Neatorama

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• The Amazing Geek Art of Stephan Andrade
• POWER-UP - Are Fire Flowers Considered Performance Enhancing Drugs?
• Name That American Island
• The Joy Of Reading <i>War And Peas</i>
• Keep Calm And Ski On, But Beware Of Avalanches
• The Life-Changing Magic of Decluttering in a Post-Apocalyptic World
• Managers Share The Stupidest Reasons They Had To Fire An Employee
• A Vaudeville Act So Bad it Set Legal Precedent
• This Lobster is Ready for Love
• I Need a Photoshop Favor from You
• Comic Book Characters Too Weird For The Movies
• Easy Rider 2017
• Needle Felted Geek Accessories

The Amazing Geek Art of Stephan Andrade Posted: 30 Jan 2017 03:59 AM PST Stephan Andrade is our kind of illustrator -he's got great skills and he puts them to work on awesomely geeky artworks. We particularly love the way he turns all of his geek illustrations into classic dimestore novel covers. And his subject matter is wonderful too -from Seinfeld to Bob's Burgers and from The Labyrinth to Adventure Time, the portraits are delightful. The only downside is that none of these books are real because, after all, with covers like these, the books have to be good, right? So check out his whole portfolio here.

POWER-UP - Are Fire Flowers Considered Performance Enhancing Drugs? Posted: 30 Jan 2017 02:00 AM PST POWER-UP by SergioDoe Athletic shoes weren't very popular in the Mushroom Kingdom before Bowser came to town, but now that he and his koopas and goombas are constantly lurking around everyone started wearing sneakers so they could run faster, jump higher and squish easier. Luigi noticed the trend, since he'd always had a good nose for business, so he started making sneakers durable enough to withstand the harshness of a super bros. lifestyle. He called them Ladidas, and promised they'd give the wearer a higher vertical and horizontal leap, better traction on both bricks and clouds, and a shock resistant sole designed with squishing and kicking in mind. Luigi's shoe company started to make him some serious coins, which he used to 1up his lifestyle until he was almost livin' as large as Mario, but then Bowser began a sneaker company of his own called Kila... Add some athletic parody awesomeness to your geeky wardrobe with this POWER-UP t-shirt by SergioDoe, it's the sporty way to show love for those super bros whether you're playing video games our working out at the gym. Visit SergioDoe's Facebook fan page and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more action packed designs: Kong Fiction Banana Thrower Schwift Fighter II Recess Wars View more designs by SergioDoe | More Video Game 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!

Name That American Island Posted: 30 Jan 2017 02:00 AM PST The following article is from the new book Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader. (Image credit: Ken Curtis) Did you know that there are 18,617 named islands in the U.S. and its territories? Neither did we! Here are some interesting stories behind the names of some of those islands. STATEN ISLAND In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson, sailing under a Dutch flag, sailed into New York Bay. (He wasn’t the first European to explore the region; that honor goes to Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who discovered it in 1524.) Hudson named the large island on the southwest side of the bay Staaten Eylandt, literally “States Island,” after the Dutch parliament, known as the Staaten-Generaal. When the English took over the region in 1667, and made it part of their New York Colony, the name was anglicized to Staten Island. (Image credit: Dan Dugan Sound Design) Bonus fact: Staten Island wasn’t its official name until 1975. In 1683, the British divided the New York Colony into ten counties, and designated Staten Island as Richmond County, after Charles Lennox, the son of England’s King Charles II, and first Duke of Richmond. When Staten Island was incorporated into New York City in 1898 as one of its five boroughs, its official name was the Borough of Richmond—and that remained its name until 1975, when the city council finally changed it to the Borough of Staten Island. LONG ISLAND (Image credit: Jsayre64) Just east of Staten Island, across a channel known as the Narrows that separates Lower New York Bay from Upper New York Bay (where the Statue of Liberty is located), lies Long Island. Like Staten Island, it was named by the Dutch in the early 17th century. They called it Lange Eylandt, meaning, of course, “Long Island.” It’s 118 miles long by 23 miles wide at its widest point, making it the longest (and largest) island in the contiguous United States. It’s also the most populous island in any state or territory, with more than 7.8 million residents. KODIAK (Image credit: James Brooks) Kodiak Island is about 250 miles southeast of Anchorage, off the east coast of Alaska’s Aleutian Peninsula. It’s been home to the Alutiiq people for more than 3,000 years. And it’s huge. At 3,595 square miles, Kodiak is the second-largest island in the United States (after Hawaii), and the 80th largest in the world. The island was first encountered by Europeans in 1763, when Russian fur trader Stephan Glotov arrived there. He called it Kad’yak, a derivation of kikhtak, the native Aleut word for “island.” The island became the center of the Russian fur trade, but the name didn’t spread beyond the Russian trading community until 1778, when English explorer Captain James Cook arrived and made the first known written notation of the word “Kodiak.” HAWAII (Image credit: Diego Delso) According to traditional folklore, the largest of the Hawaiian islands was named after Hawai’iloa, a legendary seafaring hero who discovered and then colonized them. (He was from a land called Ka-aina-kaimelemele-a-Kane, meaning “the land of the yellow sea of Kane.”) According to the same folklore, the names of the next three largest islands in the Hawaiian chain—Kauai, Oahu, and Maui—come from the names of Hawai’iloa’s sons. But according to linguists, “Hawaii” is similar to words found in other Polynesian languages—including Maori and Samoan—that mean something along the lines of “homeland,” and “Hawaii” probably once had that same meaning. Bonus Fact: The Hawaiian word lulu means “calm,” and the name of Hawaii’s capital city, Honolulu, means “calm port.” MARTHA’S VINEYARD (Image credit: Arwcheek) Martha’s Vineyard is a small island (25 miles long and 9 miles across at its widest point), just south of Cape Cod, about 7 miles off the Massachusetts coast. It may be best known as the vacation grounds of some of America’s most elite families, especially the Kennedys. Before Europeans arrived, it was the home of the Wampanoag people for millennia. The Wampanoag name for the island was Noepe, meaning “dry land amid the waters.” The curious route to its modern name: • In 1524, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano made what many historians believe was the first sighting of this island by a European, while he was exploring the region for France. He recorded its unique triangular shape and named it Louise Island, after Louise of Savoy, the mother of the French king Frances I. That name was soon forgotten. • In 1602, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold made the first known landing by a European on the island. But he gave the name Martha’s Vineyard to another island—a smaller one just to the south. The “Vineyard” is believed to have been a reference to the wild grapes that grow on the islands. No one knows for sure who Martha was: she could have been Gosnold’s daughter, and maybe his mother, or his mother-in-law, or his sister, but none of these have been confirmed. • A few decades later, the name Martha’s Vineyard was transferred to the larger island that’s still called that today. (The smaller island was renamed Nomans Land, possibly derived from Tequenoman, the name of a Wampanoag sachem, or chief, who lived there.) • Martha’s Vineyard was also known as “Martin’s Vineyard.” This may have been a reference to Captain Martin Pring, another English seafarer who explored the island in 1605; or it may have referred to English sea captain John Martin, who served on Gosnold’s crew, and was later a councilman in the British colony at Jamestown, Virginia. • In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison set up the Board on Geographic Names, to establish standards in the United States. Among the board’s rules: possessive apostrophes were no longer allowed in U.S. place names—so Martha’s Vineyard officially became Marthas Vineyard. (About 250,000 apostrophes were dropped from U.S. place names at the time.) In the early 20th century, the board allowed Marthas Vineyard to reinstate the apostrophe, and it became Martha’s Vineyard again. (It’s one of only five places granted permission to use a possessive apostrophe since then.) PUERTO RICO (Image credit: Stan Shebs) This Caribbean island was named San Juan Bautista in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, after the Catholic saint John the Baptist. The first permanent settlement was founded in 1508, actually on a small island just 100 yards or so off the north coast of the larger island, which formed the northern rim of a large protected harbor. The settlement moved to the larger island in 1509 and was dubbed Puerto Rico, or “rich port,” while the island was still called San Juan Bautista. In 1521, the name of the settlement, which had become a thriving town, was expanded to San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico. That created confusion among its residents, and they started referring to the town as San Juan Bautista, and the island as Puerto Rico. Officials eventually made the name swap official: the town of San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico became San Juan, and the entire island, once known as San Juan Bautista, became Puerto Rico. Bonus Fact: Puerto Ricans sometimes refer to the island as Borinquen, and to themselves as borincanos. Those terms come from Boriken, the name for the island used by the indigenous Taino people, whose culture dominated the island from around 1000 AD until the Spanish arrived. It means “land of the great lords.” MORE ABOUT U.S. ISLANDS • Off the coast of Massachusetts, about ten miles from Martha’s Vineyard and just west of Nantucket Island, is Tuckernuck Island. Its name was derived from a Wampanoag word meaning “round loaf of bread.” • Dauphin Island lies just off the southwest coast of Alabama in the Gulf of Mexico. It was named Isle Du Massacre (Massacre Island) in 1699 by French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, who found a pile of human skeletons on the island. (Archaeologists say the bodies were probably not the result of a massacre—they were more likely the remains of a Native American burial ground that had been exposed by a hurricane.) D’Iberville changed the island’s name to Dauphin Island in 1707, in honor of King Louis XIV’s great-grandson and heir. Many people mistakenly call it “Dolphin Island”…but they’re actually right. “Dauphin” was the title given to the heir to the French throne—and it actually does mean “dolphin”—a reference to the dolphin symbol on the French king’s coat of arms. • Joseph Whidbey mapped the islands of what is now Puget Sound (with his shipmate, Peter Puget) in 1792. Whidbey Island was named for him (and Puget Sound for Puget) that same year. By whom? By their captain: George Vancouver. (He has an island named after him, too— but it’s in Canada, and this article is about American islands.) _______________________________ The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's newest volume, Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader. The 29th volume of the series is chock-full of fascinating stories, facts, and lists, and comes in both the Kindle version and paperback. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

The Joy Of Reading <i>War And Peas</i> Posted: 29 Jan 2017 11:59 PM PST War and peace are both tricky things to maintain, but the guy and gal behind the comic War and Peas have easily maintained their hilarious comic strip for over five years now. Elizabeth Pich and Jonathan Kunz hail from Saarbrücken, Germany, where they find the climate to be perfect for comic strip creation, and they've been entertaining our eyeballs with their easy to love comics since 2011. Their strip was once called L.I.N.S., but they changed it to War And Peas "because we liked this one much better", and they craft their strip with the same "less acronyms and more laughs" approach because they're cool like that. See more Hilarious Comics With Unexpected Endings By War And Peas here

Keep Calm And Ski On, But Beware Of Avalanches Posted: 29 Jan 2017 09:59 PM PST (Image Link) Ski season is upon us, and that means it's the best time to hit the slopes and carve some fresh powder at cool places across the U.S. like Park City, Vail and Sugarloaf, just to name a few. But if you should find yourself ditching the lifts to ski in the back country remember- avalanches are a real threat, so do your homework so you can live to ski another season. The skier in this video posted by KGW News discovered how easy it is to start an avalanche while skiing, luckily nobody was on the slopes below him. (YouTube Link) But more often than not skiers get swallowed up by the snow when they cause an avalanche,  which looks pretty cool through the lens of a GoPro camera but scares the crap out of the skier sporting the GoPro. (YouTube Link) If you ever find yourself being swept off your feet by an avalanche try to keep a cool head, and if you're lucky you may be able to outrun the avalanche, like pro skier Nick McNutt does in this jaw dropping video. (YouTube Link) -Via FAILBlog

The Life-Changing Magic of Decluttering in a Post-Apocalyptic World Posted: 29 Jan 2017 07:59 PM PST When the world collapses around us, how will we continue the everyday housekeeping chores of our normal lives? A sense of normalcy will be important when you're battling giant insects, homicidal robots, sulfurous fire, and/or zombies. Tom Gauld gives us tips on keeping your home decluttered and efficient in various post-apocalyptic scenarios. See the rest of the series at The New Yorker. -via Everlasting Blort

Managers Share The Stupidest Reasons They Had To Fire An Employee Posted: 29 Jan 2017 05:59 PM PST (Image Link) Getting fired isn't a pleasant experience, and it often turns people into quitters because they'd rather quit than go through the firing process again. But some employees were born to be quitters, and it's a wonder they're able to hold down a job at all when they give ten percent or less effort while they're at work. I had an employee apologize to two different tables for forgetting to put their food order in. They had been waiting like 45 minutes and nothing had been entered into the system. We looked at the camera system because he had been acting weird all day. After he wrote down their order, he proceeded to go outside and fire up a joint. He was apparently too high to remember to put in the order. It was his first, and last day. EDIT: Sorry for the confusion, I meant it was his first day on the floor by himself. He had a week's training before.  -via iStankonia According to Redditors this is all iStankonia's fault for hiring a stoned towel as a server. (Image Link) Not every bad employee is high, some of them are drunk. Every day at lunch, she would drink roughly half of her Jimmy Johns (or whatever) soda, then take it with her to the bathroom to fill it back up with whiskey. She did a pretty good job covering up the smell, and since she did it from day 1 it wasn't immediately obvious that she was getting drunk. Found out on day 4 when she knocked her full cup over and we all got covered with booze. -via Smitty_Oom And then there are those employees who are simply fed up with the job and looking to make a spectacular exit. I didnt personally fire this person but I was manager on duty at a resturant I work at. New-ish server was dealing with a complaint a customer had with their BLT. Rather than having me talk to the table he took a bite out of it and said "Im not seeing the problem." -via Mirraklewhippn The Managers of Reddit were asked "what is the stupidest thing an employee did that forced you to fire them?" and in among the drunks, thieves and stoners were some real corkers: Not me, but my boss. Boss had to fire a lady in our office because she lost her "marbles" when someone ate her bagel from the fridge. She literally had a tantrum, like a toddler. Also, the girl who ate it, ate it by mistake. She thought it was a bagel from the office breakfast we had earlier that same morning (it was in the same packaging as the office stuff). Now, I absolutely hate it when people eat my lunch, but the girl who ate the bagel profusely apologized. Even stated she would go and buy her a new one right on the spot. But tantrum lady couldn't let it go. So, that ended up being her last night. -via kt20871936 See Managers Share The Stupidest Reasons They Actually Had To Fire Someone here

A Vaudeville Act So Bad it Set Legal Precedent Posted: 29 Jan 2017 03:59 PM PST Before Mrs. Miller and William Hung, and even before Florence Foster Jenkins became famous for singing badly, there were the Cherry Sisters: Ella, Lizzie, Addie, Effie, and Jessie Cherry. While mediocre talent is soon forgotten, the Cherry Sisters were so bad that they found a place in history. The trope of an angry crowd throwing vegetables at a bad performance may have come from the Cherry Sisters. Previous acts were surely pelted with produce before the Cherrys, but they seem to have been famous for it. When they first performed their show, Something Good, Something Sad, in their hometown of Marion, Iowa, audiences were polite, as it was mainly their friends and neighbors in attendance. But as soon as they took their act on the road, it was clear at least one half of that title was misleading. “Spectators routinely laughed, heckled, catcalled, booed, and threw vegetables,” according to their Wikipedia page. One audience member sprayed a fire extinguisher directly into one of the women’s faces to stop the show. They eventually began performing behind a wire mesh to avoid being hit by projectiles (although they later denied ever doing so). Strangely the group soldiered on, and was booked for various tours and even a Broadway theater. The A.V. Club found the Cherry Sisters at Wikipedia and did some more research on this unconventional vaudeville act. Read about them, and how their refusal to give up led to a refinement in libel law.

This Lobster is Ready for Love Posted: 29 Jan 2017 01:59 PM PST It's normal for lobsters to get barnacles on their shells, but usually they just show up in random patches. This beautiful boy has a heart tattoo on his back that makes him truly special. It's the perfect lobster for Valentine's Day -assuming he doesn't end up on someone's plate. After all, it's kind of hard to eat something that says it loves you while you chow down.

I Need a Photoshop Favor from You Posted: 29 Jan 2017 11:59 AM PST Photoshop artist MixerOfMeows got a strange request at 6:47 in the morning. A friend needed a very specific, but totally weird, image as soon as possible. Did he ask why? No, he got the specifications and went to work. You can see what he worked with, and the finished image here. No, we still don't know why the friend needed this specific image. I'm sure there's a great story behind it.  -via The Daily Dot

Comic Book Characters Too Weird For The Movies Posted: 29 Jan 2017 09:59 AM PST I love weird comic book characters, the more satirical and surreal the better, and my love of strange characters began when I read Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck for the first time. Howard is everything an oddball character should be, but he was handsome and likeable enough to appear in the movies, unlike that vicious little furball Dex-Starr. Dex-Starr may have been a pretty kitty once, but after his owner was killed and he was tortured and nearly killed by sadistic humans this house cat went feral in the fiercest way possible- by becoming a Red Lantern. Humanity lit the fire of vengeance in Dex-Starr's heart, but the Red Lantern Corps power ring he wears gives him the power to vomit rage-blood, which incinerates his foes. He's a bloody cool character for the comics, but too wicked to appear in the average PG-13 superhero flick.  Now if you wanna see a cute little guy rub shoulders with the DC superheroes you should signal Bat-Mite, the imp who idolizes Batman. Bat-Mite is super fun in the comics and an amazing addition to any animated series, but his toony look just wouldn't work in the super dark and serious version of the DC Universe seen in the movies. That's pretty much the shape of it for Starro too, and even though that giant mind controlling alien starfish is the reason the Justice League was created it's unlikely he'll ever make it into a JLA movie. On the other hand, Marvel Zombies seems like the perfect fit for a movie adaptation, since both zombies and superheroes are big money makers at the box office. But audiences probably couldn't handle seeing zombie Spider-Man chowing down on Mary Jane and Aunt May, so this project may stay buried because it would definitely earn a hard R rating. See 15 Comic Book Characters Too Weird For Movies here

Easy Rider 2017 Posted: 29 Jan 2017 07:59 AM PST Joel and Ethan Coen directed a Super Bowl ad that's being touted as a sequel to the 1969 movie Easy Rider. The bikers are a bit older… actually, they're a lot older, but some things never change, like the Steppenwolf song. (YouTube link) Yep, definitely a sequel, as we find out what became of Peter Fonda 48 years later. Looks like he did well. Let's see: Coen Brothers, Peter Fonda, Steppenwolf, Super Bowl. Can you imagine how much this ad cost? Eh, Mercedes can afford it. -via Tastefully Offensive

Needle Felted Geek Accessories Posted: 29 Jan 2017 05:59 AM PST Etsy seller ElvesinGlass specializes in felting geek fashion accessories like cell phone covers, berets and purses. The decorations feature things like solar systems and animals -particularly animal butts like the corgi butt phone cover above.  The 3D detailing on the flat artistic surfaces give the creations an incredible level of realism you don't normally see in felted works. Personally, I want to own every item in the shop! Via Incredible Things

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