Rachel

The number of newborns given the name “Cheese” increased 450% during 2013. Now admittedly, there were not many Cheeses to begin with. There were only 9 Cheeses reported from a survey of 500,000 parents. For that, we should be grateful. But, as Dan Amira of New York magazine asserts, “the correct number of babies who should be named Cheese is zero.”

-via Incredible Things

Amy L. Rawson continues her tradition of creating felted cthulhoid Santas for the holiday season (see last year's); the current iteration is $595 on Etsy, and includes a 4lb epoxy/wire "octisleigh" pulled by a "rapidly morphing, protoplasmic vision of a Shoggoth." It's 13" long, 7" high, not including the Shoggoth. From her post on the piece:

Santa is needle felted entirely from wool. Oddly, this is the first year we've given the Santa Cthulhu wings. I have no real reason for that. In previous years I think we just got close to the finish line and thought, "Wings? Nah, that'd be more work ..."

The shoggoth is a writhing, amoeba-like mass of needle felted pustules, eyes, appendages and teeth. A shoggoth is a constantly changing creature. As such, it's somewhat difficult to put a yoke or harness on it. Santa just hitches his sleigh up to a large metal ring that he has to trust the shoggoth to keep incorporated into its fluctuating body. Chains hitch the shoggoth's ring to the sleigh, and Santa holds leather straps as reins. The eyes are glass cabochons that we painted specifically for the shoggoth. The teeth are epoxy clay.

The Octi-Sleigh is a substantial sculpture I made specifically for this project. It has a wire armature covered with nearly 4 lbs of epoxy clay. It is painted with acrylics, and I'd just like to point out that this was my very first attempt at painting with an airbrush! If you look back at the last several journal entries, you can see lots of work-in-progress photos of the sleigh.

Needle Felted Santa Cthulhu with Shoggoth and Octi-Sleigh [Etsy]

Santa Cthulhu 2013: Final! [Thirdroar]

(via Neatorama)

Amy Poehler stands close to her beau Nick Kroll as the duo enjoy a stroll together through lower Manhattan in New York City on Monday (December 2).

The day before, the 42-year-old Parks and Recreation star was seen making her way through LAX Airport to catch her flight to the Big Apple.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Amy Poehler

Later in the evening, Amy and her Parks and Rec co-star Rashida Jones arrived at the 2013 Gotham Independent Film Awards. Nick was also in attendance – he hosted the big affair!

10+ pictures inside of Amy Poehler and Nick Kroll strolling side-by-side in Manhattan…

Redditor sarcasticflower's grandma was in the hospital with a broken hip, and her cat Vincent visited her every day. I can imagine the logistics involved in such a caper, as I have snuck cats into hospitals before, just not as a daily thing. But you can see from the picture that it's worth the trouble.

This is only one of many stories of the love between people and cats. You'll see cats showing their devotion to more elderly folks, prison inmates, babies, and all kinds of people in the post 38 Pictures That Prove Cats Have Hearts Of Gold at Buzzfeed.

This chart of mental diagnoses for the characters on Sesame Street has been making the rounds today, but it's not exactly new. It appeared about a year-and-a-half ago at Fo'Drizzle, but sometime after that lost its three watermarks and was passed around all over.

Even then, this is not the first attempt to diagnose all the mental problems of Sesame Street characters. Here's a post listing the Sesame Street character's various diagnoses from 2007. Another tried it in 2011. Even Psychology Today got into the act! You might notice that none of these lists agree with each other completely. The Muppet Show cast got the treatment, too. It's all speculation, of course, and highlights how we tend to label every kind of personality quirk as a mental disorder.

With more than one hundred fifty books on the assassination of President Kennedy published this year alone, making an educated reading choice on the subject can be a dizzying affair. From those in the lone gunman camp to the Cuba-suspicious, assassination theorists run a wide gamut. But never fear, dear reader—we’re here to help! Below, find our vote for the five essential texts on the Kennedy assassination. Read these—and nothing else matters.

1. Oswald’s Game  by Jean Davison

POINT OF VIEW: The lone gunman unplugged

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Davison delves into the psychological core of Lee Harvey Oswald, exposing a deeply motivated, troubled assassin. One New York Times–bestselling expert called it “insightful.”

2. With Malice  by Dale K. Myers

POINT OF VIEW: The truth about Officer J. D. Tippit and Oswald.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: The murder of Officer Tippit just 45 minutes after President Kennedy’s assassination led to a bevy of questions, which Myers answers once and for all with exclusive photographs and documents—and his animation sequences are legendary.

3. Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye  by Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers

POINT OF VIEW: Details from JFK’s close confidants Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Members of Kennedy’s “Irish Mafia” provide an intimate portrayal of their friend Jack, from his first campaign to the day of his assassination in November 1963.

4. Case Closed  by Gerald Posner

POINT OF VIEW: The lone gunman theory

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Gerald Posner addresses—and refutes—the many conspiracy theories (mafia, second shooter, and CIA) surrounding November 22, 1963, asserting, “Fifty years after the assassination, the biggest casualty has been the truth.”

5. Not in Your Lifetime  by Anthony Summers

POINT OF VIEW: All of the above

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Summers acknowledges Americans’ doubts about the lone gunman theory and addresses speculation of a heretofore unnamed assassin while objectively exploring all aspects of the murder mystery still haunting our nation 50 years later.

A new meme compares the awful things that happen in the Star Wars saga and the HBO series Games of Thrones. Continue reading to see a lot more, but be warned they contain spoilers, if you're not current on both series. However, if you don't know what happens in Star Wars, you are too young to confront these issues anyway.   

You'll find a lot more of these in a growing subreddit called Wars vs. Throne. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Heisenberg and the rest of the Breaking Bad crew may be gone, but that didn't stop actors Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek from making all of our dreams come true.

In the days leading up to its series finale, online fans jokingly created alternate endings for the acclaimed AMC television drama, including one in which Hal — Cranston's character from sitcom Malcolm in the Middle — had dreamed up the entire thing

Fortunately for us, Cranston got the joke, and made it happen IRL with Kaczmarek, who played his TV wife on Malcom in the Middle. Enjoy Read more...

Santa Claus is just about the most popular fictional character of all time, but that just might be because he doesn't wear out his welcome. Santa pops up once a year, fulfills children's wishes for toys, and then goes away. And because he is such a popular character, many entrepreneurs have been tempted to capitalize on Santa Claus with year-round parks and attractions, with varying success. Quite a few eventually failed and fell into ruin over the years. Check out a gallery of pictures at Atlas Obscura that takes a look at erstwhile Santa Claus attractions in California, Arizona, Vermont, Michigan, Illinois, and Brazil.    

(Image credit: Flickr user mlhradio)

Well, that happened.

via

Comedic actress Marcia Wallace tragically passed away this past Friday at age 70. Today, The Simpsons’ showrunner Al Jean released a statement saying that he was "tremendously saddened" by the news and that the show "[intends] to retire her irreplaceable character," Mrs. Edna Krabappel. Jean also explained that Wallace's "passing is unrelated" to the news that came out earlier in the month that the show was going to have one of its characters die this season. Krabappel has been a part of the show since its second episode, and with her perfectly condescending laugh ("Ha!") and blend of surly cynicism and hopeless romanticism, she served as the ideal foil for Bart. Wallace and Krabappel will be missed.

Read more posts by Jesse David Fox

Filed Under: the simpsons ,tv ,al jean ,marcia wallace ,r.i.p.

(Video Link)

When sitting on the bench, this costume actually looks rather wolflike and fairly uncreepy. When the wearer is actually moving around though, the effect is pretty horrifying in a werewolf kind of way. This would be a great Halloween costume certain to give nightmares to anyone who saw it in action.

The impressively real suit, made by Youtube user radywolf, is made from faux fur that was airbrushed with wolf coloring. Even more impressive -he completed the piece when he was only 19.

Via Pets Lady

When Jessica and Yianni bought this tiny vacation house on Sauvie Island, just north of Portland, they decided, instead of expanding on its 540 square feet, to remodel the house to make the best use of the space available. In this modest footprint they created a retreat with ample room for their young family AND for guests, using almost exclusively reclaimed materials.

READ MORE »

October 16, 1859: John Brown Leads a Raid at Harper’s Ferry

On this day in 1859, abolitionist John Brown led 21 men — 5 blacks and 16 whites — on a raid of the United States federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown and his “army of emancipation” hoped to incite a slave rebellion throughout the South, but his efforts were thwarted by Marines led by Robert E. Lee.

Regarded by many as a martyr for the antislavery cause, Brown was wounded and arrested only to be later convicted of treason and executed.

Watch this History Detectives clip to uncover the story behind John Brown’s raid and an antique artifact.

Photo: Half-length portrait of John Brown with his arms folded (circa 1865) (John Bowles/Wikimedia Commons).

Image: Interior of the engine house during John Brown’s raid (November 1859) (Frank Leslie/Wikimedia Commons).

Bad Lip Reading is practically an Internet institution, so you'd think they'd be phoning it in by now.

Read more...

One of the stealth hits at this past weekend's New York Comic-Con was the panel for the forthcoming Starz epic Outlander — a historical fiction, romance, and sci-fi genre-bender in which a WWII-era woman goes back in time to eighteenth-century Scotland and gets caught up in romantic and political conflicts. Since the show (which started shooting outside of Glasgow last week) is being developed by longtime Star Trek franchise scribe and Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore, you might expect the sci-fi quotient to take center stage, but he assured the largely female audience in attendance that, with a few exceptions, he's staying very true to Diana Gabaldon's books. At a separate event for Outlander fans afterwards, Moore chatted with Vulture about pleasing a new fan base (which includes his wife), anticipating criticism, and how he loves to hear that you hated the ending of Battlestar.

You're wearing a kilt. Nice legs!
[Laughs.] This is a rental. I asked my wife [Terry Dresbach, who is the co-costume designer on Outlander], "Can you make me a kilt?" [She said] "Make you a kilt? Do you know how hard it is to make a kilt?" [I said] "Is it? Isn't it just like a glorified skirt?" So she went into this whole thing about the pleating and everything [and said], "It's like buying a suit!" [Laughs.] But I get the feeling that this will be an ongoing thing, so I should probably invest in a kilt.

Your wife is a huge Outlander fan. How much trouble would you be in if you got something with this series wrong?
A lot! And I would know about it pretty quickly. She's already said, "I don't think you should have done this that way." And I get it, but there's a reason why we're doing it. She'll never let me quite forget: "That's not the way it should have been!" Ever.

The fan base for this series is a little different than what you might be used to with Battlestar or Star Trek. For one thing, there are more women.
A few. [Chuckles.] But the questions and the passions are very similar. They care about the same things. They care about the characters. They care about the backstories. They care about the integrity of the universe, what happens outside the frame. They want to believe that there is this world that exists beyond just what you watch in the camera. And that's the same passion that the Trek and the Battlestar people had. It doesn't feel like a radically different thing to deal with. Yes, it's women, a lot of women of a certain age. These are not young kids. But as fans? It doesn't feel any different.

Was part of the appeal of adapting this that you didn't have to create your own mythology?
I don't know if that's a plus or a minus. I just read it with an eye towards adapting it, and it didn't feel like, "Oh, I have to figure out how to fix this, or change this." I can see it in my head, and it all makes sense to me. I know where the story is going, I know where the characters are going, and that makes it easier to produce. I can make long-range plans. That said, you are taking a piece of literature and transforming it, so you're looking to solve different kinds of puzzles. A lot of times in the book, it's digressive, with the characters talking about their pasts. And we'll do some of that, we'll have some flashbacks of [protagonist] Claire's marriage to Frank, but in the show, you don't want to go off like that. You have to figure out, How much of that do I need to know?

Do you watch Continuum? It involves time travel as well. A woman goes back into the past, only in this case, her past is our present. She's from the year 2077, and that's where her husband and son are, in the future. Is it cheating if your spouse hasn't been born yet?
Is it cheating? [Laughs.] Yeah. I think it is. In her heart, she's still married to him, and that is the central dilemma.

As well as the question of whether you can change the future and other theories of time travel that usually go into these types of shows.
One of the things I did like about this is that Diana doesn't go anywhere near that. She doesn't raise the paradoxes of it. Have I affected history? Will this change the future? She just doesn't do it. It doesn't interest her, and I'm happy to not have it as part of the show, because once you start that conversation, it does become a science-fiction show and the dominoes of history. You'd want to cut to Frank and see if history had changed. So it's nice, actually, that it's not on the table. Claire just goes [back in time] and she just lives her life.

Will that help you avoid some of the debates that came up with Battlestar?
There will be a fair amount of debate, because people know these books intimately. And we make choices — what we do, what we don't do, what we add, what we subtract. Like, we'll have more Black Jack [an ancestor of Claire's husband] in the series. People will debate those choices. You could hear it in the crowd — people were not happy about casting Sam [Heughan] as Jamie [Claire's love interest in the eighteenth century]. And that will continue; that is part and parcel of having a fan base. I always said, some of the most dedicated fans were the ones that hated it the most. The fans who write the blog that says, "I saw this episode four times, and every time it gets worse than the time before" — these are really dedicated fans! And this is just how they express their love for the show, in this conflict, wanting to argue about it, wanting to tell you how it's wrong. That will be part of this experience. Hopefully, it's a small fraction of the fan base, but it will always be there.

Even the people who thought the Battlestar ending was the worst ever for a sci-fi TV show? Do you like hearing that?
I do! Yeah, I wish they loved it, but I think it comes from a place of passion for the show. Why get that upset about it if you don't care about it? If you weren't engaged, you could not be that angry because you thought we screwed it up.

Some fans felt that you didn't explain things enough, that you left things too ambiguous, especially with Starbuck. Did you ever second-guess that decision?
I thought about it. We talked about it at length in the writers' room, and I didn't hear something that I liked. I liked the idea, conceptually, that her fate was ambiguous because, conceptually, we were tying her to whatever the power was that didn't like to be called God and was involved from the inception. From the miniseries on, there's definitely something else going on in this story, and it's unknowable. I kind of felt like it should be unknowable. It felt wrong to give it a neat answer on something that was so profound and existential about these people and this situation. They were dealing with something that they had trouble defining, whether it was gods plural, or God singular, or something else out there. Starbuck was in some way representational of that power, or had some connection to it, having been brought back from the dead — literally. I just didn't feel like I wanted to give it a "Oh, that's what this means." It just felt right that that, too, should be mysterious and unknowable. That's the way I wanted to go. If I called her an angel, does that make everybody happy? That just seemed really unsatisfying. I don't know what that means. That's just putting a label on who she is and it doesn't tell me anything more, really.

You once put together a manifesto about the things you would do and not do in sci-fi, but then you broke those rules. Do you have a manifesto for Outlander?
[Laughs.] Yeah, you kind of have to. You have to know what the rules are, in order to break them. There were probably some we bent, rather than broke, depending on how you look at it. But, yeah. We tried to hew to that general manifesto from the very beginning. But now, no. The book is our bible, and we try to just stick with it. Our job is to realize this material. I've never seen [it being] my job to make my version of Outlander. Galactica was. That was like, "This is flawed, but I think there's a great idea in the center of it there. I'm going to keep everything that works and throw away everything that doesn't. We'll just make it our own." That's not my job here. This is how best can I realize what already works. And these people love this. I want them to love the show as well.

The Outlander books have some pretty graphic sex scenes. Will the show try to rival Game of Thrones in that department? And is sexposition a technique you would ever use?
What?

Sexposition — pairing up sex scenes with necessary exposition.
While sex is going on in the background? Oh, that's funny. I thought you were saying "sex position." We'll have those, too. [Laughs.] I'm not sure what I would use sexposition for. We'll have a lot of sex scenes, but they'll all seem to have a purpose. And there's no pressure from on high to sex up Outlander. It's pretty graphic stuff as it is! We've come up with an interesting structure for the wedding night, to tell the story, because it's one long night. And you'll get all the stuff that's in that wedding night. I think people will be happy.

Okay, because the female fans are really looking forward to the part where Jamie is no longer a virgin. He's, like, their ideal guy.
We call him the king of men in the writers' room. Because he's the king of men. [Laughs.]

Read more posts by Jennifer Vineyard

Filed Under: tv ,outlander ,ronald d. moore ,interviews ,battlestar galactica

Anthony Hopkins is a huge Breaking Bad fan. Like, really huge. Huge enough that he wrote a very gushy fan letter to Bryan Cranston. BB's Steven Michael Quezada initially posted the letter on Facebook, but he has since taken it down, alas. Hopkins's agent confirmed to Buzzfeed that he did in fact write the letter, which we now present to you:

Dear Mister Cranston.
I wanted to write you this email – so I am contacting you through Jeremy Barber – I take it we are both represented by UTA . Great agency.

I’ve just finished a marathon of watching “BREAKING BAD” – from episode one of the First Season – to the last eight episodes of the Sixth Season. (I downloaded the last season on AMAZON) A total of two weeks (addictive) viewing.

I have never watched anything like it. Brilliant!

Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever.

I know there is so much smoke blowing and sickening bullshit in this business, and I’ve sort of lost belief in anything really.
But this work of yours is spectacular – absolutely stunning. What is extraordinary, is the sheer power of everyone in the entire production. What was it? Five or six years in the making? How the producers (yourself being one of them), the writers, directors, cinematographers…. every department – casting etc. managed to keep the discipline and control from beginning to the end is (that over used word) awesome.

From what started as a black comedy, descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell. It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy.

If you ever get a chance to – would you pass on my admiration to everyone – Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Aaron Paul, Betsy Brandt, R.J. Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Steven Michael Quezada – everyone – everyone gave master classes of performance … The list is endless.

Thank you. That kind of work/artistry is rare, and when, once in a while, it occurs, as in this epic work, it restores confidence.

You and all the cast are the best actors I’ve ever seen.

That may sound like a good lung full of smoke blowing. But it is not. It’s almost midnight out here in Malibu, and I felt compelled to write this email.

Congratulations and my deepest respect. You are truly a great, great actor.

Best regards
Tony Hopkins.

Anthony Hopkins, secret Amazon brand ambassador.

Read more posts by Margaret Lyons

Filed Under: fanboys ,anthony hopkins ,breaking bad ,bryan cranston ,tv

When our Andi Teran shared her theory of why the Breaking Bad series finale was called "Felina," and tied it in with the Marty Robbins song "El Paso," she cautioned readers that she is not a crackpot -- and the episode bore out the importance of the song to the episode's themes (even if not all the particulars matched up with the finished product). And now series fan Bonnie Rose has edited together a number of key scenes, spanning the whole series, set to "El Paso" -- complete with lyrics so you can follow along and see how far back the events of the finale were planned. It's pretty great.

[ NOTE: If your RSS reader does not show a video here, please click here to view it on Previously.TV. ]

See How 'El Paso' Ran Through All Of Breaking Bad appeared first on Previously.TV

The plot of the new movie Gravity is about the worst thing that could happen to an astronaut floating in space. Space travelers have been performing spacewalks, or EVAs (extra-vehicular activities) since Alexey Leonov emerged from the Voskhod 2 spacecraft for a few minutes in 1965, and not all of them have gone as planned.

The real-life close calls are just as tense as any movie, except that we often learned about them after they were over. Popular Mechanics has a slideshow telling the stories of ten EVAs in which something went wrong -and for a while, things were really tense among those who were in the know. -via the Presurfer

It might be the number one movie this weekend, but the Gravity is full of crap. Or so says Neil de Grasse Tyson, the famous astrophysicist and Reddit deity.

Read more...

Librarian Shaming is an online confessional for librarians who have fallen from grace. Oh, for shame! And some of them are so racy that I thought it best not to republish them here.

Since my library director reads Neatorama (hi boss!)* I want to make it clear that I have committed none of these disgraceful misdeeds.

Except for getting shushed by a patron. Yeah, that once happened to me, too.

-via Amanda Brennan

*Also: my mother-in-law.

This list could easily contain 200 reasons why we love adorable and talented actor Aaron Paul, but sadly, we just don't have the space for that. Plus, you have a finale to watch, bitch.

After five seasons of Breaking Bad, Aaron and the rest of the show's crew have hung up their hazmat suits and left the dry Albuquerque heat behind

Lucky for fans, we've been able to spend these five years (or maybe a marathon binge weekend for some) watching Aaron morph from that kid you kind of recognize from the old Corn Pops commercial into one of the most beloved actors on television Read more...