We have an auspicious occasion coming up. The Lunar New Year begins this coming Friday, January 31st. 新年快樂! According to the Chinese zodiac, we will enter the Year of the Horse. Or, if you're a Brony, it will be the Year of the Pony. Get ready for all that entails (ha -entails). Clean your house and get the steamed dumplings ready (or haggis, if you prefer), because the festival lasts for two weeks. Meanwhile, when you have time, get caught up on everything that's gone on this past week at Neatorama.
John Farrier told us about 10 Weird Varieties of Haggis.
Eddie Deezen looked at the life of Oliver Hardy: The Fat One.
How To Tell If You've Been Abducted By Aliens was from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research contributed The Meaning of the Finger.
Born to Run: 7 Incredible Escape Stories came from mental_floss magazine.
Our Whodunit was The Locked Cottage, and the Pzzlr was 4 O'clock.
In the What Is It? game this week, this odd tool is a Crandall hammer, it's a stone dressing tool made from several sharpened spikes which are held together with a frame and wedge. It was used to roughen the face of cut stone so that mortar would adhere to it. You learn something new every day! Erin Geddes guessed it was "For when you need to repair or make comfort adjustments on your bed of nails." Ha! That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! So was Edward's guess: "Neatorama's Ban Hammer." Yeah, this would be a good tool for that! Congratulations to both. See the answers to all the items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
The post with the most comments this week, outside of the giveaways, was Non-Americans, What Is a Dead Giveaway That Someone Is an American? Nothing else came close. But if you aren't reading the comments under our posts, you're missing out on some clever contributions from Neatoramanauts!
We had a couple of great bon mots that both deserve to be comment of the week. First there was Alan...yes THAT Alan in the post about haggis.
A haggis haiku:
Ground-up lungs and heart,
Boiled in a sheep's stomach?!?
No worse than hot dogs.
And Joseph Francis had the perfect response to Motorcyclist Lays His Head on the Track During High Speed Turn.
Isn't that how you listen to hear if a train is coming? Maybe he's just being cautious.
The most popular post from this past week was Reddit's Official Banhammers. Coming in second was Dreamlike Photos Of Life On A Russian Farm, and What Would Happen if Harry Potter Lost was third.
The post that got the most hearts was The Chemicals in Our Food. Following was a three-way tie between Parfüm, As a Joke, A Woman with Muscular Dystrophy Applied to Be a Fashion Model, and Dreamlike Photos Of Life On A Russian Farm.
The most-emailed post was Skateboarding Cat Goes for a Walkabout, with Nursing Home Residents Re-Create Scenes From Their Favorite Movies and New Little Golden Books Art Show tying for second.
You might not know it, but there's a lot of neat things at the Neatorama Pinterest boards that you won't find on the main page. The most popular pin this week was something called Floo Powder in a Christmas ornament. Over at the Neatoramanauts Facebook page, the most popular post this week was the winter comic from Fowl Language Comics. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, too!
Now let's talk about what's coming up in the future. Do you realize we are only three weeks away from Valentines Day? That makes this the perfect time to order a unique gift from the NeatoShop! You might want to get something tied to the holiday from the Valentine store. Or you might want to surprise your love with a t-shirt that reflects his or her geeky interests. Your sweetheart will love it!
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