Mrdesplaines

A trombonist who couldn't hold back a sneeze during a church orchestra performance just let it fly directly into his instrument, producing one of the strangest sounds ever heard in classical music.

Read more...

While the weather may not be looking and feeling like spring for most of us out there, Nike is already ready for the warm, bright colors to come with their own addition of pop. An eye-catcher to say the least, this Vibrant Yellow edition of the Nike Air Max 1 comes with a bright lemon yellow upper that is accented with mesh around the toe and collar, giving it a look as lightweight as any, while a minty green liner and hits of black help to keep things balanced. A look down into the hardware will reveal a matching Air unit as well as a set of yellow laces to finish off the design. These are sure to stand out on the shelves when they hit Nike retailers beginning March 25, although atmos already has them up for pre-order online.

Release Date: March 25, 2014 (Tuesday)

Read the rest of Nike Air Max 1 FB – Vibrant Yellow

---

© pmallory for FreshnessMag, 2014. | Permalink | No comment | Follow us: Facebook | Twitter
Post tags: Nike, Nike Air Max 1

The post Nike Air Max 1 FB – Vibrant Yellow appeared first on FreshnessMag.

Andrei Linde, one of the founding fathers of cosmological inflation, answers the door to the news that his theory appears to have been confirmed.

» E-Mail This

Five of Gretchen Hoey‘s six basset hounds file out one-by-one from an igloo-style doghouse in “clown car style“. What makes this all the more remarkable is, that although basset hounds are short, they are not small dogs and can weigh up to 75 pounds.

via Joanne Casey, Blame It On The Voices

“That’s kind of freaky right there.”

In this slow-motion video from SciFactsful, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about the person he considers to be the greatest physicist in history, Isaac Newton.

via reddit

The ability to weave through traffic jams makes cycling the perfect mode of transport ion for city dwellers. But such popularity comes at a cost as well, with car-bike incidents increasing steadily over the last few years, especially in populated urban areas like New York City and San Francisco. To address this issue and to promote a safer atmosphere for cycling, MISSION BICYCLE COMPANY created the “Lumen” Reflective Bikes line. While there are reflective tapes, belts and vests to help drivers see cyclists at night or in low visibility areas. They are inadequate or described as a “2D solutions to a 3D problem” by the folks from MISSION since those reflective materials were made with flat surfaces in mind. However, with help from Halo Coatings, MISSION created a powder coating reflective paint process that covers all the nooks and crannies on a bike frame. Plus, every bike is put together to specification by hand with a 50-year quality guarantee by MISSION.

Available in three models, one single-speed and two geared designs, all made from hand-welded 4130 double-butted chromoly steel frame, the “Lumen” Reflective Bikes by MISSION BICYCLE COMPANY are available now as its latest KICKSTARTER project with the goal to raise $15,000 USD in the next 29 days. Please visit MISSION’s KICKSTARTER page for more information.

Read the rest of MISSION BICYCLE COMPANY – “Lumen” Reflective Bikes

---

© Poe for FreshnessMag, 2014. | Permalink | No comment | Follow us: Facebook | Twitter
Post tags:

The post MISSION BICYCLE COMPANY – “Lumen” Reflective Bikes appeared first on FreshnessMag.

Who knew a wolf would like belly rubs so much!

Photographer Shelby Bower was outside at a wolf education facility in Cocolalla, Idaho when she noticed Maiah, a small wolf who wanted a little attention. Shelby was surprised to discover out how much a Maiah loved getting a belly rub.

images via That Wandering Lone Wolf

via That Wandering Lone Wolf, Little Animal Gifs, Daily Picks and Flicks

Object Élevé is a clever, semi-suspended staircase that also serves as storage and work space. It uses a “samba stair” arrangement—alternating left and right steps—to take up less floorspace. Object Élevé was designed by Dutch design firm Studio Mieke Meijer and was commissioned by Just Haasnoot.

photos via Studio Mieke Meijer

via Dezeen, My Modern Metropolis

A tiny little lamb has something to say and isn’t afraid to say it. Baa!

Josh Ellingson made a scarier, slowed-down version of the lamb.

via Nothing To Do With Arbroath

A woman who claimed she had the devil inside her drove a car through the doors of a church, then stabbed her husband in the chest when he showed up to check on her. She said God told her to do it.

Read more...

Egg Minder, created by Rafael Hwang, from Quirky is an egg tray that wirelessly connects to smartphones via app that keeps track of how many eggs it is holding and how long each individual egg has been in it. When opened, Egg Minder blinks an LED light next to the egg that’s been in it the longest, and goes to the next longest when that egg is removed. Egg Minder is currently available for purchase at Quirky.

via The World’s Best Ever

Artist Theo Jansen has created several 3D printed models of his famous walking sculptures called Strandbeests. There are currently four different models and two alternate propeller attachments for added Strandbeest goodness. Available over at Shapeways.

Vincent Adoxo and Steve Bliss have created a series of hypnotic music videos for musician Clark of Warp Records that uses nothing but an oscilloscope, an electronic instrument that can observe varying signal voltages, to create the video’s imagery.

In the music videos for both “Riff Through The Fog” and “Superscope” by Clark, the oscilloscope is manipulated to observe stereo audio signals which are then filmed in a single shot without the use of video editing or video effects. More about the process is available on Adoxo’s website.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Mario Wienerroither recently stripped all of the sweet-sounding music from of the music video for “The Hardest Button to Button” by The White Stripes. He then dubbed over the video with awkward drum, guitar, and vocal sounds. We previously wrote about Mario’s musicless music videos for “Firestarter” by The Prodigy and “Virtual Insanity” by Jamiroquai.

Here is the original music video for comparison:

videos via Mario Wienerroither, whitestripes

We start the day with some good news. Finally a stupid prank has gone terribly wrong for the prankster.

“I’m 66 and I saved every one of my birthday cakes. Why? Because I wanted to crush them!”

Omaze is holding a charity auction for After-School All-Stars, a program that helps provide kids with health and leadership education. One lucky donator, and a guest of their choice, will get to fly out to Los Angeles, ride with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his giant Sherman tank, and crush things. In his video “Will it Crush?,” Arnold does a great job of showing off the true crushing power of his tank.

You and a friend will get to ride shotgun with Arnold in his Sherman tank. Yes, Arnold has a tank. Yes, this is your chance to ride in it. Not only that, but you’ll also get to use the tank to crush something. And if you’re into working out, you can lift together on it too. There’s a high probability that this will be the best day of your life. Cigars included.

This idea came from reddit, so I want to give credit where credit is due. Specifically, it came from “ipeeinyourshower” who has better taste in video ideas for charity than usernames.

via reddit

The Velveteria, the world's largest repository of velvet paintings, became something of a counterculture tourist attraction when it opened in Portland in 2005. The museum, which has relocated to Los Angeles, celebrates a garish aesthetic of bright paint on dark velvet that is as synonymous with 60s-era rebellion as Easy Rider and weed.

The populist appeal of this cheap art form—with subjects that range from Captain Kirk and John F. Kennedy to Jesus and Timothy Leary—continues to inspire those who live outside the bounds of "good taste," and the Velveteria is one of the few places dedicated to this pop phenomenon.

Owners and operators Caren Anderson and Carl Baldwin created their shrine to the art form as a means of combating what they saw as the conformity of the Pacific Northwest.

Carl, a Los Angeles native and gangly jumble of hippie profundity, said he felt stifled by things that a different type of person might find charming about Portland.

"Nobody gets up and does anything before two in the afternoon. So it’s very frustrating if you’re a Californian, you know, upsetter or go-getter, trendsetter, revolutionary, outlaw, whatever the hell we are. There’s kind of that spirit in Portland, but it’s very dull and muted," he said during my recent visit to the new Los Angeles location.

From left: Store clerk Jaclyn Baird, Carl Baldwin, Caren Anderson

Finally sick of the Portland scene, Carl and Caren packed up six trucks full of paintings, drove everything down to California, and spent four years preparing to open their new location, in Chinatown, which has been up and running since December.

Before we could begin my tour, Carl had to change into a very noticeable, very snug pair of red pants he purchased from a Palm Springs thrift store so that I could get the full experience of his monument to kitsch. The museum is divided into discrete sections that include a Kennedy shrine, a Black Power area, and the requisite naked-lady room.

VICE: I assume all six trucks worth of paintings are not in here?
Caren Anderson: There are about 500 paintings here. We have about 2,000 in total. It’s insane.

There’s something more natural about it because it’s not high art, because it’s not lofty and unapproachable or inaccessible. It’s right there, and anyone can have this stuff.
Caren: It’s really poignant, you’ll see.
Carl Baldwin: This is our newest section. We call it the California Kings and Queens, the people that framed our mentality here in California and continue to do so today. We have Dallas Raines from Channel 7 with his Live Mega Doppler 7000.

Excellent. 
Carl: And we have Harvey Levin from TMZ and Sam Rubin from Channel 5.

I hopefully one day will make it up on this wall. If I’m lucky.
Caren: If you get on velvet, it’s a big deal.

So I’m sure that there's a lot of Kennedy velvets. What is the market for a Kennedy velvet? Specifically an old one from the 1960s?
Caren: The problem is, there is too much of a market. He was done a lot in velvet because he died tragically. People that die tragically, like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, they get on velvet. 
Caren: And also Martin Luther King and Malcolm X got on velvet a lot.
Carl: So there’s a lot of the Black Power culture of the 60s. Like the Black Panthers. 

Any Kanye?
Carl: Haven’t seen Kanye, haven’t seen him yet.
Caren: You know it’s funny what gets on velvet. These guys who produce the stuff in Mexico figure out what’s going to sell.
Carl: You had to be very compelling and intelligent to get on velvet too. It had to be somebody who was compelling enough to make a difference that people noticed.

It seems that the figure had to be in some way countercultural or tragic.
Carl: Well, it was underground art that the younger people were buying, and the older people just did not like this stuff. Like Caren's parents, they hated it.
Caren: I couldn’t have a Hendrix poster in my bedroom. I wanted one so bad. I mean, I had my little record player quietly playing Bob Dylan.
Carl: A strong Black man’s the most scary thing in America.

Why are there so many velvets depicting the Vietnam War?
Carl: Soldiers in Vietnam and Korea would buy these paintings that described army life or life in the war, the miseries of it, backed on balsa wood, and they’d send them back to their parents or their wives.

So were there people making them in Southeast Asia?
Carl: They'd get these painted in the Philippines or Korea, roll them up, put them in their duffel bags, and bring them back home from the war. You’ll see in the naked-lady room that they often painted the Playboy centerfolds and brought those home too. Young men in their late teens and early 20s, they're buying naked ladies. 

I imagine there isn't a large market for Nixon paintings.
Caren: You know, we found that in Tijuana and we said that we got to get it. It was a one-time commitment.
Carl: We found Nixon. We found Reagan. We found the Hale-Bopp cult leader, Marhsall Applewhite, and Jack Kevorkian all together.

That should be its own section.
Carl: That’s a foursome if you’ve ever had one, you know. 

OK, what's this?
Carl: This is our unicorn birthing center, featuring the unicorn comb-over and various versions of unicorns and their frolicking ways.

And is this the infamous naked-lady room. I've got to check it out, just for, you know, research purposes.
Caren: Sure, just like you read the articles, right?

So is this maybe one of the more popular styles?
Carl: This is a show-stopping room, heart-stopping room, and people come out happy. I just kind of leave them in here.
Caren: Usually we're out in the front. We used to be able to see them watch it, but you know we like to let them have their private time and look at them.

Oh, the black-light room. I hope I don’t have any stains on my clothes.
Carl: Yeah, see how your detergent’s doing. See how your dentist is doing too.

I’m not opening my mouth.
Carl: The devils are great on black light; they really pop out. Everything just comes to life.

We made our way back into the lobby and said our goodbyes.

It’s interesting that it runs the gamut from stuff like dogs playing poker to something as bleak as a soldier shooting heroin.
Carl: Well, the whole experience, human experience, is on velvet, and that’s what makes it so compelling to us and, really, the greatest art in the world.
Caren: We’ve had visitors from all over the world, and they’re like, "You know, I’ve never seen anything like it."
Carl: We’ve had blind people come in.

They touch them?
Carl: They get to feel the paintings and, you know, really have a good time. We had a guy who came in from Japan, didn’t speak a word of English, but all of a sudden we started talking about stuff. And then we had paintings of wrestlers, so all the sudden we’re talking about wrestling.
Caren: Gesticulating, yeah.
Carl: Hulk Hogan brought us together.

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter.

News has emerged that Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation could be a mere vanity project. Have you ever? Can you even? (No, you can't. You either already tweeted or are just about to tweet, "I can't with this," about this.) We all can collectively gasp while secretly saying, "Yaaaaaas," in our heads regarding Gaga's latest endeavor in hot messery.

Read more...

Twitter user @Morikuma_Works, whose profile says they are an engineer at a company in Japan, posted two images of the video game Super Mario Bros. displayed across four computer monitors. Specifically, @Morikuma_Works posted a picture of both the levels World 1-1 and World 1-2. It’s unclear whether these are simply wallpapers or the actual game hacked to run across four monitors.

images via @Morikuma_Works

via Kotaku

Founded by legendary musician Neil Young, PonoMusic is a company that provides both a service and device that are specifically designed to bring the closest resolution to the original master recording of music to the listener. In order to build out this service and device, which they are calling the PonoPlayer, the company has launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

The campaign makes it very clear that this is not a new audio format. Instead, PonoMusic wants to provide “an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers” in much the same way as other music stores, like Apple’s iTunes. The store providing the music will use the FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format, but the PonoPlayer will be able to play many different formats. In addition, the PonoPlayer includes two audio jacks — one for headphones, and one for stereo equipment.

On the “low end” of higher resolution music (CD lossless, 44.1kHz/16 bit), PonoMusic files have about 6 times more musical information than a typical mp3. With ultra-high resolution recordings (192kHz/24 bit), the difference between a PonoMusic digital file and an mp3 is about 30 times more data from which your player reconstructs the “song”.

"It was the craziest thing," said Robin Sandusky, 31, who before yesterday afternoon used to be a person like you who never ate a salad with a lizard head in it. "After a few bites, I look down at my fork, and think, 'Oh, is that a piece of asparagus?' And then I saw that it had eyes, and an arm."

Read more...

The Turkish football game between Fenerbahce and Trabzanspor didn't end well. A certain section of the Trabzanspor crowd wanted to liven up the place and started with the fireworks. Pretty pictures.

The back patches of some of the members of the Neverlanders Social Club. When someone is accepted into the group, he or she picks a Disney character that represents his or her personality and receives a corresponding patch. Photos by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

I'm standing in front of Space Mountain worrrying I won't be able to find the Neverlanders Social Club. It’s an ordinary Sunday in Disneyland in November—sunny and beautiful in that Californian way and packed to the gills with tourists—and I’m concerned I’ll miss them in all the hubbub. They told me they'd be decked out in their Disney gear, but a lot of people here are wearing park-themed merchandise. Then I see them coming and realize there was no way I could have missed them.

There are more than 30 Neverlanders moving toward me as a pack, cutting a path through the crowd. They’re wearing handmade mouse ears and hats, and many of them are covered in tattoos—they look like one of the minor gangs from The Warriors, or some cult in a postapocalyptic wasteland where Mickey Mouse is worshiped as a deity. Each member has a patch of a character that represents his or her personality—the 30-something couple who founded the club, Angel and Cindy Mendoza, are Donald and Daisy Duck.

Everyone is staring as I walk with them to It’s a Small World, a boat ride at the tip of Fantasyland. As we round the Matterhorn Bobsleds, “regular” park-goers snap photos of the Neverlanders as if they’re celebrities. People point; parents tell their children to take note; jaws drop. Angel says with a shrug that they’re used to this commotion by now. When you’re the biggest Disneyland fans in the world and wear that love on your sleeve—literally—you’re bound to get some odd looks.

From left to right: Neverlanders Leah, Taylor, Angel, and Jessie

Today is a special day for the Neverlanders, because they’re going to invite two new people to join their club. Membership is exclusive, and the application process involves months of hanging out with the Mendozas and the other 50-plus members at the park. They have to determine that the newbies will be a good fit and that they're devoted enough to Disney—which, as you can imagine, is a pretty tall order.

Sara and Taylor, the young couple, have passed the vetting process and, Cindy whispers to me, will be “proposed to” at the Mad Hatter Tea Party later that night. The couple doesn’t know this yet, and they’re quieter than the rest of the crew, clearly on their best behavior in hopes of getting a vest with a big back patch, which will mark their official induction into the Neverlanders.

But before the serious business of accepting new members, they do what they do twice a month as a group and dozens of other times as individuals: enjoy Disneyland. I sit between Angel and Cindy in an It’s a Small World boat, and as the ubiquitous song blasts at us from all sides in who knows how many different languages, they tell me how much they love Disneyland and, mostly, how much they love Walt Disney.

Angel tells me that Walt built something anyone, no matter his or her age, can enjoy—it’s a place where he can let his imagination run free. Walt once said, “We believed in our idea—a family park where parents and children could have fun—together,” and the Neverlanders believe in Disneyland's egalitarianism too, no matter how many odd looks they get. Angel says he aspires to be like Walt himself—an amazing businessman and a great husband and father. Going to Disneyland means Angel can make memories that he will replay in his mind forever. To some the park may seem expensive or crowded or cheesy or corporate, but for social clubbers it really is the happiest place on Earth.

A tattoo of Walt Disney on a Neverlander's leg

There have been die-hard Disney obsessives for decades, people who compulsively collect pins, memorize trivia, form online communities, and attend the D23 expo, the annual convention for fans. But the phenomenon of Disneyland social clubs—groups of superfans who organize frequent trips to the park and think of it as their second home—is relatively new.

The Mendozas say that the Neverlanders, which they formed in 2012, were the first-ever social club. At that time they were already taking their two young daughters to the park multiple times a week—a luxury they could afford thanks to Disneyland’s Annual Passholder program, which gives steep discounts to Southern Californians who want to visit the park many times a year. (Angel, a manager at a Toys"R"Us, told me he’s gone to the park nine days in a row before.) Their inspiration came when they were listening to a fan podcast devoted to Disneyland that mentioned a public outcry in response to a new monthly payment plan Disney had announced. The program would make it easier for low-income people to afford the passes and thus possibly bring "unsavory" people to the park.

“They spoke about tattooed people, younger people,” Angel said. “It hit the wrong chord with us, because we are payment-plan users and tattooed. Disneyland was created to provide entertainment for anyone who wanted it, no matter class, race, financial status, political party, or religion. So we talked about bringing strangers through social networking together, with a common interest in and love for the park, Walt, and all things Disney.”

The Neverlanders

They soon created their matching denim vests and began connecting with other regulars, via Instagram. Very quickly other people wanted to join, and the Mendozas developed a system for bringing in new Neverlanders. The club now looks for people who, like them, are active park-goers who post often to Instagram and other social-media platforms. Current members communicate with the wannabes online for a while, invite the ones they like to hang out with them at Disneyland, and give the lucky few who are accepted a Neverlanders vest. This system might seem overbearing to outsiders, but the club is serious about its love for Disney. Neverlanders follow a member-created itinerary on the days they roam the park together and are sticklers for following the rules, so making sure new members measure up is paramount. (So far, they haven’t kicked anyone out, but they would if they had to.)

The strict application process actually helped fuel the growth of other social clubs. The Main Street Elite, whose members dress similarly to the Neverlanders and espouse a similar philosophy, was formed by Michael Stout, a 25-year-old who thought the Neverlanders were too exclusive. Other social clubs of various sizes and seriousness include the Wonderlanders, Black Death Crew, Pix Pack, Jungle Cruisers, and the Hitchhikers. All in all, there are more than 90 social clubs, ranging from a small family of four to a group with over 100 people.

The Neverlanders walk down Main Street, USA, in Disneyland.

Not everyone loves that there are a bunch of mostly young, mostly tattooed fans roaming Disneyland, covered in patches and buttons. A cast member who has worked at the park for more than a decade told me that he isn’t a fan of the social clubs and doesn’t understand the need to represent one’s fandom in such an exclusive and intrusive way. He said he and his coworkers think the Mendozas and others like them are living out a fantasy meant for kids, and in his view the clubbers' infatuation with the park can come off as creepy—many park guests have asked if the social clubs are gangs, and parents often wonder if they should be worried.

“I know for a fact that security keeps a close eye on them, and I think they should treat them [as having a] gang mentality, since they run in huge packs,” he said, adding that Disneyland often keeps plainclothes security officers near the social clubs.

A recent long piece in OC Weekly (which was being reported and written while I was working on this story) contained allegations from a frequent park visitor that some of the gangs jump the lines and smoke weed before going on the rides. It also noted that some Disney fans who aren’t part of an official social club have started copying the crews’ look without adhering to the same code of good clean fun. “Thanks in part to the unrestricted founding of new clubs, some Disney-goers began wearing vests while adhering to much less stringent codes of conduct and embarrassing the movement in the process,” wrote Charles Lam.

There are also Disney fans who hate the clubs—either because of their alleged bad behavior or for complex, internet-beef-related reasons—and often troll and insult them on social media. In September, an anti–social club Twitter account called WigWagsSC started a rumor that a couple of crews had gotten into a brawl at Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port, a restaurant in the Tomorrowland section of the park.

“Our friends in Disney security shared an interesting story with us about two rival Disneyland social clubs that will remain unnamed. Turns out these two clubs had a fight, yes a real fight, over whose turf a specific location belonged to,” the account said over the course of several tweets.

Neverlanders tend to love both tattoos and Disneyland, so Disneyland-themed tattoos are a no-brainer.

The leaders of the social clubs object to stories like this, which they say are untrue, as well as the insinuation that they are anything but perfect park guests.

“There was a rumor that we fought another club. There have been rumors that we wear our vests outside the park, and that people think we are excluding people,” Michael of the Main Street Elite said, dismissing all of those accusations.

The Main Street Elite and the Neverlanders both say they obey the rules of the park and even warn park employees if they see any other guests cutting in line or otherwise acting funny. They claim to see Disneyland as a second home and treat it as such.

In the comments section of the OC Weekly story, a reader claiming to be a former Disneyland cast member defended the groups as well. “Many of these social club goers were the nicest guests I ever had interactions with,” the commenter wrote. “[They] always made a point to stop and say hello to ask how my shift was going so far, or to just talk about anything Disney. Yes, their ‘look’ is unconventional for Disneyland, but their love of Disneyland is their best quality. Don't let the negative actions of a few social club members skew your view of all social club members.”

When I asked Angel about conflicts between social clubs, he carefully told me that there had never been any issues like those that the WigWagsSC tweets described. He reminded me that the clubs are made up of intense Disney fans who are focused more on having fun in the park than on arguing with each other. He said he has personally tried to get to know every social club leader and form bonds with them, which makes sense—if your hobby is covering yourself in symbols that express loyalty to fictional characters created by a giant media company and strutting around an amusement park, you probably have a lot in common with the people who do the same thing.

A pin worn by a Neverlander

Though some park employees may grouse in private about the crazily costumed fans, Disneyland officials seem to approve of the social clubs publicly.

“We are fortunate to have guests who share such a strong affinity for Disneyland Resort,” said Disneyland spokesperson Kevin Rafferty Jr., who said the park was aware of the groups.

Michael said that the social clubs participate in Disneyland charity work like the CHOC Walk in the Park and help keep the park clean by picking up trash. Jessica Teague, the 22-year-old founder of Walt’s Wonderers, a club for out-of-state fans, told me she loves participating in do-good Disney events as a social clubber.

“[Many] clubs have created bonds in and out of Disneyland,” she said. “We also have come together to try and help the communities around Anaheim—we most recently raised money for Toys for Tots.”

After spending time with the Neverlanders, I’ve begun to see the criticism of the social clubs as misguided, if not outright mean-spirited. Their obsession with an amusement park is strange, their outfits are outlandish, and the amount of time they must devote to crafting their vests boggles the mind. But the bonds between them are real. Writing about the process of being initiated into the club on the Neverlander blog, new member Sara said, “While my whole journey was long, it was never just about becoming part of a club. It was gaining friendships that I know I’ll cherish forever and gaining the courage to be myself.” That might be a little corny, but so are a lot of Disney movies—that doesn’t make them any less powerful.

The social clubs aren’t childish, either, despite their sometimes childlike glee. Though they love all things Disney and especially the company’s founder, their admiration is tempered by an understanding of his humanity. Walt, like his park, isn’t perfect, but his ideals are something to work toward.

“He drank, and he smoked, and he loved his family too,” Michael said. "He’s a real man who built an empire, and it’s something we strive for and look up to. For us [going to Disneyland] is all about getting there and letting go.”

Crissy Van Meter is the founder of fivequarterly.org. Follow her on Twitter.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines FL370 is strange to say the least. Can something just disappear into thin air without any one ever finding a trace? Who knows, but this whole tragedy is keeping certain busy people. People like DAHBOO77. He discovered that Flightradar24 changed the flight path of Flight 370 after it went missing. The reason why is still unknown. As a bonus for the tin hat brigade we've include two other videos to do with the mystery of Flight 370. If you want to help you can now join the virtual search party and cast your eyes over 3200 square kilometres of satellite images thanks to TomNod.

You couldn’t even skateboard to a Blockbuster without getting nuked.

In this short video from Mashable, actor Kevin Bacon attempts to explain what the 1980s were like to Millennials at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. For example, he notes that they will never know the comfort of parachute pants.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Thoughts?

... Nic Cage would look pretty much the same.

Read more...

"Are you in yet?"

Jackie Jones, the 88-year-old amazing one-woman band had been a regular fixture for over 15 years at the Alemany Farmers Market in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Jackie is easily recognized by her washboard guitar and her wooden tap dancing cat, makes her living by playing jazz tunes from the 1920′s. Unfortunately, Jackie suffered an injury that has kept her from earning any money for the past year so some of Jackie’s Bernal Heights neighbors have launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to help Jackie get back to work.

Last year, Jackie took a terrible fall in her home, breaking her foot and fracturing bones in both of her legs…Given that Jackie relied financially on the donations she received while playing music, she is having trouble paying her medical expenses that are beyond what Medicare covers. Jackie has wonderful friends who bring her groceries and get her to doctor appointments, but she needs your help to get back up on her feet (literally). $5,000 will cover the cost of her medical expenses for the next year (although we’re hoping she’ll heal sooner!) and relieve her of the stress that comes with living from social security check to social security check

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

A self-described political artist has 3D-printed a butt plug in the shape of Russian president Vladimir Putin's head and torso. And much like the real Putin, it's not necessarily something you want invading your, er, sovereign territory.

Read more...