"My father was a squirrel — so I've got my father's hands."

Squirrel hands rule...until Nuts Trio is introduced.

Via MetaFilter

This Is Going To Be Awkward

Oh, Hello There!

At This Is Going To Be Awkward you can feel comfortable -- well, as comfortable as someone like you is constitutionally capable. With one email, you can:

Disapprove of your friends' romantic partners

Hide behind a shroud of pithy quips to attract love/sex

Insult and celebrate co-workers

Tell others you've farted

         We send the emails so you don't have to.

Because having secret feelings isn't just for old people and sex offenders anymore.

Curious? Check out the Link

Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names Poster

Link - Via bookofjoe

Fewer Wrinkles, Less Bullshit: Babies Hit Parliament Hill

Operation Maple takes a lighthearted look at the roster of young NDP Members of Parliament elected earlier this month. I think they'll bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to Ottawa.

Magnolia Then and Now

Frequent contributor, Bruce, sent me this picture of a Toronto magnolia with its planter. I love then and now photos.
He found it at www.jimmyr.com/.

A visit to the Andy Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborce, Slovakia

The origins of Andy Warhol, the king of pop art, take us to Slovakia, where his parents were born.

Via bookofjoe

Singing Bird Pistols

This matching pair of pistols will appeal to those who prefer their firearms golden, bejeweled and musical. These amazing automatons are about two hundred years old, exceedingly rare and were expected to fetch $3 – $5 million for the pair at Christie’s Hong Kong Important Watches sale today.

“To be clear, this is not a watch or clock,” says Aurel Bacs, Christie’s international head of watches. “These are automatons.” A fascination with the mechanics of human and animal movement, which began in the Renaissance, developed in the 19^th century into a movement “to recreate those mechanics ourselves,” he says. These pistols, which date back to roughly 1820, are attributed to the Rochat brothers, Swiss artisans who pioneered the art of mechanical singing birds.

Link – Via Everyday No Days Off

Chinese dog eaters and dog lovers spar over animal rights

The mutts were destined for the dinner table — all 520 of them crammed onto a truck hurtling down a Beijing highway toward awaiting restaurants in northeastern China.Then, fate intervened in the form of a passing driver, an animal lover who spotted the truck and angrily forced it off the road.From there, things began spiraling out of control. News of the confrontation hit the Chinese blogosphere, sending more than 200 animal activists flocking immediately to the highway. Traffic on the road slowed to a standstill. Dozens of police officers were called in. Animal activists, however, kept arriving with reinforcements, carrying water, dog food, even trained veterinarians for a siege that lasted 15 hours.

Read more at The Washington Post. Warning: the slideshow is disturbing.

Colourful Optical Illusion

Believe it or not the blue and the green spirals are the same colour! This optical illusion is from Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s website.
Read more about how it's done at Discover Magazine.
Thanks Bruce!

Blood Spilled In Conflicts Visualized

100 years of world cuisine puts a picture on casualties of world conflict. Nasty, isn't it?
It's a project by Clara Kayser-Bril, Nicolas Kayser-Bril and Marion Kotlarski

Via EveryDayNoDaysOff

Awesome people hanging out together

This blog featuring famous people consorting with other famous people has been all over the web. If you haven't seen it already you'll like it.

Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, 1969

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Ludacris.

Sonny Bono, Cher and Twiggy

Link

Darkness Falls Across The Land: 100 Years of Vincent Price

To celebrate 100th birthday of Vincent Price, Zach Bellissimo drew 100 of his roles on Sticky Notes. 

Via Popped Culture

Streamlined Design

Via everlasting blort

R.I.P. Gil Scott-Heron

"

Edible Forks and Spoons

These are apparently available at Poilane locations, a box of 18 for €6.30 each.

The curry-flavored forks are made from rye flour and parmesan and pair well with hummus or Indian appetizers like mint yogurt or mango chutney. For a charming way to stir espresso, as a garnish for vanilla ice cream or for any number of other creative uses, try the shortbread cookie spoons.

Link -Via Edible Crafts

Horse herpes outbreak forces rodeo queens to ride stick ponies

This headline caught my attention.

"'It's kind of weird, but you can't really help that the disease is going around,' said former queen Savanna Steed. She said the stick horses will test the riders' knowledge of whether they know the routine, rather than letting the horse do all the work."

Read more at ksl.com - Via Clusterflock

Spine corset

More comfortable than Spanx? I wonder.

Spine corset by Alexander McQueen, 1998.

who killed bambi?

Steampunk Cell Phones

These remind me of my big, clunky, heavy Blackberry.

More at mental design: retro de luxe - Via How To Be A Retronaut

Non-pornographic scenes from pornographic movies

Lots of big hair and sweat bands, very reminiscent of Dynasty and Jane Fonda workout tapes.

Boing Boing

The World of 100

If the world were a village of 100 people, what would the composition be? This set of 20 posters is built on statistics about the spread of population around the world under various classifications.

More at Toby Ng Design - Via Fubiz

Sexy Girls Have It Easy

A provocative video though a little lacking in the scientific method department.

vimeo link

Thanks Bruce!

A Complete Guide to Seinfeld's Sneakers

Jerry Seinfeld wore a different pair of sneakers (mostly Nikes) on his TV show each week...

See more of Seinfeld's shoes at this link - Via Kottke

The Secret Lives Of Superheroes

For his series Super Heroes, photographer Gregg Segal followed the men and women who dress up as characters outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood to find out what their far less glamorous, off-duty lives look like.

Via Flavorwire

Homemade Absinthe, Just Like Mama Used To Make

Doesn't this look yummy? Now you can whip up a little of this "green fairy" elixir in the privacy of your own home (and, if you know what's good for you, stay there to drink it). You'll need alcohol and some pantry staples like wormwood, fennel, anise, mint, melissa, chamomile, cumin, angelica and hyssop if you can find it. Then infuse, distill, colour and age. Easy peasy!

Find detailed instructions at English Russia

Via Dangerous Minds

P.S. If you suffer brain damage as a result of imbibing this product don't tell anyone I pointed you to the recipe.

Consumption Dinnerware

 Consumption Dinnerware by artist Leah Piepgras is a 5 piece place setting that is meant to make us aware of the preocesses that occur when we eat. Each dish represents a different part of the digestive tract. If this were my only set of dishes I think I'd lose some weight in a hurry.

Via Good

Aelita Andre, Prodigy of Color

Aelita is only four years old but already has a career that might be the envy of artists 10 times her age. Her work has attracted worldwide attention and her paintings are held in collections in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Read more about Aelita at Agora Art which is hosting an exhibition of her work in June.

‘Virtue of Blue’ Chandelier

Beautiful solar chandelier designed by Dutch artist Jeroen Verhoeven:

Four different breeds of butterflies flutter around a hand-blown glass bulb, collecting the sun' energy by day to power the lamp at night. It's a stunning combination of art and renewable energy all in one amazing chandelier.

Via Inhabitat

Derive This Way

Students Turn Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" Into Calculus Mnemonic - GOOD

Ghanaian Movie Posters

I'm contemplating a road trip to Chicago this summer to see this exhibit.

During the late 1980s a cottage industry developed in Ghana, West Africa, composed of young entrepreneurs who possessed three pieces of property – a TV, a videocassette recorder (VCR), and a portable, gas-powered generator. Armed with these tools, desire and ambition, they set up ramshackle theaters known as “video clubs,” showing movies on the VCR and charging admission. Sometimes, they would even take the show on the road and move from village to village. Yet, stationary or mobile, the common denominator was delighted and noisy audiences, who sat scattered on benches, chairs
and the ground itself.

In order to attract customers and sell tickets, club operators commissioned posters, which were painted on opened-up flour sacks. Yet, it is the imagery, not the canvas, which always succeeds in drawing the viewer into an imaginary, surreal world. As art and advertising, they are wildly successful, and it is the combination of the two which makes these posters so unforgettable.

Via MetaFilter

Birthday Flowers

As I was tossing out some cut flowers that were past their prime I reminded myself to pick some more up later in the day. Turned out I didn't have to - birthday flowers turned up just in time to fill the void!

Nataliya Dmytruk

Nataliya Dmytruk was a sign language interpreter on a state run television station in Ukraine. She became famous on November 24, 2004 when she refused to translate the results of the presidential election provided to her by both the voice announcer and a script because she believed them to be fraudulent.

Instead she signed, “I am addressing everybody who is deaf in Ukraine. Our president is Victor Yushchenko. Do not trust the results of the central election committee. They are all lies. … And I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you. Maybe you will see me again.”

Read more at Futility Closet

A Scientific Illustration Treasure Trove

I spent a lot of time exploring this site. It's beautiful.

See loads of wonderful Scientific Illustrations at this Archive
Via Reality Carnival

Scary Cthulhu Weenie Roaster

Roast My Weenie - Via Archie McPhee

Backview Bollywood

Lovely Flickr set of painted mud-flaps of rickshaws & cycle carts in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.

Link - Via Blort

Nettlecatfish

In this pilot film Nettlecatfish awakes to find that the summer has suddenly turned freezing cold. With help from his young friends Tyack and Verra, they discover the cause of the strange weather and set the seasons straight. I found it totally enchanting. 

Nettlecatfish from Hana Backland on Vimeo.

Seen at Kuriositas

Lladro Atelier's Cities

I have never been a fan of Lladro porcelain figurines - until now. These architecturally inspired pieces are gorgeous. Various pieces, vases (lamps, planters, mirrors and boxes) fit together to form city landscapes. 

See more at If It's Hip, It's Here

Give Or Take

This film raises awareness of the importance of donating blood.

GIVE or TAKE from Umlaut Collective on Vimeo.

Via NOTCOT.ORG

It's That Time Of Year Again

I'll be posting photos of my garden from time to time. It's been a very cold and rainy spring so things have been a bit slow out there.

Four Toronto chefs reimagine the Big Mac combo

The only rule: other than oil and water, no extra ingredients allowed.

The meal above was created by Local Kitchen's Fabio Bondi. 

He made mortadella (an Italian cold cut) out of emulsified patties, lettuce, onions and sweet-and-sour sauce. The buns were toasted and made into crostini (the sesame seeds were mixed with ketchup to resemble mostarda, a fruit and mustard condiment). The nodini (bread knots) were made from fries.

 I think the original Big Mac Combo is the best looking of the bunch.

Link - Via Blog On A Toothpick

Bunuel Martini

Luis Bunuel, the late Spanish surrealist director, made Un Chien Andalou, L'Age D'or, Los Olvidados, The Exterminating Angel,Simon of the Desert, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, Nazarin, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire, etc..
He also made a wicked martini.
The Bunuel Martini in 7 easy steps.

Via