panthermobile lives up to its name as it is tricked out with a bar; pink satin upholstery; pink shag carpet; an old school pink push button phone and seats already in the recline position. It was also equipped with a little black and white television and a camera that allowed the driver to spy on the party going on in the back.
Ten years ago the Panthermobile was sold at auction for $143,500, but when it reappeared at auction in 2011 the Panthermobile looked like something the cat coughed up.
Thankfully it was purchased by Galpin Auto Sports, who put in the time and money to restore the Panthermobile to its former fuzzy pink glory.
Pablo Picasso's Cubist paintings give the viewer a sense of depth and dimension despite his use of simplistic shapes, flat colors and minimal shading to render each scene.
This is a testament to his skills as a painter, as he gives our minds just enough information to see the scene as more than a bunch of 2D colored shapes, and his paintings even inspire the digital artists of today.
Pakistani artist Omar Aqil is one of the many digital artists who has been inspired by Picasso's paintings, but he has set himself apart from the rest by attempting to faithfully recreate each painting as a 3D render.
His series MIMIC features 3D scenes that are every bit as unusual looking as Picasso's original paintings but with much more textural interest and depth. Here's what Omar has to say about this unusual project:
MIMIC is a series of new visual experiments using art from the past. In this project I have randomly picked 6 paintings from the Pablo Picasso’s (One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century) work and recreate them into modern 3D visuals. In this visual mimicry I have shown, how the skill responds when it come across the complexity of someone’s thought and how the meanings of the shapes and forms have been changed and create new physical qualities. It’s propose to give a new implication of Picasso’s artworks with a series of hyper-realistic visuals. I am trying to explore more to his geometric forms. It’s really difficult to me to recreate the artwork of Pablo Picasso. I have been studying his artworks since I have started my career, his abstract visual language always inspired me and I have found new forms interacting with each other.
That old line "why don't you take a picture, it will last longer" is so tired and so clichéd people who use it might as well be saying "I don't like to be looked at- and I'm also not very witty."
I get that they don't want every slack jawed yokel staring at them while they're walking down the street, but does an altercation full of harsh words really accomplish anything good?
According to this strip by A Comik these encounters can sometimes lead to hugs and a deeper understanding of the human condition- and the photo op of a lifetime.
Some dogs see the world as a great big canine roleplaying game full of human NPCs to feed them and scoop their poop, multiplayer trips to the junkyard to gain XP by eating gross stuff, and the occasional leashed "escort quest".
Illustrator Anna-Maria Jung created this cute comic strip to show us how dogs play through the game of life, and it has inspired me to buy my dog more Worthless Costume DLC...which he's not going to be very happy about.
Unbeknownst to many there are sirens set up throughout the city of Dallas, Texas to warn the citizens in case of tornado or other natural disaster, a total of 156 emergency weather sirens to be exact.
These sirens are designed to go off a section at a time if a tornado decides to rip through the city, but at just before midnight on April 7th every single siren in the city started screaming:
It took city officials an hour and a half to realize they wouldn't be able to fix the problem- because the system had been hacked:
By 1:20 a.m., flummoxed officials had decided the only way to stop the noise was “to unplug the radio systems and the repeater, and pretty much turn the siren system completely off,” as emergency management director Rocky Vaz explained to reporters the next day.
At that same news conference (ironically drowned out at one point by ambulance sirens) city spokeswoman Sana Syed announced that the 95 minutes of howling had not been a glitch after all.
“It does appear at this time it was a hack,” she said. “And we do believe it came from the Dallas area.”
Officials have ruled out a remote hack — telling reporters someone gained physical access to a hub connecting all the sirens, which may not be turned on again until Monday as the city tries to figure out who, how and why.
This here's the story of two unlucky guys who ended up with a tattoo on their face shaped like a pair of glasses, and the craziest part of this tale is one of them actually got the glasses tattooed on purpose.
Matthew was tired of having his Hipster status questioned because he didn't wear Ray-Ban Wayfarers without lenses like all the other Hipsters so he decided to show them all- by getting a pair of Ray-Bans permanently tattooed on his face.
The Welsh man in his fifties has chosen to remain anonymous for reasons that are abundantly clear, and he claims he woke up with the horrible tattoo on his face after blacking out during a night of heavy drinking.
After receiving laser surgeries for two years the eyeglass-shaped eyesore has been completely removed from his face, leaving him with nothing but memories of his drunken mistake.
The world needs trailblazers like Matthew and the Man from Swansea- so we can show those who would dare to do such a thing that getting eyeglasses tattooed on your face is a really dumb idea!
The characters on Adventure Time are purposely drawn in a completely unrealistic style to suit the strange and silly tone of the show- and because they would look totally creepy if drawn to look realistic.
In fact, most of the characters on the show would probably look quite horrifying in real life and give kids nightmares, especially Simon the Ice King and that sourpuss the Earl of Lemongrab.
This transformation has not only caused the characters to lose their cartoony appeal- it has taken them from the Land of Ooo and transported them straight to Westeros!
NERF modders were obsessed with pushing their store-bought NERF guns to the limit, but once those limits were reached they ditched the guns and started making devices built to launch darts further than ever before.
Recently YouTuber Giaco Whatever created a pneumatic "gun" that launches NERF darts at such a high speed those little foam and plastic darts actually break the sound barrier, traveling at around 800 meters per second. The NERF wars are about to turn deadly...
Preparing for parenthood means going through dozens of different names looking for a winner, and that means doing some digging to discover new names and weigh your options.
Unless you're a futurist like my dad was you'll probably look to the past for inspiration, so why not go way, way, way back and search for naming inspiration in The Dictionary Of Medieval Names from European Sources?
It is a hefty work of scholarship that “aims to contain all given (fore, Christian) names recorded in European sources written between 500 and 1600, less the names of historical/non-contemporary people and names occurring only in fictional literature or poetry.”
It really is a treasure trove of long unused names that deserve to make a comeback, here are a few of the olde timey names that caught my eye:
2. Cherubina
This variant on the word cherub showed up as a name in Rome in 1527.
3. Aylward
There were spelling variations on this one, including Eilwardus, Aloardus, and Æðeluuard, but this one probably works best for the Kindergartener learning to write.
8. Everbern
For your dangerously cuddly cub, ever goes back to the Old High German for "boar," and bern goes back to the word for "bear."
10. Ysoria
The etymology is uncertain, “but perhaps related to Latin Isaura, an ethic byname derived from the region of Isauria in Asia Minor.”
16. Magner
Feel like Magnus is too common? Go for Magner, which can be traced back to the Old High German for "mighty army."
17. Alleaume
This name of a 10th century French saint means "noble helmet."
We expect our kitchen appliances to be subservient and do their jobs as quietly as possible, and if one of them starts acting up or making a racket we replace them with a quieter model.
But something tells me redditor sillymuffincakes will be hanging on to his waffle maker despite the fact that it farts while cooking- because it really lightens the mood in the morning!
