[update 8/27/12: this contest is now closed - catch us next time!]
This is going to be FUN for Pinterest members (established and new)! And maybe something we do pretty frequently, depending on how many of you get involved. So here's how it works:
1) Put together a wishlist board of items from the Neatoshop - stuff you really want, badly (minumum 5 items, but no max)
2) Be as creative as possible when coming up with a name for your board, or a theme for your wishlist
3) Add the hashtag #NeatoPinToWin to each and every item you pin to that board
5) Close your eyes and wish really hard for something on your wishlist! The Neatorama editors will get together over the weekend and pick a few items from a few boards and put them in the mail to you. Bonus points for funny or otherwise well-thought-out themes and creative board titles that make us smile.
Here's a sample board we put together, just in case you're new to Pinterest and have no idea what we're talking about. Note that the Elmo backpack is pinned correctly, with #NeatoPinToWin, while the zombie foot dog toy is not.
So be sure to join the fun by LIKING our page. We've also got a Twitter, a Pinterest, and a G+ page, if you're so inclined, where we often have unique contests you won't find here on the blog. So come on over and say "hi!"
Los Angeles is soon to enter the Guinness Book for largest boulder ever transported in modern times. Yes, a 340-ton, 21 1/2-foot-high granite boulder recently travelled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art at night, on closed roads at less than 10 mph, led by a police escort. The approximately 85-mile journey, normally a one and a half hour drive, took a circuitous route lasting 11 days! A 456-foot-long, ramp-like slot in the ground, 15 feet deep, runs beneath the monolith, which allows people to walk under it.
I've been taking pictures of it since the day it arrived. Now that I can finally walk under it, I thought I'd share the photos. Enjoy!
Whether you agree or disagree with president Obama, his policies, or the Democratic party he represents, you have to admit that 6-year-old Isaac Anthony is sticking to the golden rule of political campaigns: Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS). Of course, that would actually only apply if he understood all that he was saying. This video, posted four days ago, already has over 11K comments at YouTube! What do you think? Is this "neat," or is it "ama?"
Remember Miss C's post about the Curiosity Rover's 7 Minutes of Terror? Well, it's less than a week away now. Hank Green, over on The SciShow, just published this amazing, amazing, AMAZING narrated, animated look at the rover landing coming on the 5th. He'll also be living tweeting it! So check out the vid, get excited, and follow the tweets over @SciShow. It's the most exciting thing that's happened up on the Red Planet since they discovered life! (Wait, they did discover life on Mars, right?)
We've featured artist Kiersten Essenpreis on theblog before. Now, she's teamed up with the ASPCA and one of the cutest blogs on the Web, The Fluffington Post, to offer a limited edition Rosie the Retriever T-shirt, which she illustrated. For every shirt sold, $3 goes toward finding loving homes for abandoned pets and stopping animal cruelty.
If they reach they're fundraising goal, the shirt will go into production and will be printed on shirts made by Alternative Apparel -- a company that prides itself on high-quality materials and sustainable business practices. Rosie the Retriever shirts will never be sold in stores or on the FluffPo. So, if you want to own a piece of FluffPo history, you'll have to act now. Details here.
Okay Neatoramanauts, today we're trying something new over on our G+ page. Now, we know you've all got a funny, nerdy old (or not-so-old) pic of yourself laying around the hardrive. So here's what you do: Post it to your own G+ account and leave a link to it in the comments of this post on OUR G+ account. The comment/pic that gets the most +1s, wins any choice of t-shirt from the neatoshop! Simple. Fun. Nerdy. We'll leave the contest open through the weekend, so you have time to find that nerdy pic and post it!
Oh, and if we're not already in your circles, please add us now because we won't always tip you off to cool G+-exclusive stuff here on the blog.
A neat photo we posted yesterday on our Facebook page received more than 5,000 likes, 2,000 shares and 150 comments. If you're not following us over there, you're missing a lot of the fun!
Since the HBO original series, Girls, premiered about 10 weeks ago, I’ve been engaging with a lot of people of all ages about the show -- getting into deep discussions on many levels about why I think it’s the most brilliant work on television right now. Obvioulsy, not everyone agrees. But the reasons why people agree or disagree is interesting. It’s starting to become clear that almost everyone can be put into one of the the following 6 categories on a scale of worshipping to not even watching:
1. The Worshipper
The Worshipper, like me, wants to bronze every word that comes out of the characters’ mouths (esp. Lena Dunham’s), frame it and put it on a wall to revisit time and time again. (e.g. or "Didn't you say texting is like the lowest form of communication on the pillar of chat?" "The totem of chat, and Facebook is the lowest, followed by Gchat, then texting, then email, then phone; face-to-face is of course ideal, but it's not of this time." Or, “No, I have not tried a lot to lose weight, because I decided I was going to have some other concerns in my life.” The worshipper also loves the awkwardness of seeing Lena Dunham’s not-perfect body naked and in compromising positions almost every episode. It’s a nice, realistic break from the cartoonish Samantha Jones sex we got in Sex/City. As one critic wrote recently: Everyone on the show is “beautiful but nobody looks like they’re on the CW and nobody has a body your friend wouldn’t have...”
2. The Liker
Just below worship, of course, I’ve encountered those who dig the show, but aren’t going to proselytize about it on a major Weblog. The Liker generally appreciates what Lena is doing to buck the stereotype of what we generally consider worthy of a leading, sexy lady role on a major television show. The Liker also appreciates things like the fact that one of Hannah’s tattoos was inspired by the children’s book Eloise that she got in high school because she gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time and wanted to feel in control of her own body.
3. The On The Fencer
This person has watched a few episodes, maybe even half a dozen, mostly because all her friends are talking about it on Facebook, but hasn’t committed yet. Seeing Lena have sloppy sex is a struggle. Also, aside from Lena’s character, the On The Fence-r isn’t sold on the other three girls—their plot lines aren’t developed and their acting is subpar.
4. The Critic
The Critic can’t stand that a show has been made about four girls who come from privilege and/or famous parents. (e.g. Dunham is the daughter of Laurie Simmons, a photographer and designer, and Carroll Dunham, a painter. Zosia Mamet, another star on the series, is the daughter of American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director David Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse.) As if such girls don’t exist in real life. The Critic also doesn’t like that of the four girls, none is African-American, Asian or Latino. Again, as if there aren’t four female white friends who hang around together in the real world.
5. The Loather
In my discussions with people about the show, many have expressed their violent reactions to the series. In general, I’d say these people are speaking from a jealous place. Either they are writers who are envious that the show is getting so much attention while their pilot sits dusty in a drawer somewhere, or they are jealous of Dunham’s raw talent. They wanted to be the voice of the millennial generation or are upset that Dunham’s quirky dialogue is regarded as the voice of the millennial generation. Every comparison of Dunham to Woody Allen makes them want to run from the family room screaming. (Wait, do people still watch television in the family room?) Others are put off to such a show because it’s too real. They want sitcom dialogue with its familiar setup line, setup line, joke, setup line, setup line, joke. If they’re going to see people naked, having sex on camera, well it better damn well be someone they’d want to fantasize about later. Not some average-looking chick with an average amount of cellulite an tattoos.
6. The Won’t Watcher
This person has heard a few things about the show and has already decided it’s not for her. Maybe she even saw Dunham’s 2009 feature filmed while still at Oberlin College, Creative Nonfiction, or her 2010 Tiny Furniture. Maybe one of those films rubbed her the wrong way. Or maybe she doesn’t have HBO and isn’t shy about saying so. “Pff. I hate all that pretentious crap on cable.” Whatever the reason, The Won’t Watcher isn’t watching and isn’t willing to give it a try. That’s okay. Girls doesn’t need Two and a Half Men numbers. It just needs numbers 1-6. Because a list like this is proof that Dunham has done something really, really big. And don't forget, no one ever erected a statue for a critic. How about you all? Do you fit one of the six types above? Let us know in the comments below!
We've come to the end of our week-long mini-series featuring songs by The Beatles. If you're interested in reading other episodes, they all can be found right down here. If you have ideas about things you'd like to see us cover in a future, week-long mini-series, drop a suggestion in the comments below.
"All You Need Is Love"
This is a unique song not only in The Beatles' catalog, but as pop songs go in general. The first performance of the song was seen live by 400 million people across 26 countries, via satellite on 25 June 1967. The BBC had commissioned The Beatles to write a song for the United Kingdom's contribution to the live, international, satellite television production that also included opera singer Maria Callas and painter Pablo Picasso. That's some pretty heavy company!
The read the entire list in this Beatlemania article, click here.
Another classic from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "With a Little Help from My Friends" was written by Paul and John for Ringo, who had a very small singing range. They specifically kept the song almost like a simple conversation, with their characters asking questions of Billy Shears, Ringo’s character. “What do you see when you turn out the light?” “I can't tell you but I know it's mine.”
Ringo’s only input was to change the first line of the lyrics, which originally was "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?" Fearing that fans would actually lob tomatoes (and hey, we all know that Beatles fans were capable of doing the darndest things), he switched it to “and walk out on me?”
For all episodes in this week-long Beatlemania mini-series, click here.
This song off The White Album probably wouldn't be so famous were it not for the Manson murders. More on that in a sec. But first, the inspiration for "Helter Skelter." Paul McCartney has said he'd read a 1967 Guitar Player magazine interview with Pete Townshend where the Who's guitarist described their latest single, "I Can See for Miles", as the loudest, rawest, dirtiest song the band had ever recorded. Not to be outdone by The Who, McCartney cooked up the "Helter Skelter," a fairly forgettable song (again, were it not for the Manson murders). The band did a whole bunch of takes/versions of the song in the studio - so many that Ringo developed blisters on his fingers from hitting the cymbals so much. In fact, in one version of the song, you can hear him throw his drumsticks and shout: "I got blisters on my fingers!"
But now for the juicy part: In 1968, Charlie Manson heard the song and decided there were secret messages encoded in the lyrics put there by John and Paul just for Manson and his family of followers. He used bits of the lyrics (along with quotes from the Bible) as proof that an apocalyptic war between the white man and black man was coming. Further, he used the song to motivate the family to carry out the senseless murders of Sharon Tate (Roman Polanski's wife) and her friends during the summer of '69, as well as the Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders.
After members of the Manson family committed the LaBianca murders, one of the killers wrote "Healter [sic] Skelter" with the victim's blood on the refrigerator of the house in which the murders took place.
For all episodes in this week-long Beatlemania mini-series, click here.
Contrary to the popular story we all heard growing up, the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was not inspired by LSD; rather, by a drawing John Lennon's son Julian did of his classmate, Lucy O'Donnell. Julian brought the drawing home from nursery school in 1966, and explained to his dad that it was "Lucy - in the sky with diamonds." Said John Lennon, "It was purely unconscious that it came out to be LSD. Until someone pointed it out, I never even thought of it. I mean, who would ever bother to look at initials of a title? It's not an acid song. The imagery was Alice in the boat."
Now then, in 2004, according to WIKI, Paul McCartney had something else to say on the subject:
"A song like 'Got to Get You Into My Life,' that's directly about pot, although everyone missed it at the time." "Day Tripper," he says, "that's one about acid. 'Lucy in the Sky,' that's pretty obvious. There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music."
Soooo, maybe, er, draw your own conclusions as to whether it's about the drawing or the drugs.
For all episodes in this week-long Beatlemania mini-series, click here.
