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Five A-Listers Who Died in Obscurity Posted: 30 Jan 2009 07:59 PM PST It’s unimaginable to think that today’s Hollywood A-List could someday die in obscurity. Just imagine, 50 years from now they’ll be running one of those “In Memoriam” clip shows at the Oscars and your grandkid will turn to you and say, “Who was Angelina Jolie? She was kinda pretty.” That’s basically what happened to these ex-Hollywood starlets. Once A-Listers at the height of their fame, these celebs died in semi-obscurity - sometimes, especially in the case of our first actress, their anonymity was their own doing. Jean Arthur In the 1930s, Jean Arthur was known for her screwball comedies. You might know her from her three Frank Capra movies: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It With You. Despite seeming like a carefree funnylady, though, Jean had terrible anxiety and would run to her dressing room and cry pretty much the second the film stopped rolling. The rumor is that when her contract with Columbia Pictures ran out in 1944, she ran through the streets joyfully screaming about her freedom. Jean made her last movie in 1953 - Shane with Alan Ladd - and then turned to television for a few years. She taught drama at Vassar from 1968 to 1972 (Meryl Streep was in attendance), and then retreated from the spotlight entirely, refusing all acting jobs and interviews. “Quite frankly, I’d rather have my throat slit” than do an interview, she famously said. Jean was living in Carmel, California, when she had a stroke in 1989, and then died of a heart attack in 1991. Theda Bara Back in the silent movie era, Theda Bara was one of the biggest stars there was. She was kind of the Cher of her day, as far as fashion went - she wore extremely risque stuff that hardly covered anything. Some of it is eye-popping even by today’s standards. But by the ’20s, Theda was on her way out. She was sick of being typecast as the vamp character, but couldn’t really get any work otherwise. She couldn’t find a publisher to sell her memoirs to; she sold her life story to Columbia Pictures but they never made it. In 1954, she was diagnosed with cancer and died the next year, pretty much forgotten by the industry. Sadly, most of her work is lost to the ages - a 1937 fire at some Fox storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed all but three of her films, and even then, sometimes only seconds of the film have been saved. Clara Bow Clara Bow was the It Girl of the ’20s - the original It Girl, really, and definitely more interesting and talented than some of today’s actresses with the title. But she suffered from insomnia and had nervous breakdowns all of the time - she even earned the nickname “Crisis-A-Day Clara.” She married actor Rex Bell in 1932 and had two sons with him; she tried to commit suicide while he was running for the House of Representatives in 1944. After this, she pretty much holed up in her house and never left. She no longer lived with Rex; his political life in the spotlight was just too much for her to deal with. He died in 1962; she died in 1965 while watching an old Gary Cooper movie on TV. Hedy Lamarr Hedy is particularly fascinating, I think. Not only was she a gorgeous and talented actress, she was also an inventor. But we’ll get to that in a second. At the height of her career, Hedy co-starred in movies with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Bob Hope. After her 1951 movie with Hope, though, her career slid into oblivion. She was scheduled to make a comeback in the early ’60s, but when she pulled a Winona Ryder and was arrested for shoplifting, the studio had her replaced in the movie with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nothing much was heard from her for the next 30 years, then in 1991, she was arrested for shoplifting again. Tabloids immediately painted the picture of a destitute, washed-up starlet who couldn’t even afford her $21 bill at a drugstore, but she insisted that the problem was that she was absent-minded, legally blind and just confused about the situation. But she wasn’t poor: when she died in 2000, she left a $3 million estate to be split up among two of her children (the third later sued for his share). Before she died, though, she finally received some credit for her patriotic duty in 1941 - she and her then-husband had invented a device that would jam Nazi radar signals during WWII. The War Department declined, but when the patent later expired, they scooped it up to use on U.S. ships in 1962. Neither Hedy nor her ex-husband ever saw any money for it, or even an acknowledgment until a book mentioned the invention in 1992. Mary Pickford Now we’re talking about the Brangelina of the first half of the last century! Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were probably the most celebrated Hollywood couple of the day. Their palatial mansion, Pickfair, was the place to be seen. Despite the same, she retired in 1933 at the age of 41, sick of the business. When Fairbanks left her for actress Sylvia Hawkes in 1936, she married Buddy Rogers, an actor 11 years younger than her. That’s when she started withdrawing from Hollywood. She started drinking a lot (up to a quart of whiskey a day, some reports said), spent an inordinate amount of time in bed during the day and got up in the middle of the night to roam the halls of the mansion she and Fairbanks had once so happily shared. She was all but forgotten until 1976, when she was honored at the Academy Awards for her contributions to the industry. She came out of her Hobbit-hole to accept the award, but it ended up being weird - her wig was stuck on her head crooked and she muttered some unintelligible sentences into the microphone before wandering off stage. Mary died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1979. For more interesting information like this, check out The Hollywood Book of Death - it’s pretty morbid, yeah, but also full of fascinating (if not depressing) tidbits.

Boys With Unpopular Names More Likely to Commit Crimes Posted: 30 Jan 2009 05:21 PM PST Beware of naming your baby boy Ivan, Malcolm, Alec or Ernest:  you could be setting him up for a life of crime. Two economics professors (inoffensively named David and Daniel) at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania compared the first names of male juvenile delinquents to the first names of male juveniles in the population, and came up with a popularity name index (PNI) for each name.  They concluded that, regardless of race, boys with unpopular names are more likely to engage in criminal activity. Their study was published in the January issue of Social Science Quarterly, and the publisher stated: “adolescents with unpopular names may be more prone to crime because they are treated differently by their peers, making it more difficult for them to form relationships… Juveniles with unpopular names may also act out because they consciously or unconsciously dislike their names.” Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

10 Things You’ve Gotten Used To, But Your Grandkids Won’t Remember Posted: 30 Jan 2009 05:14 PM PST You may like land line phones and going out to Blockbuster video to browse down their aisles, but by the time your great grandkids are old enough to start to figure out the world, there will be plenty of things that will just be a faint memory in their little minds. Here’s a list of 10 things from I Heart Chaos that your grandkids will barely even know existed. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cbz3000.

Library May Ban Children’s Book to Comply with New Anti-Lead Law Posted: 30 Jan 2009 04:32 PM PST Remember our post about the new Consumer Product Safety Act that will make it illegal to sell children’s products unless they were tested for lead and phthalates? Besides threatening to put local artisans and small businesses who can’t afford the test (at $4,000 a pop), the law has another unintendend consequence: library may ban children’s books in order to comply: The Consumer Product Safety Act was passed by Congress Aug. 14 in reaction to findings that some toys imported from China contained dangerous levels of lead. President Bush signed the legislation, which includes stricter limits on lead levels in children’s products. The American Library Association said it fears the law has unintended consequences, and libraries may face the choice of closing their children’s sections, banning children under the age of 12 or completing expensive lead testing for every book. [...] This unintended consequence of the new law isn’t the first to rear its head since Congress passed it. A flurry of complaints from second-hand retailers afraid of being bankrupted by the new requirements prompted the commission to release a clarification on Jan. 8 stating the law doesn’t require all children’s items to be tested. However, it does make it illegal to distribute any children’s item that exceeds the lead limits, said Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Joseph Martyak. Though libraries, schools, and thrift shops aren’t required to test books for lead, they could face civil or criminal penalties if a book with an elevated lead level leaves its shelves. Link - Thanks Tiffany!

This Guy Should Do an Ad for Sharpie Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:50 PM PST I can tell you that if I tried to decorate our basement in Sharpie, it would look nothing like this. Then again, I’m not so artistically inclined. The link has video of the entire room, which better shows just how extensive the drawings are. There are lots of little touches, such as a trash can that has been doodled on to look like R2D2 and various literary figures sprinkled throughout the room. Link

Complete the Album Cover Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:48 PM PST This is strangely fascinating, and makes me want to go visit my parents’ house to raid their LPs and see what I can do with them. Although I’m not convinced they have anything I want to be associated with. Lobo? Best of Bread? Probably not. Link

White Jigsaw Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:48 PM PST This starts out easy, but every time you successfully complete one of the all-white puzzles, you get another one with more pieces. I can’t seem to stop playing… I want to know how large the final puzzle gets! If anyone gets there, let me know. Link

How To Crochet Master Shake Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:47 PM PST My crocheting skills are pretty minimal (as are my knitting skills, and pretty much all of my crafting skills), but I’m tempted to give Master Shake (he’s from Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force) a shot anyway. I think he would look smashing sitting on my desk at work. Great, now I’m going to have the ATHF song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Link via Craftzine

Vintage-Looking Valentines Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:46 PM PST When I was in high school, I worked at an antique store and developed a strange love for things that most 15-year-old girls do not usually adore (Depression glass, anyone?). That included vintage Valentines. I still have a few old ones that I’ve been saving for a “special occasion” for the past 11 years or so, but maybe now I don’t have to hoard them since Fred Flare is selling repros. Love them!! Link

An embarrassing look at the Wii Fit Posted: 30 Jan 2009 03:28 PM PST [YouTube - Link] So after the absurdity of waiting forever to get my hands on a Wii Fit, I thought it might work for the site I work for to put together a quick video with a few hat tips to other popular online videos detailing what is most likely the experience of 90% of the people who purchase a Wii Fit in order to lose weight and get into shape. We just posted it this morning and I think it is one of the things that I am both most proud of and most ashamed of ever filming for the internet. I’m sure once the comments start rolling in, the pride will all be replaced with shame… - via obsessable From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by C.K..

T.HANKS: The Tom Hanks Trash Bin Posted: 30 Jan 2009 02:19 PM PST Zoomdoggle took a photo of this Tom-tastic trash bin at his local pizza parlor: Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Trace1138.

Andrew Novick: The Man Who Saves Everything Posted: 30 Jan 2009 02:17 PM PST Andrew Novick is a engineer that works on the atomic clock. He was a member of the late 80’s band The Warlock Pincher’s and collector of collections. The man who has saved everything. Now a gallery in Denver Colorado is showcasing these many collections. See also this Denver Post Article: The Man Who Saves Everything “The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick features the overwhelming and unusual collections of an eccentric individual who does not consider himself an artist. In total, Andrew Novick estimates he has over a hundred collections: Barbie dolls of every variety, Chihuahua figurines, clown paintings, anything related to teeth or braces. The truth is he has far more things than will or can ever be organized into a "collection." Inside his home and in his rented storage space he has stacks, piles and boxes of answering machine cassette tapes full of incoming phone messages, more answering machine cassette tapes with recordings of recording almost every conversation he has ever had with a telemarketer, jars ripe with formaldehyde-free dead animals, uncommon foods and more. Link - via opticalwhimsy From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by donkeyparty.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Get Back In The Water Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:26 AM PST It’s not some scary new species but divers wearing dragon and lion masks to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Jaya Ancol Dreamland amusement park in Jakarta, Indonesia. According to the Chinese zodiac, it’s the year of the ox, which is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity.  Did you know President Barack Obama was born in the year of the ox? Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Fighting Giraffes Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:22 AM PST [YouTube - Link] You’d probably think that giraffes are gentle animals by looking at them in a zoo. But in the wild, when push comes to shove, these wild animals fight and fight hard. But have you ever thought of *how* they fight? After all, all giraffes have are their looooong necks. This clip, filmed on safari in Tanzania, will show you. From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

Gatortar Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:19 AM PST Seeing the steampunk electric guitar reminded me of  the Gatortar. It is a telecaster guitar, made with alligator skin by Louisiana artist John Preble. Check out the head stock - it’s a claw! Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by badbaby69.

Gold from Sewage Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:12 AM PST A Japanese sewage plant has found a new way to make money.  They reprocess their ash byproduct and reclaim the … gold? On January 28, sewage plant operator Nagano Prefecture Suwa Construction Office announced that approximately 1.9 kilograms (4.2 lbs) of gold can be mined from each ton of molten fly ash generated when incinerating sludge at its facility in the town of Suwa. Located in central Nagano prefecture, the Suwa Basin is home to numerous precision machining companies, metal plating facilities and hot springs, which may explain the high concentration of gold in the wastewater sludge. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by shadowfirebird.

Tattooed Lamborghini Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:10 AM PST The Lamborghini Gallardo is actually done in sharpie markers on the paint and then finished with a clear coat for protection. The "Sharpie Lamborghini" is owned by Prestige Imports, a car dealership specializing in high-end models. Link - via larryfire From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by larryfire.

Water Jet Pack Posted: 30 Jan 2009 10:07 AM PST It’s 2009 already, people! Where’s my jet pack? Well, this may not exactly be the jet pack we were promised, but it looks AWESOME! You *must* take a look at this video clip of the water jet pack over at Geeks are Sexy: Link From what I can gather, this is the invention of a guy named Raymond Li, who got a patent issued back in 2007.

Ninja Soccer Goal Posted: 30 Jan 2009 09:43 AM PST [YouTube - link] This is what you get when you have ninjas playing soccer … From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

Suddenly, 14 Children Posted: 30 Jan 2009 07:40 AM PST A woman gave birth to octuplets in California on Monday. Seven of the babies are breathing on their own, and all are expected to survive. The mother already had six children, the oldest only seven years old! Although the successful births at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower have received worldwide attention, they also have prompted disapproval from some medical ethicists and fertility specialists, who argue that high-number multiple births endanger the mother and also frequently lead to long-term health and developmental problems for the children. Under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, U.S. doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. After that age it is more difficult to become pregnant. The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33, based on available public records. Doctors were surprised by the eighth child, as they only knew about seven of them. Link

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