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2016/03/25

Neatorama

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The Biggest Unsolved Art Heist

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 05:00 AM PDT

At 1:24 a.m. on March 18, 1990, two policemen demanded to be buzzed in by the guard at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. At least, they looked like policemen. Once inside the Venetian-palazzo-style building, the men ordered the guard to step away from the emergency buzzer, his only link to the outside world. They handcuffed him and another guard and tied them up in the basement. For the next 81 minutes, the thieves raided the museum’s treasure-filled galleries. Then they loaded up a vehicle waiting outside and disappeared.

Later that morning, the day guard arrived for his shift and discovered spaces on the walls where paintings should have been. Rembrandt’s “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Vermeer’s “The Concert,” Manet’s “Chez Tortoni,” and five works by Edgar Degas were missing. In some places, empty frames were still hanging, the priceless works crudely sliced out.

It was an appalling attack on a beloved museum, the personal collection of an eccentric heiress who handpicked the works on travels through Europe in the 1890s. The crime sparked a sweeping multinational investigation by the museum, the FBI, and numerous private parties. To date, the Gardner heist is the largest property theft in U.S. history—experts have assessed the current value of the stolen art at more than $600 million. Twenty-six years later, the case remains unsolved.

In fact, not a single painting has been recovered. But in March of 2013, the FBI signaled that it was close to solving the mystery. Officials announced that investigations had uncovered new information about the thieves and the East Coast organized crime syndicates to which they belonged. The art world buzzed over the news, yet one man doubted what he heard.

Bob Wittman belongs to an elite society—the handful of government and private-sector professionals who track down art criminals and recover stolen work all over the world. Art theft is a $6 to $8 billion annual industry, and it’s the fourth-largest crime worldwide, according to the FBI. As an agent on the FBI’s Art Crime Team, Wittman spent two years working undercover on the Gardner case before he retired. He believes he knows where the art is. And right now, he says, the FBI is “barking up the wrong tree.”

Grooming an Art Detective

Wittman, 58, grew up in Baltimore, the son of an American father and a Japanese mother who worked as antique dealers specializing in Japanese pieces. “When I was 15, I knew the difference between Imari and Kutani ceramics,” Wittman says. He applied for work with the FBI because he admired the agency’s investigations into civil rights abuses. In 1988, he started on the property-crime beat, before moving into art theft. The agency’s Art Crime Team was created in 2004; Wittman was a founding member.

Originally established to recover cultural treasures looted from Iraq after the U.S. invasion, the Art Crime Team now includes 14 agents assigned to different regions of the country. Some members possess knowledge of the field when they join. Others begin as art illiterates. Regardless, all recruits receive extensive training from curators, dealers, and collectors to beef up their understanding of the art business. Even Wittman, with his background in antiquities, underwent art schooling. After he recovered his first pieces of stolen art in the late ’80s and early ’90s—a Rodin sculpture and a 50-pound crystal ball from Beijing’s Forbidden City—the FBI sent him to the Barnes Foundation, a Philadelphia art institution. “When you can discuss what makes a Cézanne a Cézanne, you can move in the art underworld,” he says. Educating the agents has paid off. In its decade of operation, the FBI’s Art Crime Team has recovered 2,650 items valued at more than $150 million.

Of course, not every piece the team chases down is glamorous. Nearly 25 percent of the Art Crime Team’s job is hunting down non-unique items, such as prints and collectibles. “These works can be concealed and eventually nudged back into the open market easily,” Wittman says. The finds are less sexy but represent a sizable black market.

Then there are the masterpieces. The most famous examples are Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” which was recovered 28 months after the painting was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, and Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Munch created four versions of the painting, two of which have been stolen and recovered in the past 20 years alone. But the problem for crooks is that it’s nearly impossible to sell such an iconic work on the open market, except to a rich art lover who wants to savor it in a locked basement. So why steal the pieces if they’re so hard to unload?

According to Geoffrey Kelly, a Boston-based member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, “art thieves are like any other thieves.” They use these famous works as collateral in drug or moneylaundering deals. More importantly, the pieces can be used as bargaining chips for plea deals in case the crooks are busted down the line. “It might be difficult to fill suitcases with $100 million in cash,” Kelly says. “But you can hold a $50 million piece of art in your hand. It’s valuable and portable.”

There’s another reason thieves favor this line of work: Art crime isn’t high on a prosecutor’s to-do list. “The rewards are good, and the penalties are small versus dealing drugs or money laundering,” says Turbo Paul Hendry, a reformed British art thief, who now serves as an intermediary between law enforcement and the underworld. “Stealing a million pounds’ [$1.62 million] worth of art will get you only two years max jail time, not including plea bargaining and cooperating,” Hendry says. The harder part is actually nabbing a thief. And according to Wittman, there are only two ways to catch one.

None of the FBI’s cloak-and-dagger tricks would work without “the bump” or “the vouch.” As Wittman explains, a vouch involves employing an informant or a cooperating criminal to introduce you to an art trafficker, finessing you into his inner circle. A bump, which is rarer but more cinematic, refers to the spycraft of appearing to bump into a trafficker randomly and then engaging him in conversation. 

Insinuating yourself into the underworld and cultivating such ties involves careful preparation and plenty of travel. Wittman, who retired from the FBI in 2008 and now heads a private-sector art investigation and security firm, estimates that he spent a third of last year in hotel rooms. That may sound excessive, but the travel is key. Over a 20-year period, Wittman says, he recovered more than $300 million worth of stolen art and cultural relics, including Native American artifacts and the diary of a key Nazi operative. “My life was always a hunt,” he says. “We’d be totally immersed in one case, then right on to the next one—whatever trail was hot was the one we’d pick up on. I’d have four different cell phones to play four different roles.”

Wittman’s sweetest triumph came in 2005. He posed as an art authenticator for the Russian mob in order to retrieve a $35 million Rembrandt stolen from the national museum in Sweden. In Wittman’s 2010 memoir, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, he recounts the arrest in the case, which unfolded in a tiny hotel room in Copenhagen. “We started to race for the door and heard the key card click again,” Wittman writes. “This time, it banged open violently. Six large Danes with bulletproof vests dashed past me, gang tackling Kadhum and Kostov onto the bed. I raced out, the Rembrandt pressed to my chest.” Wittman savors that victory, and he expected an equally thrilling conclusion to the Gardner case, especially once a crook offered to sell him the paintings.

Unraveling the Gardner Puzzle

For all its sophistication, the Gardner theft has baffled investigators because the heist was so crudely carried out. The thieves left behind some of the museum’s most valuable works, including Titian’s “The Rape of Europa.” The slicing of two Rembrandts from their frames suggests they were unaware that damaging a work of art sinks its value. “They knew how to steal, but they were art stupid,” Wittman says. “They probably thought they could sell them off for five to 10 percent of their value. But no real art buyer is going to pay $350,000 for hot art that they can’t ever sell.”

The other element that makes the Gardner case unusual is its longevity. “What’s really suspicious,” Wittman says, “is that even though a generation has passed, not one single object has resurfaced on the market.” For those who believe that some or all of the works have been destroyed, Kelly, of the Art Crime Team, begs to differ. “That rarely happens,” he says. “Because the one trump card a criminal holds when he’s arrested is that he has access to stolen art.”

In spring 2006, Wittman followed a lead that brought him closer to the art than any investigator has come to date. While in Paris for a conference about undercover law enforcement, he received a tip from a French policeman. Through wiretaps, French authorities had been monitoring a pair of suspects. Wittman calls the men “Laurenz” and “Sunny.” French police claimed that the men had ties to the mob in Corsica, a French island in the Mediterranean known for its affiliation with organized crime. Now they were living in Miami. The police suspected the two were linked to the Gardner theft because, as a sign of Corsican pride, the thieves had stolen the finial off a Napoleonic flag hanging in the museum. (Napoleon was Corsican.)

Using the vouch method, a French cop working undercover told Laurenz, who had been an underworld money launderer back in France, that Wittman was a gray-market art broker. Wittman flew to Miami, using the alias Bob Clay. Wittman and Laurenz picked up Sunny at Miami International Airport in Laurenz’s Rolls-Royce. In his book, Wittman describes Sunny as “a short, plump man of 50, his brown mullet matted. … As soon as we [left the airport and] hit the fresh Florida air, Sunny lit a Marlboro.” An FBI surveillance team followed in slow pursuit.

The three men went to dinner at La Goulue, an upscale bistro north of Miami Beach. They ordered seafood. During the meal, Laurenz vouched for Wittman, telling Sunny that he and Wittman had met years ago at an art gallery in South Beach. The next morning, the men met again, this time for bagels. Sunny asked Laurenz and Wittman to remove the batteries from their phones, ensuring that their conversation would be private. Sunny then looked at Wittman and said, “I can get you three or four paintings. A Rembrandt, a Vermeer, and a Monet.” The paintings, Sunny explained, had been stolen several years earlier.

“From where?” Wittman asked.

“A museum in the U.S., I think,” said Sunny. “We have them, and so for 10 million they are yours.”

“Yeah, of course,” Wittman replied before qualifying the statement: “If your paintings are real, if you’ve got a Vermeer and a Rembrandt.” The pieces all seemed to fit.

Over the next year, the three men met several times in Miami. Wittman didn’t think Laurenz and Sunny had robbed the Gardner; they were more likely freelance fences. He couldn’t discern what their allegiance might be, but he knew that this was the trail that would lead to the missing art. “I was playing Laurenz, and Laurenz thought that he and I were playing Sunny,” Wittman writes in his book. “I’m sure Laurenz had his own angles thought out. And Sunny? Who knew what really went through his mind?”

The ruse went on. Working with U.S. cops, Wittman concocted an elaborate fake art deal, taking the Frenchmen to a yacht moored in Miami. The vessel was stocked with bikini-clad undercover cops who were dancing and eating strawberries. Onboard, Wittman, as Bob Clay, sold fake paintings to fake Colombian drug dealers for $1.2 million.

Wittman continued to negotiate with Sunny for the Rembrandt and the Vermeer until an unrelated bust threatened to derail his work. French police nabbed the art-theft ring to which Laurenz and Sunny belonged. The group had stolen two Picassos worth $66 million from the artist’s granddaughter, and shortly after the arrests, goons from the organization showed up in Miami. They wanted to talk to Wittman. 

Before the meeting, which would take place in a Miami hotel bar, Wittman stashed two guns in his pockets. Laurenz or Sunny had nicknamed one thug—a white man with long stringy dark hair and a crooked nose—“Vanilla.” “Chocolate” was black and bald and wore braces. He was built like a linebacker and was known to be good with a knife. Over drinks, the thugs accused Wittman of being a cop. He countered by saying the FBI was on his back, threatening his art-broker reputation. He finessed his way through the conversation and survived the encounter, his cover intact. But it wouldn’t be for long.

A year later, after busting a second art-theft ring on another job, this one in a museum in Nice, French authorities inadvertently revealed Wittman’s cover. All his hard work was blown. In Priceless, he writes: “Bureaucracies and turf fighting on both sides of the Atlantic had destroyed the best chance in a decade to rescue the Gardner paintings.”

Today, despite the FBI’s public statement, the fate of the works seems as mysterious as ever. Wittman believes the paintings are in Europe. “They’ve been dispersed,” he says. He doubts the FBI actually knows who the original thieves are. “That’s bogus,” he says. “It’s a smokescreen to crowdsource leads.”

The FBI takes issue with Wittman’s comments. “When we said in March that we had the identities of the Gardner thieves, that was definitely not a bluff,” says Boston-based FBI special agent Greg Comcowich, who stresses that Wittman is no longer with the agency. “Speculating at this point is not acceptable,” he says. Comcowich says another agent tracked down the French agent who worked closely on the Gardner case with Wittman. “He told me Wittman was telling a fairy tale,” Comcowich says.

Wittman maintains that he had an opportunity to crack the case and admits that it has passed. Reminiscing about the experience, Wittman writes, “[It] was all part of an expanding wilderness of mirrors.” And in that carnival of intrigue, where the promise of treasure offered little more than errant leads and misdirection, Wittman still marvels that he and the FBI ever came so close to returning the art to its rightful home.

_______________________

The article above, written by Tim Murphy, is reprinted with permission from the December 2013 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

These Boots Were Made for Dunking

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 04:00 AM PDT

(Photo: unknown)

Somewhere in the world, for the modern urban cowboy, there is the basketball boot. You can be the master of the court and corral for a mere $200.

These are apparently Tony Lama brand boots. Sadly, they appear to have been discontinued. It was inevitable, though. All the great cowboys eventually ride off into the sunset.

-via Geekologie

Man Is Arrested For Failing To Return VHS Copy Of Freddy Got Fingered

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 03:00 AM PDT

Imagine being one of the avid Tom Green fans who rented Freddy Got Fingered on VHS fourteen years ago and forgot to return the tape, what would you expect to happen?

Probably not much since VHS tapes have gone the way of the Dodo, but a North Carolina man discovered that failing to return a VHS tape can result in an arrest warrant and a fine.

James Meyers, aka MadInfluence, was pulled over for a broken tail light and then served by Concord police officers for failing to return a VHS copy of Freddy Got Fingered 14 years earlier.

(YouTube Link)

When Tom Green heard about the incident he offered to pay the $200 fine if that would help James out, but James should really just sell the VHS tape on Ebay as an "internet oddity" to raise the funds.

And speaking of oddities:

(YouTube Link)

-Via The Daily What

Eldritch Horror Baby Crib

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 02:00 AM PDT

It's only March, but Imgur member rentdownstairs has already locked up the Father of the Year competition. He "wanted to get a custom crib to pass down as an heirloom to our children." So he commissioned Atlanta-based woodworker Garrick Andus to carve a crib inspired by the horror imagery of H.P. Lovecraft. Its spreading, writhing, all-consuming tentacles express the hopes that all of us fathers have for their children.

You can see more photos here.

-via Nerd Approved

Severus Snape and the Marauders

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 01:00 AM PDT

In 1978, James Potter graduated from Hogwarts and celebrates at a bar with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. It seems like a perfect evening until young Severus Snape walks in.

(YouTube link)

This Harry Potter fan film was written and directed by Justin Zagri and shot in just four days. -via Buzzfeed

Axe Body Spray Causes Evacuation of Church and Daycare

Posted: 25 Mar 2016 12:00 AM PDT


(Photo: Satish Krishnamurthy)

Axe body spray is the preferred fragrance of refined, sophisticated gentlemen around the world. But not everyone is sufficiently cultured to recognize it.

On Friday, people in a church in Seattle found fumes emerging from a backpack left in a bathroom. They evacuated the church and daycare center. Firefighters called in a hazmat team to investigate the source of the aroma. It was a can of Axe. MyNorthwest reports:

A backpack left in a bathroom was giving off "cough inducing fumes" on March 18, according to the Seattle Police Department. That prompted a call to 911. After responding to the scene, fire crews called in a hazmat team to handle the noxious fumes.

After the church building was evacuated, and a neighboring daycare, and the surrounding streets were blocked off, the team ventured into the fume-filled bathroom.

It didn't take long, however, for the team to identify the source of the offending vapors. The can of Axe body spray was found to be malfunctioning and continuously giving off the fumes.

-via Dave Barry

A Pool Of Dead Ink - Draw Fast Or You're Dead!

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 11:00 PM PDT


A Pool Of Dead Ink by ALIENBIKER23

You think old 'Pool is nothing more than a suit and a clever quip? What, does he look like a two dimensional character to you? Like some kind of ink drawing on a scrap of paper? Okay, in this case he is just a 2D drawing, but the way Wade is he could have been sitting right there on the screen, just waiting for you to look away so he can slice or shoot you dead...You've been warned about Mr. Wilson!

Add some slick superheroic style to your boring old wardrobe with this A Pool Of Dead Ink t-shirt by ALIENBIKER23, it's the merc-tastic way to make people take notice of your cool new t-shirt!

Visit ALIENBIKER23's Facebook fan page and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs:

The Fighting ResistanceRADAR TECHNICIAN Kylo RenWADE'S FACESOLO LIVES

View more designs by ALIENBIKER23 | More Comic 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!

A Couch Potato’s Nightmare

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 11:00 PM PDT

You can’t make this up. Two trucks collided on I-95 in Florida Wednesday morning, which caused both to spin their cargo. A semi-trailer of Busch beer swerved to avoid another vehicle, and instead crashed into a box truck from Frito-Lay, which overturned.  

"Neither driver was hurt, but you had Doritos and Busch beer all over I-95," Sergeant Kim Montes, a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol, told NBC News. "That's like a Super Bowl commercial right there."

The interstate was shut down for several hours while heavy equipment was brought in to clean up the snacks. -via Uproxx

Lifehacker Writer Discovers His Identity Was Stolen When Thief Files His Taxes

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 10:00 PM PDT

It's the nightmare story the identity protection companies would love to tell you in order to sell you on their services, but unlike most of their made up scenarios this one actually happened to a writer from Lifehacker.

His name is Eric Ravenscraft, and his identity was stolen by someone who was kind enough to file his taxes for him too, which is how he discovered the identity theft had taken place.

He received a letter from the IRS stating he'd filed his taxes twice, and all the strange emails and the fact that his Spotify account kept playing Enrique Iglesias suddenly made sense.

Eric told his tale of identity theft, and the ways he is now protecting himself against a repeat theft, so that others may learn from his mistakes and act before it's too late.

Enrique Iglesias as the soundtrack for identity theft, sounds legit to me!

Read A Stranger Stole My Identity And Filed My Taxes here

Incredible Video: Passersby Lift Van off Trapped Woman

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 09:00 PM PDT


(Video Link)

Content warning: graphic car accident.

On Friday, a woman in Anhui, China crossed a busy street. A van slammed in her, then drove right over her. When the driver finally came to a stop, he realized that she was trapped. People in the area rushed in and lifted the van up, then pulled her out.

The People's Daily reports that the entire incident took just 48 seconds. Thankfully, the woman suffered just minor injuries as a result of the accident.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

12 Ocarina Of Time Comics That Will Fill Your Heart Containers With Laughter

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 08:00 PM PDT

Even though The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time came out for the Nintendo 64 back in 1998 it continues to fill the heart containers of gamers young and old with joy while it fills their heads with sweet little ocarina ditties.

While Majora's Mask may have more of a fan art presence, Ocarina of Time has something that other game doesn't- lots more gameplay elements that can easily be made fun of in comic strip form.

Dorkly has gathered 12 Ocarina Of Time Comics That Will Fill Your Heart Container to remind you how a classic video game is just like an ocarina- it's fun to play, looks cool on your shelf, and people tend to make fun of you for liking it so much!

Read 12 Ocarina Of Time Comics That Will Fill Your Heart Container here (NSFW due to language)

Cat and Baby Have Long Conversation

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 07:00 PM PDT


(Video Link)

YouTube member Lenny says that her toddler and cat have daily conversations like this. I don't understand what they're debating, but I'm impressed with the enthusiasm they put into articulating their positions.

-via Tastefully Offensive

Map Hanging In Firehouse Has Hidden NSFW Image

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:00 PM PDT

Firefighting is, and has always been, a male dominated profession, and as such many fire stations feel like a boy's club complete with cheeky posters and calendars hanging on the wall.

But one seemingly innocent geological survey map from the "Department of the Exterior" hung on a firehouse wall for years before Imgur user Shinygreencloud noticed its NSFW secret.

Now we can't show you the full image here on Neatorama (click here to see it), but what we can show you is the way cutting out the naughty bits makes it look like an ordinary map.

And if you view it full size and read what's written on the map the dirty joke suddenly becomes clear. Now that's one clever way to conceal smut!

See the full sized image here

-Via Boing Boing

Dads Holding Newborns

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 05:00 PM PDT

Grant Snider of Incidental Comics has been charming us with his comics about his daughter for a few years. Now he’s doing it all over again -with a son! He posted this comic in celebration. We’ve seen these guys before, and know they all want to hold their baby just like the very last image. A belated congratulations to the Sniders, and we look forward to more parenting insights.  

5 Wine and Easter Candy Pairings

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 04:00 PM PDT

We love Easter, but it's just not the same when you're an adult. Easter baskets, egg hunts and presents from bunnies are all a thing of the past. Fortunately, as adults we do get the benefit of booze to help get us through the holiday. If you're trying to make sure you pick the right wine -not for your Easter dinner, but for your candy, you're in luck because here you go.

If you want to skip ahead to find out what to drink with your Peeps, don't let the picture fool you -they rightfully suggest prosecco. 

Goat Rituals and Tree-Trunk Gravestones: The Peculiar History of Life Insurance

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 03:00 PM PDT

If you’ve ever attended a Masonic funeral, you know how important those rites are to the club members. So it shouldn’t surprise you to know that the modern idea of life insurance grew out of secret societies, where fraternity extended beyond death. In the 19th century, death could leave one’s family destitute, even unable to pay for a gravestone, and the peace of mind insurance brought was an important consideration. Eventually, societies based around the idea of life insurance cropped up. One of the more long-lasting was the Woodmen of the World, and later Modern Woodmen. They offered activities and camaraderie in addition to insurance, but you had to go through initiation rituals to be considered worthy.

The Modern Woodmen took such rites to new levels. They’d challenge recruits to put their hands in (fake) molten lead. Others were subjected to spanking machines and collapsing chairs. The Ferris Wheel Coaster Goat, patented and sold by a company co-owned by Modern Woodman member Ed DeMoulin, would flip the unsuspecting rider upside down and fire blanks from its rear.

What did a slapstick goat gag have to do with selling insurance? Everything. Besides reminding recruits that death was always at the door, the Woodmen “had to come up with all kinds of gimmicks to get people to join,” Lettelier explained. “When an initiate had to ‘ride the goat,’ everybody else would sit around the lodge room and have a big belly laugh. … If you ‘rode the goat,’ then you were in with the clique. Then that new member would bring in his buddies so the Woodmen could prank them. What it did was help build their insurance company.”

Woodman of the World insurance is still available, although not with the trappings of a secret society it once had. Read about the Woodmen and other mutual benefit societies that made life insurance common at Collectors Weekly.

How Some Asian Cultures Use Chopsticks Differently

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 02:00 PM PDT

Chopsticks are used by many different Asian cultures in many different ways, and considering they've been around for an estimated six thousand years it'd be silly to think otherwise.

But it seems how they're used, what they're made out of and what they're used to eat varies by country rather than by type of cuisine.

In Japan chopsticks are used to eat anything that's not considered hand food, and the debate whether sushi is hand food or not rages on.

In Hong Kong and mainland China chopsticks are used for traditional rice and noodle dishes, and any western foods are eaten with knife and fork.

And in Thailand chopsticks are often used to load up your spoon with ingredients from the bowl before you take a bite.

Mashable asked foodies from various countries how chopsticks are used in their culture, and it seems the one thing they all agree on is this- don't stick them in your bowl standing straight up, as this is symbolically associated with death.

Read One Size Does Not Fit All: How Some Asian Cultures Use Chopsticks Differently here

Capsuled Nightmare - Your Mind Is About To Explode

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 01:00 PM PDT


Capsuled Nightmare by Pigboom

The child who was involved in what is now known as the Akira Project was a special case indeed, and he possessed a psychic ability that made him virtually unstoppable when fully unleashed upon mankind. However, his mental instability kept him from being able to control the Akira force, and therefore left him unable to stop the power within from destroying his body, along with most of the city. A boy involved in the Neo-Tokyo incident named Kaneda, who was actually friends with subject Tetsuo, claims the boy's spirit lives on, and that he has actually spoken to Tetsuo on numerous occasions. But that may just prove to be the capsules talking...

Celebrate the coolest anime feature film of all time with this Capsuled Nightmare t-shirt by Pigboom, it's the super stylish way to show love for the groundbreaking film that changed the way we saw anime.

Visit Pigboom's Facebook fan page, official website, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs:

Insane Whiskey Red LabelArtiChokeGo Far Far AwayBooks! The Best Weapons In The World

View more designs by Pigboom | More Anime 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!

Trainy McTrainface

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 01:00 PM PDT

Say what you will about naming a research ship Boaty McBoatface, you have to admit it makes a lot of people smile. And that’s not a bad thing when circumstances try to put you in a bad mood. London’s South West Train service was delayed Tuesday, putting hundreds of commuters behind schedule. But renaming one of the trains trying to go from from Portsmouth to Waterloo “Trainy McTrainface” lightened the mood for many of them.

A South West Trains spokeswoman confirmed the "one-off" name change was genuine.

She said: "It is a one-off by one of our creative guards who wanted to bring a smile to the face of our customers."

What really lightened the mood was knowing that someone in the organization knew it was time to spread a smile, and cared enough to do it.  

(Image credit: Matthew Fifield)

How Japan Could Invade the United States in 1937

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 12:00 PM PDT

It was a complete fantasy, of course. Even the Pearl Harbor raid was the end of the logistical reach of the Imperial Japanese Navy. But that didn't stop newspapers from boosting circulation by convincing American readers that this was a potential outcome.

That's what this page from a 1937 issue of the Los Angeles Examiner is after. So the writers and artists described this fanciful two-pronged invasion of the USA. The first came from an assault on Hawaii, followed by a naval attack on southern California. At the same time, Japan seized southern Alaska and used it as air bases for raids against the Pacific Northwest. Rebecca Onion writes for Slate:

Insets illustrated how Los Angeles could be cut off from the rest of the country with strategic bombing of mountain passes and how its key utilities—water supply and electricity—could be easily controlled by an invading army.

The Examiner thought the main thrust of a Japanese offensive might come from the north. While "crippling or annihilating" the American fleet at Pearl Harbor would be a key part of the plan, allowing Japan to "speed capital ships that would send 16-inch shells screeching to wreak bloody swaths of terror and destruction at Los Angeles and San Francisco," the southern front would "only be a smoke-screen for a main attack via Alaska and Seattle."

You can view a much larger version of the map at Slate.

Watermelon Experiment Gone Wrong

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 11:00 AM PDT

A few years ago, we showed you that if you put enough rubber bands around a watermelon, it will eventually explode, although it may take hundreds of rubber bands to do it.  

(YouTube link)

The Slow Mo Guys made it a sensation. A lot of other people have tried this “experiment” in the years since, but for some reason, these young fellows were allowed to do it inside the house. What could possibly go wrong? -via Uproxx

The Time Keith Richards Wanted To Stab Donald Trump

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 10:00 AM PDT

(Image Link)

Back in 1989 the Rolling Stones were winding up their Steel Wheels tour and looking to do a pay-per-view broadcast, but the only place tour manager Michael Cohl could find to book was the Donald Trump's Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

The Stones were not happy about Cohl's decision to hire Trump as promoter for the pay-per-view event, as Cohl recounted at a Pollstar event:

I opened my big mouth in the meeting with The Rolling Stones where they go, "This is all great, but we're not going to be affiliated with Donald Trump. At all. Screw you." And I go, "I will control Donald Trump! Don't you worry!"

So, we signed the contract. Donald agrees that he will not be in any of the promotion except in Atlantic City, and he will not show up at the gig!

The Stones were then set to give an interview before the show, but Trump swooped in and made himself the star of the show:

I give him the [come here gesture]. "Come on, Donald, what are you doing? A) You promised us you wouldn't even be here and, B) you promised you would never do this." He says, "But they begged me to go up, Michael! They begged me to go up!" I say, "Stop it. Stop it. This could be crazy. Do what you said you would. Don't make a liar of yourself."

(Image Link)

The Stones were understandably upset about the Don's double-cross, but Keith Richards was downright livid:

They call me back, at which point Keith pulls out his knife and slams it on the table and says, "What the hell do I have you for? Do I have to go over there and fire him myself? One of us is leaving the building – either him, or us." I said, "No. I'll go do it. Don't you worry."

Don't mess with knife wielding vampires, Donald, or you might get cut...

-Via Esquire

The Best BMO Cosplays Online

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 09:00 AM PDT

Who is this? It’s DeviantART member problematiiques, all decked out for cosplay! But who -or what- is she dressed up as? She’s BMO, an animated video game console!

Adventure Time‘s BMO is a simply delightful character. Completely asexual, adorably cheerful and both a friend and source of entertainment in the post-apocalypse, BMO is the electronic friend we only wish we could have. While BMO may not be real (at least not yet), we can at least celebrate him/her through the power of cosplay and here are some of the most delightful BMO cosplays out there.

See ten widely varying ways people cosplay BMO at Rue The Day.

Website Summarizes Every Test Performed On Mythbusters

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 08:00 AM PDT

Now that the Mythbusters have officially called it quits many fans are starting to fill in the gaps by watching every episode they missed over the last twelve years.

But very few people have enough spare time to watch every episode over again, so here's a better idea- MythResults, a website that summarizes every single test Adam and Jamie performed on the show.

MythResults delivers the busted, plausible or confirmed results for each of the over 1,000 myths in one sentence, and they've even included a link to each episode's main page, so you can get the full story fast.

-Via Lifehacker

Virtual Reality Dad

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 07:00 AM PDT

(YouTube link)

There’s no need to invest in Oculus Rift or another virtual reality gadget when you’ve got TV and a Dad who’s willing to help out! (Though a commenter did call this “Oculus Thrift”.) Too bad this idea will be shelved when the child gains another twenty pounds or so. Still, she’ll probably remember this adventure for the rest of her life. -via reddit

How to Make A Giant Kit Kat

Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:00 AM PDT

Why buy a bunch of candy for your Easter basket when you can instead make a Kit Kat that will last you all of April and be too big for any Easter basket you've ever seen? If you want to make your own chocolate monstrosity this holiday, then be sure to head over to Instructables for the tutorial.

Of course, if you really want to go crazy, try making a 15 pound one.
@

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