Just this weekend I snuck into Ikea to grab just one very specific thing, and within minutes I was angry and confused. [Video Link via Kottke]

Each year, Refe Tuma and his wife celebrate Dinovember, a month-long time of whimsy and fun when they try to convince their kids that their dinosaur toys come to life at night.

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(Photo: Rob Delaney)

For the hobbyist or the medical student, the go-to gadget for prostate exam simulation is this device invented by Dr. Benjamin Lok. It’s a lot more than just a plastic model. It’s a whole virtual environment. The user has to talk through the process of examining the patient, who is named Patrick. He talks back and expresses to the examiner how he’s feeling about it.

The mannequin itself has sensors inside that measure the pressure used by the student. So the examiner gets feedback in real time. Glen Tickle of Geekosystem interviewed Dr. Lok about his invention. You can read it here.

The BBC: "Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson has received his knighthood from Prince William in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace."

My friend Randy is on a business trip in Helsinki. The last time he was there he told me about a tiny bookstore that was stacked floor to ceiling with books. I asked him to snap some photos the next time he went. Here they are.

He says:

I walked to the crazy bookstore I told you about. The sign reads ANTIKVARIAATTI, which means Antique Store. But it’s clearly overloaded with books only. The whole store is maybe 200 sq ft, and the books are stacked more than 10 feet high. In many areas at least 4-5 layers deep. The space for walking is barely 2 ft wide.

[ By Steve in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

If abandoned spaceships weren’t so hard to find (please don’t look for any in Antarctica), we wouldn’t have to make them for movies, TV, art or just for fun.

Pitch Black Spaceship

(images via: No Fixed Address and RPF)

Even if you’ve never visited Coober Pedy in southern Australia, you probably have seen it via your movie or TV screen. The inhospitable desert wasteland lies in the heart of OZ’s opal mining country and the otherworldly setting has been featured as a film location for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Red Planet, and Pitch Black to name just a few. The latter flick featured the above wrecked spaceship, bought about a dozen years ago by a local shop owner after filming was completed.

(image via: RPF)

While the Pitch Black spaceship prop has held up remarkably well thanks to the Outback’s arid conditions, those who feel tempted to have themselves photographed in front of it should advise their camera-person to ensure the “SHOWERS & TOILETS” sign doesn’t photobomb the shot.

Oklahoma Cement Mixer Space Capsule

(images via: Two Wheel Oklahoma, viewAt.org and NewsOn6)

Construction crews hard at work building a bridge over Oologah Lake near Talala, Oklahoma in 1959 couldn’t believe their eyes when the driver of a cement mixer loaded with liquid cement lost control of the massive vehicle. As he swerved off Winganon Road, the truck overturned and it wasn’t long before the cement inside began to harden. The truck was salvaged, mostly… the now solid cement-filled bell was too heavy to shift and has remained in place for over a half-century.

(image via: Arkomas)

Pranksters have painted and otherwise decorated the mixer a number of times over the years; a recent redo occurring just after 9/11 when it was painted patriotically in the American flag’s stars and stripes. The latest extreme makeover dates from late September of 2011 when Barry & Heather Thomas used canning lids, garden hose and other household items to transform the mixer into a NASA space capsule as a way of celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. Kudos to Flickr user Arkomas for posting the above cool pic.

Buran Buran

(images via: The Living Moon c/o English Russia)

In post-Soviet Russia, Earth crash on spaceship! On May 12th of 2002 the hangar housing Buran, Russia’s only space shuttle to be launched into orbit and land successfully back on Earth, collapsed during a severe storm. Eight workers lost their lives in the accident and the shuttle was destroyed. Not many know, however, that Buran was only the first of FIVE Soviet shuttles completed or under construction when the program was cancelled in 1993. The second shuttle was named Ptichka; the third was named Baikal.

(images via: The Living Moon c/o English Russia)

In October of 2004 Baikal, estimated to 30-50% completed, was moved from its hangar at the Tushino factory to an open-air car-park where it spent the next 7 years protected only by flimsy tarpaulins.

(image via: The Moscow News)

The curious image above dates from late June of 2011, when the fuselage of Shuttle 2.01 Baikal was floated down the Volga river by barge. Its ultimate destination was the MAKS 2011 international air show, which took place from August 16th through 21st at Zhukovsky town near Moscow. We don’t think that’s Russian president Vladimir Putin in the image above, returning from a bathroom break to resume towing the barge downstream, but we could be wrong (and we wouldn’t be surprised).

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Landing Stripped 8 Grounded Abandoned Spaceships

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[ By Steve in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

Photographer Brian McCarty is no stranger to capturing toys in a dramatic light, but his WAR-TOYS project is not about creating fanciful scenes, but about interpreting children's images of war through the language of play.

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A reminder that Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain were a high-water mark in kids' animation: the greatest English-language tongue-twister of all time!

Pinky and the Brain, Tongue Twister (via Reddit)

by Marcy Campbell

To the parents of students at Sunnyvale Public Elementary:

The PTO has been asked by Principal Steiner to write a letter of apology which addresses complaints surrounding the all-school assembly featuring a show by the “J.C. is Magic! Magicians.”

And so, we the PTO officers (minus Rachel Greenberg) are writing this letter to say we are sorry some of you were offended by the magic show. First off, we didn’t even know the show had anything to do with Christianity. We thought the guy’s name was J.C. since that’s how he answered his phone!

In any case, we don’t understand why anyone would even be offended by an assembly that promoted positive messages for children, like studying hard, not stealing, not killing anybody (who’s against that???), keeping the Sabbath holy, etc., all as part of an entertaining magic show.

When J.C. was playing the guess-which-card game, and he asked which card was the highest of all, the PTO had no idea he would pull out a card labeled King of Kings with a photo of a feathered hair Jesus looking kind of like one of the BeeGees. We did not know he was going to give candy only to the children who had been “saved” and that the unsaved kids (which wasn’t many, which makes us think they did not understand the question) would have to sit criss-cross applesauce while the chosen children filed up to the stage to collect their tootsie rolls. We did not know J.C. would describe the scorching fire that would melt the skin off the kids sitting criss-cross applesauce, causing some of the kindergarteners to cry. To his credit, J.C. explained the kids had a choice of whether or not they wanted their skin to melt off. We all have a choice!

We realize that, technically, public schools should not sponsor religiously themed programs, but as we understand it, local jurisdictions have some “leeway” to “creatively interpret” those laws as befits their particular community. And, come on, the Christian schools are expensive! It’s not fair to expect all the Christian kids (though there is no formal polling of Sunnyvale families’ religious beliefs, because that would be “illegal,” we are sure it’s the vast majority) to get the lessons they need only on Sundays. During the five perfectly good weekdays, it wouldn’t hurt any kid to learn a little bit about why he is here in the first place, and who brought him here to this world, and to the greatest country on earth, to the greatest school in the county. Go Sunnyvale!

One more point… not one of our K-4 students left the auditorium during the magic show, so no one must have been that upset. All they would have had to do if they wanted to leave was raise their hand, walk across the gym to Mr. Slater, get a red hall pass, have it checked and time-stamped by Mrs. Flanders on the other side of the gym, and leave via the fire exit to sit outside quietly until it was over. But none of them did!

Also, we are STILL getting messages regarding the band that played at the end-of-year cookout. We are sorry some of you were offended by the band’s positive, G-rated Christian rock. If you’d like, if it would make it more palatable to you, just substitute any of the band’s lyrics including the words “Him” or “He” or “Lord” with Krishna, Allah or the Easter Bunny. We are also sorry some of you would not eat the all-pork hot dogs. But, if you want Green Day and a veggie burger, you really need to go someplace other than the Sunnyvale Public Elementary End-of-School Picnic. Plus, that was LAST YEAR, people!

We have not had any calls, by the way, regarding Mrs. Gupta taking her 3rd graders to some “nature center” in the city last week, which the PTO understands contains some kind of “meditation garden” that kids were “encouraged but not required” to walk through. Apparently Mrs. Gupta thought this was a perfectly acceptable field trip, taking kids to a park where stone Buddha heads were lolling around every corner where kids couldn’t fail to see them! Plus, they did yoga!!!

Lastly, to answer some of the parents’ specific questions left on the school secretary’s voicemail (Note: please do not leave messages for PTO on the secretary’s voicemail; instead contact your PTO president via email at: joycepraiseshim@yahoo.com):

1. No, you may not get your money back from the cupcake cook-off fundraiser used to pay J.C. He has already cashed the check. Also, we bought new, folding tables for the book sale. So, that ship has sailed!




2. No, we are not resigning, because, what kind of message would that send the kids about “conflict resolution?” If you have prominently displayed on your refrigerator the Buster Beaver’s Choice O’ Meter that was sent home in September, you know that Sunnyvale kids are being taught that they have options in the face of disagreement, which includes talking it out with the other person, telling a teacher, or walking away. But, “walking away” should be the last alternative! The PTO is not walking away.




3. No, our heads are not stuck in a hole in the ground, nor in our “butts,” as some of you have so rudely suggested using other language we will not print here.

So, to conclude, we are sorry some of you were offended. We are sorry that a perfectly pleasant magic show, which also contained wholesome messages of Jesus’s kindness and love, offended certain parents at our public school. And we thank others of you for the phone calls and notes in our support ;)

God bless,

Your PTO Officers (minus Rachel Greenberg)*

*resigned for “personal reasons”

P.S. The PTO, after much discussion, decided to accept the geologic rock collection donated by the retired college geology professor with grandkids at the school, so you can quit calling about that. The only thing we changed was taking off the dates on the rocks because, seriously, some of these rocks, if the attached signage was to be believed, are supposed to be, like, a million (!) years old. The “professor” refused to remove the dates, saying that was the whole point of the thing, which really showed a lot of inflexibility on his part, and disrespect, we might add, to the Creationist children at our school. How are kids supposed to learn “critical thinking” if “scientists” are always “telling them things?”

P.P.S. We need volunteers for the annual book sale! This year, we’re pleased to be partnering with a new supplier that promises books “teaching the values kids so desperately need in today’s increasingly secular world.” Please give a warm Sunnyvale welcome to LightHouseKids Books!

Marcy Campbell's recent work appears in The Rumpus, The McSweeneys Internet Tendency and The Millions. She writes inside a closet in rural Ohio and blogs as The Closet Creative. Image from a montage by Daria Blase.

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The post The Parent Teacher Organization Is Sorry You Were Offended By The Magic Show appeared first on The Awl.

So I was all set to joke about how Subway would tie their crappy sandwiches into a movie where kids compete in a brutal contest for the amusement of the rich, and where a brutal revolution might be the only solution, and then I saw the above commercial where they actually fucking did it.

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sherrydarlingisalover:

notthehellyourwhales:

alaricsaltzbuns:

tomhiddlesbitch:

cancerously:

superblys:

anti-shipper:

the-greatest-companion:

castaneacreations:

thegoodlannister:

schwarzweis:

thegoodlannister:

My sister got me a Thor bobblehead.

This is what I did with it.

since I’m a serious grown adult, I have a reply for you

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I AM CRYING

legitimately crying

My Yoda bobble-head has something to say…

it got better

IT GOT SO MUCH BETTER

THISSSSSSSSS

screwgravityy:

xdmelody:

Today’s obsession is Pug gifs.

IM SO FUCKING DONE

Photo artist Caras Ionut lives in the world of Photoshop where he digitially assembles surreal landscapes and portraits using largely his own photography. These are some of my favorites but you can see much more over on 500px. Ionut also offers all kinds of tutorials and workshops available through his website. (via So Super Awesome)

bloodredorion:

slavicinferno:

What SciFi Movies Would REALLY Be Like…

Source

Im laughing so hard

by Robert Lanham

I find it impossible to write fiction that's set after 2002. Not because I'm a Gen-Xer waxing nostalgic about relaxing to Morcheeba on a distastefully stained sofa I found partially torn apart by a dog in an alley. (Oh, the glamour.) It's just that it's inconceivable to depict contemporary times authentically without including interludes where characters stare at their cell phones instead of advancing their plotlines – their lives – towards some conclusion. Which is, as a thing to read, mind-numbingly dull. Unless I write "and then his Galaxy 4's battery died" no one can ever get lost, forget an important fact, meet a partner outside of a dating site, or do anything that doesn't eventually have them picking up a phone. So I'm stuck writing about an era where Ethan Hawke was considered the pinnacle of manliness.

On average, people spend 119 tedious minutes staring at their cell phones each day (and that's according to a UK phone provider). That's 43,435 minutes annually. Thirty days a year. The month of June. Sure, a portion of those minutes is spent doing useful things. But most involve time-killing activities like playing Bubble Safari or pinning photos of cronuts to our Pinterest walls. It’s a substantial chunk of the year for our plotlines to stand still.

According to that infamous study by the UK Post Office, 66 percent of us suffer from a phone separation anxiety called nomophobia—'no mobile phone phobia'—which can cause sweating, queasiness and trembling. Common warning signs include feeling anxious when your phone is turned off and being unable to visit the bathroom without having your phone in hand. This mass neurosis is hardly surprising in an era when 83 percent of millennials bring their phones to bed at night— a number which assuredly trumps the number of millennials who have an actual bed.

Recent hand-wringing suggests that the cultural backlash against cell phones has finally arrived. If it has, what are we doing about it? We all hate being on call. We all hate being sidetracked by people who just have to Google—mid-conversation—that actor's name they can't recall from last night's "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland." We all hate those people with the marimba ringtones who refuse to mute their phones. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone complaining about being "over" cell phones. So if the backlash is here, why are we so complacent? It's like we're getting mad for all the wrong reasons, fixating on mere annoyances instead of realizing why we should truly be outraged. Backlash against cell phones won’t arrive until we understand the real problem. Cell phones have made us dull.

Most outrage about cell phones sounds like this: "I went to the Arcade Fire concert and, oh my God, some guy had his phone up in the air for, like, 20 seconds during the glockenspiel solo.” Then there are those who are livid because they had to listen to some uptalk from a teenaged girl on a phone after shelling out 15 bucks to take the Chinatown bus to DC. Others are hopping mad at that jerk who was texting during that important scene in Magic Mike where McConaughey does a final dance at club Xquisite.

Yes. The horror, etc.

Whining about cell phone etiquette isn’t righteous indignation about the human condition. It’s a clichéd first world problem, not a catalyst for change. If you want to be upset by people using cellphones poorly, you will never run out of opportunities.

Then there’s the "cell phones are destroying our children" argument—a form of outrage typical of helicopter parents who deify Carl Kasell. "Our poor children—They should be outdoors!" They worry that kids are missing out on the meaningful things of childhood: finger-painting an enchanted castle in the sky, making a giraffe from paper mache, pretending to be a Minotaur in the labyrinthine bushes behind the barn.

You don't want kids glued to a screen sexting for hours on end. So don't let them. You want them to learn to speak well to adults and not scream at everyone? Sit them down at dinner device-free every night. Parents who obsess about phones sound like Bill Cosby bitching about rap music. Nevertheless, cultural backlash isn’t going to occur because you’d rather see your kid reading The Wind in the Willows than staring at a phone.

On "Conan," Louis CK discussed his concerns about a culture obsessed with cell phones. His outrage was much closer to the mark. Without hyperbole, he articulated how our need to constantly tune out—checking email, hopping on Facebook, playing Angry Birds—deprives us of things fundamental to our humanity.

You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person. Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty—forever empty… It's down there…

That's why we text and drive…. People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don't want to be alone for a second because it's so hard….

So I go, 'oh, I'm getting sad, gotta get the phone and write "hi" to like 50 people'…then I said, 'you know what, don't. Just be sad. Just let the sadness, stand in the way of it, and let it hit you like a truck….'

And then I had happy feelings. Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness.

He’s right. Our little handheld addictions are a crutch—they keep us quarantined from our own emotions. But I'll take things a step further. Our compulsive relationship to our phones is making us less dynamic. Less interesting. Cell phones take us away from ourselves, causing us to passively experience our thoughts, instead of thinking them. The solitude we abandon to catch up on Twitter is the very place from which our creativity arises. Opinions, unfiltered by group-think, emerge from this solitude as well. This is why lots of writers say they have most of their ideas in the shower: no distractions, nowhere to hide. What'll happen when iPhones are waterproof?

Instead of embracing quiet introspection, we opt out to read “’Masters of the Universe’ Is Actually a Tragic Gay Love Story between He-Man and Skeletor” on BuzzFeed. When we’re constantly checking for updates on Facebook—relying on what’s discussed on social media and blogs to maneuver our thoughts—we stifle our own individuality and become intellectually disengaged. Removed from self-reflection and solitude we become the very worst thing there is to be: dull.

Smartphones aren't even novel anymore! We’ve been staring at them for nearly a decade. We’d almost be excused if the first iPhone was released in 2012, and we'd just ditched our pagers. But instead of being wowed by the types of exhilarating innovations we saw last decade (Google maps, being able to text instead of call, a freaking phone that’s a camera,) we’re fawning over Touch ID fingerprint sensors and retina display. “A7 makes iPhone 5s the first 64-bit smartphone in the world” is an actual Apple marketing pitch. Um, wow?

Still, our devotion is unwavering. Just try criticizing a friend’s preferred Android or Apple device. Apparently if cell phones had existed in 1860, you'd be challenged to a duel. Sure there’s a lot of money being spent on making us covet the latest thing, but our passions for our phones can only be rationally understood as overblown.

The emergence of "digital detoxing" as a trend, suggests there’s at least an appetite for a cultural backlash. In case you're unfamiliar with the concept, the term was recently added to the Oxford dictionary:

digital detox (n): a period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world.

The indignation that fuels most digital detoxes, unfortunately, for the most part ranges from half-hearted to fully privileged. You possibly still remember the Times style section piece from just a couple months ago, "Step Away From the Phone!" We're told that fashion market director at Vanity Fair Michael Carl detoxes by playing “phone stack” when going out to dinner: "Everyone places their phones in the middle of the table; whoever looks at their device before the check arrives picks up the tab."

Marc Jacobs, MSNBC host Ari Melber, and party planner Bronson van Wyck also advocate creating self-imposed "device-free” zones. (Thurston Howell III and Little Lord Fauntleroy were apparently unavailable for interviews.) Meanwhile, former Lucky magazine editor Brandon Holley tosses her phone “into a vintage milk tin" a couple hours per day. Oh yes, a vintage milk tin.

Digital detox retreats and vacations are now a thing too. Most are hosted by New Age yogaphiles soliciting pricey, device- free getaways where you can "recharge"—they always say that—with hiking, organic meals, and "journaling"—they always say that too. Consider this recent event offered by TheDigitalDetox.org:

Leave your phone at home or check it at the door for a night of Digital Detox and Camp Grounded goodness. Live music with Con Brio and Cello Joe, campfire sing-a-long with Seltzy, analog zone with arts and crafts, board games, typewriters, delicious treats, face-painting, and so so much more.

If you're like me, they lost you at "Cello Joe." If not, don't miss their upcoming detox event at "a tree house community nestled in an undisclosed jungle."

Normal people have tried out digital detoxes too. A recent article in Salon speaks to a reporter’s attempt to find a life balance by unplugging. Well, sort of:

The answer isn’t necessarily to deprive yourself. It’s better to find a balance…. I’ve set up a few rules for myself, too. No tweeting while walking. No checking the phone on the subway. No TweetDeck. It’s far better to check Twitter on the actual website instead of having it open and taunting me all day long.

No TweetDeck? Um… okay, don't hurt yourself there.

Digital detoxes lack passion. They're pretentious. They're the commitment equivalent of hedge funder who uses LED lightbulbs on his private jet to be “environmental.” We don't need balance. We need to be embarrassed. We need to be mortified by how monotonous we've become.

Do we really want the future to remember us as a generation of obsessive compulsives who spent thirty days a year uploading selfies?

Where do we start? Anyone can tell you that brief detoxes and binge-and-purges diets don't work. So here's a novel idea, if we're truly ready for the backlash to begin, let's do something revolutionary! Let's try a restaurant without reading what JimBo67 thinks about the tacos on Yelp. Let's skip that important article "Who's Cuter, Boo or Colonel Meow?" If someone forgets the name of an actor in some dumb movie, let's just let it go. Let's skip taking that old timey-looking Instagram pic of our navels. Let's show up at a bar, alone, without a phone and talk to that girl or boy who approaches us, curious, because we're not staring at a screen. Do you need to be on call 24/7? Sure—if you're a brain surgeon at a veterans' hospital. Guess what: you're not.

Let's sit in silence, cell phones turned off until we truly need them. Let the sadness hit you like a truck. On the other side, we'll see what's what. Who knows who you've actually become while you were desperately not paying attention?

Robert Lanham is the author of the beach-towel classic The Emerald Beach Trilogy, which includes the titles Pre-Coitus, Coitus, and Afterglow. More recent works include The Hipster Handbook and The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right. He is the founder and editor of FREEwilliamsburg.com. Photo by Sascha Kohlmann.

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The post Your Phone Is Ruining You For Us appeared first on The Awl.

Sniff... no, I'm not crying. I just have something in my eye. It's a Lego brick, and it really hurts. But this family-oriented Lego commercial is wonderful, too.

Read more...

Good times in New Mexico, courtesy a police department high on the war on drugs:

Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said in an interview with KOB that after law enforcement asked him to step out of the vehicle, he appeared to be clenching his buttocks. Law enforcement thought that was probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity. While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.

The lawsuit claims that Deming Police tried taking Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was "unethical."

But physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City agreed to perform the procedure and a few hours later, Eckert was admitted.

While there...

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Don't Appear to Be Clenching Your Buttocks When Pulled Over For Not Coming to a Complete Stop or Be Tortured by Doctors: America, This is Your War on Drugs

It's time again for Great Pics of the Week and while last week was all about playing it cool, this week, we're enjoying our geeky side. So come with us on a journey of delightful nerdery.

Apple's Jedi Mind Tricks

Have a problem finding a Droid that meets all your needs? Maybe you're jsut a stormtrooper and you don't know it.

Via Dump A Day

The Last Generation

No matter how cool you think you are, your parents are always there to embarass you.

Via Dump A Day

In A Battle of Born Losers, No One Can Really Win

My guess is the Red Shirts would have a heart attack or contract a fatal disease before anyone actually gets shot.

Via 9Gag

Ohms Are Futile?

Just kidding, I just don't want to spell this one out for you.

Via Humour Spot

Evil Things Are Everywhere

People sometimes ask me why I always stay inside all the time. While many people assume it's because I'm lazy, it's really because I've read enough books to know better than to go outside.

Via Dump A Day

Bottles or Pots, They Must All Be Smashed

Hey, it's still better than sitting around chopping grass with the greatest sword in all of existence. 

Via Dorkly

Gee, I Wonder If That's A Geek's Car

If you're going to get a personalized license plate, you might as well make it a clever one.

Via Snacktastical Things

Everyone Needs to Be Comfortable Sometimes

After a long day of exterminating, there's nothing better than a relaxing night at home with your Snuggie.

Via But First This

It's Tough to Be This Dapper

DeviantArt user lisacub shows us the other favorite hobby of off-duty Daleks, dishing out drugged Darjeeling.

The Problem With Religion

Sure, you may have faith, but you don't really know what's going to happen when you disappear. You might just be about to get smashed by a fat plumber.

Via Dorkly

Gaming Educates Us For the Future

Remember, everything you do in life contributes to some useful skills later on.

Via The Meta Picture

Being A Geek Doesn't Mean Sacrificing Glamor

And what a great role model we have when it comes to maintaining lucious, long locks.

Via Redditor dyls33

Finally, A Test

So how many of these geek icons can you recognize?

Via Doghouse Diaries

Keep on geeking on kids, we'll have more Great Pics of the Week next week.

Bruce Wayne, billion dollar playboy who was recently declared Least Likely Man On Earth To Be Batman (Of The Year) by Time magazine, is at it again. He’s teamed with a gaming storefront known as the Humble Bundle to sell games largely focused on Batman for no specific reason. The proceeds of a pay-what-you-want bundle that includes that likes of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City will go toward a sprawling tunnel-based weapons facility beneath Gotham charities and game developers.

(more…)

1987. Video Link, Amazon Link. [dedicated to Jason Weisberger]

We feature plenty of cosplay on this site, but most of it is photographed at conventions or specially sourced out locations suited to the character being portrayed. But what looks totally normal in a giant geek gathering, forest or castle looks utterly bizarro in the cosplayer's actual home. 

And that's precisely what makes the Just the Two of Us photo series by Klaus Pitchler so brilliant and striking. The combination of something so mundane and boring with something so beautiful and outlandish makes for a stunning contrast that you simply can't look away -nor would you want to.

Via This Is Colossal

If you’re a smoker, you probably frequently wonder about how your habit could be affecting your appearance. Just how much older are all those ciggies making you look? This photographic study of identical twins with different smoking histories provides a chilling answer. More »

(YouTube link)

With the sequel Thor: The Dark World opening November 8th, it's about time the original Thor got the Honest Trailer treatment. I had the same reaction as Screen Junkies, but I must admit that the eye candy alone made the movie worth my time to watch on home video. The few comedy scenes were the best part of the film. I quickly gave up trying to keep the mythology straight. -via Uproxx

Q4nobody on B3ta has come up with the maship I'm looking for: Father Ted meets Star Wars, AKA "Father Jedi."

# "For the last time Dougal, the droids out there are far, far away"