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2014/03/30

Neatorama

Neatorama

Hoarder Is Killed By His Own Wall Of Trash

Posted: 30 Mar 2014 04:00 AM PDT

(Image Via WFAA)

Increased risk of fire, exposure to toxic mold, and toxoplasmosis due to animal waste exposure are all risks you run living life as a hoarder, but the most common risk is the one that recently took the life of a Dallas man- death by suffocation or crushing, when giant piles of junk come crashing down on top of you.

The 67-year-old Dallas resident was buried under what neighbors described as “a ten foot high wall of trash”, so police had to enter the home through the roof, searching for two full days before finally locating his body because the dogs couldn't smell him through all the trash and rotting animal carcasses.

Somehow the man’s Chihuahua buddy survived the trash-alanche, and now the lucky dog gets to live in a home free of dead raccoons and jars filled with human waste.

-Via Gawker

Wolverine The Musical

Posted: 30 Mar 2014 02:00 AM PDT

(YouTube link)

Hugh Jackman visited the Matt Edmondson Show on BBC Radio and sang about playing the part of Wolverine. The song is based on “Who Am I” from Les Miserables, with new superhero lyrics. Jackman was a good sport about it, and with a little more practice, could have pulled this off on stage in front of a crowd. -via Viral Viral Videos

This Couch Looks Like a Pile of Marshmallows

Posted: 30 Mar 2014 12:00 AM PDT

Kei Harada designed this couch. He calls it, appropriately, Marshmallows. Harada's goal was to create a form that would inspire movement. Judging from the way these kids are responding, I'd say that he was successful.

-via Toxel

What Marge Simpson Would Look Like In Real Life

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PDT

(Video Link)

The Simpsons, and all the cartoony folks that populate the imaginary city of Springfield, may look cute and colorful on the small screen, but in real life they'd look downright freaky!

This depiction of Marge Simpson in real life called "Flower Marge" was created by photographer Alexander Khokhlov, with the help of makeup artist Veronica Ershova and stylist Mikhail Kravchenko.

Marge's hair gets its textural look from the hundreds of chrysanthemums which were glued to the frame that forms her signature hairstyle, and when the model closes her eyes the transformation into cartoon superstar is complete.

The included video shows the making of Flower Marge, but you may want to mute the sound before you tune in.

-Via Geekologie

Adorable Photos of Metalheads and Their Pet Cats

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 10:00 PM PDT

If you want to talk about hardcore cat lovers, talk about hardcore musicians. They love their cats as much as anyone -or maybe more! Alexandra Crockett took photographs of metal musicians from groups such as Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, Black Goat, Isis, and Exhumed with their beloved pet cats. Her photo book Metal Cats will be available May 6, and part of the proceeds will go to no-kill shelters. See a preview of the photographs at Flavorwire. The very best photo, in my opinion, is the one selected for the book cover.

(Image credit: Alexandra Crockett)

For Sale: A Creepy Life-Size Model of David Hasselhoff

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 09:00 PM PDT

(Photos: Julien's Live)

I have wonderful news! Your decades-long dream of having a realistic life-size model of David Hasselhoff in your home can finally come true! The actor, who is most famous for his roles in Knight Rider and Baywatch, is auctioning off a large number of memorabilia from a collection that he has developed during his career.

Among them is this prop from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.Hasselhoff appeared in that movie playing himself. This prop was necessary for some of the visual effects. You can see it in the video embedded below.


(Video Link)

-via Blazenfluff

Darth Vader Running for President of Ukraine

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 08:00 PM PDT

The transitional government of Ukraine has scheduled national elections for May 25, and so far there are 14 candidates running for the office of president. The latest to throw his hat into the ring is Darth Vader.

Mr. Vader was nominated by the Internet Party of Ukraine, notes Voice of Russia via Interfax. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine confirmed Darth Vader’s entry into the race. A complete application along with the required 2.5 million hryvni as a monetary deposit were submitted Saturday.

The fee of 2.5 million hryvni is over $200,000 US, so someone is serious about this candidacy. Of course, with Ukraine under threat from Russia, they could really use a president with experience in imperialism and rebellion. The deadline for filing for the office is Sunday. 

This Amazingly Complex Commercial Was Shot in Just One Continuous Take

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 07:00 PM PDT


(Video Link)

It's 1 minute and 41 seconds of complex choreography done with basketballs and a car. Filmmaker Kurt Hugo Schneider made it as a commercial for Buick. At the age of 25, Schneider is already making waves in the advertising world for his Coca-Cola commercials. I'd say that he has a promising future.

-via Jalopnik

Did the Amazon Warriors Really Exist?

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 06:00 PM PDT

I was a fan of Wonder Woman as a comics-reading child, just as I was a fan of Batman and Superman. Being a kid, I figured the land of the Amazons was in the Amazon Rainforest. The legendary Amazons actually came from ancient Greek tales. Homer included them in the Iliad, and from there mentions of a warrior class of women were peppered into many epic stories. But were those tales based on fact or fiction?

The more important the Amazons became to Athenian national identity, the more the Greeks searched for evidence of their vanquished foe. The fifth century B.C. historian Herodotus did his best to fill in the missing gaps. The “father of history,” as he is known, located the Amazonian capital as Themiscyra, a fortified city on the banks of the Thermodon River near the coast of the Black Sea in what is now northern Turkey. The women divided their time between pillaging expeditions as far afield as Persia and, closer to home, founding such famous towns as Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope and Paphos. Procreation was confined to an annual event with a neighboring tribe. Baby boys were sent back to their fathers, while the girls were trained to become warriors. An encounter with the Greeks at the Battle of Thermodon ended this idyllic existence. Three shiploads of captured Amazons ran aground near Scythia, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. At first, the Amazons and the Scythians were braced to fight each other. But love indeed conquered all and the two groups eventually intermarried. Their descendants became nomads, trekking northeast into the steppes where they founded a new race of Scythians called the Sauromatians. “The women of the Sauromatae have continued from that day to the present,” wrote Herodotus, “to observe their ancient customs, frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands...in war taking the field and wearing the very same dress as the men....Their marriage law lays it down, that no girl shall wed until she has killed a man in battle.”

The Amazon women were presumed to be legendary, until a Sauromatian graveyard was found in the early 1990s. The 2,000-year-old graves found in southern Russia near the border with Kazakhstan were excavated and threw an entirely new light onto the legends. Read about what they found, and what it means for the Amazon legend, at Smithsonian.  

(Image credit: Sharon Mollerus)

Meet Champ, The Most Photogenic Dog in the World

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 05:00 PM PDT

Most dogs look either pretty, handsome, or cute. Some more than others. But Champ, who is pictured above, is perhaps the most consistently photogenic dog in the world. A lot of that is probably the skill of his owner and photographer, Candice Sedighan.

You can find her Flickr page here. I strongly suggest that you block out about an hour for examining it because the adorableness is refined at such a high level. It will suck you in.

Sedighan has attracted so much attention that Flickr interviewed her about her work. See the butterfly photo above? That's not photoshopped. Champ is very cooperative in Sedighan's work. In fact, she says, Champ follows her around whenever he sees her pick up her camera because he's ready to go to work.

-via American Digest

What You Wish Would Happen on <i>The Walking Dead</i>

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 04:00 PM PDT

(YouTube link)

This video contains spoilers if you aren’t current on The Walking Dead. College Humor calls this a “wish fulfillment” scenario -or several of them, actually, introducing elements that would make the show even more over-the-top ridiculous than it already is, but we’d love to see them. I could totally believe that Michonne is 300 years old. -via Laughing Squid

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen Visit the Stonewall Inn

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 03:00 PM PDT

Actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are best friends. Stewart often posts on Twitter photos of the two of them together, palling around in their signature derbies. Here's one that he just put up. It shows them in front of the Stonewall Inn in New York City.

The Stonewall Inn is an historically gay bar in Greenwich Village. Police raided it on June 28, 1969. Gays fought back in an event known as the Stonewall Riots. Many historians regard this resistance as the birth of the gay rights movement in the United States.

P.S. Be sure to check out this hilarious animated .gif showing Stewart and McKellen. It mashes up a scene from the latest X-Men movie with their photos together. In the movie, Stewart and McKellen play Professor X and Magneto, longtime enemies.

Tech Support

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 02:00 PM PDT

Tech folks are forever talking on internet forums about the dumb problems people bring to them. On the up side, it’s usually easy to fix the problem -sometimes it’s just a matter of turning on the power or something equally as obvious. But then the down side is that if the user was dumb enough to let that happen in the first place, they will be dumb enough to let the same thing happen again. This comic is from Jeff Wysaski of Pleated-Jeans.

The Rise and Fall of Professional Bowling

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 01:00 PM PDT

(Photo: Jimmy McIntyre)

Pro football, pro basketball, pro baseball, pro bowling. The last item on this list may seem like an odd choice, but there was once a time when professional bowling in the United States was a highly competitive, money-making sport that generated massive earnings for players. In the 1960s and 70s, professional bowlers were celebrities in a sport that was closely watched by millions of fans. Zachary Crockett has a lengthy and fascinating piece on the subject. He writes:

In the "golden era" of the 1960s and 70s, they made twice as much money as NFL stars, signed million dollar contracts, and were heralded as international celebrities. After each match, they’d be flanked by beautiful women who’d seen them bowl on television, or had read about them in Sports Illustrated.

Today, the glitz and glamour has faded. Pro bowlers supplement their careers with second jobs, like delivering sod, or working at a call center. They share Motel 6 rooms on tour to save on travel expenses, and thrive on the less-than-exciting dime of beef jerky sponsorships.

Don Carter, a star bowler during this golden age, was the first athlete in any sport to secure a milion dollar endorsement contract:

In 1964, “bowling legend” Don Carter was the first athlete in any sport to receive a $1 million endorsement deal ($7.6 million today). In return, bowling manufacturing company Ebonite got the rights to release the bowler’s signature model ball. At the time, the offer was 200x what professional golfer Arnold Palmer got for his endorsement with Wilson, and 100x what football star Joe Namath got from his deal with Schick razor. Additionally, Carter was already making $100,000 ($750,000) per year through tournaments, exhibitions, television appearances, and other endorsements, including Miller, Viceroys, and Wonder Bread.

Here is one of those commercials:


(Video Link)

-via Glenn Reynolds

Duncan Lou Who on the Beach

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 12:00 PM PDT

(YouTube link)

Duncan Lou Who is a boxer whose back legs were so deformed that they were removed. Panda Paws Rescue in Vancouver, an organization for special needs dogs, took him in and gave him a chance at life. Duncan lives with Annie, another boxer who is missing her front legs. Duncan has a set of wheels, but he prefers to run free, which he does very well! Here we see his first trip to the beach, where he plays like a very happy dog, indeed! -via Viral Viral Videos

Duncan joins the stories of other dogs who have overcome disabilities like Zip, Roosevelt, Sugar, Faith, and this little dog whose name we do not know.

How to Make Sushi Roses

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 11:00 AM PDT

Don't they look so cute? Kon, a writer for Rocket News 24, has step-by-step instructions for creating these flowers made of salmon. They'd be great for a romantic dinner date.

He calls them carpaccio rolls, which is actually an Italian dish of raw meat. He seasoned these with lemon, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Who Will Die in the Season Finale of <i>The Walking Dead</i>?

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 10:00 AM PDT

If you follow the the TV show The Walking Dead for any length of time, you come to realize that they kill off a major character or two in every season finale and mid-season finale. The “who will die” question has been discussed thoroughly at The Walking Dead Forums, reddit, Warming Glow, Entertainment Weekly, Heavy, and The Examiner, among other sites.

If you are not current on the series, you may want to skip the rest of this post because of possible spoilers. Otherwise, click "continue reading" for more speculation.

Several characters have had a “foreshadowing moment,” but the show’s producers are well aware of the prediction game and may be playing with us. And the biggest foreshadowing moment doesn’t tell us who will die. Remember the creepy painting Michonne found in the house she and Carl raided?



The side braid made fans think it was Lizzie, but it's really Tasha Yar! There were other paintings, and all seem to foreshadow something. But who dies is still not clear. Then again, the show might take a complete turn from the expected and kill no one in the season finale. The producers have made it pretty clear that it will end in a cliffhanger, which we will have to wait six months to resolve. Sigh.

Place your votes for the next to die. You can select more than one. Names are presented in their order of appearance by season. Explain your reasoning in the comments, and we’ll see who’s right on Sunday night. Your number one selection in last year's poll was wrong, and the characters who placed second and fourth were the ones who died.

POLL: Who will die in the season four finale of The Walking Dead?

  • Rick
  • Carl
  • Daryl
  • Carol
  • Glenn
  • Maggie
  • Beth
  • Michonne
  • Judith
  • Tyrese
  • Sasha
  • Bob
  • Tara
  • Abraham
  • Rosita
  • Eugene
  • Joe
  • No one dies ...yet.
  • I prefer not to speculate.

The Death Star Skirt and Other Great Cosplays from MegaCon

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Jen of Epbot went to MegaCon, a geek convention in Orlando. It was attended by fully 75,000 people, many of whom dressed for the occasion. Jen took a lot of photos of the cosplayers, including this lady dressed as the Death Star. Her hair clip is a LEGO TIE fighter.

You can see many more photos of the costumes here, including those inspired by My Little Pony, He-Man, and Doctor Who.

Fart Facts That'll Make You Gasp

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 08:00 AM PDT

(Dailymotion link)

How fast can farts travel? Why do women's farts smell worse than men's? The more you know…  even about farts. This list of facts contains footage of professional fartist Joseph Pujol, and I did not know the correct pronunciation of his name until now. -via Buzzfeed

Google Street View Paintings

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 07:00 AM PDT

James Lileks is a writer perhaps best known for his long fascination with advertising from postwar America. Lint, one of his several blogs, is a long collection of ads from the Mad Men age. You could spend hours scrolling there.

Recently, he's been playing around with adding icons from Google Street View into classic paintings. At the top, you can find "Boulevard Poissonnière" by Jean Béraud (1849-1936) and "River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants" by Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691).

-via Ka-ching!

This Week at Neatorama

Posted: 29 Mar 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Happy weekend! Yeah, we’ve got some special things planned for April Fools Day on Tuesday, but this past week was all about the t-shirts. The NeatoShop is so proud of its expanded selection of t-shirts by independent internet artists that we’ve been celebrating. You can see a bunch of those new designs in the roundup 200 Funny T-Shirts That Every Geek Needs, but there are plenty more to see -tons of them at 25% off! And we’re busy giving those shirts away, too, with several ways you can win.  

We’ve partnered with the site Today I Found Out to bring you a new contest in which you can Win A Captain America Mystery Box, A $100 Amazon Gift Card & More! There will also be quite a few t-shirts given out, so enter today!

Are you proud of your NeatoShop t-shirt? We’re looking for great pictures of people wearing our t-shirts  …and it could mean free t-shirts for you! 

And the NeatoShop Facebook page is running a t-shirt giveaway of its own! You have only until tomorrow night to enter.  

Whew! We also had some great feature articles this week, and if you missed any of them, here’s your chance to catch up.

John Farrier had a wonderful interview with Becky McKay, The Internet's Mad Cereal Baker.

Jill Harness brought us 15 Epic Crafts Inspired by 300.

Eddie Deezen told us about The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Der Fartenführer: The Story of Hitler’s Illnesses came from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.

And mental_floss magazine gave us The 14 Greatest Hoaxes of All Time. Which is perfect to get you into the mood for April Fools Day.

Our Whodunit this week was The Burning Bungalow.

In the What Is It? game, the pictured item is is a British grenadier's match case. It carried a slow burning piece of cord used to light grenades. The What Is It? blog has a lot more about it. The answers y’all came up with were much funnier. Patrick Scott called it a “Pope Francis Supersoaker Aspergillum. Rowdy crowds get a Holy Soaking!” That’s good for a t-shirt! And kantoboy put it succinctly, it is “The Tin Man's actual wish.” Ha! -that’s a winner, too! Thanks to everyone who played along, and thanks to the What Is It? Blog.

The most popular post this past week was The Walking Disney: Princesses and Princes in a Post-Apocalyptic World, followed by Der Fartenführer: The Story of Hitler’s Illnesses. If you keep up with the "most popular" list in the sidebar, you may have noticed that Seattle’s Mystery Coke Machine was at the top most of the week -but it was posted on Friday a week ago, so it never had a chance to make this list. That's why I tell everyone that the statistics in this weekend wrapup are just for fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

The post that got the most ♥s was A Father Daughter Debate. In second place was 100 FedEx Trucks in the Funeral Procession for a Beloved Co-Worker, and Go Baby, Go! was third. Thanks for the ♥s!

The most-emailed post was Graph TV with Magic for Dogs following.

The biggest post of the week at Homes and Hues was 20 Wonderful Pieces of Furniture For Pets.

The most popular post at the Neatoramanauts Facebook page was <---this prank, which was shared so much that you should watch out to see who tries it for April Fools Day! The original stunt was for Halloween, and prankster Tom Mabe has a video about it.

Make sure to follow Neatorama on Twitter and Pinterest, too! Pinterest users will also want to bookmark the boards for Homes and Hues and the NeatoShop, too.

Have a great weekend! But keep in mind that come Tuesday, things will not be all they seem, at home, at work, and on the internet. They said to beware the Ides of March, but April first is the day you really want to be wary!
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