I had no idea about the European superstition of animals talking in human voices at midnight on Christmas Eve (so 00:00 on Christmas Day). The legend—most common in parts of Europe—has been applied to farm animals and household pets alike. It operates on the belief that Jesus’s b … | Continue reading
Back for a second year, I’ve compiled the top 10 posts published in 2022 (see last year’s if you’re interested). I’m calling the cut off point here as I’ll probably forget to do this on 31st. I’ve actually published less this year (358 vs. 399) and I’m a little sad I missed the 1 … | Continue reading
Automation in food prep is stepping up a gear in Seattle as two startups have served their own robotic creations to help cafés and restaurants. Artly, headed by CEO Meng Wang, created Jarvis to help make coffee for a café in the city’s central business district: Jarvis moves slow … | Continue reading
Remember those penguins in Batman Returns? They were people in suits. The above video shows the actors testing out the suits and there’s an accompanying blog post from the Stan Winston School of Character Arts describing the process: “Our mechanical puppets were slightly larger t … | Continue reading
Earlier today, I had an incredibly cheesy quattro formaggi pizza for lunch (not quite the cheesiest in the world but I felt like it was up there) and, in hindsight, I should have gone for a margherita. And then it reminded me of this recent Hard Drive article about the pizza from … | Continue reading
Do you know your Renaissance from your Renoir or your pop art from your Pollock? Well, the above video from Behind the Masterpiece might help you with its brief history of art movements. It covers everything from prehistoric art, through to ancient, medieval, Renaissance, Baroque … | Continue reading
Matt Kenneally is a British photographer known for his “timeslice” style of photography. The concept involves taking multiple photos of a scene over an extended period of time, taking “slices” from each one, and splicing them together to create a single visual timeline of light a … | Continue reading
The folks at Omni Calculator have created a White Christmas Calculator that can tell you your chances of snow on Christmas Day depending on location. If you want to improve your chances of having a white Christmas experience, we will show you which city you should choose as your … | Continue reading
Fruit Quake! The soft drink brand has chosen an “artificial fruit cake” flavour for Christmas 2022. It will be available for this month only so grab one while you can and let me know how it tastes in the comments! (via Thrillist) The post And Mountain Dew’s 2022 holiday flavour i … | Continue reading
Perfect casting, both in character choice and voice acting. I don’t think I need to see Joker but I would love to see more scenes adapted with Goofy, Winnie, and the Disney gang. The post What if Goofy was The Joker? appeared first on Cultrface. | Continue reading
An enlightening piece from Blair Mastbaum, for Atlas Obscura, about a song I had never heard of. The question: Is ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ Really the Thing to Say on a Bright Hawaiian Christmas Day? The answer: no. So, what does it mean? “Nothing,” says Holton. “It’s basically gibberish … | Continue reading
The “Mr. Garvey Is Your Substitute Teacher” comedy sketch is one of my favourites of all time so I was delighted to see him return to promote Paramount’s streaming service, Paramount+. As a side note, I was also thrilled to see Krumm from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters for the first time … | Continue reading
Jenkem caught up with Brazilian skateboarder Vitoria Mendonça as she skated around Wall Street. She’s got an impressive and powerful style, and she’s a kind soul, too, which goes a lot further than you would think when it comes to moving up in the industry. We met up with her dur … | Continue reading
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is be the sequel to the critically acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and we have a new trailer which looks epic. That’s how you should make a trailer without revealing the entire plot in 150 seconds. All we know so far is that Miles M … | Continue reading
I wrote about the most expensive McDonald’s pickle in the world in August and while looking at my analytics, noticed an article for the search term “most expensive pickle in the world” that’s a little different. Back in 1999, The New York Times reported on ‘The $44,100 Pickle Jar … | Continue reading
When it comes to Florida and pies, you’ll immediately think of the key lime pie. But before that took hold, there was another pie that used a different citrus fruit synonymous with the Sunshine State: the sour orange pie. This from Make Florida Your Home on the origins of the fru … | Continue reading
Engineer and builder Lawrence Stoecker designed a modernist Christmas tree in the 1960s but it wasn’t until 2011 that his grandson, Matt Bliss, put it into production and launched The Modern Christmas Tree: “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, and concentric circles … | Continue reading
I found this old Geocities site containing over 90 retro Christmas GIFs. It’s not good on the eyes but the GIFs are cute enough, ranging from Cuddling SnowCouple to Disney-themed GIFs featuring Mickey & Minnie Mouse and a Dancing Chrismas Pooh. It’s also worth noting that not all … | Continue reading
The thumbnail may give away the reason behind the McDonald’s McPizza failure but before all that, the question, for me, remains: did they really need to add pizza to their repertoire? The most remarkable thing was that while McDonald’s discontinued serving McPizzas, a franchise o … | Continue reading
Even after all the Steamed Hams memes in recent years (of which I’ve covered a few), there are new ones popping up that flip the narrative further. The above example sees Principal Skinner not burn his roast and he and Superintendent Chalmers have an unforgettable and honestly wh … | Continue reading
Back in 2015, Dan Nosowitz spoke to linguists and other experts about how Italian-American culture and how words like capicola and mozzarella became gabigool and mutzadell: Most immigrant groups in the United States retain certain words and phrases from the old language even if t … | Continue reading
Ever heard of 33 Thomas Street in Tribeca, Lower Manhattan, New York City? Maybe you known it as a Brutalist skyscraper with no windows that allegedly houses an NSA alleged mass surveillance hub known as TITANPOINTE? Project X is a 10-minute short that takes viewers on a journey … | Continue reading
Viva Magenta 18-1750! Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberan … | Continue reading
PushingUpRoses examined another buckwild Stephen King adaptation and this time it was Sleepwalkers, his first screenplay exclusively written for the screen, rather than book-to-screenplay. The film tells the story of vampiric shapeshifters who suck the life out of human female vi … | Continue reading
Designer Arun Venkatesan wrote an article on Gabriel Lluelles Rabadá, a lesser-known Spanish designer behind some of Braun’s greatest designs, including the hand blender: […]Soon after his promotion to chief designer and head of product design, Dieter Rams met with Gabriel Lluell … | Continue reading
I found an interesting paper by TCU faculty assistant, Jeanelle Kevina Hope, on Black British feminism, surrealism, and Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum. Here’s the abstract: This article delves into Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum, examining how the cultural text builds upon Black femini … | Continue reading
For Hypebeast, Camillia Kazem spoke to Rami Afifi about Palestine, his projects, and how nostalgia influences his work: You’re well-renowned for acknowledging Palestinian culture and creating around it – could you talk about what inspires you the most and how you like to portray … | Continue reading
In 1992, Homer Simpson was in the hit drama series, L.A. Law. He was even played by Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson. Except it wasn’t in the way you’re probably thinking. The episode, “L.A. Lawless”, aired on 22nd October 1992 and starred Dan Castellaneta as David Ch … | Continue reading
Hackaday tackled the infamous “online toaster hoax” where a group of friends decided to amend the Wikipedia article for the “inventor” of the electric toaster. Here’s an excerpt from the original BBC story: On 6 February 2012, Alan was at a university lecture, when the class was … | Continue reading
In September this year, Dr Laura Guimarães Corrêa and Dr Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris spoke to each other about Black representation within London’s urban advertising sector: Suzanne: My forthcoming research is focuses on the representations of Blackness by the (I)NGO sector, whic … | Continue reading
This came up as a recommended YouTube video and it’s right up my street, having loved Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as a kid. Here, we see the original Dragonzord, the Dragonzord Battle Mode, and the Mega Dragonzord at the end. I never had these toys but I loved seeing them in all … | Continue reading
(Spoiler alert: it’s mostly Raúl Julia) 4 years ago, Michael Saba reviewed the 1994 live-action film adaptation of Street Fighter. While he called it a “bad film”, he countered his point by saying “it’s also one of the greatest movies you’ll ever see” and explored its very messy … | Continue reading
In my list of top meme-worthy RoboCop media, this Korean RoboCop Fried Chicken commercial from the 1990s falls in second place behind this weird and wild RoboCop video collage but it was a close fight. Lotte Ham, the makers of the poultry dish, specialise in luncheon meat and oth … | Continue reading
I thought I’d blogged about this before but I obviously not. Vincent D’Onofrio and Barry Sonnenfeld spoke to Rachel Handler about the famous ‘Sugar Water’ scene from Men In Black: The stiff walk, the way Edgar speaks, his facial expressions — where did those come from? D’Onofrio: … | Continue reading
The last time I visited Nottingham Castle was in 2017 with a friend and then I heard about it closing for refurbishments which included a new visitor centre, and updated galleries. However, £33m and a year and a half later and it hasn’t helped bring more visitors in as the Nottin … | Continue reading
Remember when McDonald’s pulled out of Russia? Well, something had to replace it as the premium burger emporium and a Russian-based fast food chain called Vkusno i tochka (вкусно и точка in Russian or ‘Tasty and That’s It’ in English) took on that mantle and they’ve already expan … | Continue reading
Congratulations to Mike Korostelev who won European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 for “Hippo World!”, a shot an underwater hippo family in South Africa: A few years ago in South Africa I discovered a salt lake with clear water, where several hippo families (Hippopotamus … | Continue reading
On a UK quiz show, a question about what toto, conkies and cassava pone all contained. The answer was ‘coconut’ but of all of the foods, I’d never heard of toto. Then I found out it was a Jamaican coconut cake and I felt terrible. Why didn’t I know about a dessert from Jamaican c … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever admired the brutalism that adorns Melbourne, Australia, you might have wanted to find more. Luckily, Blue Crow Media have you covered with their Concrete Melbourne Map. The compact map showcases the city’s brutalist architecture with 50 buildings detailed on the re … | Continue reading
I chuckled at the headline and the laughs kept coming: Bob Chapek Announces Disney- to House All Their Old Racist Shit Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced this week that the media giant will be launching a second streaming service, Disney-, to house the massive amount of racist mater … | Continue reading
Sci-fi/horror author and science writer J. Dianne Dotson wrote a Medium article on The Thing and why it’s still a hit today: Knowing then that the creature is extraterrestrial and can assimilate other life forms AND imitate them, AND having been cut off from outside communication … | Continue reading
One of the first facts I learnt as a kid was that the English, despite making a personality out of tea, aren’t even the biggest drinkers of it (apparently, in 2016, Turkey ranked #1 in the most tea consumed per capita; the UK was third behind Ireland). But where did the obsession … | Continue reading
Dinosaur Comics exposed the problem with having so many words in English to describe one concept. I don’t think it’s a major problem once you get to know the language better over time and a particular situation calls for a particular word but it makes you realise why thesauruses … | Continue reading
Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing wrote a timely piece on William N. Selig’s 1898 short film Something Good-Negro Kiss, “the earliest known depiction of black intimacy on screen”: In 1898, [Gertie] Brown and [Saint] Suttle were predominantly known as vaudeville performers and their ap … | Continue reading
Megachile pluto aka Wallace’s giant bee aka raja ofu is the world’s biggest bee. You can find one in Indonesia where they are classed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (same classification as hippos). Wallace’s giant bee has a wingspan of 63.5mm, or 2.5in, and it’s quite the com … | Continue reading
A great piece in Salon about unique pizzas in different US areas that “exist outside a certain radius”: “I didn’t realize Indian pizza was regional until very recently,” muses Bromfield, who’s the creator of the ascendant Regional American Foods Twitter account. He started it in … | Continue reading
Colossal covered Roman De Giuli’s art project, ‘A Sense of Scale’, which gives the impression of aerial views of mystical lands and oceans: Look a little closer, however, and you will find these effervescent terrains are composed of paint, powders, and water that the artist appli … | Continue reading
A Fish Called Wahoo should really be a parody film or band name or SOMETHING! I mean, look at its opening paragraph on Wikipedia: Wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri) is a scombrid fish found worldwide in tropical and subtropical seas. It is best known to sports fishermen, as its speed … | Continue reading