Mani the wild boar piglet and Candi the dog | Images: spiegel.de
Bored Panda asked readers to submit photos of special animal friendships, and the collection is heartwarming. Clearly, animals of all types, if they have a mind to, are capable of enjoying each others' companionship. Whether bonded by chance or special circumstance, the animal friends' joy in being with each other shows in these charming photos. See the entire collection here.
Bubbles the African elephant and Bella the black Labrador | Images: Barry Bland
Take standard Thanksgiving leftovers like mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and transform them into fun and tasty new dishes with the recipes shown in this video. These are easy to make, so if you're tired of cooking after T-day, they will be perfect, quickly assembled snacks and meal solutions. -Via Laughing Squid
Unfortunately for the lower classes, there were many points in history in which a populace was at the mercy of an unstable or even insane sovereign ruler. Due to the frequency with which royal families internarried, mental and physical defects were more common than in normal populations. These were wildly different times, in which life wasn't generally valued as it is today, and the jealousy and competition for the throne between royal family members led to betrayals and murders.
An interesting article at i09 describes ten instances in which, not only did a mentally ill person reign over a region, but their actions as rulers brought about a significant change in the history of said region. Below is the story of number four on the list, the story of Sultan Mustafa of the Ottoman Empire, who reigned from 1617–18 and from 1622–23.
Ahmed I and Mustafa were royal brothers. At the time, it was expected that a sultan would have his brothers executed after he took the throne, in order to eliminate any competition for his position. (Mustafa and Ahmed's father Mehmed III executed 19 of his own brothers after he became sultan.) Ahmed took the throne at 13, at which time he sent his brother Mustafa, 11, to "the cage." The cage was a tower with no windows. There, Mustafa had no human contact.
When Ahmed died of typhus at age 28, his most powerful concubine argued against his eldest son taking the throne as, due to the custom of the sultan executing his brothers, she rightfully feared her sons by Ahmed would be killed. Thus Mustafa, who according to some sources had an intellectual disability from birth, was let out of the cage. He had been isolated there for fourteen years, which certainly had no positive effect on his mental state.
Reportedly always accompanied by two naked slave girls, Mustafa caused numerous problems as a leader. One was that he would appoint random people he liked to powerful posts in his kingdom. With untrained people in positions of power and the demented Mustafa in charge, the empire deteriorated. After only one year as sultan, Mustafa was again sent to the cage, along with his slave girls.
At that time, Ahmed's eldest son Osman took the throne and was a fairly competent leader. Yet when he banned his military from drinking and smoking, there was such a backlash against him that he was put to death by "compression of the testicles."
After Osman was killed, Mustafa was once again let out of the cage and given the throne. By that time, his mental health had declined to the point that he would stare off into space, giggling to himself at some unseen source. He also frequently sought out his nephew Osman, the former sultan, continually forgetting that Osman had been put to death. The Ottoman empire quickly began to disintegrate, at which time the Safavid Persian empire attacked the region and took control. Mustafa went to the cage again, never to re-emerge.
Read about other mentally ill monarchs whose actions (or inactions) changed history here.
This clip shows Jack Nicholson preparing for a scene in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. In the scene, Nicholson's character Jack Torrance chops into a locked bathroom door to get to his wife, for whom he has a violent plan. To prepare for filming the scene, Jack gets amped up by jumping up and down in place like a boxer would, grabbing the ax and vocalizing.
The clip is from The Making of the Shining, which is a short documentary film made during production by Stanley Kubrick's then 17-year-old daughter Vivian. The documentary is packaged withThe Shining Two-Disc Special Editionas a special feature. Another documentary about the making of the movie is Staircases to Nowhere: Making Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'by Howard Berry, which is a fantastic series of interviews of people involved with the film. The aforementioned Kubrick-endorsed documentaries, as well as the (previously featured at Neatorama) Room 237, make interesting viewing for any fan of Kubrick's horror masterpiece.
Mark Twain 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut
It's often said that writers' desks are important, in that they reflect their approach and routine. Thus, the homes of famous writers have always been of interest to people, particularly those immersed in the literary world, because they are an extension of that space. Short List assembled a collection of famous writers' former abodes, visible on Google maps. First they put together a list ofClassic Authors' British Houses On Google Maps, and in a follow-up, they have a list of houses in the U.S., some of which are pictured here.
Check out the rest of these former homes of classic writers here.
Jack Kerouac 1478 Clouser Avenue, Orlando, Florida
Formed in 1980, R.E.M. enjoyed a lot of critical acclaim and success — particularly for a band whose roots were firmly in the alternative genre — before they disbanded in 2011. The referring article is a collection of ten facts about the band, the original members of which included frontman Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry.
One fact that, in my mind, is completely understandable is the detestability of Shiny Happiness. The band's 1991 album Out of Time featured the song "Shiny, Happy People," which featured vocals by the B-52s' Kate Pierson. The single was released the same year. Yet how long can one reasonably remain shiny and happy, particularly when proclaiming they are such is a regular part of employment? For Michael Stipe and the band, the answer was several years or less. By 1995, Stipe publicly pronounced that he hated the song, as did the rest of the band.
Read more facts about R.E.M., including the origins of the album names Out of Time and Automatic for the People and an unfortunate tantrum of Peter Buck's on an airplane, here.
This remarkable footage shot by Arriane Christie captured her ten-month-old puppy Jackie enthusiastically joining several dolphins for a swim off the coast of Wellington's Bay in Whangarei, New Zealand. In her video description, Arriane said she thought the dolphins swam up to meet the pup. She said in an interview,
"I think she just wanted to know what they were. I think they were just wanting to play. Jackie was in the shallows and they came right up to her.
I was a little bit nervous to start with because I thought one whack of their tails and she (Jackie) could be knocked out.
The three dolphins swum around the area for about 40 minutes. They were a good size, probably up to two metres long.
Jackie was in and out of the water, watching for when the dolphins came closer.
When she wasn't in the water she was fully focused on them. If I walked in front of her she dodged out of the way so she could see them again.
They (the dolphins) were messing with her a little bit, going really slow and then when she caught up they would speed up and then circle around her."
What an exciting experience for all three species! -Via Arbroath
The smiles and lights in the eyes of the kids shown here are the result of their youthful imaginings materializing into soft, huggable form. A company called "Budsies" takes childrens' drawings of their fantasy friends and transforms them into charming, nice sized (16-inch-tall) plush toys. This looks like something I would have coveted for Christmas when I was a kid. The cost is $69 and lead time is eight weeks.
Two orphaned wallaby joeys named Gough and Salvador nuzzle and sniff each other as they meet for the first time on a crash course in wallaby friendship. The joeys are in the care of staff at Daintree Wonder Tours in North Queensland, Australia.
Manhattan, New York-based blogger Mommy Shorts had a contest to find the baby that looks most likely to bite your head off. It's called the "Evil Baby Glare-Off,' and it pits the mugs of 32 finalists against each other to select the biggest baby badass. See all of the funny, 32 finalist shots here. The winners have already been selected; see the post about the winners here.
On Thanksgiving, the odds are high that a turkey will be laid out on many of our dinner tables. How do you all feel about turkey? Is a roasted bird something you look forward to or something you avoid? Do you have any turkey-free Thanksgiving traditions? What dish do you most eagerly anticipate this year? Comment away.
But first, here are twenty facts about turkeys that you may not be aware of.One fact is, to female turkeys, size matters. Snood size, to be exact. The snood is the long, red protuberance hanging off of the turkey's beak in the picture above. A study in the Journal of Avian Biology reports that female turkeys prefer their male counterparts to have long snoods; snood length can also predict the winner of a competition between two males. I wonder if some poor guy turkeys suffer from snood insecurity? That's some insult to add to the injury of being eaten on T-day.
Though this is only a brief clip from the full Star Trek TNG final season gag reel, it packs in some good laughs. The full gag reel will be a feature on Season 7's Blu-Ray release, which will be available beginning December 2 of this year. -Via i09
Audrey Hepburn, 1939. Photograph by Manon van Suchtelen. Audrey Hepburn, 1938
Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels, Belgium on May 4, 1929, and spent some of her younger years at boarding school in England. During most of World War II, she studied in the Netherlands. Post war, Audrey studied dance, as that was her main interest at the time. She got her first break when cast as a member of the chorus line in a 1948 London production of High Button Shoes.
These rare snapshots of Audrey as a child and young adult were taken between 1929 and 1949. See the rest of the collection here.
Ella Van Heemstra photographed with her daughter Audrey Hepburn, 1929.
Brick Nerd presents brick Batman and Superman in stop-motion animated brawl. Yet Batman is having a bit of trouble coaxing Superman into the fray... and he may live to regret trying so hard. -Via Laughing Squid
Designer Con 2014 in Los Angeles just wrapped up, but before it did, the "Comic Brick" show was held, in which a number of LEGO lovers recreated popular comic book covers in bricks. The results, some of which are shown here, were way cool. The covers included Star Wars, The Hulk, Superman, Batman and The Walking Dead.
You can see more of the brick art from the Comic Brick showhere.
