Neatorama

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• Inflatable Waterslide for a Yacht
• Tech Monks Teacups
• Chocolate Cakes Baked Inside Oranges
• For Sale: Check Out Card Signed by Elvis Presley
• Knuckle Duster Revolver
• How Male Beetles Attract The Ladies: The Smell of Sex and Death
• Do You See Yourself in the Mirror?
• Leader of Anti-Semitic Party in Hungary Found Out He's Actually Jewish
• TARDIS Cake Topper
• The Secret to Raising Successful Children
• If Famous Architects Designed Chicken Coops
• Irish Olympic Sailing Commentary
• Wonder Woman Onesie
• Subpar Mini Golf, Complete with the Golden Gate Bridge Loop-de-Loop
• Keep On Cooking
• Hartman’s Historical Rock Garden
• GLUED
• Incredible Seahorses
• Man Sells His Whole Life on eBay
• Game of Thrones Risk Game
• Manatees Discuss Shark Week
• The Lady and the Bug
• Rappin' 'Rents
• The Avengers Stainless Steel Water Bottle
• Hunter S. Thompson Applies for a Job
• How Is The New Neatorama Doing So Far?
• What The Girls In The World of TRON Wear to Prom
• Reading Squirrel Caption Contest Winners
• Lunchtime Quiz: Shark Attack!
• Ceiling Cat Goes to School

Inflatable Waterslide for a Yacht Posted: I want one of these. I don't have a yacht, but the Neatorama warehouse should be an adequate replacement. FreeStyle Slides makes only one product, but it's an awesome one. Each slide is custom made to fit your yacht's height and color scheme. Watch a video at the link. Link -via The Presurfer

Tech Monks Teacups Posted: Tech Monks Teacups - $11.95 The daily grind can be stressful. Soothe your frayed nerves with a spot of tea in the fabulous Tech Monks Teacups from the NeatoShop. This set of 2 porcelain cups is perfect for seeking a higher plane of enlightment during a technological crises.    Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Glassware & Drinkware! Link

Chocolate Cakes Baked Inside Oranges Posted: Who needs s'mores? Chris Rochelle has an even better idea for campfire food! Cut the tops off about 10 oranges and scoop out the pulp. Fill the oranges three-quarters of the way with chocolate cake batter (cake mix works fine), then put the orange tops back on and wrap each orange in aluminum foil. Place directly onto the smoldering coals of the campfire, avoiding any intense flames, and cook for about 30 minutes, turning once or twice. Don't eat the peel. Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

For Sale: Check Out Card Signed by Elvis Presley Posted: Some Neatoramanauts may be old enough to know what this is. It's a checkout card for a library book, used in the days when library circulation was handled by bear skins and stone knives instead of computers. In 1948, the Man Who Would Be King checked The Courageous Heart, a biography of Andrew Jackson, out of the library at Humes High School. It's for sale at Heritage Auctions. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

Knuckle Duster Revolver Posted: This unusual gun is a 7-shot .22 caliber brass and steel revolver. It's tiny--the hole fits around a single finger. Gunmaker James Reid made fewer than 10,000 of them between 1865-1882, some of them in .32 and .41 calibers. Link | Photo: curio96

How Male Beetles Attract The Ladies: The Smell of Sex and Death Posted: We all know that in order to attract mates, we need to smell good. But for the hide beetles (Dermestes maculatus), smelling good with sex pheromones is not enough. They need an extra oomph ... and that's provided by the smell of death: ... Christian von Hoermann, a forensic entomologist at Ulm University, Germany, and his colleagues exposed virgin females to several potentially alluring scents. They found that neither the male sex pheromones nor the scent of a pig's cadaver at various stages of decay were significantly more attractive to the virgin females than the scent of a control solvent. But a combination of dead pig scent and male pheromone had the females flocking. Link

Do You See Yourself in the Mirror? Posted: When you see yourself in the mirror every morning, who do you really see? Photographer Tom Hussey's elderly dad said that he still felt young, like he was in his twenties, and that whenever he looked in the mirror, he didn't recognize the old face that stared back at him. That inspired Tom to create this photography series titled "Reflections." He said in this piece by Claire O'Neill at NPR's The Picture Show: "The images evoke a reaction from every person, in pretty much any culture," he says, "because everybody ... has a moment in their life where they think that's how they are. It might be the day you got married, or high school graduation or the time in college." View more at Tom's website: Link So, how do you see yourself, Neatoramanauts? Is the man or woman in the mirror a true reflection of how you see yourself?

Leader of Anti-Semitic Party in Hungary Found Out He's Actually Jewish Posted: Oh, the irony. The leader of a far-right anti-semitic political party in Hungary, who was notorious for his incendiary comments against Jews, discovered that he's actually Jewish himself: ... Csanad Szegedi had in the past railed about the "Jewishness" of the political class. According to the ADL, his party's presidential candidate referred to Israeli Jews as "lice-infested, dirty murderers." For Szegedi all of this came to a screeching halt, when in 2010 a prisoner confronted him with evidence that he had Jewish roots. According to the AP, Szegedi tried to bribe the prisoner to keep him quiet, but rumors and innuendo reached a fever pitch by late last year and in June, Szegedi conceded that his mother was a Jew. According to Jewish law, that makes Szegedi Jewish, too. Not only that, but Szegedi's grandmother survived Auschwitz and his grandfather survived labor camps. Link | In-depth story by the AP

TARDIS Cake Topper Posted: Love, love, love this Doctor Who TARDIS-themed cake topper! Seems like someone creative simply put together a store-bought bride and groom wedding topper with a TARDIS! Link Via That's Nerdalicious Check out the NeatoShop for neat Doctor Who stuff

The Secret to Raising Successful Children Posted: Psst, parents! Want to raise happy and successful children? Put down that Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother book and land the helicopter parenting methods. Pyshcologist and author Madeline Levine tells us all about the secret of good parenting: While parents who are clearly and embarrassingly inappropriate come in for ridicule, many of us find ourselves drawn to the idea that with just a bit more parental elbow grease, we might turn out children with great talents and assured futures. Is there really anything wrong with a kind of “overparenting lite”? Parental involvement has a long and rich history of being studied. Decades of studies, many of them by Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the optimal parent is one who is involved and responsive, who sets high expectations but respects her child’s autonomy. These “authoritative parents” appear to hit the sweet spot of parental involvement and generally raise children who do better academically, psychologically and socially than children whose parents are either permissive and less involved, or controlling and more involved. Why is this particular parenting style so successful, and what does it tell us about overparenting? Link

If Famous Architects Designed Chicken Coops Posted: Science fiction author Marko Kloos owns a chicken coop. It's a simple affair, but chicken coops don't have to be so. He imagined what coops would look like if they were designed by famous architects: The Frank Lloyd Wright: A beautiful chicken coop mimicking the flow of water down a stony terrace. Eighteen different square elements are stacked into a descending spiral shape. It takes two people nine hours to clean the poop out of all the nooks and crannies every week. [...] The Walter Gropius/Bauhaus: A coop vaguely shaped like a rooster comb and made out of steel and glass. The chickens live in 128 identical single apartments with little balconies. Because of the huge windows, interior temperature on sunny days is 112 degrees. The Le Corbusier: A monstrous 30x30ft. concrete block with an interior chicken run and its own freeway exit. The chickens descend into depression and substance abuse, and the suicide rate is sky-high. [...] The Howard Roark: A bare patch of ground in the middle of the front lawn. The chickens can’t expect everything to be handed to them. Read the rest at the link. Link | Photo: holowac

Irish Olympic Sailing Commentary Posted: This Irish Olympic commentary from a sailing event sounds like something produced by The Onion. Really really funny stuff here!

Wonder Woman Onesie Posted: Wonder Woman Onesie - $35.95 There is no denying that your baby girl is more beautiful than Aphrodite. Now you can dress her like the super baby she is with the Wonder Woman Onesie from the NeatoShop. The costume includes: tutu, cape, pants, headpiece and booties. This outfit is sure to turn heads at your next cosplay event.  Don't forget to check out the NeatoShop for more amazing Wonder Woman items and fabulous Superhero Onesies.  Link

Subpar Mini Golf, Complete with the Golden Gate Bridge Loop-de-Loop Posted: Photo: Rusty Blazenhoff/Flickr Now that is a putt putt golf loop-de-loop! Rusty Blazenhoff of Laughing Squid went to Subpar Miniature Golf (hah! get it? Subpar?) in Alameda, California, and snapped tons of very cool photos: With its much-anticipated opening day approaching, my daughter and I got a full tour of Subpar Miniature Golf, a Bay Area-themed 18-hole indoor miniature golf course on Park Street in Alameda, California. Owner & Manager Michael Taft showed us around the new (and custom built) course which winds around the Bay Area, starting with an Altamont Pass hole (most courses have a windmill, this one has a wind turbine) and ending with a Winchester Mystery House hole. Some points in between include a Golden Gate Bridge loop de loop hole, an Alcatraz hole and more. There’s even a East Oakland one, complete with its own mini-taco truck (Taqueria Sinaloa, naturally). Take a look over at Laughing Squid: Link | Rusty's Flickr Photoset | Supbar Mini Golf website

Keep On Cooking Posted: (YouTube link) Juila Child gets the auto-tune treatment, courtesy of PBS Digital Studios. August 15th would have been her 100th birthday. PBS has a celebration page up, with information and tributes to the French Chef, as well as recipes, episodes of her show, and even a quiz. Link -via Metafilter See also:Julia Child's 100th Birthday

Hartman’s Historical Rock Garden Posted: Hartman’s Historical Rock Garden in Springfield, Ohio is one of those roadside attractions you should see if you're in the neighborhood. It began as one man's hobby that over time grew into an amazing creation. The art project dates from 1932, when Harry George Hartman lost his job during the Great Depression. The molder occupied his time with creating rock sculptures in his back yard, spanning all sorts of themes. Religion, historic buildings, recreations of famous battles and hundreds of thousands of stones. You can see it, too -the admission is free. Or see lots of photographs at Random Good Stuff. Link

GLUED Posted: (vimeo link) A mother tries her best to deal with a son who is addicted to video games. GLUED is a short film by several third year students at the Bezalel Academy of the Arts in Jerusalem. They documented the process of making the film on their project blog. Link

Incredible Seahorses Posted: Learn about these strange creatures that are fish shaped like a horse that gestates its babies in the male's body. And better yet, see lovely pictures of seahorses from all over the world at Environmental Graffiti. Link (Image credit: Flickr user Choh Wah Ye)

Man Sells His Whole Life on eBay Posted: Some people use eBay to unload their junk, but 29-year-old Shane Butcher is using it to sell his entire life, including his video game stores, cars, and even his two houses and everything in them for the asking price of $3.5 million. Dog and wife not included, though: “It’s something you don’t see every day. You don’t see people selling their life on eBay,” Shane said in an interview with the local media. “There’s plenty of other weird things you see on there like a grilled cheese with the Virgin Mary’s face on it, but this doesn’t happen very often.” ”There’s so many things I haven’t seen and you just can’t see everything when you’re tied down to a business,” he said. “I’ve never seen Mount Everest, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park–I want to go see things. I have a huge bucket list,” Butcher added. Oddity Central has the story: Link

Game of Thrones Risk Game Posted: Fay Helfer created this handmade The Game of Thrones version of the strategy board game Risk, and we are duly impressed. The set comes complete with pyrography artwork and carved map of Westeros. Well done! Link - via Nerd Approved

Manatees Discuss Shark Week Posted: Cartoonist Rachel Arnow thinks Shark Week is shortchanging the audience. Manatees can be ferocious, too! Check out her comic Man vs. Manatee. Link -via Tastefully Offensive

The Lady and the Bug Posted: An entomological adventure tale by Stephen Drew, AIR staff NEWS ITEM: “An Israeli woman swallowed a cockroach and then a fork she used to try to remove the insect from her throat. The winged cockroach jumped into the 32-year-old woman’s mouth as she was cleaning her home in a village in northern Israel this week… [a] surgeon at the Poria Hospital in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, removed the fork with laparoscopic surgery, a minimally invasive procedure performed through a tiny incision on the patient’s abdomen.” — from a wire service report by the Associated Press, July 10, 2003 There was a young woman who swallowed a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach. There was a young woman who swallowed a fork That wriggled and jiggled when she applied torque. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach. There was an incision into a gal’s tummy Occasioned by something that made her feel crummy. She felt bad because she had swallowed a fork. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach. There was a winged cockroach who had some adventures That started when he flew through some woman’s dentures, And ended with him dissolved in gastric juice — The doctors came too late to set the roach loose. The doctors arrived when the woman felt crummy. They drilled through her tummy to fish out a fork. She swallowed the fork to fish out a roach. No one knows why she swallowed the roach. And no one knows what to make of these affairs, And nobody really much cares. BONUS: The traditional song "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" (YouTube link) _____________________ The article above is republished with permission from the July-August 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift! Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

Rappin' 'Rents Posted: Have you been to NeatoBambino lately? Just in the last couple of days, we've posted two new rap songs about dealing with children. Even if you aren't a parent, you'll get a kick out of the clever wordplay. The Parent Rap involves the whole family, though Mom and Dad are in control. "When it comes to Candyland, I'm a stone cold player." In Daddy Skills, a young father explains his new life to his old buddy. "Say, dude, look at you, all mature and wise." Other recent posts show you some neat kid-friendly crafts, like a toy car made from a bottle, a school bus made from a Twinkie, sushi made from recycled plastic, and a flying saucer made out of breakfast! Check them all out at NeatoBambino. Link

The Avengers Stainless Steel Water Bottle Posted: The Avengers Stainless Steel Water Bottle - $11.95 (Back and Front Shown) Boy it's hot! Keep up your super strength by staying hydrated with The Avengers Stainless Steel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop. This great container holds 27 oz. of fluid. Avenge your thirst today! Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Water Bottles and Back To School items! Link

Hunter S. Thompson Applies for a Job Posted: Back in 1958, when Hunter S. Thompson was 21 years old and no one called him a gonzo jounrnalist yet, he wrote a letter to Jack Scott of the Vancouver Sun trying to land a job. Sir, I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services. Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley. By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you. I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.) Nothing beats having good references. Oh, there's more to the letter. Read the whole thing, plus context and the article that inspired it, at the Toronto Sun. Link -via Nag on the Lake

How Is The New Neatorama Doing So Far? Posted: Earlier this month, we launched the new version of Neatorama. It wasn't just a redesign - we actually built a new blogging engine from the ground up. Our intrepid engineer Rommel has been fixing bugs and improving things. We've got some more improvements on the to-do list, but I wanted to check in with you guys and ask how we're doing so far. Got any feedback? Love the new design? Hate it? Let us know in the comment section! Found a bug? Please email us at bugs AT neatorama DOT com. Thank you! POLL: The New Neatorama is ... Better than the old version No different than the old version Worse than the old version

What The Girls In The World of TRON Wear to Prom Posted: Flickr user Karen Green spotted this great cosplay dress at Comic Con 2011 and appropriately titled it "like a TRON prom dress." I don't know about you guys, but I'd love to see someone actually wearing this dress to their prom. Maybe one of our younger readers could take a little inspiration for their prom -you have just enough time to make your own. Link

Reading Squirrel Caption Contest Winners Posted: Warning: All Stressed Out and Nobody to Choke Millennium Falcon Ice Tray Battle Damage A couple of weeks ago, we held a Neatorama Caption Contest featuring a reading chipmunk ... then we unleashed the new Neatorama and got distracted with fixing bugs :( But we haven't forgotten about this - so, after a bit of a delay, here are the winners: May contain traces of ... Aw NUTS - Bearfoot I just ate 3 times my body weight in carbs?!?!?! - BennyJ More scandal? Politicians these days seem a wee bit squirrely. - Meghan Congratulations again to the winners! Thank you for playing, everyone! Please check out the NeatoShop for more Funny T-shirts, Ice Trays for these hot, hot summer days, and Star Wars items for your favorite geeks!

Lunchtime Quiz: Shark Attack! Posted: Did you know there are over 400 species of sharks? The dangerous sharks seem to get all the publicity, especially suring Shark Week. Find out how much you know about the different shark species by taking the Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You'll be given six sharks. All you have to do is match the name with the picture. Yes, I got all six right. Link Shark Attack! Score: 100% (6 out of 6) After you take the quiz, read our previous Shark Week feature The Ten Weirdest Sharks Ever. Link

Ceiling Cat Goes to School Posted: (YouTube link) It can be annoying when non-students drop in unannounced. This happened at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. -via Buzzfeed

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