Artificial tree or real, every year, cats everywhere think Christmas trees are great new cat condos their loving owners bought them to play with. Unfortunately, Christmas trees just aren't made with that kind of weight in mind and most ornaments aren't made to survive a crash to the ground.
Fortunately for little Sesshomaru here, this tree doesn't have any ornaments on it yet, so he gets to learn his lesson about Christmas trees without suffering any serious injuries or crashing loud noises.
This is very weird to watch. The Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control in Zurich has developed a cube that can stand on its own corner without any outside help. It can also jump from a face to an edge to a corner, and even walk itself across a surface. Sure, there are real-world applications, like robots that can explore other planets, but I can see this becoming the hot toy of some future Christmas as well. Say it with me now: "I, for one, welcome our new cubic overlords." Read more about the Cubli here. -via Viral Viral Videos
Sometimes in large bodies of water, wave systems cross each other. When they hit each other, these systems will form crests twice as high and troughs twice as deep. It can be difficult to sail in such waters. In the above case at the Île de Ré, an island off the Atlantic coast of France, the wave systems appear to meet at a right angle.
How Twin Peaks made modern art of the soap opera -and saved network TV in the process.
David Lynch and Mark Frost seemed an unlikely pair when they met for lunch one day in 1988. Lynch was an auteur who'd burnished his reputation directing the bizarro films Eraserhead and Blue Velvet; Frost was best known as a writer for the network police drama Hill Street Blues. But the two had hit it off a few years earlier when they met working on Goddess, a Marilyn Monroe biopic that never made it to production. Now they were looking to get their hands dirty again.
As the duo sat in Du-par's, the kitschy L.A. restaurant near the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards, inspiration struck. "All of a sudden," Lynch is quoted as saying in Lynch on Lynch, "Mark and I had this image of a body washing up on the shore of a lake." From that stray spark, Lynch and Frost sketched the idea for what would become Twin Peaks, an enigmatic murder mystery that surrounded its plot twists with art-house motifs. Though it would run for only two seasons on ABC, the show revolutionized television and laid the groundwork for the golden age of prime-time dramas. But before Twin Peaks could storm the small screen, Lynch and Frost had to convince someone to roll the dice.
Lynch was a shaky choice for prime time. His name was synonymous with eerily beautiful cult films, and his one dip into the mainstream, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi novel Dune, was a critical and commercial disaster. To the industry observer, it seemed that Lynch was just too niche -or maybe just too weird- for network television.
The move didn't seem to make any sense from a career perspective: TV was a giant step backward for an auteur of Lynch's caliber. Today, in an era where shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad enjoy all the glitz and prestige of the big screen, it's easy to forget that television used to be the stepping stone to film. An Oscar-nominated director like Lynch working on TV was like an all-star demoting himself to the minor leagues.
But Lynch's agent was keen to see what his client could do with the medium. And Lynch and Frost were starting to develop a killer storyline. Set in a fictional Washington hamlet, Twin Peaks revolves around the grisly slaying of blonde homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). The protagonist is a quixotic FBI agent named Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) with an obsessive attention to detail and an affinity for diner coffee, which he takes "black as midnight on a moonless night." Together, Laura's killing and the big-city detective's arrival upend the small town, pulling back the curtain on its underbelly -gambling, prostitution, and backdoor dealings that turn local power brokers into villains- before uncovering the even more sinister forces that lurk in the woods.
This is Lake Superior. It's the largest lake in North America.
This is Isle Royale. It's the largest island in Lake Superior. Native Americans once mined it for copper. Benjamin Franklin, one of the American negotiators of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, knew this, so he pressed the British to let it fall within American territory.
Americans did some mining on the island, but not much. Now the entire island is a National Park. You can see a lot of moose there.
There are many lakes on Isle Royale. This one, Siskiwit Lake, is the largest.
There are several islands in Siskiwit Lake. This one, Ryan Island, is the largest. So Ryan Island is the largest island in the largest lake in the largest island in the largest lake in North America.
You can see photos of Ryan Island here. It's about a quarter of a mile long.
This lovely sculpture is actually a drinking cup owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It dates back to about the 1600s and originated in what is now Germany. It’s gilt with silver and wrapped around a coconut that has been carefully carved to appear feathered.
Now don’t start questioning the coconut. The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not strangers to our land.
Ravelry member KnitsForLife made this unique crust for her Thanksgiving apple pie. She took a semi-frozen Trader Joe’s pie crust, sliced it into strips and then knitted a lattice structure for the pie top. If this becomes a popular dish, then craft supply stores should start stocking pie crusts!
At the last home game of the season Saturday, the Ohio State University marching band does a tribute to the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. They play songs of the Civil War era while making impossibly complicated formations and animated figures. The University Glee Club also makes an appearance. The actual show is not as long as the video would indicate, as they also have a recognition of the senior band members in their final show. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
It was only the second time through this comic from Lunarbaboon that I saw the eyebrows and the time-shift, which makes it a lot more meaningful. Your outlook on everything is changed when, as someone once told me "your heart is now walking around outside of you." In some instances, it makes you braver than you ever thought you could be.
And don't think this sort of thing doesn't occasionally happen in real life.
The older a person gets, the more likely they are to believe in the hereafter. I know I often walk into another room and then stop and wonder what I'm hereafter. The truth is that when you stuff your brain full of things like years of education, years of work and family life, and years of surfing the internet, there's not much room left. After that point, anything going in is liable to fall right back out, like what you just did a few seconds ago. Like when you locked the door. This graphic from Doghouse Diaries explains exactly what happens. -via Laughing Squid
Artist Javi de Castro of Lapiz Inestable took Clara Oswald's famous last words from Doctor Who and ran with it: He created this fantastic animated GIF of the eleven Doctor, from 1963's William Hartnell to 2010's Matt Smith, scampering about.
I've been looking through Thanksgiving recipes, mainly to find tips to ensure that my 24-pound bird will be the best it can be. Most articles and blog posts on cooking turkey also include recipes for turkey dressing, or stuffing -what you call it usually depends on what part of the US you grew up in. These recipes vary so greatly that I want to find out what other people really serve. I will stick to the recipe I learned from my grandmother, made from cornbread, bread crumbs, onions, celery, butter, sage, pepper, and chicken stock. The amounts of each are dependent on years of helping mom or grandma make it, so I know when it smells and tastes right, multiplied by how many people are coming for dinner.
The people who try out dressing recipes found on the internet tend to be those who don't have a traditional family recipe, or who didn't particularly like the one they had. And then there are cooks who attempt to replicate recipes from in-laws, which is a hit-or-miss adventure, fraught with consequences. What is your traditional dressing like? If you have a minute to share your recipes and tips, feel free to use the comment section. And since I would feel bad for not including a link or two, here are some recipes I've run across.
There will be no mistake about your holiday spirit when you wear Panta Claus, a pair of men's washed chinos from Bonobos that have one red leg and one green leg. Guaranteed to last for many years, mainly because you will only wear them once or twice in December -and only then if you forget from year to year how everyone around you reacted.
Still, $118 seems a little pricy for pants you wear so seldom. It would be less expensive to get two pairs of brightly-colored pants from Goodwill (if anyone has them, Goodwill does) and sew them together. The drawback to this scheme is that those two pairs of pants wouldn't be anywhere near the same size. -via Laughing Squid
For two weeks, Neatoramanauts have risen to our Movember challenge and grown impressive displays of facial hair.
Congratulations to the winner, Stewart Pierson. As you can see above, Stewart epitomizes the 'stache lifestyle. It's a simple mustache and soul patch, groomed with just the right attitude and accented by a half-lifted eyebrow. Stewart, we salute you!
For his prize, Stewart fittingly chose the 60% Percent of the Time t-shirt. It's almost a portrait of Stewart himself.
Choosing a winner wasn't easy. There were so many excellent contributions! Click on continue reading to view them all.
