The last time that Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker, put on a stormtrooper armored suit, he snuck onto the Death Star, assaulted loyal officers of the Empire, and freed the traitor Leia Organa. Now he's back. But this time, Hamill is wearing the suit for a good purpose. He's raising money for the Star Wars charity A Force for Change.
In this video, Hamill walks around Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles while in disguise. He chats with passersby, asking if they're going to see Episode VII: The Force Awakens. He interacts with other cosplayers hanging around the Hollywood Walk of Fame, including Darth Vader and Iron Man.
Would you dare relax inside the gaping maw of a killer whale? Does the lure of the anglerfish draw you in to rest? It will be safe, because these are just hanging lounge chairs. Porky Hefer (a great name!) is a South African designer exhibiting his work, which includes these chairs, this week at the Design Miami show.
Hefer specializes in nesting chairs that swallow sitters whole. His Monstera Deliciosa line includes menacing beasts of the sea that create the appearance of danger.
Last weekend, Officer Pittaluga of Kenton County, Kentucky collided with a deer while driving his cruiser. The car suffered minor damage, but the deer didn't. It picked itself up and ran off into the woods as fast as it could.
The police are using the video as a demonstration of how to handle a large animal car accident. Officer Pittaluga braked firmly and steered away from the deer while maintaining full control of the car.
Actor Nick Offerman is famous for being Nick Offerman. That's as it should be! After all, he's a very Nick Offermanish Nick Offerman.
He also played Ran Swanson on the TV show Parks and Recreation, where he served as the epitome of masculinity for a generation in desperate need of becoming more Nick Offermanish.
To get into the Nick Offerman spirit of the season, he sat by a fireplace for 45 minutes while sipping Laguvulin Single Malt Scotch Whisky. He never speaks a word, for to break the silence is to disturb perfection. This is his "Yule Log"--a meditative experience that both soothes and fortifies.
The Pirelli Calendar is known for featuring images of scantily clad (if not fully nude) women who are supposed to represent the sexy and sophisticated Pirelli brand.
But this year Pirelli took a big step in a bold new direction for their 2016 calendar by featuring strong women known for more than physical beauty, like Amy Schumer, Fran Liebowitz, Tavi Gevinson and the eternally artsy Yoko Ono.
Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera says the new look of the calendar "reflects contemporary society", and with the queen of portrait photography Annie Liebovitz behind the lens the new calendar is their most sophisticated yet!
Stephen Colbert, Liam Neeson, Candy Crush Saga- what do these three dissimilar nouns have in common?
They all came together in one deliciously ridiculous sketch on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a sketch inspired by the news that Activision Blizzard has just acquired King Digital Entertainment for a staggering 5.9 billion dollars.
Activision is also about to get into the filmmaking business, making all movie adaptations of their video games in-house, so Colbert connected the dots and predicted what the upcoming Candy Crush movie will look like.
It's got it all- a dramatic and tragic storyline, a ton of references to elements from the game, and the image of Liam Neeson in a ridiculous outfit that you won't soon forget!
This wonderful footage features two red panda cubs, one male and one female, who were born and reside at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, New York. A subspecies known as Stayan's Red Panda, the pair is native to the Eastern region of the Himalayas.
Births of this adorable species, enabled by a breeding program, are greatly welcomed due to being listed as endangered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature. Their endangered status is due to habitat loss caused by deforestation. Tragically, the population of the species has declined by 50 percent over the last 18 years. Via Zooborns
Historically speaking the British monarchs were not very nice people, but for some reason their pompous misadventures in debauchery and murder are often overshadowed by the regal visage seen in classic paintings.
But portraits don't properly depict the darkness that surrounded British monarchs such as Henry VIII and King John, although you can often see the shadow of something sinister in their eyes.
With their knack for spreading that darkness around to their subjects it's not surprising people celebrated their deaths, but the worst offenders often got their just desserts in the end.
King Henry VIII (arguably) died of obesity, and his body had grown so large that a gigantic, lead-lined coffin had to be specially constructed for his burial...and then his body exploded when it was placed in the coffin.
King John got to die relatively intact, but his death was perhaps the most humiliating of them all- because he literally crapped himself to death due to dysentery. But at least he went out while eating a "surfeit of peaches"...
Filmmakers have to take certain liberties with the characters they adapt for the big screen, and one of the biggest changes they always seem to make is to the character's appearance, namely their costume and accessories.
There's something about the way those super folks look in the comics that filmmakers don't see as modern enough (except for Spider-Man's costume) which, in the case of Tony Stark's facial accessory, is understandable.
But why can't Black Widow wear a mask or Hawkeye a cowl or hood? And what's wrong with the bright color schemes Thor and The Hulk are seen sporting in the comics? Why can't Hulk wear his purple pants in peace?
Some lucky Jawa is going to find this BB-8 droid be all set for retirement. Disney, the owner of Star Wars, and Kay Jewelers made this custom 4.5-inch tall model of the droid. It rolls in style with 18 carat gold and about 18 carats of diamonds. Building it took Kay Jewelers 600 hours of work.
Matthew Inman of the famous webcomic The Oatmeal has a great idea: make it a common custom for cat owners to give their indoor cats orange colors--and no other color. That way, if you ever see a cat outdoors wearing prison orange, then you know that it's a lost cat.
Inman is trying to address a problem: although 26% of lost dogs are returned home, fewer than 5% of lost cats are. That's because cats are good at hiding and most people, if they see a loose cat, just assume that it's an outdoor cat with a human family.
Sploid took the images of Toronto-based illustrator Scott Park and turned them into this fun animated video of every mode of transport in the original Star Wars trilogy sized to scale. Set to the Cantina Band music, this look at vehicles from Tauntaun to TIE Fighter is an entertaining diversion. Via Laughing Squid
Talking parrots are prized status symbols in Nigeria. But supplying them and distributing them to different markets profitably is a challenge. Sometimes, parrots speak unusual languages, which requires retraining and therefore extra expenses for parrot dealers. Drew Hinshaw writes for the Wall Street Journal*:
It is a decision the pet shops of Nigeria confront every time a talking bird lands in their possession. Last year, a babbling grey parrot arrived at Salisu Sani’s bird stand in this northern city.
There was only one problem. She spoke one of the country’s lesser-known tongues.
“I told her: ‘This is a rubbish language. Try my own,’ ” recalled the lifelong parrot distributor, who spent weeks teaching the animal greetings in Hausa, a more widely spoken vernacular.
Nigeria is one of the world’s easier places to buy a parrot—the garrulous birds are a status symbol for some civil servants. In traffic jams, young salesmen approach car windows holding up cages with birds inside. African greys sell for about $60.
But they sell closer to $100 if you can get them to speak.
The question is what Nigerians want their pets to say. The country’s 182 million people speak 520 different languages, according to Ethnologue, an atlas of the world’s linguistic boundaries, published by the International Linguistics Center in Dallas. Church services drag for hours as deacons translate their pastor’s sermons into three, sometimes four languages. Customer service lines begin with a plethora of options: one for English, two for Hausa, three for Yoruba, four for Igbo.
Now can I get a pizza topped with tiny pizza slices that are themselves topped with even tinier pizza slices? Let's see how far we can take this idea.
Vinnie's Pizzeria, a restaurant in Brooklyn famous for its funny signs, is an innovator in pizza design. If you want a plain pizza, but you want to maximize its plainness, you can order your plain pizza with another plain pizza sliced up and layered on top.
This adorable video from 2009 shows a very proud father and his son. The dad has good reason to be proud! David, the young man in the video, was leaving home to defend his doctoral dissertation in math at Stanford University.
Tradition mandated that David ride to the defense on a unicycle while juggling. He juggled 4 balls, as math and natural sciences scholars usually do (social sciences: 3 balls, humanities: 2).
He was successful! The father now calls him "Dr. Dave."
