Neatorama |
- Democracy's Dirty History
- The Breaking Dead Theory
- Hero Holidays - Sleigh Bells Ring...For Justice
- Unsatisfying
- Heavenly Desserts Made With Leftover Halloween Candy
- Daylight Saving Time Ends This Weekend
- Why Isn't Grape Ice Cream A Thing?
- How Tall is Barbara Bush?
- The Witch House of Beverly Hills
- Piper
- Thief Steals Kit Kat Bar From Car And Leaves A Thank You Note
- Giant Straw Godzilla Appears in Japan
- You Might Have Sushi for Brains if You Don't Want to Eat This
- Lupin Best Skill - Leaping Into Action!
- Congratulations to the Chicago Cubs!
- What If Bruce Wayne's Parents Died In Different Ways?
| Posted: 04 Nov 2016 04:00 AM PDT
Democracy is a privilege—but it’s also kind of a pain in the butt. It involves long lines, an avalanche of fliers, and the lingering smell of baked ziti in public school cafeterias (or maybe the ziti is only at my polling station?). But be thankful. In centuries past, voting wasn’t just a metaphorical pain. It was a literal one. Consider the common 19th-century custom called “cooping”: Party thugs would kidnap a voter, get him drunk, then make him vote multiple times, often disguising him in different clothes and wigs. It sounds like fun and games, but it was anything but. If the voter didn’t comply, he was beaten or killed. Though the evidence is far from certain, some think Edgar Allan Poe was killed in a cooping incident. (He was found in a state of delirium on Election Day in 1849, wearing an un-Poe-like straw hat. He died soon after.) In New York City, the best-known election riggers were from the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall machine. One Tammany thug recounted a strategy for voting four times—once with a full beard, then with mutton chops, followed by only a moustache, and finally, totally clean-faced. Around the same time, Andrew Gumbel writes in Steal This Vote, Philadelphia’s Gas Ring gang drummed up votes from dead people, fictional characters, and pets.
On the upside, if you were shy, it was easy to find some liquid courage come voting day. Even George Washington knew the importance of getting voters totally wasted. When he ran for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758, he provided voters with 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of hard cider, which amounted to about a half-gallon of booze per voter. He wasn’t alone. Getting voters sauced was so common, it had a name: “swilling the planters with bumbo.” (Bumbo was a rum cocktail.) William Henry Harrison went so far as to dub himself the “hard cider candidate” and bring barrels of cider to parades for attendees to imbibe. Even working at the polls was a risky endeavor. Election officials were subject to kidnapping, Gumbel writes, and even having their coffee spiked with laxatives “so they would be otherwise engaged during the most important phase of the count.” My hope is that one day we’ll vote hassle-free online. Yes, there’s a risk of hackers—but no smell of leftovers. ________________________________
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| Posted: 04 Nov 2016 02:00 AM PDT A fan theory has been going around lately that Breaking Bad is actually a prequel to The Walking Dead. People have noticed some crossover themes in the shows, which isn't all that surprising, since they are produced by and for the same channel. But what if Heisenberg's drugs somehow caused the zombie apocalypse? Netflix explains this theory. Someone connected the dots that led from one show to the other. You know, the dots that really aren't there. Robert Kirkman wrote the comic book The Walking Dead, while Vince Gilligan came up with the idea for Breaking Bad during the writer's strike a few years back. Kirkman has stated that he will never explain what caused the zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead. Therefore, it's up to the fans to figure it out. This idea is as good as any! -via Laughing Squid | ||||||||
| Hero Holidays - Sleigh Bells Ring...For Justice Posted: 04 Nov 2016 12:00 AM PDT Hero Holidays - Xmas, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice... by Captain RibMan Sleigh bells ring, and dredels spin, people say Shalom! while standing under mistletoe singing Feliz Navidad. It's a brave new world of holiday fun, where all celebrations are welcome and mixing and matching is encouraged. We're all looking to celebrate with our friends and family, so what's in a name? We should just start with Halloween and work our way straight into the New Year together, having holiday fun as one instead of bickering over whose holy power is more super or whose holiday is more special. This year let's start teaming up and making the holidays a superheroic good time to be had by all! It's either that or Krampus wins... Get geared up for an epic holiday season with this Hero Holidays - Xmas, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice... t-shirt by Captain RibMan, and make sure you have all the holiday bases covered! Visit Captain RibMan's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more festively 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: 04 Nov 2016 12:00 AM PDT Life is full of little disappointments. Here's a bunch of them, compiled by Parallel Studio of Paris. Some of the individual clips are at Instagram. -via reddit | ||||||||
| Heavenly Desserts Made With Leftover Halloween Candy Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:00 PM PDT (Triple Peanut Butter Cookie Pie) If you still have leftover Halloween candy it's because you overbought, no trick-or-treaters came to your door, or you've eaten so much candy you're sick of it. So let's get rid of our Halloween stash and get ready for the holiday season at the same time by whipping up some candy filled treats! I'm sure you know how good cookies and brownies are when they're made with chocolate candies, so imagine how heavenly cheesecake ice cream will be if you add Kit Kat or Twix to the mix. If you have more than one kind of candy you'd like to throw into the mix you may want to consider making some Movie Theater Candy Chocolate Bark, because the more kinds of candy you add the better! (Movie Theater Candy Chocolate Bark) And lastly these Snickers Profiteroles prove desserts made with leftover Halloween candy don't have to look like a total mess. They're très élégante! See Epic Dessert Recipes You Can Make With Leftover Halloween Candy here | ||||||||
| Daylight Saving Time Ends This Weekend Posted: 03 Nov 2016 08:00 PM PDT Set your clocks back an hour Saturday night before you go to bed. If you are a night owl, set them back at 2AM Sunday, because that's the end of Daylight Saving Time in the United Sates this year. This one is the "good" time change. If you are on a schedule, this gives you an extra hour of sleep, the one that you lost back in the spring. If you can't sleep longer than you normally do, then you'll be up early and rarin' to go for a few days before you get used to it. WhatsUpMoms sees the upside to this time change when it comes to getting kids to fall asleep in the evening and up for school on time. If you can keep the effect for yourself until Tuesday, then you can be at the polls early to vote. -via Boing Boing | ||||||||
| Why Isn't Grape Ice Cream A Thing? Posted: 03 Nov 2016 06:00 PM PDT Those of us who love grape flavored sweets wonder why manufacturers don't make a grape flavored version of everything, and we assume it's because grape flavor doesn't work so well in things like cakes or donuts. But grape flavored ice cream sounds like a delicious treat to me, so why isn't grape ice cream a thing? Turns out it's because ice cream makers like Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's use fresh fruit purees, and grapes have too much water in them to be easily added to ice cream:
-Via mental_floss | ||||||||
| Posted: 03 Nov 2016 04:00 PM PDT There doesn't seem to be anything unusual about the heights of the presidents and first ladies in the picture above, taken in 1991. Or is there? Laura Beck went down the internet rabbit hole and came back with a cautionary tale about the believability of internet sources. She recalled former first lady Barbara Bush as an "imposing figure," and then asked Siri how tall she is. Siri responded that Barbara Bush is four feet tall. What? Siri cited her source as Wikipedia, but the entry for Bush does not mention her height. Neither do many other resources that you would expect. That set off a flurry of research with no consensus. Beck also looked into the possibility that Bush's height was misrepresented to us in photographs, with a few funny responses. The only other internet source that claimed to know said that Barbara Bush is six feet tall. One can assume the truth is somewhere between the two extremes, but the moral of the story is never take information at face value. Read the whole saga of Barbara Bush's height at Jezebel. -via Digg | ||||||||
| The Witch House of Beverly Hills Posted: 03 Nov 2016 02:00 PM PDT Beverly Hills is known for mega-mansions and celebrities, but amongst the glitz and glamour lies the strange and wonderful Witch House. The strange structure was orginally built in Hollywood back in 1920s for the silent film production company Willat Productions. The house was built not only as a film set, but also as a studio dressing room and as an office, so it was a reasonable expense, but when the studio closed down and the house was slated to be torn down, producer Ward Lascelle stepped in to save it. That's when the home got moved to Beverly Hills. You can read the rest of the home's history and see more photos over at LAist. | ||||||||
| Posted: 03 Nov 2016 12:00 PM PDT GCI has made some great strides in the past few years! The short called Piper, which accompanied Finding Dory in theaters, is a work of art from Pixar. Piper is a baby sandpiper learning to take care of himself. His mother is so proud. And he's just so cute you can't help but love him. Then after you've watched the story, you realize that the water was so realistic, you didn't even think it being computer-generated! -via Geeks Are Sexy | ||||||||
| Thief Steals Kit Kat Bar From Car And Leaves A Thank You Note Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:00 AM PDT According to advertisements some snacks are so good people will do whatever it takes to get their hands on them, even if it involves breaking and entering. These ads warn us against leaving our delicious snacks out in the open, and we assume the robbery situations portrayed in these commercials are ridiculous. But life will always be stranger than fiction, and apparently some people really do find Kit Kat bars so appealing they'll break into your car to steal them.
Hunter Jobbins was unaware Kansas State University had a candy theft problem, so he left a Kit Kat bar sitting in the cup holder of his unlocked car- and came back to find a hand scrawled note from the thief who stole his Kit Kat. Kit Kat became aware of Hunter's loss and offered their support in his time of need: -Via 22 Words | ||||||||
| Giant Straw Godzilla Appears in Japan Posted: 03 Nov 2016 09:00 AM PDT A group of 150 volunteers have built a 23-foot tall likeness of Godzilla out of straw! It has LED eyes that light up, too. The giant statue is fashioned from rice reeds, which would lead one to think it's a harvest icon. An art project, for sure. Is it an offering to the Toho Studios monster that it should spare Japan any destruction this year? Or maybe destruction is the whole purpose. After all, Gävle, Sweden, put itself on the international stage by building a straw goat every year that gets torched. And this Godzilla is not only extremely flammable, it's set out in a field where such destruction would not hurt homes or businesses. Stay tuned. You can see more pictures of the straw Godzilla and its construction at Unreality. | ||||||||
| You Might Have Sushi for Brains if You Don't Want to Eat This Posted: 03 Nov 2016 08:00 AM PDT Even if it's past Halloween, it's hard to resist wanting to munch on these Philadelphia roll brains. Food network's recipe looks pretty simple, as it mostly involves shoving rice around an avocado filled with cream cheese and then rolling up thin-cut salmon and arranging it on top. It also looks delicious because, well, avovado, cream cheese and salmon. You could also try switching out spicy tuna and using a brain mold to make the creepy shape if you like something with a little heat. | ||||||||
| Lupin Best Skill - Leaping Into Action! Posted: 03 Nov 2016 07:00 AM PDT Lupin Best Skill by Fra Stiller Lupin is an extremely skilled individual, with a particularly thief-y skills that help him get any job done, but his best skill by far is his "escape the bondage of tight fitting clothing" trick. This trick allows him to slip away from enemies, avoid arrest, and allows him to be ready for action at a moment's notice should he find himself alone with a beautiful girl. It's no wonder they call Lupin the III the world's number one thief- he gets away with stealing whatever he wants, including a young lady's heart! Wear your love of Lupin III on your chest with this Lupin Best Skill t-shirt by Fra Stiller, it's a surprisingly awesome design! Visit Fra Stiller's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more action packed 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! | ||||||||
| Congratulations to the Chicago Cubs! Posted: 03 Nov 2016 07:00 AM PDT After 108 years, seven games, ten innings, and a rain delay, the Cubs have finally won the World Series. The video above was the crowd at Wrigley Field, but the game was in Cleveland. Here's how it ended.
See a longer clip of the on-field celebration here. Notice how quickly Anthony Rizzo secured the ball in his pocket, lest that valuable piece of history be lost. Despite so long coming, the 2016 win was predicted in a 1993 yearbook and on the TV show Parks & Recreation.
It's easy to identify a longtime Cubs fan today. They can't stop smiling and all their fingernails are gone. They went to the game ready for the outcome.
Some more than others.
Congratulations to the 2016 Chicago Cubs, winner of the World Series!
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| What If Bruce Wayne's Parents Died In Different Ways? Posted: 03 Nov 2016 06:00 AM PDT Everyone knows how Bruce Wayne's parents died, and how that fateful moment was wholly responsible for creating the Batman. But how did the method of murder affect Batman's style of vigilante justice? And would his methods have changed if his parents had been killed by, say, a drunk driver? Illustrator Daniel Irizarri explored this concept via comic strips on the Awkward Elevator blog, so we can see how close the Bat came to being the Butt. It's funny to think how much that fateful night had to do with Batman being the angry and violent guy we know, just imagine how Batman would have turned out if his parents had been killed by a clown! -Via Geeks Are Sexy |
(Image credit: Luc Melanson)
If you did make it to the polls, casting the vote itself was something of a hassle, as historian Jill Lepore pointed out in The New Yorker in 2008. For starters, you had to bring your own ballot. You had to spell your candidate’s name correctly (write John instead of Jon and your vote was tossed). In fact, our forefathers regarded secret ballots with suspicion, arguing that they made voting for selfish interests too easy. Some states even required oral votes— you had to say your candidate’s name loud and proud.
The article above by A.J. Jacobs appeared in the the November 2015 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.
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