Neatorama

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• Crafting With Cat Hair
• Family Heirloom is a 135-Year Old Pickle
• Meat Mona Lisa
• John Carpenter's The Thing as a Musical
• Haunting Images in Half-Silvered Mirrors
• These Disney Princesses Can Rescue Themselves, Thank You Very Much
• City Hires Mimes to Mock Bad Drivers
• Golfer Wins His Weight in Ham
• 10x Scale Rubik's Cube is Both a Puzzle and a Chest of Drawers
• World's Weirdest Van Isn't Creepy at All. No, Not a Bit.
• Brain Rejects Negative Thoughts
• Hannibal Lecter Amigurumi
• Zeus in the Clouds
• Woman Climbed the Great Wall of China to Avoid £2.50 Admission Fee
• Bob
• The Rise of Red (Restaurants in) China
• Columbus' Confusion About the New World
• Coastal Erosion in Cornwall
• 9 Men Rescue Moose Trapped In Pool
• My Zombie Family Car Stickers

Crafting With Cat Hair Posted: 11 Oct 2011 05:09 AM PDT You should know by now that we love cats here at Neatorama. We love crafts, too! So when we heard about the new book Crafting With Cat Hair (subtitled Cute Handicrafts to Make With Your Cat), we knew it was a natural for us. Originally published in Japan as Nekoke ferutono han in 2009, this book by Kaori Tsutaya has now been translated into English by Amy Hirschman and hits bookstores today. KAORI TSUTAYA is a Japanese writer obsessed with cats. She exhibits her craftwork and runs kitty craft workshops to inspire other cat owners. AMY HIRSCHMAN is a translator, crafter, and pop-culture enthusiast. She lives in Los Angeles. We’ve posted before about people who knit sweaters out of their dog’s hair. This isn’t like that. And it’s not about recycling hair for the sake of recycling. Crafting with Cat Hair has small, yet very personal projects that celebrate your cat and they look as cute as can be! If you’ve got a cat and a cat brush, you have the raw materials to make several projects. Unless you have one of those hairless cats. Craft projects are not all that’s in this book. Tsutaya gives you plenty of pictures of her cats, some cat humor, and practical tips on caring for your cat, from proper brushing techniques to pest control. The miniature cat portrait project is the first one my cat crazy daughter wants to try. You can personalize the portraits to resemble cats you know. You can even make a group picture! These book covers are not completely made of cat hair, just the decorations. But you will have step-by-step instruction for making the covers as well as the cats. Tsutaya makes things easy for you by including a variety of cat patterns of the proper size for the projects. These are coin purses decorated with needle-felted cats. Other projects in the book include tote bags and pincushions you make yourself, and mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves that you decorate with needle-felted kitties. And what about the finger puppet on the cover? That’s my favorite. See, there are two basic techniques for making miniature cats in Crafting With Cat Hair. In the very first project, Tsutaya shows us how to make felt with cat hair, beginning with how you brush it from the cat. Wrapping layers and then shaping the material with soap and water give us a solid piece of cat hair fabric, which we’ve made in the shape of a finger puppet as we go. The other technique involves needle felting with cat hair, which is how many of the objects are decorated. Tsutaya also has instructions for cleaning and caring for the finished crafts. These projects make personal keepsakes honoring the cats you love (believe it or not, I first typed “catsakes”), and also would make great gifts for cat lovers! Or, you could skip the work and buy the book as a gift for your cat-loving friends and relative. Crafting With Cat Hair is published by Quirk Books, and is available in stores today, as well as online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Paperback, $14.95, 96 pages, 4-color, 7 ½ x 8 ISBN 978-1-59474-525-6

Family Heirloom is a 135-Year Old Pickle Posted: 10 Oct 2011 08:23 PM PDT Forget priceless china and stately grandfather clock! One family has got an heirloom that beat all others: a 135-year old pickle. From NPR's All Things Considered: ... the Boyle family, now of North Port, Fla., has been passing down this historical pickle ever since 1876. "It's still got the juice inside of it," Boyle says, "with the original cork, and it's got the brown label on it that says it was grown July 15, 1876." Boyle says he's aware his family treasure isn't exactly commonplace. "You know, a lot of people talk about heirlooms, you know, jewelry and necklaces and stuff like that," Boyle says. "But why would somebody pass down a pickle? That's just weird." Link

Meat Mona Lisa Posted: 10 Oct 2011 07:18 PM PDT A Russian artist named Aleksandr Solomko works extensively with meat. Because, as you know, meat is awesome. He made a reproduction (more or less) of the Mona Lisa out of 20 kilograms of sliced sausage. Link and More Information | Photo: Sergey

John Carpenter's The Thing as a Musical Posted: 10 Oct 2011 07:10 PM PDT (Video Link) So many movies can be turned into fine musicals, such as Conan the Barbarian and Predator. But The Thing? Yes! And the swinging, jazzy 1950s lounge singer-style music is a perfect fit for John Carpenter’s iconic horror movie. Maybe they should try the reverse: turning musicals into horror movies. Oh, but that has been done! -via Flavorwire

Haunting Images in Half-Silvered Mirrors Posted: 10 Oct 2011 07:01 PM PDT If you have a guest room, hang one of these mirrors in it. Don’t explain what it is. Deny that there’s a picture of a child and assert that it’s just a mirror. Thanks to the creative work of Etsy seller Sandy Ervin, you’ll have a good prank in the works. Link -via Boing Boing

These Disney Princesses Can Rescue Themselves, Thank You Very Much Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:49 PM PDT Anthony Herrera, who recently photoshopped Ewoks into the background of his children’s vacation photos, made this cake to reflect the interests of his five-year old daughter. Best of all: he added little shy Ewoks into the designs on the sides of the cake. You can view more pictures at the link. Link -via The Mary Sue

City Hires Mimes to Mock Bad Drivers Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:40 PM PDT Mimes! It’s a universally-acknowledged truism that you can never have too many mimes. The city of Caracas, Venezuela, demonstrated this by hiring mimes to stand in a neighborhood reputed to have the worst drivers. When drivers break the rules of driving safety, the mimes let the drivers know in a mime-ish way: Dressed in clown-like outfits and white gloves took to the streets of the Sucre district this past week, the mimes wag their fingers at traffic violators and at pedestrians who streaked across busy avenues rather than waiting at crosswalks. They found plenty to keep them busy in a city where motorcycle riders roar down sidewalks, buses drop passengers in the middle of busy streets and drivers treat red lights and speed limits as suggestions rather than orders. “Most people are collaborating, but bad habits are usually hard to break and some drivers just don’t change their ways,” said Neidy Suarez, an 18-year-old mime wearing fluorescent yellow overalls and a bright red ribbon wrapped around her pigtails. Link -via Jalopnik | Photo: AP

Golfer Wins His Weight in Ham Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:29 PM PDT For hitting a hole-in-one on the third hole at a Spanish golf tournament, 235-pound Scottish golfer Elliot Saltman walked away with his body weight in ham: Saltman made the shot from the par-3 third hole at El Encin Golf Hotel. Heavily cured and salted ham is a Spanish delicacy. “I’ve been trying to lose weight, but now I’m thinking I should have just kept it,” Saltman said. Ham was the prize offered for a hole-in-one at the third — prizes on other holes included a car and a watch. Ah, pork. Now there’s an incentive (hint, hint, Alex)! Link -via Geekosystem | Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images

10x Scale Rubik's Cube is Both a Puzzle and a Chest of Drawers Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:03 PM PDT Instructables user makendo built this magnificent Rubik’s Cube for his kids. The three horizontal layers rotate on a vertical axis. If you can figure out where the hidden locks are, you can open the drawers. So this is definitely not the place to store the fire extinguisher. Watch a video of the cube at the link. Link -via Make

World's Weirdest Van Isn't Creepy at All. No, Not a Bit. Posted: 10 Oct 2011 05:56 PM PDT (Video Link) Extremo the Clown is a Portland, Oregon-based artist who has created what he calls the city’s strangest van. It’s covered with what appear to be bronze sculptures and symbols. I can only guess about their meaning. Extremo’s Blog -via The Uniblog

Brain Rejects Negative Thoughts Posted: 10 Oct 2011 04:22 PM PDT Good news: your brain is hardwired for good news Bad news: your brain is hardwired for good news Why don't people stop smoking even after hearing bazillion public service messages that doing so will give them cancer? Why do people get married even though the rate of divorce is 50%? Neuroscientists have the answer: it's because the human brain rejects negative thoughts (and yes, sometimes to the detriment of the brain's host). When the news was positive, all people had more activity in the brain's frontal lobes, which are associated with processing errors. With negative information, the most optimistic people had the least activity in the frontal lobes, while the least optimistic had the most. It suggests the brain is picking and choosing which evidence to listen to. Dr Sharot said: "Smoking kills messages don't work as people think their chances of cancer are low. The divorce rate is 50%, but people don't think it's the same for them. There is a very fundamental bias in the brain." Dr Chris Chambers, neuroscientist from the University of Cardiff, said: "It's very cool, a very elegant piece of work and fascinating. "For me, this work highlights something that is becoming increasingly apparent in neuroscience, that a major part of brain function in decision-making is the testing of predictions against reality - in essence all people are 'scientists'. "And despite how sophisticated these neural networks are, it is illuminating to see how the brain sometimes comes up with wrong and overly optimistic answers despite the evidence." Link

Hannibal Lecter Amigurumi Posted: 10 Oct 2011 02:21 PM PDT I imagine crafter FlufferNutter eating liver and fava beans (slurp slurp slurp) and sipping Chianti while making this wickedly awesome Hannibal Lecter amigurumi: Link - via Crafty Crafty and Quiddity

Zeus in the Clouds Posted: 10 Oct 2011 02:10 PM PDT Neatoramanaut Beth Wieder saw a funny-shaped cloud and snapped a picture of it -and then was nice enough to send it to us! Can you see the hands of Zeus holding a baby Pegasus? The screenshot at the right from the Disney film Hercules should give you a bit of reference. -Thanks, Beth!

Woman Climbed the Great Wall of China to Avoid £2.50 Admission Fee Posted: 10 Oct 2011 12:20 PM PDT How far would you go to save a few bucks? Jump the turnstile? Phsaw, slackers! That ain't nothing compared to what this Chinese woman did to avoid a £2.50 admission fee: she climbed the Great Wall of China! Thrifty [Ma] Jei - who had no rope or safety equipment - told fellow visitors she'd grown up in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, climbing the walls of Zhonghau Castle since childhood and had never once paid to get in. But unfortunately her stunt encouraged other visitors to follow her example - with two falling and breaking their legs and three others having to be rescued by police. 'She ran up the wall like a goat and made it look easy. But when people tried it for themselves they saw it wasn't quite as simple as they thought,' explained one tourist. Link - via One Inch Punch

Bob Posted: 10 Oct 2011 09:57 AM PDT (vimeo link) This animated short story is from Jacob Frey and his fellow students at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. The real ending comes after the credits begin. -via Bits and Pieces

The Rise of Red (Restaurants in) China Posted: 10 Oct 2011 09:51 AM PDT Photo: Michael Christopher Brown/Newsweek Ah, the irony. Guess who's profitting from doing something that would've gotten them "re-educated" in a farm back in the days of the Cultural Revolution? Here's how some clever bourgeious restaurateurs are capitalizing on the boom of nostalgia in China: To many, the idea of a Cultural Revolution–themed dining establishment is paradoxical, since tasty cuisine was certainly not that era’s strong suit. The first “Red restaurants” sprouted in Beijing in the ’90s, offering little more than a few socialist-realist posters and food that was minimalist in the literal sense of the word. One served dandelion-leaf salad and raw cucumbers to symbolize the grass and bark that some poor Chinese ate during the hardscrabble ’60s and ’70s. Now Red-restaurant cuisine is more in line with middle-class tastes. In Mao’s hometown, “the Chairman’s Favorite”—roast fatty pork—is a must, while Red Scene offers a pricey shrimp dish for $27 alongside less-expensive cornmeal cakes and country-style bean curd. Melinda Liu of The Daily Beast reports: Link

Columbus' Confusion About the New World Posted: 10 Oct 2011 09:28 AM PDT Smithsonian has several articles today about Christopher Columbus, one of which explains some of his actions by looking at the mindset of a self-educated person in the 15th century. The unfamiliar things he saw in the New World were filtered through the knowledge of ancient writers, religious authorities, and culture. For example, both Columbus and king and queen of Spain assumed they would take dominion over any lands he discovered, because they were civilized and Christian, which obviously gave them rank over those who weren’t. Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera on Friday, August 3, 1492, reached the Canary Islands six days later and stayed there for a month to finish outfitting his ships. He left on September 6, and five weeks later, in about the place he expected, he found the Indies. What else could it be but the Indies? There on the shore were the naked people. With hawk’s bells and beads he made their acquaintance and found some of them wearing gold nose plugs. It all added up. He had found the Indies. And not only that. He had found a land over which he would have no difficulty in establishing Spanish dominion, for the people showed him an immediate veneration. He had been there only two days, coasting along the shores of the islands, when he was able to hear the natives crying in loud voices, “Come and see the men who have come from heaven; bring them food and drink.” If Columbus thought he was able to translate the language in two days’ time, it is not surprising that what he heard in it was what he wanted to hear or that what he saw was what he wanted to see—namely, the Indies, filled with people eager to submit to their new admiral and viceroy. The process of “civilizing” the peaceful Arawak people of Hispaniola involved taking their gold and putting them to work finding more, until the population dropped from a conservative estimate of 100,000 to only 32,000. Read a lot more about Columbus’ relationship with the New World in the article. Link

Coastal Erosion in Cornwall Posted: 10 Oct 2011 08:03 AM PDT (YouTube link) From what we’ve seen in the past few years, Americans may get the idea that everything in Britain is captured on CCTV, but it’s still astonishing that this rock slide was caught on video. The footage was taken of a cliff on the North Coast of Cornwall in September 23rd. The person taking the video had noticed a few small rock falls before the entire cliff face gave way.-via the Presurfer

9 Men Rescue Moose Trapped In Pool Posted: 10 Oct 2011 08:01 AM PDT George Trapotsis of Manchester, New Hampshire found a bull moose in his backyard pool Friday night. "This train-like noise came through the fence and dove right into the pool," said Trapotsis. The moose fell right through the pool cover, according to Trapotsis. “He tore the cover, got entangled and just couldn’t move,” Trapotsis said. Trapotsis said his first concern was keeping the animal alive and freeing it from the cover. At about midnight the rescue of the moose was underway. With a rope attached to the moose, nine men pulled the animal out of the water. "I didn't get trained on how to do this, that's for sure," said Jack Pushee of New Hampshire Fish and Game. "There's a first for everything." The moose then wandered off into the woods, appearing to be unharmed. Link (with video) -via Arbroath

My Zombie Family Car Stickers Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:05 AM PDT My Zombie Family Car Stickers – $9.95 Do you have a zombieriffic family? Tell the world, or at least the guy stuck behind you in traffic, with the My Zombie Family Car Stickers by Adam “ape lad” Koford from the NeatoShop. This frighteningly fabulous set comes with 8 stickers: Zombie Dad Zombie Mom Zombie Brother Zombie Sister Zombie Baby Zombie Cat Zombie Dog and heart-shaped brain Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Zombie fun! Link

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