Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks made three romantic comedies together in the 1990s: Joe Vs. the Volcano in 1990, Sleepless in Seattle in 1993, and You've Got Mail in 1998. The first was a flop, and You've Got Mail has its fans but a terrible premise for a lasting relationship. Sleepless in Seattle was a masterpiece of the genre, having all the required elements and driving us to tears with a happy ending. The movie was released 30 years ago today, so you might want to jump back in time to relive that film and learn some interesting trivia behind it.
Some of the trivia has to do with the locations. It wasn't easy to get permission to shoot at the Empire State Building, and finally Leona Helmsley allowed the cast and crew in for six hours only. Seattle needed to be shown with rain, but it was the driest summer ever in the city when they shot the film, so water trucks had to be brought in to provide fake rain. And remember when the Empire State Building lit up with a Valentine heart? The movie did it with digital effects, but the building recreated it with real lights for the film's 25th anniversary.
That's just the beginning of the 30-item trivia list at Cracked regarding the film Sleepless in Seattle.
Sometimes we are totally impressed with things people eat in movies, and want to recreate those dishes. Binging with Babish is really good at showing us how to do that. But movies are also filled with odd meals that we remember a bit less fondly. These are desperation dishes, when a character has few ingredients and little choice but has to eat anyway.
A24, the movie studio that brought us Everything Everywhere All at Once, is releasing a cookbook of these desperation dishes called Scrounging: A Cookbook. The 54 recipes contained in it are less for epicures and more for movie fans who want to relive a cinematic moment. Remember the spaghetti from the 1960 move The Apartment? Jack Lemmon had no colander, but a tennis racket will do. Kevin made a 12-scoop sundae in Home Alone because there was no one to tell him not to. And if you've forgotten the Pixy Stix sandwich from The Breakfast Club, it's in there, too. Read more about these memorable if not delicious recipes at Mental Floss, and how to order the cookbook.
This video was launched with the unfortunate name of "Why every radio station sounds the same". I thought that might be boring, because I don't even listen to pop radio anymore. But it turns out to be a very thorough explanation of music radio's evolution in the age of deregulation. Phil Edwards tracks my 24-year career as a radio disc jockey (a term I now have to explain to younger people) and the changes the industry went through. We've come a long way from WKRP. I went through all these changes until I decided to just go home and blog, because that was more fun. But that's a personal story, and if I say any more, I'm just asking for someone to respond "Okay, Boomer." In this history of radio, you'll recognize how radio has changed no matter what era you discovered it as the easiest way to add a soundtrack to your day. If you're at all interested, there's a fairly comprehensive list of source reading at the YouTube page. -via Kottke
You've seen pictures of these cool-looking vampire hunting kits. We posted about them four times between 2006 and 2011. One brought $14K at auction! They are purported to be 150-200 years old, and contain tools like a cross, a Bible, a stake, a gun, and bottles of what we may presume would be things like holy water and garlic. People who pay huge sums for these don't take into account that no record of such kits exist before the 20th century. Yes, they're fake.
But the takedown at Fake History Hunter has some intriguing details. While the kits themselves are not real vampire killing kits from previous centuries, the items contained in them often are pretty old. People who make these use very old wooden boxes, manufacture the bespoke linings, and fill them with antique objects that could be from different places and eras. As someone who collects old bottles, this makes me want one even more. But I wouldn't spend a lot of money for it. -via Strange Company
Covid really did a number on movie theaters, as it did to offices workplaces and dine-in restaurants. But movie theaters had been seeing a decline in attendance way before covid for reasons ranging from mass shootings to poor projection quality, and they aren't recovering much three years later. With attendance down, they raise prices to make up that revenue, and therefore attendance goes down again. Can you spot the problem with that logic? Really, which would you rather do: go to a theater and see the newest movie on opening weekend, sitting next to strangers and eating $10 popcorn, or wait a few weeks to stream it at home in your pajamas eating 50¢ popcorn, and put the movie on pause when you need to take a break? Roger Horton has many more reasons that theaters need to advertise to get you out of the house in this Honest Ad.
This set of mysterious stones has remained on the periphery of the modern age. It serves as a reminder that we had quite a colorful past, and also a shining beacon of light for scholars who wish to study more about our world history. Even if it has stood there for quite a long period of time, it remains as enigmatic as ever.
However, a team from the University of Salford, in Manchester, and English Heritage, the charitable trust that manages Stonehenge, have unveiled one of the many intrigues surrounding the site. These experts have found out that the original circle of 157 standing stones (only 63 complete stones remain today) once acted like a sound chamber. The stones can amplify and enhance voice and music within its circle, but it would sound muffled and indistinct outside the area.“Some acoustical research had already been done at Stonehenge, but it was all based on what’s there now,” Trevor Cox, an acoustical engineer at the University of Salford and one of the researchers in the study, shared. “I wanted to know how it sounded in 2200 B.C. when all the stones were in place.”
Read more about the study here.
Image via wikimedia commons
The first thing we learn in World History class is that humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers until 10,000 years ago, when they discovered how to grow crops and then settled into permanent communities, which gave them time to develop civilization. But an archaeological dig called Nahal Ein Gev II in northern Israel near the Sea of Galilee is turning that idea on its head.
In 1963, a village was discovered here that flourished for about 200 years as a permanent settlement, although serious excavation only began in 2010. The residents have been identified as Natufians, a culture previously thought to be completely nomadic. They built stone houses, established a cemetery, and developed sophisticated tools- 12,000 years ago! Some of the finds include artifacts that indicate they may have used a rudimentary type of sewing machine and spindles to make string from fiber. They also made and wore jewelry. These indications of a permanent settlement hint that not only were the Natufians of Nahal Ein Gev II two millennia ahead of the presumed agricultural revolution, but that they built on technology that may be even more ancient.
While these villagers had tools to cut plants, archaeologists aren't ready to say they cultivated crops. That brings up the question of whether permanent settlements may have preceded the development of agriculture altogether. Read about this intriguing village and what we learned about it so far at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Daniel Rolider)
A bear in Colorado Springs, Colorado, decided to pull a reverse Goldilocks and invaded a house, possibly looking for porridge. The bear entered through a broken window on the ground floor, and made his way upstairs. He apparently wanted to go back outside, but didn't realize that a second story window would have a different exterior. Neighbors caught a recording of the bear looking confused and hanging out of the upper window. The bear considered dropping to the ground, but then thought better of it and climbed back in. But he tried that window again with the same results. It turns out the bear had accidentally shut himself in a bedroom. A police officer opened the door so the bear could leave, through the same downstairs window he entered. We suspect the police officer stayed as flat as he could behind that door.
Ryan MacFarlane was away that day and came home to missing pork chops and snacks and some minor damage, much less than he had expected. The bear had been implicated in several other house invasions in the area. -via Boing Boing
Ever since we saw The Jetsons in the 1960s, we've been waiting for flying cars. We aren't quite there yet, but we may see flying taxis at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris next year. And they will be powered by non-polluting electricity! The city is working on partnering with the German firm Volocopter to run their electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) to get people to the sports venues. These electric helicopters don't yet have the power necessary for long-range trips, but a city taxi service using them can cut trip times into fractions. That is, if they can nail down proposed routes and design a system for keeping the skies safe around other traffic. After all, there will be conventional helicopters in use, as well as innumerable drones.
Volocopter isn't the only company pioneering eVTOLs. American company Archer Aviation Inc. is poised to begin taxi runs in 2025, ramping up for full service at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Still, these taxi runs will be expensive, at least at first. Read about eVTOLs and where you might see them at NBC Sports. -via Fark
(image credit: Spielvogel)
Historically speaking, sports originate with military training. Some sports are more pure expressions of that origin than others, but few sports could compete with actual grenade throwing for practical applications during combat.
Weird Universe tracked down an online copy of a 1918 athletic training guide aimed at branches of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, in the United States. The United States was massively mobilizing and adapting for its first major war since 1865, so it was necessary to get as many young men ready for modern combat as quickly as possible. Sports should therefore reflect battlefield needs, so Captain Lewis Omer of the newly-formed 86th Infantry Division proposes that young men practice grenade throwing as a sport.
The rules and field reflect life and death in the trenches of Europe. The player is inside a cage simulating a trench. In sixty seconds, he must throw as many grenades as possible into boxes at different ranges representing enemy trenches. Between each throw, he must hit the ground, touching his knees and his chest to floor of the cage. Close, as they say, only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so land the grenades as close to the target as possible for maximum points.
The rest of the document is also interesting to read. Immediately after the section on grenade throwing is a description of Trench Ball, an adaptation of football for trench warfare.
Apparently in my absence my husband has hung cat-level wall art. So sophisticated 🧐 pic.twitter.com/xwVwWl89Xk
— Yvette Cendes (@whereisyvette) February 23, 2023
An entry in a list at Bored Panda tickled me, so I went to save the Tweet. In the comments below it, I found there was more to the story. Yvette Cendes had also posted the picture to reddit, where she explained what the art piece is.
The response inspired reddit's resident artist Shitty_Watercolour to contribute a rendering of the poor house cat expressing her desire to live like the cat in the photograph.
At which point the discussion turned to whether it is better to be a house cat in Boston or a stray in sunny Havana getting your picture taken. And that's as far down the rabbit hole I want to go today. However, I did check to see if Cendes printed out the watercolor and hanged it at cat level- no word on that. The Tweet is from Bored Panda's list called 50 Hilarious Boyfriends And Husbands Who Never Fail To Make Their Partners Laugh.
The Orient Express was a luxury train route taking passengers from Paris to Istanbul on a posh three-night journey. Between 1883 and 1977, wealthy travelers enjoyed fine dining, sleeper cars, and personal service from a staff of well-trained porters. The route became world famous, and indeed many of us only know about it through fictional stories that took place on the trains. But the demand collapsed when air travel took over. The route and the name were leased by another company, but full trips to Istanbul only occurred once a year.
However, a new company is joining them with the aim to bring back the luxury and nostalgia of the original Orient Express, with a proposed opening date of 2025. Getting the trains back together proved to be an enormous challenge. At its peak, the service used more than 2,000 train cars, including sleeper cars, dining cars, lounges, and cars for supplies and baggage. It means a lot to get those original cars back, but they had been scattered to the four winds, and many are assumed to be unrepairable. The company hired train historian Arthur Mettetal, who is doing his Phd on the Orient Express (about, not literally on) to locate the original cars. Mettetal went to great lengths, including tracking down faintly recognizable blue cars with cream roofs in the background of internet photos. He once ventured into Belarus and faced an armed standoff to negotiate for original Orient Express cars. Read about his quest, and the efforts to collect and refurbish the luxurious train cars of the Orient Express at Messy Nessy Chic.
(Image credit: Honza Groh (Jagro))
She's convinced that sending her dog Molly to the moon is the right thing to do. But she's wrong. We never get to learn why she came to believe this, or how she managed to get him onto a rocket ship in the first place, but no logical explanations are really necessary to the story. You just have to suspend your disbelief and go with the shorthand way the story is told. That saves a lot of time.
Moon Dog is a short and charming little film by Australian filmmaker Nat Kelly. The premise is sort of dumb, and in the middle you'll think the story is awful, but stay with it because the payoff is worth it. No animals were harmed in the making of this video, especially Molly.
Nat Kelly made a name for himself when he was just a teenager and produced a full-length feature film on a zero budget. When it was shown at the local theater in Darwin, the house was packed. -via Metafilter
Wilbur and Orville Wright are acclaimed for building the first ever motorized heavier-than-air flying machine. Its first successful flight was on December 17, 1903. While that may seem a huge accomplishment to those of us who know what came after, it was so low-key at the time that they couldn't even get it into newspapers. Even the brothers' hometown newspaper, the Dayton Journal, thought the flight was too short to count. It was pretty short- the distance they flew was shorter than the length of a modern airliner.
So the Wrights kept trying, staging a demonstration for the press in 1904 that didn't go well. It wasn't until they did figure eights in the air in France that the press decided the Wright Brothers were the real deal- in 1908! Why did it take so long for anyone to notice this stunning breakthrough? Because no one believed powered flight was possible. Read about the slow media response to the Wright Brothers flight at Big Think. -via Real Clear Science
The birthday party invitation above has gone viral. Carys Roberts of Kingston, Ontario, is throwing a party for her twin girls as they turn five years old. Anyone who knows a five-year-old girl can understand that they wanted their party to have a theme of "unicorns but with rainbows and maybe bats but there should be princesses and also Minnie and we need dancing lights" But what's really appealing is that Roberts is trying to lower expectations for the party guests, especially the parents, with phrases like "brought to you by Pinterest fails and the dollar store." It's an appropriate tactic in an age that finds children's birthday parties designed more for social media than for the children.
There's no reason to rent equipment and hire entertainment for young children, although we've seen parties with perfectly matched theme decorations, food, and games for one- and two-year-olds. What children really want is a fun time with their friends and family. Another part of the invitation that caught people's attention is Roberts' polite admission that she could use some help supervising the kids -"adult juice" provided. If you can't read the text in the image above, a larger version and an interview with Roberts can be found here. -via Metafilter
