Neatorama

---

• Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs?
• Elite Elite
• By Day It's Just An Ordinary Wedding Cake, At Night, It's A Batman Cake
• Autumn Leaves
• A Long Time Ago, In a Park Far, Far Away
• Taste the Rainbow, Grumpy Cat
• 2013 Emmy Predictions
• Day of the Dead Wallet
• Crocodile Guitar
• Rob 'n' Ron
• Cheeseburger-Stuffed Crust Pizza
• WJSV Radio Broadcast from September 21, 1939
• Anatomy of a Turtle
• A Timeline of Web History
• Birds of A Feather Kick It Together
• Just Singing in the Rain
• Dinosaur Feathers Found in Ancient Amber
• Imgur Dress
• Monty Python's Flying Sticky Notes
• This Week at Neatorama
• Oory Gooey Monster Eye Ball Cookies
• Young People These Days Are Spoiled Rotten, I Tell You
• How Breaking Bad Should End

Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs? Posted: 22 Sep 2013 04:00 AM PDT (Photo: Remains to Be Seen) Why are people in Nineteenth Century photos usually grimacing? This newlywed couple looks like they've just been sentenced to hard labor. American author Mark Twain explains their expression: A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever. Twain wasn't alone. He supported a traditional though fading belief that smiling made you look stupid. The Atlantic cites scholar Nicholas Jeeves: Twain wasn’t the only believer in the idiocy of the style. Look back at painted portraiture — the tradition photography inherited — and you’ll rarely see a grinning subject. This is, in fact, Jeeves’s subject. “By the 17th century in Europe,“ he writes, “it was a well-established fact that the only people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment.” Indeed, not only were smiles of the middling sort, they breached propriety. In 1703, one French writer lamented “people who raise their upper lip so high… that their teeth are almost entirely visible.” Not only was this discourteous, he asked: Why do it at all? After all, “nature gave us lips to conceal them.” Portraits represented an ideal. It’s easy to mock them — they were the profile pictures of the aristocracy, in a sort of way — but they were crucial, tied to mortality, a method of preserving a person’s visage and affect. Jeeves puts it well: “The ambition [with portraiture] was not to capture a moment, but a moral certainty.” Subjects never looked exactly like their picture, yet their portraits were how they appeared. Portraits had permanence. You did not want to commit a permanent faux pas.  Link -via Glenn Reynolds

Elite Elite Posted: 22 Sep 2013 02:00 AM PDT Elite Elite by Atomic Rocket Upgrade your manner and upgrade your life, but first, upgrade your wardrobe with this Elite Elite T-shirt by T-shirt artist Atomic Rocket. Check out Atomic Rocket on Facebook then visit his NeatoShop page for more geeky awesome designs! Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog. InVADER Zolo Super Sonic Bros. Not So Serious Live Long Forcefully View more designs by Atomic Rocket | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

By Day It's Just An Ordinary Wedding Cake, At Night, It's A Batman Cake Posted: 22 Sep 2013 12:00 AM PDT Few wedding cakes have an alter-ego, but after seeing this great cake by Stiletto Studio, I realize that maybe they should. Just pull off the cloak and suddenly this ordinary cake is a supercake. Link

Autumn Leaves Posted: 21 Sep 2013 11:00 PM PDT (YouTube link) Rob the Siberian Husky loves to play in the leaves. If only we could all be so joyful frolicking in the wonders of nature! -via Daily Picks and Flicks

A Long Time Ago, In a Park Far, Far Away Posted: 21 Sep 2013 10:00 PM PDT In this cute illustration, John Schwegel mixes Star Wars and Regular Show. Though not pictured, Benson would obviously be an ever-irritable Obi-Wan Kenobi and Muscle Man would be Lando Calrissian. I've just learned that on Regular Show, Mark Hamill voices Skips the yeti (Chewbacca). That's all the more reason for a full-length crossover episode. Link

Taste the Rainbow, Grumpy Cat Posted: 21 Sep 2013 09:00 PM PDT No, it's not another one of those weird Skittles ads, it's actually the newest piece by artist Olga Shvartsur called Grumpy Cat Tastes The Rainbow. Something tells me Tardar Sauce would be grumpy even if she found the end of the rainbow and got to eat the leprecaun protecting his gold there. Link Via Laughing Squid

2013 Emmy Predictions Posted: 21 Sep 2013 08:00 PM PDT The primetime Emmy Awards will be handed out on Sunday night. Who will win? I don't know! No one here at Neatorama has time to watch TV, much less keep up with that many shows -we spend our time surfing the 'net so you don't have to. So here's a roundup of Emmy predictions from pop culture websites that know more about the subject. Sunday night, we'll find out not only who wins the awards, but which website predicted them best. Flavorwire’s 2013 Primetime Emmy Picks and Predictions. Uproxx: Who Will (And Should) Win At The 2013 Emmys. The Week: Predicting this year's winners.  CNN: Who should win vs. who will win. The Atlantic Wire: Our 2013 Emmys Predictions. Metacritic: 2013 Emmy Award Predictions from Experts & Users. The Hollywood Reporter: Who Will Win, Who Should Win (Analysis). Paste magazine: 2013 Emmy Predictions and Proclamations. Buzzfeed: Who Will Win (And Who Should Win) At The 2013 Emmys? The Daily Beast: Who Will Win and Who Should Win (Photos). Now if we were to take predictions on which website has the best predictions, we might just implode from meta recursion.

Day of the Dead Wallet Posted: 21 Sep 2013 07:00 PM PDT   Day of the Dead Wallet Whether spending money makes you feel like celebrating or death warmed over the Day of the Dead Wallet from the NeatoShop is for you. This great wallet features striking Day of the Dead imagery on both the outside and inside. When you open the wallet mariachi music plays.  The Day of the Dead Wallet is made of lightweight Tyvek. It is tear resistant, water-resistant, recyclable and eco-friendly. There is an on/off option for those occasions when music would not be appropriate.   Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Wallets, Purses, & Coin Bags.  Link

Crocodile Guitar Posted: 21 Sep 2013 07:00 PM PDT The craftsman behind the site Planet Zebulon makes custom guitars, including this beauty that will bite your hand off if you're not careful. He also made a painted version of this guitar design. Link -via reddit

Rob 'n' Ron Posted: 21 Sep 2013 06:00 PM PDT (vimeo link) This is described as a "miniature spaghetti Western." Ron and Ron are brothers planning a big bank robbery, um, of a sort. -via the Presurfer

Cheeseburger-Stuffed Crust Pizza Posted: 21 Sep 2013 05:00 PM PDT Pizza Hut's UK division has unveiled the perfect meal for those "I've given up on life" moments. You want to eat a cheeseburger and a pizza? In the past, you had to eat one at a time. But no longer. Good job, humanity. You had a nice run. Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

WJSV Radio Broadcast from September 21, 1939 Posted: 21 Sep 2013 04:00 PM PDT Radio station WJSV in Washington, D.C. recorded the entire day of programming on September 21, 1939 (exactly 74 years ago). Those recordings are available through the Internet Archive, and include music, newscasts, sports, advertisements, soap operas, comedies, advice, educational shows, game shows, baseball, and an address from president Roosevelt on the situation in Europe. All in one day! Each segment can be played seperately, and you'll find a more descriptive list of them at the Internet Archive. Link -via Metafilter

Anatomy of a Turtle Posted: 21 Sep 2013 03:00 PM PDT Forget everything you've read in your high school biology text book! THIS is the correct anatomy of a turtle. Between the carapace (the upper shell) and the plastron (that's the lower shell that encases the belly) of your favorite chelonian (that's fancy Latin word for, you guessed it, turtles) are 32 individual items including hoses, gaskets and screws! Without any digestive system, it's amazing how turtles could poop so much (just take it from my personal experience, turtles poop. A lot. If you don't find poop in your turtle's cage, perhaps its eating said poop.) Our pal Adam Koford (@apelad) tweeted this out, saying that it'll make a great coloring exercise. And for all you literalists, relax! It's just the schematics of the cute Polaris Turtle pool cleaner.

A Timeline of Web History Posted: 21 Sep 2013 02:00 PM PDT   The technical history of the internet is condensed into bite-sized (heh) descriptions with links on a timeline from Web Directions. The timeline begins in 1910, but gets crowded in the late 20th century. You can click on any of the milestones crowded into the bottom of the screen to bring up more information. Link -via The Verge

Birds of A Feather Kick It Together Posted: 21 Sep 2013 01:00 PM PDT Hope you're having as relaxing of a day as these adorable little birdie friends. Happy Saturday! Link Via Cute Overload

Just Singing in the Rain Posted: 21 Sep 2013 12:00 PM PDT Just Singing in the Rain by ddjvigo What a glorious feelin'! T-shirt designer ddjvigo is laughing at the clouds and singing in the rain with his favorite neighbor. Visit ddjvigo's Facebook page, then check out his NeatoShop page fore more neat stuff. Kaiju Splatted Skellington Gatchan in a Pocket Space Fiction View more designs by ddjvigo | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Dinosaur Feathers Found in Ancient Amber Posted: 21 Sep 2013 11:00 AM PDT More and more evidence of feathered dinosaurs comes to light as scientists look in different places. Paleontologists in Canada began digging through large museum collections of amber searching for tiny pieces of feathers that no one would bother with before. The researchers combed through thousands of minuscule amber nuggets from nearly 80 million years ago. Among them they found 11 M&M-sized globules with traces of ancient feathers and fuzz. A number resembled modern feathers—some fit for flying and others designed to dive. And unlike fossils, the amber preserved colors too: white, gray, red and brown. But a few hollow hair-like structures stumped researchers. The unidentifiable filaments weren’t plant fibers, fungus or fur, so the researchers surmise that they are protofeathers (thought to be the evolutionary precursors to feathers). See more pictures at Discover magazine. Link -via Digg (Image credit: Science/AAAS)

Imgur Dress Posted: 21 Sep 2013 10:00 AM PDT Olivia Mears was invited to an internet-themed costume party, so she dressed as Imgur, the image hosting website. Upvote! What would a Neatorama dress look like? Link -via Ian Brooks

Monty Python's Flying Sticky Notes Posted: 21 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT Monty Python's Flying Sticky Notes Need to address a sticky situation? Address it in style with the Monty Python's Flying Sticky Notes from the NeatoShop. This fantastic note book features notes designed to look like classic Python iconography. Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk stuff.  Link

This Week at Neatorama Posted: 21 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT We said goodbye to summer when school started. Then we said goodbye to summer when Labor Day came and went. Now we say goodbye for the final time, as it becomes official. The autumnal equinox is tomorrow, at 4:44 Eastern time, to be precise. From that point on, the nights will be longer than the days in the Northern Hemisphere. But that also means fun stuff like Halloween, football, colorful trees, Thanksgiving, new winter clothes, and fatty foods!   We brought you another fascinating Milestones book this week, called The Drug Book, in the post From Arsenic to Xanax, 250 Milestones in the History of Drugs. Eddie Deezen posed the question What Did Barney Rubble Do for a Living? The Dark Side of Peter Pan came from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. The Annals of Improbable Research gave us The Adventures of M.D. Levitt, M.D. A man also known as Dr. Fart. The Origins of the Periodic Table was from mental_floss magazine. We also had a list from the Bathroom Reader series in Calculator Words. Hy Conrad brought us another Whodunit titled All in the Family. The What Is It game this week had a mystery object that turned out to be a fisherman's surf sinker, also called a breakaway sinker, spider weight, or grapnel sinker. Neatoramanauts had much better answers. Berhard said it was the "matrix bug" that crawled into Neo's belly (in the "only" Matrix movie). That's funny -and worth a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Another t-shirt goes to DrWhatwho said, I'm just going to go ahead and state the obvious. It's an electric marshmallow roaster. You poke one marshmallow on each of the four wires and then connect the two leads to your power source. A few seconds later, toasted from the inside out all ready for s'mores. Congratulations to both! See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog. We can all learn a lesson in procrastination from Alex. I offered to write congratulatory posts for a couple of contests we had some time ago, but he graciously said he'd do it. A few weeks later, we found out who won the last Neatorama New T-shirts Giveaway and the Dream Picnic Pin to Win Giveaway. However, the actual winners knew much sooner. Speaking of giveaways, we're having a Halloween costume contest of sorts, but you don't have to dress up -just send pictures! Send in a picture of a costume you've worn or made for Halloween, even if it was a long time ago, and we'll feature them on the Halloween blog during the month of October. Also, the top costume pictures will win t-shirts from the NeatoShop! It doesn't even have to be a good costume -we'd like to see your funny and/or embarrassing Halloween costumes, too! Send your picture, and the story behind it, to tips@neatorama.com and join the roster of featured costumes that we'll start posting in October (that's only ten days away) on the Halloween blog! John loves polls, even when there's no question in the post. In South Korean Government Workers Are Given Romance Training, the poll he tacked on shows that y'all think the Neatorama crew should not be given romance training because "it should be harder, not easier, for you to reproduce." I did not even see that poll until this morning. The (non-giveaway) post with the most comments this week was How to Empty a Swimming Pool, followed by The Dark Side of Peter Pan and Escalator Etiquette.  The most popular post was The Dark Side of Peter Pan. Second place goes to Redneck Socks and What Did Barney Rubble Do for a Living? came in third. The post that people ♥ed most was Dancing Queen of the Bus Stop, with Leonardo Da Vinci’s Incredible Mechanical Lion coming in second, and CCTV Captured Young Men Fixing a Broken Bike Rack was third. And the most emailed post was A Field Guide to Procrastinators with Ginger Cat vs The Paper Army in second place. The most Facebook likes went to the post A Field Guide to Procrastinators. That was followed by The Dark Side of Peter Pan, and Hello Kitty: The Contacts got third place. The most reTweeted post was The Dark Side of Peter Pan. The big hit on G+ was Custom Car is Driven from the Back Seat, which was shared 605 times. That's outstanding! Thanks to everyone who shared our posts on social media. There's more to Neatorama than what you see on this main page. Over at the Neatoramanauts Facebook page, you'll see extra stuff like this poster on comma usage. Twaggies has an entire archive of great punny illustrated Tweets. And if you love puns, you'll want to browse the funny t-shirt section of the NeatoShop! Speaking of the NeatoShop, that's where you'll find Halloween costumes, decorations, and accessories to make your party stand out. And don't forget to check out the Halloween blog, which we are in the process of beefing up to help you get ready for a great Halloween!

Oory Gooey Monster Eye Ball Cookies Posted: 21 Sep 2013 08:00 AM PDT How do you turn cake mix into a tasty Halloween treat? Add in some cream cheese and butter along with green food coloring and eyeball candies and Bam! Now you have delicious Ooey Gooey Monster Eye Cookies. Link

Young People These Days Are Spoiled Rotten, I Tell You Posted: 21 Sep 2013 07:00 AM PDT Yes, your parents and their generation messed up everything for you. Abstruse Goose is correct. But look on the bright side: if you have kids, you can screw up a generation of your own. Link

How Breaking Bad Should End Posted: 21 Sep 2013 06:00 AM PDT (YouTube link) Every fan has their theories and flights of fancy about how Breaking Bad should end, or predictions about what will happen in the final episodes, so the Key of Awesome wrote a little song about them. Does it contain spoilers? Possibly, if you are only one or two seasons into the series. Otherwise, it's all speculation and nonsense, wrapped up in a funny song. -via Tastefully Offensive

You are subscribed to email updates from Neatorama To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610