The idea of wearing a heated jacket used to fill me with dread, since wearing one seems like a good way to end up electrocuted or killed by a flaming jacket.
But heated jackets are completely safe to wear, and people who live in extremely cold areas swear by them, claiming they're like wearing a warm hug all day long.
Host of What's Inside? and fun dad Dan Markham loves his heated jacket, and yet he was willing to slash it open and show us how it works for the sake of science, and Dan convinced me they're not so dangerous after all.
Most people who watch the A Nightmare On Elm Street films see Freddy Krueger for what he is- an evil bastard who enjoys killing innocent people and turning life in Springwood into hell on Earth.
But some twisted fans see Freddy as a dream come true, a guy worthy of worship and the inspiration for a legion of fans who call themselves "Fredheads".
They have good dreams about Freddy, dress up like him at Cons and idolize him, and now these Freddy superfans are the focus of an upcoming documentary by Venn Pictures and Northgate Pictures called FredHeads: The Documentary.
FredHeads is a pet project of director Paige Troxell, who wanted to show her fellow Freddy fans they're not alone:
“In my darkest times I have turned to Elm Street. It is a survival story, it is my best friend, it is my comfort, and it is my home,” gushes Troxell. “I knew that there were others out there who saw this film for more than just the typical slasher. It is my goal to bring to life each and every story; to show the world that this community stands together, that we are a support team for each other.”
When we fall in love with pop culture characters like The Simpsons, Jack Bauer of 24 or the Belcher family from Bob's Burgers our crush makes us overlook the bad stuff about them and their show.
We stop paying attention to how many people Jack Bauer kills and all the smokers in Springfield, and those wacky Belchers do a great job of distracting us from how broke they are, even when it's the plot of an episode.
So now you're probably asking yourself "how broke are the Belchers?", a question which dedicated fans have answered:
According to one study, Bob's Burgers LLC is probably bringing in a little less than $70,000 a year, while only actually taking home about $43,000 in true annual profit. Given that the average cost for an apartment like the Belcher's runs at about $20,000 a year, the Belchers are left with a paltry $23,000 (before taxes). And that, according to the state of New Jersey, puts the Belchers at about 50 percent less than the maximum to receive food stamps.
As for Jack Bauer's scorecard, the guy killed 309 people in about nine days!:
Over the course of eight days, plus the two hours of 24: Redemption and the half-day of Live Another Day, Jack Bauer kills 309 people. 309. That rounds out to 1.5 guys an hour, for a whopping 36 guys a day. It's not evenly spread, either; Bauer started the first day only killing ten guys, but really took the gloves off during Day Six, with 52 individual murders. By contrast, the Korean War killed about 31 Americans soldiers a day. On some days, that was Bauer's quota before he let himself take lunch.
And how many smokers live in Springfield? At least two per episode:
In 400 reviewed episodes, there were 795 unique instances of characters riding the nicotine dragon. Around the 2002-2004 era of the show, Springfieldians were averaging some five smoking characters per episode. And while the show typically only focuses on a few characters at a time, Springfield only has an estimated 60,000 residents, which means the percentage of smokers in the town must be incredibly high. Writers presumably drew the line at the episode in which Apu personally lit the cigarettes of a dozen fifth-graders that wandered into his store, preferring instead to leave it implied.
We remark "what are the odds?!" when certain seemingly coincidental things happen in our lives, but despite what we say we know these occurrences aren't that unusual, uncommon or even worthy of remembering.
Of course, some coincidental moments are rarer and more memorable than others, but it's still fun to snap a pic of those sillier moments too, so you can share that special sighting with your social circle.
Even though I'm enjoying every minute of my son's infanthood I also can't wait to watch him grow up and become an awesome little kid, and I hope I live long enough to watch him grow old and gray...but I probably won't because of my poor diet and lack of exercise...plus the booze ain't helpin...*sniff* I miss him already! (NSFW)
Visiting Japan requires a bit of preparation if you don't want to come off as a rude tourist, because the Japanese people have a lot of customs and traditions they expect visitors to respect or they bust out the dreaded "stare of disapproval".
Do you like to chow down on a burger or taco while walking around in a public area? Better not eat in public in Japan or you'll get the dreaded stare, unless you're in front of a convenience store, food stand or vending machine, because they like to keep the streets clean so they only eat in select areas.
And that's lesson one in this informative episode of Chris Broad's Abroad In Japan, created so Chris can share some of the most important lessons he has learned while living in Japan for the last five years.
As soon as 3D printers went from costing thousands of dollars to hundreds people started bringing them home so they could get busy creating cool stuff.
But where most people used their 3D printers to print out practical items or printable stuff they found online the geeks got busy creating replicas of their favorite props, weapons and armor so they could live out their nerdy dreams.
However, they soon ran in to one big problem- the stuff they wanted to print was too big to print as one solid piece.
So they used their creative minds to figure out a way to print their props in pieces, and now when it comes to how big the prop they create with a 3D printer can be the sky's the limit!
It always seems like a shame to throw out avocado pits, especially given how easy it is to grow an avocado tree from a pit, and yet if you eat avocados like I do then you're bound to end up buried in pits if you save them all.
But now that I've seen the amazing avocado pit sculptures created by Jan Campbell I'm thinking it's time to whip out the old carving knives and sculpt those "stones" into scary monster faces.
Jan is an Irish artisan with a healthy love of Celtic mythology, so she doesn't carve the stones (what she calls the pits) to look like scary monsters- she turns them into figurines of forest spirits, mythic beings and the occasional Venus of Willendorf.
In the beginning we believed video games would someday have such great graphics we would actually feel like we're in the game, and with these improvements would come cheaper home console gaming and deeper, more engaging games.
Well, we have the cool graphics that are almost totally realistic, and we have lots of deeper, more engaging games, but we also have mobile games that should be amazing but really aren't.
Because, as this Clueless Hero comic shows, even though mobile games are usually free to download and play they suck in one particular way- all the cool bonus content costs a bundle to unlock!
Rick Moranis was almost always typecast as a nerdy character in the movies and TV shows he starred in, but when it came to comedy the Second City TV alum was super cool, like swanky lounge singer cool.
Check out the cool side of Rick Moranis as he sings a swingin' version of "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors in this classic clip from SCTV. It's ring-a-ding-ding for the New Wave generation, dollface.
The Death Star is the most iconic space stations in the history of sci-fi and one of the most recognizable symbols of Star Wars, and yet Luke and the Rebel Alliance figured out how to destroy it with two well-placed proton torpedoes.
They knew about the Death Star's built-in flaw thanks to some stolen plans, but we never got to see how the massive space station was built in the movies.
But now thanks to the hard work of two geeky and talented brothers named Benjamin and Isaac Botkin we can see how hard it would be, and how many pieces it would take, for the Empire to build a Death Star.
And with Benjamin's epic score accompanying the complex timelapse animation it's a mesmerizing look at the making of a legend.
The dead don't really need to eat or drink anything to stay dead, but many of them still long to enjoy the things they did in life- which is why there's always a queue at the Calavera Cafe. You can never make coffee too hot or food too salty for a skeleton, so the Calavera Cafe isn't what you'd consider an upscale eatery. But the club and casino portion of the cafe cater to the upscale citizens of Rubacava, so if you're looking for a fancy fandango fiesta then you'd better hit the Calavera Cafe at night!
Add a symbol of gamer goodness to your geeky wardrobe with this Calavera Cafe t-shirt by EmuChicken, it's a tasteful addition that'll make your fellow Grim fans grin with delight!
Visit EmuChicken's NeatoShop for more inspirationally geeky designs:
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!
At the NeatoShop our love of the old school will never die, and whether you're in to radical retro looks from the 80s and 90s, funky and groovy graphics from the 70s or something fun from way, way back the NeatoShop has what you're looking for!
And until January 14th all shirts in the NeatoShop are on sale up to 20% off, including longsleeve t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, and even the shirts for kids and babies are on sale through Sunday!
It's not a crime to love the looks from a different decade
Fast food workers meet hungry people at the drive-thru window on a daily basis, and they also get to meet the customers' dogs who, if asked, are usually just as hungry as their owners.
That's why most dogs greet the person at the drive-thru window warmly, because they can smell the food cooking behind them so they're hoping for a handout.
Einstein Bagel Company employee Natasha Jones takes a picture of all the dogs that greet her at the drive-thru window whether they're friendly or full of snarls, then she shares their pic on her Instagram account EBDogs4096.
Natasha's account is a sweet look at the friendly canine faces she sees at work every day, and since she hooks them up with a free doggie bagel they've stopped wanting to go for a walk and now want to go for a ride in the car- straight to the drive-thru!
Most of us have an image of our ideal selves cemented in our minds, an image we can see clear as day in our heads but can't seem to properly render or describe so that others can see how we'd really like to look.
But photographer Scott Chasserot came up with a pretty clever way to discover how people wish they looked based on their brain waves for his idealized portrait series Original Ideal:
Chasserot took simple and unadorned head shots of his volunteers, then by using an editing software, he made dozens of altered versions based on the “scientifically established canons of beauty.”
By presenting the edited photos to the volunteers while they wore EEG headsets, Chasserot was able to analyze their brain waves and identify which version they preferred the most based on positive neural reactions. The preferred photo was then labeled as their “ideal” appearance.
“What do we find instinctively beautiful in the human face and how does this translate to self-image? What assumptions would we make about another person if we could see their ideal self-image? Original Ideal combines portrait photography and neuroscience to isolate the subjects’ ideal self image, a cerebrally sincere preference obtained by circumventing conscious thought.”
