Russian Sledges

Fingers of Fate - The Tightening Grip Unknown Date: ca. 1916 (via The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Fingers of Fate - The Tightening Grip)

Transit Police Detectives are seeking the identity of the male subject depicted within. If you know the whereabouts or identity of this individual please contact our Criminal Investigations Unit at 617-222-1050. If you would like to assist our investigators but wish to remain anonymous you can always text us your tip to 873873 or use the anonymous feature on our SeeSay app.

The subject is described as follows;

How exactly will moviegoers be enabled to choose their own adventure in the upcoming Choose Your Own Adventure movie? It's up to Night at the Museum scribes Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, who have signed on to write the script that Rawson Marshall Thurber (We're the Millers) will direct. ... More »

I had an experience at Arisia 2014 that some people have now heard about from other friends, but that, for my sake, and at my request, they had left my name out of the retelling. It has become quite clear to me something that I've always known, but had never had to face directly before; hiding from the truth when it comes to sexual assault helps no-one but the assaulter. I had originally posted my experience as a f-locked LJ post, but am now ready to give a first hand account of what happened to me. TThis courage comes from reading a post made by another woman who was harassed at Arisia by the same man I was. http://twistpeach.livejournal.com/101026.html Her bravery and unwillingness to be silent gives me the confidence to post my experience openly.

Earlier this month, Louis C.K. revealed on The Tonight Show that he will be releasing his first movie, Tomorrow Night. He shot the film independently in 1998 using his own money (and money he borrowed from Chris Rock and Jon Stewart). It features young versions of Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, ... More »

“As soon as I walked into that dusty, remote town and the smiling children started coming up to me, I just knew my Facebook profile photo would change forever,” said Fisher, noting that she realized early in her nearly weeklong visit just how narrow and unworldly her previous Facebook profile photos had been.

The Google bus riots were one of the most futuristic protests that the San Francisco Bay Area has ever seen. But is the protesters' rage against rich techies misplaced? According to one city planner, there is some truth to the idea that these shuttles raise rents.

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Mr. O’Neill, head of the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College, might have seemed a surprising partner in such a risky venture. His was a world of manuscripts and manicured campuses. But he also had extensive connections in Ireland, traveling in both the north and the south to develop one of the most comprehensive collections of Irish literature and history in the world. Now, with peace in the air, he was looking to fill a gap in the Burns Library, focusing on the recent political history of Northern Ireland. When Mr. Moloney, Northern Ireland editor for The Sunday Tribune, heard of the librarian’s interest, he proposed an archive collecting the stories of former paramilitary members at “the cutting edge of the conflict.” Thirteen years later the three men would have vastly different recollections of their first meeting. The two Irishmen walked away from dinner thinking that Mr. O’Neill would not pursue the project unless he could assure them that its secrecy was legally protected. Mr. O’Neill insists he would never have made such a blanket promise.

Cat cafes, where guests can sip coffee while petting or playing with a cast of resident felines, have been a thing in Japan since the mid-2000s. More recently, they’ve spread to European cities like London, Paris, Vienna, and Madrid. But strict food service industry regulations have thus far made it difficult for the concept to come to the United States. 

Left: Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium, a cat cafe in London (via its Facebook page); Right: Cat Cafe Neko no Niwa in Singapore (AP) Bottom: Tom's Cat Cafe in Seoul, South Korea (Elsa Brunel/Flickr) 

Last September, reports of a cat cafe possibly opening in Boston got cat enthusiasts (a.k.a., The Internet) particularly excited. The folks behind Miaou Boston told Boston Magazine that their biggest hurdle was "getting permission to allow animals on the restaurant’s premises.” Since then, they have not updated their social media accounts and could not be reached for this story.

For those still holding out for a cat cafe in the U.S., there's lately been some better news coming from the West Coast.

Courtney Hatt and David Braginsky, a cat-loving duo from San Francisco, are currently at work on KitTea, a cat cafe concept they hope to open in the city this summer.

They envision KitTea as part "gourmet tea house," part "cat and human oasis." To ensure the place is not too crowded or chaotic, the cafe will be at least 1,600 square feet, housing a maximum of 10 cats and 30 to 35 people at a time. KitTea is partnering with a local rescue group to take in shelter cats.

According to its website, KitTea cats will be selected "based on their personalities and whether they have been socialized to be comfortable around both humans and other cats." KitTea also plans to conduct a "period of introduction," where cats can get used to one another’s scents and presence. 

Of course, KitTea, just like Miaou Boston, will need to get past local laws that prohibit animals in food facilities. Hatt says she's currently working with San Francisco's Retail Food Safety Program, whose first response to the concept was an emphatic "no," since tea is considered food.

An image KitTea posted on its Facebook page, with the caption "Here's our potential menu.... just kidding! (or are we?)"

Hatt says they'll work around this regulation by putting two walls and a hallway in between the tea service area and the cat oasis. This way, guests can order their tea and bring it over to enjoy among the kitties, on their own accord. The compromise, according to Hatt, has received a "confident thumbs up" from the Food Safety Program. 

Up next are discussions with the city’s Environmental Health Department to determine which permits KitTea will need to file and which laws it’ll need to follow in order to house cats day and night.

KitTea has yet to sign a lease on a space, but assuming it can find a landlord willing to take on the project, the plan is to work with a contractor and architect to design an interior that’s safe and enjoyable for both humans and felines. That means making sure the space is ADA compliant, that there’s enough space for each cat to make its own territory, etc.

The team will also be consulting a feline vet and behaviorist along the way. KitTea cats will move in with a clean bill of health, already spayed/neutered and vaccinated.

"We are taking it one day at a time to ensure we get it right," Hatt writes via email. "We want to be an exceptional example for future ventures similar to ours in the U.S."

A Canadian student studying in Japan recently uploaded this narrated tour of several cat cafes in Japan. 

Top image: Inside a cat cafe in South Korea (ebullient/Flickr) 

BARNSTABLE, Mass. — Police say they know who stole more than $40,000 worth of oysters and equipment from oyster-farming beds in Dennis and Barnstable last summer.

Barnstable police Lt. Sean Balcom says the suspect was caught in the act, but police are still putting together their case and are not quite ready to publicly identity him.

Balcom tells the Cape Cod Times (http://bit.ly/1b4chXp ) that police were tipped off to the identity of the poacher by an informant.

Portrait of the pulp writer as an old man. By Nick Mamatas

It looks like the wings place next to the Dominos (at Elm & Russell St.) is being replaced with a new shawarma place. Doesn't look open quite yet - does anybody have any info about it?

houghtonlib:

Fables in action : by means of small moveable pictures, and dissected and coloured pictures with an explanatory text, 1820.

*EC8.A100.820f2 

Houghton Library, Harvard University

This toy theater comes with a small book of children’s fables, and two characters from each story are depicted in the accompanying cardboard cutout puppets. The labels below were intended to fit into slots below the window and along the brick wall, but they are left out here so they can be seen.

How one number became sacred in fitness circles. By Wayne Curtis

Venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who is under fire for comparing the attack on America's rich to "Kristallnacht," was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in France in 1996 for killing someone -- with his yacht.

The beer giant is making a huge bet that a beer you drink from a rocks glass will stop young drinkers from switching to spirits.

theredrops:

DID ANYONE ELSE ACTUALLY READ THE NEW TUMBLR GUIDELINES??? BECAUSE

DICK

FUcking exPENSIVe??

THE ALIEN BEAUTY OF BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

WHAT DO I EVEN SAY TO THAT LAST ONE

how to get fired - Takeshi no Chousenjou (Taito - Famicom - 1986) 

requested by travisonacomputer 

There’s so much crazy stuff happening in this game, you might as well just go to Wikipedia and read about it here.

fuckyeahdementia:

i’d like to buy a fish please

Apart from photos and video footage, food items are at the top of most people’s “bring home” lists – and it’s not surprising either as taste is one of the most significant memory triggers we have. While some edible souvenirs are easily and legally importable, others are very much less so. Here are some unique items you can bring back from your travels without raising the ire of Customs Officers or, even worse, getting your name on a watch list.

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts high school has closed for the day after administrators became aware of a social media post about a student possibly bringing a gun to school.

Philosophy, New College of Florida.

Read Drew's blog: The Worst Things For Sale.

B.A. (Honours) Sociology, University of British Columbia. 

Fans in America: Doctor Who, the Consumption of Transnational Television Texts and the Cultural Economy of Fandom 

“I think you are asking me, in the most tactful way possible, about my own ­aggression and malice. What can I do but plead guilty? I don’t know ­whether journalists are more aggressive and malicious than people in other professions. We are certainly not a ‘helping profession.’ If we help anyone, it is ourselves, to what our subjects don’t realize they are letting us take. I am hardly the first writer to have noticed the not-niceness of journalists. Tocqueville wrote about the despicableness of American journalists in Democracy in America. In Henry James’s satiric novel The Reverberator, a wonderful rascally journalist named George M. Flack appears. I am only one of many contributors to this critique. I am also not the only journalist contributor. Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, for instance, have written on the subject. Of course, being aware of your rascality doesn’t excuse it.”

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In the Vatican earlier today, two peace doves were viciously attacked by a crow and a seagull when they were set free by Pope Francis from a window at Apostolic Palace. We've spent countless years of our precious time on this planet debating over whether evil would triumph over good, whether the Dementors would eventually find us, and if birds—despite our blame in their pitiful helplessness—were actually hotblooded, malevolent predators searching fiendishly to corrupt their own.

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Art by H.J. Ford (1897) from THE SNOW QUEEN.