Neatorama

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• This Cat Is a Shepherd
• Sold at Auction: World War II Buzz Bomb
• If <i>Star Wars</i> was a Tarantino Film
• <i>My Little Pony</i> F-22 Fighter Plane
• Cat Lady Thoughts
• The Planet of the Kong - A World Gone Ape
• Live Action Version of the <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i> Intro
• The 100 Best “B Movies” of All Time
• Download the <i>Game of Thrones</i> Version of Guess Who?
• A Pet Duck’s Life
• Fun Things to Do by Yourself
• Bedside Graduation
• Slow Jam Version of <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i>
• Irma Harding, the Woman Who Taught Rural Moms to Kick Canning and Start Freezing
• Sea Anemone Eats Bird, Inspires A Paper On Marine Ornithology
• Catch That Phone!
• Dark Power - For Those About To Rock The Kingdom, We Salute You
• Iowa Distillery Raising Pigs to Taste Like Whiskey
• Spurious Correlations
• Virtual Reality Is For The Birds
• Is <i>Godzilla</i> Science Fiction or Horror?
• Airy Summer Dresses Made Of Marble
• Bunny Eats Raspberries

This Cat Is a Shepherd Posted: 11 May 2014 04:00 AM PDT Bodacious is a cat living on a sheep farm in Ireland. He’s not exactly big enough to actually round up sheep, but he performs invaluable duties on the farm, according to his owner Suzanna Crampton. MF: How does Mr. B get along with the sheep? SC: The ones he knows, he’ll go up and headbutt them, have a conversation. Tell you one thing though — he’ll take no truck from no one. If anyone is getting too bolshy, he’ll reach out and give ‘em a right smack. MF: Sorry, what’s bolshy? SC: (laughs) Oh you know, being bold, acting up, stomping their feet and all that. He’s got a great relationship with the young lambs, kind of looks out for them. And when they’re full-grown and wise, the sheep have nice calm conversations with him. It’s just that in-between age, their teenage years, when the sheep get bolshy and out of line. MF: Okay, here’s a tough question for you. Is Bodacious really a good shepherd? I mean, he’s a cat. SC: (long pause) That’s a hard one to answer. I certainly couldn’t do this without him. When it’s 3 a.m. and I’m out there alone in the dark, waiting for a ewe to lamb and he’s sitting there in my lap purring, that’s what keeps me going. Psychologically he is very helpful. As for the actual roundups, Crampton has a border collie for that. But Bodacious has his own Twitter account. Read the rest of the interview and see more pictures of Bodacious at Modern Farmer.

Sold at Auction: World War II Buzz Bomb Posted: 11 May 2014 02:00 AM PDT Nazi Germany made some of the most advanced guided rockets and jet aircraft of World War II. Among its most terrifying weapons was the V-1, a jet-powered rocket that rained destruction on southern England during the final year of the war. One of those V-1s went off course and crashed in Sweden. The United States acquired it and tried to build its own. This effort led to the construction of the Republic/Ford JB-2 Loon, an American copy of the V-1. The war ended before the US could put the Loon into mass production, but this prototype has survived the intervening decades. The auction house Bonhams recently sold it at auction. (Photos: Bonhams) (Video Link) -via American Digest

If <i>Star Wars</i> was a Tarantino Film Posted: 11 May 2014 12:00 AM PDT (YouTube link) What if Star Wars had been directed by Quentin Tarantino? It’s an imaginary exercise, as Tarantino was 14 years old when the first movie premiered. But this would be the trailer. YouTube commenters think it’s great, but I don’t quite get it. What makes this a “Tarantino” trailer? The music? The fact that Samuel L. Jackson is cast? Help me out here- I’ve seen only two Tarantino movies and enjoyed one of them. -via Digg

<i>My Little Pony</i> F-22 Fighter Plane Posted: 10 May 2014 11:00 PM PDT On My Little Pony: Friendships Is Magic, there is a military organization called the Wonderbolts. They are presented as the air force of Equestria. But their work consists largely of aerial demonstrations, so perhaps they should be be compared to the US Navy's Blue Angels or the US Air Force's Thunderbirds. Robert, a brony and modelmaker, built this model of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, an advanced fighter plane operated by the US Air Force. He decorated it with the colors and symbols of Equestria's elite flyers. Now Celestia's government can extend air supremacy over any territory near the borders of her dominion. (Image: Hasbro Studios)

Cat Lady Thoughts Posted: 10 May 2014 10:00 PM PDT In the latest comic from Yasmine Surovec at Cat vs. Human, we are presented with questions about cats. I think I may have the answers. The first one is easy -cats sleep on pizza boxes because cats sleep on all boxes, and the pizza box smells better than the others. Cats keep you company in the bathroom because while you’re sitting on the toilet, you have nothing better to do than to pet the cat, and they know it. As far as staring into a blank wall, I think they are just messing with us there.

The Planet of the Kong - A World Gone Ape Posted: 10 May 2014 09:00 PM PDT The Planet of the Kong by Alberto Arni Their worst nightmare had come true- the followers of Kong had won the battle for Arcadia, and all humanoid heroes had either been killed, or enslaved to fill the barrels and stoke the fires. They were but two moustache sporting plumbers, what were they going to do without their magic mushrooms and fire flowers? This whole planet had gone ape, and it was up to the Bros. to show how super their skills with the mallet had become... Mankind's last hope against the power of a gorilla named Donkey is this The Planet of the Kong t-shirt by Alberto Arni, wear it proudly in defiance of video game tyranny! Visit Alberto's official website and Facebook page, then visit his NeatoShop page for more out of this world shirts: The Cornetto Trilogy Michelangelo Shaun vs Zombies Captain Sparrow View more designs by Alberto Arni | 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 and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Live Action Version of the <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i> Intro Posted: 10 May 2014 09:00 PM PDT (Video Link) On September 5, 1992, Batman: The Animated Series aired for the first time, launching the DC Animated Universe and more than a decade of beautiful storytelling. It all began with an introductory sequence showing the Dark Knight moving through the night like a phantom, striking down two criminals. Tomi Pietilä directed this remake of that introduction, combining live action and computer generated animation. You can watch his behind-the-scenes description of it here. Pietilä himself served as the stunt stand-in for Batman. He expresses something that all of us can surely understand: . . . and me jumping as Batman, living out those childhood fantasies. Childhood--who am I kidding? If you ever get the chance to stand on top of a tall building late at night dressed as Batman, go for it. (Video Link) -via Daily of the Day

The 100 Best “B Movies” of All Time Posted: 10 May 2014 08:00 PM PDT Paste magazine gives us a list with descriptions of The 100 Best “B Movies” of All Time. It could not have been easy to compile. But what does “best” mean when we’re talking about films often famous for their shoddy construction? It certainly doesn’t mean “best-made.” It also doesn’t mean “worst-made,” or else films like Manos: The Hands of Fate and The Beast of Yucca Flats would make prominent appearances. They’re not on this list because the meaning of “best” here is “most entertaining,” and I defy you to be entertained by Manos without its MST3k commentary or a pound of medical-grade marijuana. If these films are painful, they’re also equally fun. It includes gems like Schwarzenegger’s first film Hercules in New York, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, FDR: American Badass, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, and 95 others that you might want to check out in your spare time. -via mental_floss

Download the <i>Game of Thrones</i> Version of Guess Who? Posted: 10 May 2014 07:00 PM PDT Guess Who? is a kids' board game played by two people. Each player has 24 cards with faces on them. The players take turns asking each other questions about the identity of one designated face card among the 24. The person who guesses his/her opponent's designated card first wins. Vulture  has created a downloadable variant of the game for Game of Thrones. You can find it here. It would really come in handy, since there are so many characters in the series that it's hard for them to keep even themselves straight. You can ask questions like, "Have you had an important body part cut off?" and "Hodor?" and "Are you obsessed with vengeance?" -via Nerd Approved

A Pet Duck’s Life Posted: 10 May 2014 06:00 PM PDT (YouTube link) We’ve seen this duck before, in the videos A Man and His Duck and Snoring Duck. The cute little duckling is grown up now -and still following his man around. In this compilation video, you get to see Frîncu’s duck mature over time as he does all kinds of pet duck things. -Thanks, Frîncu Mihai!

Fun Things to Do by Yourself Posted: 10 May 2014 05:00 PM PDT (Pleated Jeans/Jeff Wysaski) You don't have to be around other people to have fun! There are plenty of great solitary activities that will amuse you and distract you from the agony of loneliness. You could, for example, login to Facebook and look at how happy everyone else in the world is. The cleanup is easier and faster than fingerpainting.

Bedside Graduation Posted: 10 May 2014 04:00 PM PDT Megan Sugg received her high school diploma a month ahead of schedule, in the privacy of her home. Principal Vickie Plitt read a poem and talked about Sugg’s accomplishments and her promising future, gave her the diploma, and Sugg moved her tassel to the other side. Her graduation on Thursday was an unofficial private ceremony in her home, put together by her principal, assistant principal and counselor so her terminally-ill mother could see her graduate. “I was happy my mom got to see, but at the same time it was hard,” Megan said. Darlene Sugg was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in November 2010 when she was 44. She went into remission for about a year, but the cancer metastasized to her liver. When the Sugg family learned Darlene wouldn’t live long enough to see her daughter graduate June 10, they contacted staff at the high school to pull together a graduation ceremony in only a day. School administrators went to work making sure there were the proper caps and gowns and flowers for the ceremony. It was an emotional experience for both the family and the school officials who attended. -via reddit

Slow Jam Version of <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> Posted: 10 May 2014 03:00 PM PDT (Video Link) Scott Bradlee and his band Postmodern Jukebox reproduce popular songs in radically different musical styles, such as a Dixieland jazz version of "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns 'n' Roses. Lately, they've been offering slow jam versions of cartoon themes, such as Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers and Pokémon. This Saturday, they remixed the theme song of our favorite chelonian martial artists, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The original is embedded below. (Video Link) -via Kotaku

Irma Harding, the Woman Who Taught Rural Moms to Kick Canning and Start Freezing Posted: 10 May 2014 02:00 PM PDT During the Great Depression, one of President Roosevelt’s infrastructure employment programs was the Rural Electrification Administration, which brought electric power to rural areas and farmlands across the country for the first time. This opened up an entirely new market for manufacturers of electric appliances. International Harvester is known for their tractors and farm equipment, but they also made industrial refrigeration units for dairy farms long before rural electrification. After World War II, IH developed a massive campaign to sell refrigerators and freezers to the newly-powered rural area. Their spokeswoman was Irma Harding, who pushed the idea of freezing food as an easier alternative to traditional canning.     As the sales force’s fictional leader, Irma Harding was the company’s official face, spreading the gospel of frozen convenience. The face itself, however, belonged to a studio model named Ann Pfarr, who posed for the great Haddon Sundblom, the artist behind such American advertising icons as Aunt Jemima, the Quaker Oats man, and the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, as well as countless pin-ups and, at the end of his life, a cover for ‘Playboy.’ He did Irma Harding, too, who was rosy-cheeked but not cheeky, generous with her smile but a stickler, one sensed, for details and doing things right. In this way, Irma Harding personified the image of cordial, steady, dependability International Harvester wanted to project to its pragmatic prairie customers. Collectors Weekly talked to Marilyn McCray, author of the book Canning, Pickling, and Freezing with Irma Harding, about how modern appliances came to small towns and farms through the magic of advertising.

Sea Anemone Eats Bird, Inspires A Paper On Marine Ornithology Posted: 10 May 2014 01:00 PM PDT What you see in this photo isn't some freaky Pop Art sculpture depicting a Thanksgiving meal after a nuclear war, it's a photo of a sea anemone chowing down ever so slowly on a Cormorant chick. This gruesome and unlikely anemone mealtime incident was discovered by oceanographer Kim Martini and her co-worker Lisa Guy while looking through a photo archive, and Guy was so in awe of what she saw here, an "apex predator being consumed by an animal that doesn't seem to really do anything", that she wrote a paper about the incident for the journal Marine Ornithology. I’ve always pictured anemones chomping down on unwitting sea monkeys, but apparently they’ll eat anything they can wrap their spiky little tube around-including an unsuspecting bird. -Via io9

Catch That Phone! Posted: 10 May 2014 12:00 PM PDT (YouTube link) Patti McGee, the 1965 Woman's first National Skateboard Champion, stars in an ad for the telephone company. Back then, there was only one, so they just told you to “call the telephone office or ask the telephone man.” And each house only had one phone, and it was attached to the wall. I do believe they’ve exaggerated the size of the average house in this TV commercial, but otherwise its a glimpse back into the strange world we had before touch tones, wireless phones, cell phones, and multiple phone companies. This was linked in a reddit thread about female skateboarders of the 1970s, although Patti McGee preceded them.

Dark Power - For Those About To Rock The Kingdom, We Salute You Posted: 10 May 2014 11:00 AM PDT Dark Power by Samiel Rock on you dark master, with your wicked sense of style and evil power. You keep the stories interesting, giving the heroes a run for their money and bringing rulers of fantastic kingdoms to their knees. You're all so totally heavy metal, which is why we salute you! Keep the dark side of rock and roll alive with this Dark Power t-shirt by Samiel, perfect to wear to a rock concert, movie premiere or while you're storming the nearest castle. Visit Samiel's Facebook page then head on over to his NeatoShop for more radical designs: Hello Arya Spiral Detective Xeno Evolution Rock Paper Scissors View more designs by Samiel | 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 and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Iowa Distillery Raising Pigs to Taste Like Whiskey Posted: 10 May 2014 11:00 AM PDT (Photo: WQAD) Templeton, Iowa is the home of the famous Templeton Rye whiskey distillery. Keith Kerkhoff, one of the founders of the company, came upon a novel idea after a few drinks. He wondered if it would be possible to raise pigs in such a way that their meat tastes like whiskey--and, specifically, his rye whiskey. With the assistance of an animal scientist named Nick Berry, Kerkhoff is experimenting on 25 pigs. No, they're not feeding the pigs whiskey. That would be too expensive. They're feeding the pigs a diet that includes dry distillery grain, which is used in the rye whiskey production process. Kerkhoff is optimistic about the results: Kerkhoff says they’re already getting a variety of inquiries about the pigs, from backyard pit masters to famous restaurant owners like Chicago’s Stephanie Izard, winner of ‘Top Chef.’ “I don’t think we’re going to have any problem getting rid of the 25 pigs,” he says.  They’ll decide in June where the pigs will go. -via Ace of Spades HQ

Spurious Correlations Posted: 10 May 2014 10:00 AM PDT We often read comments that say "correlation does not equal causation." And we know it’s true. Sometimes the two things that are correlated do not cause each other, but both may be caused by some third force. Other times, the only thing they have in common is that they look like they correlate. The site Spurious Correlations takes various datasets and graphs them comparatively. These highlight the way statistics can be presented to the public as if one thing has something to do with another. Some are funny in that they obviously have nothing to do with each other, like the graph at the top. Some correlations are so close they are spooky, yet you try to tell yourself that they are not related. And some correlations seem to make sense in some strange way. There’s even a button that will help you look up more correlations. -via Metafilter

Virtual Reality Is For The Birds Posted: 10 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT (Video Link) The creators of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headgear, and those making similar VR devices, are hoping to usher in the new age of fully immersive video games, and with full immersion comes funny looking rigs that help make the whole experience complete. The custom built rig in this photo is called Birdly, and as the name spells out it simulates flying like a bird, complete with a fan and a scent machine to round out the experience. Birdly was created by a team at Zurich University, and if Birdly is any indication of what’s to come the virtual reality future is going to be chock full of crazy contraptions! -Via Endgadget

Is <i>Godzilla</i> Science Fiction or Horror? Posted: 10 May 2014 08:00 AM PDT We often take the easy way out and just call Godzilla a monster movie, or kaiju in Japanese. But trying to classify it as either science fiction or horror forces an examination the specific elements that define the two genres. You add a level of difficulty if you lump in all the sequels. The staff at The Dissolve had a roundtable discussion on the question, and for simplicity’s sake, they mainly focused on the original 1954 version of Godzilla (although the sequels are discussed as well). And as is inevitable, Godzilla is compared to the 1933 movie King Kong, which also has its share of sequels. Tasha said,    On his own, King Kong is a tragic symbol of elemental nature, tamed, turned into a sideshow, and ultimately destroyed for rebelling against encroaching civilization. Godzilla is a more flexible symbol for whatever the age requires. But put them together and make them fight, and they stop being resonant, individualistic symbols, and start being kids’ toys being whanged against each other in a never-ending, not particularly weighty battle for supremacy. On his own, Godzilla is chilling; once Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, Gamera, and all the other goofiness comes into play, being a giant monster isn’t particularly special anymore. The discussion ranges far and wide to settle the question, and in the end, makes me want to watch the 1954 film Gojira again before seeing the new Godzilla movie that will debut in theaters this coming Friday. -via Digg

Airy Summer Dresses Made Of Marble Posted: 10 May 2014 07:00 AM PDT Sculptures that look like they're made out of one medium but are actually made out of something completely different are fun to check out, both through pictures and in person, because your mind has a hard time reconciling the fact that the item you're looking at is not what it appears to be. Take these summer dress sculptures by Alasdair Thomson for example- they look like lightweight cotton dresses that would feel like nothing at all when worn, but if you were to strap these solid marble sculptures on you'd probably throw out your back! The texture of the marble only seems to add to the illusion, giving the surface of each piece the look of raw cotton. -Via Beautiful/Decay

Bunny Eats Raspberries Posted: 10 May 2014 06:00 AM PDT (YouTube link) If you’re a cute bunny rabbit, you don’t have to jump through hoops to become an internet star (although we have videos of that, too). Just eat a couple of raspberries in that bunny-munching mode and you’ll be golden. It doesn’t hurt that you end up looking like you’re wearing ruby red lipstick. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

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