Neatorama |
- H.P. Lovecat
- Visual Guide to Marvel Movie Rights
- What REALLY Killed Google Glass?
- The Most Extreme Stadium Skybox Is Bigger Than Your House
- Being Snorlax - The Full Time Job Of Your Dreams
- Tattoos by Expanded Eye
- Medieval Fantasy Lord Vader Armor
- Astronomers Discover Ring System around Distant Planet That’s So Huge That It’s Bigger Than Saturn’s
- Hero Cat Donates Blood to Zombie Cat
- Celebrities Banned From Hosting Saturday Night Live
- Babies Going Through Tunnels
- There Are 5 Other Flags Hidden inside the Norwegian Flag
- Best Thing Since Sliced Bread! - Twaggies
- Man Karate Chops Flaming Boards, Plays Electric Guitar
- Climbing Frozen Niagara Falls
- Minion Beauty - She Drives Men Bananas!
- Lion Reunion
- Knife with a Jawbone Handle
- Awkward Family Photos: 13 Cringeworthy Pet Portraits
- An Obituary for a National Treasure
- How to Make Drunken Oreos
- These 30 Music Inspired T-Shirts Totally Rock!
- Indominus Rex
- Real Breakfast Cooked in a Tiny, Functional Kitchen
- Ezra Pound's Kickstarter Plan for T.S. Eliot
| Posted: 31 Jan 2015 04:00 AM PST The essence of comedy is the incongruous, the discovery of something that doesn’t fit into the world as we know it. The new blog H.P. Lovecat marries two of the biggest memes on the internet: cats and the horror of H.P. Lovecraft. The inherent incongruity of these two things is so delightfully odd that you have to laugh.
Yeah, what he said. -via Everlasting Blort  | ||||||||
| Visual Guide to Marvel Movie Rights Posted: 31 Jan 2015 02:00 AM PST
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| What REALLY Killed Google Glass? Posted: 31 Jan 2015 12:00 AM PST Google is no longer selling Google Glass, but insists that the company is committed to the product, which will be retooled and eventually launched in a different form. That’s not very helpful to the people who already bought one, as they will no longer receive software updates. What happened? If you watch this video, you might think it’s telling you that forces from beyond the grave caused the failure of Google Glass, but I believe the point is hidden in the simple fact that these guys couldn’t manage to summon porn with it. -via b3ta | ||||||||
| The Most Extreme Stadium Skybox Is Bigger Than Your House Posted: 30 Jan 2015 11:00 PM PST Clark Hunt owns the Kansas City Chiefs, a professional football team. So it’s not surprising that he owns a private skybox at Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs’ home. What’s amazing is that his recently renovated skybox is a luxurious mansion. Leaked photos indicate that it’s 3 stories tall and has 6 bedrooms. It’s so huge that the only thing that it’s missing is an inside tram service to carry people from one end to the other. You can see more photos of it at Core77. | ||||||||
| Being Snorlax - The Full Time Job Of Your Dreams Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:00 PM PST Living the life of a pocket monster isn't all it's cracked up to be, but there's one particular monster that seems to have a pretty sweet life- the Snorlax. They spend their day snoozing, dreaming of arena battles won and lost, and when they wake up they chow down, because all that dreaming tends to make a monster mighty hungry! They may not be the most energetic breed, or the most physically attractive, but ask any trainer and they'll tell ya- there's nothing like snuggling up with a Snorlax! Care to try living like the lazy Snorlax? Slip this Being Snorlax t-shirt by Licunatt on and watch the Zzzzzzzs roll in, it's guaranteed to change your life from busy to one of total leisure. Visit Licunatt's Facebook fan page and official website, then head on over to her NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs:
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! | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:00 PM PST
Art lovers can spot influences of cubism in Tomlinson and James' tattoo designs, which often carry over from one section of the body to another. The use of geometric shape, contrast and multi-perspective viewpoints seems an homage to artists such as Picasso and Braque. See many more photographs of Expanded Eye tattoos and artwork at their website and check them out on Facebook. | ||||||||
| Medieval Fantasy Lord Vader Armor Posted: 30 Jan 2015 09:00 PM PST Prince Armory makes custom handcrafted armor, costumes, and leather products. They’ve made quite a few mashups of pop culture characters in the form of medieval armor. Their latest project is a full suit of medieval armor in the style of Darth Vader! It’s a little bit science fiction, a little bit fantasy, and a whole lot of impressive. Get a good look at this armor from all angles at Geeks Are Sexy. | ||||||||
| Astronomers Discover Ring System around Distant Planet That’s So Huge That It’s Bigger Than Saturn’s Posted: 30 Jan 2015 08:00 PM PST
Star J1407 is about 400 light years away from our solar system. 2 years ago, scientists discovered that one of the planets orbiting it has a ring system, just as Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune do. This was the first known ring system outside of our own solar system. Scientists at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the University of Rochester in the US have learned more about this system. It’s huge—much, much larger than that of Saturn. Phys.Org reports:
-via David Thompson | ||||||||
| Hero Cat Donates Blood to Zombie Cat Posted: 30 Jan 2015 07:00 PM PST Bart, the cat who returned from the dead, is recovering from his surgery at the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. A day after his operation, Bart was found to be anemic, and received a blood transfusion. The blood donor was another cat at the shelter, Draco, who is waiting for a forever home. In return he was featured as Pet of the Day yesterday. Let’s hope Draco is rewarded with a new home and people who appreciate him. | ||||||||
| Celebrities Banned From Hosting Saturday Night Live Posted: 30 Jan 2015 06:00 PM PST Many celebrities consider hosting Saturday Night Live to be a career highlight, a personal achievement that means they’ve really made it as an actor or comedian, and then there are those who just don’t give a damn. They’re the rogues of the hosting world, the celebs who become outcasts by acting inappropriately, using foul language during a live taping or by simply being too hard to work with. They’re all part of an exclusive club of celebrities who have been banned from hosting SNL. That very exclusive club includes Steven Seagal, who had the worst sketch ideas ever and was dubbed “Worst Host Ever” by Lorne Michaels, and Martin Lawrence, who delivered an unedited and filthy monologue about feminine hygiene that knocked the network censors off their office chairs. Check out the rest of the 18 Celebrities That Are Banned From SNL | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 05:00 PM PST It’s not unusual for the parent in the passenger seat to record video of the baby in the backseat. This compilation of clips proves that there’s a universal reaction to riding through an unexpected tunnel for these little ones. “Hey! The world changed!” Or something like that. The totally unrelated music in this video only adds to the surrealism. Metafilter has a string of puns and jokes about what’s going on in their heads, including the title of their link post: OMG, it's full of cars! | ||||||||
| There Are 5 Other Flags Hidden inside the Norwegian Flag Posted: 30 Jan 2015 04:00 PM PST This clever ad for Norwegian Airlines by M&C Saatchi shows you just a few places that you can travel to: France, Thailand, Finland, Poland, and the Netherlands. Sorry, Bhutan travellers—you’ll have to change flights somewhere along the journey. -via Gizmodo | ||||||||
| Best Thing Since Sliced Bread! - Twaggies Posted: 30 Jan 2015 03:43 PM PST We've teamed up with Dailymotion and will be bringing you animated Twaggies cartoons each month. Today we've got a great, new episode featuring the brilliant @ScottLinnen. And don't forget to follow us @Twaggies! | ||||||||
| Man Karate Chops Flaming Boards, Plays Electric Guitar Posted: 30 Jan 2015 03:00 PM PST In his Life of Julius Caesar, the Greco-Roman historian Plutarch described a time when the future dictator of Rome read a biography of Alexander the Great. It saddened Caesar because he felt he had accomplished so little in his life compared to Alexander:
Surely even the greatest among the living today must feel the same upon seeing this man chop through boards that are on fire while simultaneously playing an electric guitar. -via Technabob | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 02:00 PM PST For the first time ever, a person has scaled Niagara Falls while it's in a frozen state. Ice climber Will Gadd braved the treacherous, unstable climbing conditions to complete the stunt. He explained the challenges of his frozen feat:
Gadd used ice axes, crampons and a specially-designed ice hook to climb the falls. Read a more detailed account of Gadd's climb here. Images: Christian Pondella
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| Minion Beauty - She Drives Men Bananas! Posted: 30 Jan 2015 01:00 PM PST Minion Beauty by IdeasConPatatas Gru had quit his job as supervillain to reevaluate his goals in life and rediscover the American dream, but every time he took a nap he saw that sexy little minion falling into a pile of bananas. The image was disturbing to say the least, but Gru blamed it on the Banana Juice he had been drinking in excess every day, and yet, despite all logical thought, he found the banana dream oddly a-peeling... Add some geeky gorgeousness to your wardrobe with this Minion Beauty t-shirt by IdeasConPatatas, it's sure to make your fellow minion fans go bananas! Visit IdeasConPatatas's Facebook fan page, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more beautifully geeky designs:
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! | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 01:00 PM PST Here we have a rare video from Kruger National Park in South Africa that doesn’t involve any blood, death, or mutterings of “that’s nature’s way.” A lioness had somehow gotten separated from her pride -for three days. She hid in the brush and sadly called out for them. Then on the third day, here they come down the road! She wants to make sure its her pride, but as soon as she recognizes them, the party is on. -via Arbroath | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 12:00 PM PST Now that's a knife! Eetu Summanen, a blacksmith in Finland, made this Damascus steel knife. The handle is made from the jawbone of a roe deer. You can find more of his blacksmithing work here. -via The Soul Is Bone | ||||||||
| Awkward Family Photos: 13 Cringeworthy Pet Portraits Posted: 30 Jan 2015 11:00 AM PST Just when you think the awkward family portraits bar has been set, someone goes and sets it a little bit higher (or, rather, lower). One has to wonder if these thirteen misguided pet owners regret their portrait concept in retrospect (or whether they were serious in the first place). Only one thing is certain: the animals are trapped in a shame spiral. -Via Distractify | ||||||||
| An Obituary for a National Treasure Posted: 30 Jan 2015 10:00 AM PST Australian novelist Colleen McCullough, who wrote The Thorn Birds, died on Thursday at age 77. Her obituary at The Australian (warning: auto play video) began with this paragraph:
Fans and non-fans alike were struck that, after a lifetime of accomplishment as both a scientist and an author, McCullough’s obituary would begin with her appearance and then her relationships with men. The reaction was immediate, as pointed out by The Guardian. New Zealand’s Stuff reacted by composing similar obituaries for renowned male authors. Twitter users mocked The Australian by using the same style for their own obituaries under the hashtag #myozobituary. -via Metafilter | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 09:00 AM PST From PBJto BYO Oreos! The folks at Foodbeast TV give a video demo of how to take your Oreos from sober to drunken in a few easy steps. I noticed that some readers on other posts of this video commented that they thought the filling should be either left on or mixed into the drunken filling. Hey, that's the perfect excuse to make a second "compare and contrast" batch! -Via Foodbeast | ||||||||
| These 30 Music Inspired T-Shirts Totally Rock! Posted: 30 Jan 2015 08:00 AM PST Everybody loves music- it's the sound that soothes our savage souls, the beats we dance to, the ringtones in our phones and the rhythms we hear as we make our way through the world. Everywhere you go people are groovin' to their favorite tunes because hearing a great song puts the world in a groovy mood! Music and geekdom make a perfect pair, and in the NeatoShop you'll find all kinds of cool designs that combine your favorite geeky subject matter with musical flair, most of which are only available in the rockinest online store- the NeatoShop! Clockwork Orange Singin' In The Rain by Dutyfreak Music inspired mashups usually start with great cover art Galactic Empire-The Trooper by Markwelser Iconic art that comes to define the band, and their signature sound Jokers Gotham Tour 1989 by Demonigote Fans like their favorite art to reflect their taste in music Old School Rock N Roll Skull by Mudge To fans the cover art is more than just a design- it's a representation of the listener's state of mind after hearing their favorite album Sometimes listening to a certain kind of music puts the listener in a mellow mood Guiding the listener on a musical journey inside their mind Other times hearing their favorite tunes tends to drive fans totally crazy I Used To Be Funny... by Manny Peters Art + Design Music can stir up a myriad of emotions, and totally change the energy in the room Bringing the sound of the streets to life like never before Or capturing that country sound so perfectly it's scary Fazbear's Jamboree by Ninjaink No matter the genre or the tempo listening to music can be a total trip And it can make you feel like totally rockin' out! We bat at the air as drummers pound out a catchy beat The Great Drummers of our Time by Lederman Studio We clutch invisible mics and sing at the top of our lungs when we're home alone The music building a bridge between our heads and our hearts Appetite For Construction by Cubik We toss caution to the wind, our fear of the future placed on hold one track length at a time Benderama Shiny Metal Ass by A_Man_Oxford Those wicked tunes becoming a part of who we are We wear our musical attitudes on our sleeves And happily headbang along to the savage rhythm Music makes us feel like the master of our own tonal universe Grayskull Maiden by Profeta999 It makes us feel like we're part of an exclusive club I Wanna Be An Avenger by Markwelser And teaches us what it means to be human Music inspires us to explore the world and the cosmos beyond Sagan / Slayer (Monsters Of Grok) by Amorphia Apparel And makes us proud to hail from such a rockin' hometown Born In Pallet Town by Alberto Arni We feel like all is right in the universe when our favorite singers belt out a badass tune It Ain't Personal by Rocky Davies And we want so bad to be a part of our favorite bands that we start to dress just like them In hopes that a bit of their music star persona will rub off on us We music fans are never too old to take in a timeless tune And we're gonna keep on rockin' until our dying day! The Dreams In Which I'm Dying by Rocky Davies Bring home some rockin' new gear for the new year, head to the NeatoShop and pick up one of these totally radical designs on a t-shirt or hoodie. All sales support Neatorama and indie artists from around the world who designed these great shirts for music lovers like you, so sound off in style and share your love of good music with the world with a NeatoShop shirt! | ||||||||
| Posted: 30 Jan 2015 07:00 AM PST The upcoming movie Jurassic Word has a theme park website, featuring a map, park features, and a link to the company behind its creation. Some of the pages are disabled, or rather marked as “coming soon” because the park isn’t yet open, but you can follow the countdown of the days until it is. They do have pages on the dinosaurs, including the new genetically-modified monster they call Indominus rex. It’s forty feet long and has a scream that can reach 160 decibels.
The conceit here is that real dinosaurs that we know about aren’t scary enough, so they had to create one even more dangerous. From the silhouette icon, it appears that I. rex has an advantage over T. rex in that its arms are long enough to reach out and grab a movie star. And its teeth, while capable of tearing a movie star to shreds, do not meet properly. Whether that’s a glitch in the genetic modification technique or not, it could well make the creature angry enough to lash out at its creators. Jurassic World is due in theaters in June. -via Gamma Squad | ||||||||
| Real Breakfast Cooked in a Tiny, Functional Kitchen Posted: 30 Jan 2015 06:00 AM PST The Japanese toy line Konapun includes scale model kitchens that people can use to make food. In the past, the food has been fake. But the company also manufactures a stove so realistic that you can cook a proper, albeit very small, meal on it. In this video, YouTube member AAAjoken prepares scrambled eggs, sausage, and coffee using Konapun utensils and a stove. He serves them on two plates and cups on a tiny kotatsu. -via Nag on the Lake | ||||||||
| Ezra Pound's Kickstarter Plan for T.S. Eliot Posted: 30 Jan 2015 05:00 AM PST T.S. Eliot was poised to be the top poet of his generation. But first he had to be rescued from his day job.
In 1921, suffering from a “nervous disorder,” T.S. Eliot took a three-month hiatus from his day job. The 33-year-old had been working as a clerk in the London sub-basement of Lloyds Bank for four years. But with the luxury of time, the part-time poet focused his attention on completing his magnum opus, “The Waste Land.” Released in 1922, Eliot’s haunting and defiantly oblique work is a landmark of modernism; even at its most impenetrable, one reviewer admitted that Eliot’s work possessed “the music of ideas.” Ezra Pound, too, was impressed. Convinced of Eliot’s genius, Pound reckoned that the grunt work was smothering his creativity. “Some of us consider Eliot’s employment in a bank the worst waste in contemporary literature,” Pound bemoaned. Of course, financing poetry is a problem as old as poetry itself. For Emily Dickinson or Lord Byron, the answer was simple—being born into the right family relieved them of the worry. Others turned to hack writing to stock the till. Walt Whitman penned a temperance tract while guzzling cheap wine. Edgar Allan Poe cranked out newspaper filler like “Why Not Try a Mineralized Pavement?” When William Wordsworth landed a decidedly unromantic job as a tax collector, he could take comfort in the knowledge that Geoffrey Chaucer had been a customs comptroller in the 14th century. “There’s no money in poetry,” Robert Graves once observed, “but then there’s no poetry in money either.”
He dubbed his campaign Bel Esprit and started by drawing up a brochure. In it, he asked “subscribers” to pledge about $50 a year. The goal was to support Eliot for five years at $1,500 a year—the bare minimum he’d need to quit his job and do nothing but write. Pound proved to be an ideal fundraiser. An opinionated and fiery poet, the Ph.D. dropout (who sometimes wore a sombrero over his wild red hair) was a tireless advocate for fellow artists. And he was quick to stress that his plan was not charity. “I can’t come back too STRONGLY to the point that I do NOT consider this Eliot subsidy a pension,” he wrote to one donor. “I am puke sick of the idea of pensions, taking care of old crocks. ... I put this money into him, as I wd. put into a shoe factory if I wanted shoes.” To Pound, Bel Esprit was an investment in poetry, and he expected it to yield dividends to all humanity. He wasn’t the only one. Pound managed to convince a number of artist friends—including the poet William Carlos Williams, himself working a day job as a New Jersey pediatrician—to pledge. Ernest Hemingway, too, helped raise funds but then blew the cash at a racetrack. Things were progressing nicely until Pound’s plan hit a major snag. It turned out that Eliot didn’t want to quit his job! He liked being employed by the bank and actually took pleasure in his work. Pound should have seen this coming. Aldous Huxley once declared Eliot “the most bank-clerky of all bank clerks.” Virginia Woolf joked that he was so stiff and buttoned up that he’d attend informal lunches “in a four-piece suit.” Not only did Eliot appreciate the steady paycheck, but Lloyds meant a solid pension for him and his ailing wife, Vivienne. She, too, didn’t want him to quit. “If he did take such steps,” Vivienne warned, “I should bear him a considerable grudge.” Still, Eliot wasn’t averse to support—at least, until the plan leaked to The Liverpool Post, which falsely claimed that he’d already taken the donations and ungratefully kept his job anyway. The Chicago Daily Tribune and The New York Tribune picked up the story, with the latter mocking that “To coddle an author is to reduce him to the level of a Pekingese.”
History generally has Bel Esprit dying there—but in fact, Pound hadn’t quite given up. He removed Eliot’s name but still stumped for Bel Esprit to Poetry magazine and The New York Times. When an Ohio high school English teacher inquired about it in August 1923, Pound still sounded hopeful that Eliot would accept the funds. And later that year, he did: two installments amounting to about $550 found their way into his account. Soon thereafter, Pound dropped out of sight, and with him, all plans for Bel Esprit vanished too. As it turned out, Eliot didn’t need Bel Esprit. In 1925, he left Lloyds—“the prospect of staying there for the rest of my life is abominable to me,” he conceded—to take a job as an editor at a publishing house. Pound’s faith in him would be amply confirmed when the former bank clerk won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Perhaps the Bel Esprit plan was simply ahead of its time. Today, websites like Kickstarter fund poets' dreams by cold-calling the masses, treating each donation as an investment. One recent appeal for the Line Assembly Poetry Tour and Documentary mustered $18,888 on the slogan “Six poets. One van. No quit.” Ezra Pound would certainly approve. _______________________
Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff! |
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Pound was out to change that. He wanted to help Eliot write for a living instead of squandering his talents at the bank, but he was skeptical that members of high society would open their purses for such edgy writing. “We can’t expect illiterate, newly rich millionaires to pay for things they have not the taste to enjoy,” he scoffed. Instead, he hatched a revolutionary plan to crowdsource a fund for Eliot.
Eliot was mortified. Fearful for his Lloyds job, he demanded a retraction from The Liverpool Post. The paper complied.
The article above, written by Paul Collins, is reprinted with permission from the December 2013 issue of mental_floss magazine. 
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