Neatorama |
- The World’s Largest Model Railway
- How Heelys Rolled Into Millions of Dollars - And Then Crashed in an Instant
- US Army Scooters
- Hungry Hungry Husky
- The Onion with a Pearl Earring
- The Jolly Green Lantern
- The Crazy Story of the Fake Burger King In Pittsburgh
- Jaws WeMake 45th Anniversary Tribute
- The Lesser Known Perks of the Medal of Honor are Better Than Being Knighted by the Queen
- Is That A Balloon Or A UFO?
- Forgotten Movie Royalty
- Relatable Quarantine Barbie Starter Pack
| The World’s Largest Model Railway Posted: 22 Jun 2020 04:35 AM PDT
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| How Heelys Rolled Into Millions of Dollars - And Then Crashed in an Instant Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:04 PM PDT
Roger Adams came up with the idea of a shoe that had a wheel in the heel, so that you could just raise your toe and ride them like skates. He enlisted Mike Staffaroni, who had experience selling both shoes and skates, to market them. Staffaroni knew Heelys were a good idea, but had some conservative estimates of the company's first year sales. They launched the product at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Show in San Diego in 2000.
Heelys succeeded beyond their wildest dreams -but the company fell just as fast as it rose. Read how that happened at Mel magazine. |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2020 10:56 AM PDT
During World War II, US Army airborne forces needed a cheap dispatch vehicle that could be easily dropped by parachute into the field. The Cushman company, then producing scooters, quickly converted its line to fill military purchase orders with the Model 53 scooter. Harley Davidson and Indian picked up the slack to produce even more military scooters. The National Museum of the US Air Force describes the capabilities of this tough little vehicle: [...] it had a hitch to pull a model M3A4 general-purpose utility cart. By adding certain equipment, the cart could be converted to carry a .30-cal. or .50-cal. machine gun or an 81mm mortar, though the scooter often could not pull a heavy load. [...] Cushman made nearly 5,000 airborne scooters for the military beginning in 1944. The rugged, simple Model 53 could travel through a foot of water, climb a 25 percent grade and had a range of about 100 miles. A surviving example of the Cushman airborne scooter was once featured on the reality TV show Pawn Stars. -via David Burge | Photo: War History Online P.S. Check out the French Army's anti-tank Vespa. |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
Remove one of the Hippos from the tabletop game Hungry Hungry Hippos and let a dog step up to the table. Pour in the kibble and he'll out-eat any hippo in the jungle. For some dogs I've known, it might have worked just as well with the original plastic beads. -via Five |
| The Onion with a Pearl Earring Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT Johannes Vermeer's 1665 painting Girl with a Pearl Earring metamorphoses into an onion in this piece by Russian photographer Olga Pavolga. Perhaps, as one commenter suggests, the painting should be remade into Girl with an Onion Ring. -via I Need a Guide |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT In 1925, the Green Giant brand of preserved vegetables began promoting its huge peas with a giant figure offering his fare to the world. There's a 55-foot tall statue of the company's mascot in Le Sueur, Minnesota. In brightest day and darkest night, no hunger shall escape this giant's sight when cosplayer Gordon Buri is on the job with his Green Giant and Green Lantern mashup costume. |
| The Crazy Story of the Fake Burger King In Pittsburgh Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
One reason restaurant chains are so successful is that they are consistent at every location, so fans and travelers know what to expect. There's a reason all Cracker Barrels face the interstate, even when that puts them at an odd angle to the road they are actually on. When one fast food outlet goes rogue, everyone notices. That was the case in 2014 at the South Side Burger King in Pittsburgh.
The shenanigans at the particular outlet got much weirder before the media noticed and began investigating (after social media, of course). Read the true tale of the fake Burger King at Cracked. |
| Jaws WeMake 45th Anniversary Tribute Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
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| The Lesser Known Perks of the Medal of Honor are Better Than Being Knighted by the Queen Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
Daven Hiskey looked at a couple of the highest honors that the UK and the US can bestow to compare and contrast them, namely, a British knighthood and the American military's Medal of Honor. This may seen silly because the two are very different and really have nothing in common besides being a high honor, but we can learn something new about each of them.
Knighthood can be given for pretty much any reason, as long as the recipient is a citizen of the United Kingdom. The Medal of Honor is a completely different story. They are not easy to achieve, being given to members of the military who have distinguished themselves through acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. Beginning with World War II, nearly half of the medals have been awarded posthumously. But for recipients who survived their acts of valor, the rewards are pretty sweet, which you can read about at Today I Found Out. |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
Japanese social media went into a frenzy deciphering a mysterious object that appeared in the sky over northern Japan. The odd white object gave birth to different speculations, from UFOs to weather balloons to North Korean propaganda. Footage taken in Sendai showed a balloon-like object above a cross, as Reuters detailed: Television footage taken in the northeastern city of Sendai showed a balloon-like object above a cross, on which propellers seemed to be turning. Officials in the Sendai Weather Bureau said it had appeared near dawn and hung in the sky for hours, largely unmoving, until obscured by clouds. By afternoon it was the third-most trending topic on Japanese Twitter, with theories including UFOs and North Korean balloons used to drop leaflets. One user said it could be spreading novel coronavirus, adding, "This gives me a very bad feeling, as if Godzilla might suddenly appear." Police could not be immediately reached for comment and a Sendai government official said inquiries were still proceeding, with both the size of the object and its origin, as well as its function, undetermined. No move had been made to retrieve it as of late afternoon. "We have absolutely no idea what it is," said a weather bureau spokesman, declining to give his name. "It may be some kind of weather monitoring equipment, but it definitely isn't ours." image screenshot via Reuters |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 AM PDT
While many film buffs have long held that Florence Turner was the first movie star, there is evidence that Maurice Costello should have that designation. Of course, "movie star" is hard to define, especially in the silent film era when the term wasn't widely used, but Costello took first place in a 1912 poll in Motion Picture Story Magazine, garnering more votes than Florence Lawrence and Florence Turner combined.
Helene and Dolores were Maurice Costello's daughters, who went on to be movie stars in their own right. Dolores married John Barrymore and Helene starred in the first all-taking feature film, but they had plenty of other accomplishments and scandals, as did Maurice. Read more about the Costello film family in a synopsis of the book Film's First Family: The Untold Story of the Costellos by Terry Shulman at the Los Angeles Review of Books. -via Strange Company (Image credit: Cinema News) |
| Relatable Quarantine Barbie Starter Pack Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:55 AM PDT
Tonya Ruiz is known for her realistic versions of Barbie dolls. During the pandemic, she began a "quarantine Barbie starter pack" project that everyone could relate to while at home. The dolls are accompanied by different miniature objects that reinforce the personality of the Barbie doll, as Designboom details: for example, the quarantine break baking barbie includes a mixer, flour, sourdough starter, eggs, bananas, butter, and milk; and a doll that is probably making a flour disaster around the kitchen. or the zoom ken that's dressed from the waist up while wearing only red-hearted boxer shorts. I had always wanted to make spoof barbies like I had seen on the ellen show,' comments tonya ruiz on a youtube post where she shares behind-the-scenes footage of the project. 'when the quarantine started and I saw a couple of funny pandemic barbies – I thought that I should make a barbie that everyone could relate to. I created the quarantine starter pack – curvy doll in stretchy pants. she was so well liked that I continued creating spoof / parody barbies.' image via Designboom |
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