Win a date with Alison Brie

by Amy Breen

For those of you out there who are enamoured with Trudy from Mad Men, or maybe Annie from Community — or both! — you can rejoice in the fact that you could win a date with Alison Brie, the amazing actress that plays both characters.

All proceeds go to the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, which supports women in film. Bidding has already reached $2,000, and you should probably live in Los Angeles, but it’s for a good cause, so if there are any southern Cali readers out there who have lots of disposable income, you should go for it!

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I actually kind of liked this

by Amy Breen

Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake are pretty damn white, but this was still good. And I did hear some Slim Shady and Beatie Boys in there.

(via)

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2,000 of years of human political history, in one YouTube video

by Grant Hamilton

Let’s take a look at the political boundaries of human culture and how they have evolved, shall we?

What I find interesting is how tiny the early political groupings are. Then, boom! Persia. And from there, bigger is better.

Note: I am not a historian, so cannot judge the accuracy of this map. I can, obviously, point out that it is pretty centred in so-called “Classic” history. North and South America are completely ignored (I’d love to see a similar video for the Aztec/Mayan world) and Africa seems duller than I’m sure it was.

(from ComingAnarchy.com)

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Curvy escalator looks like the future

by Grant Hamilton

The only reason that escalators can’t curve is because the steps are square. Round ‘em off, and those curves can happen. Yes, please!

I guess the problem is that the handrails would either move at different speeds (depending on whether they were on the inside or the outside of the curves) but that could be solved by using segmented handrails that expand and contract …. or just by using smooth metal that doesn’t move.

Please install a spiral escalator somewhere! (NOT Dubai!)

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Realistic lottery simulator

by Grant Hamilton

Like to play the lottery? Try the new “Incredibly Depressing Lottery Simulator” at Cockeyed.com.

Play here.

It simulates the Mega Millions lottery, which uses slightly different rules than the Lotto 6/49 that I’m used to, but I’m sure the chances of winning aren’t that different.

I picked five numbers, and let it run as if I were playing those same numbers twice a week for the rest of my natural life. It cost me $10,400 and I won back just over $600 of that.

Woo-hoo?

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Star Trek pizza cutter makes me drool in two separate ways

by Grant Hamilton

It’s the NCC-1701. But it’s a pizza cutter. It’s like geek Nirvana. For a certain kind of geek.

It’s $25 from Thinkgeek, which is on the reasonable side for a piece of cool Star Trek-ery. But is pretty darn expensive for a pizza cutter.

I mean, really, how often do you use that tool? Not when you order, because restaurant pizza comes presliced.

And if you really need to cut up a home-made pizza, my suggestion is to use that pair of kitchen scissors that is sitting in your knife block. Seriously — way easier than a pizza cutter.

But you should still buy this for the kitsch.

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Look out Google! This is EZ Search

by Grant Hamilton

(Thanks, Coudal!)

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Darth Vader is surprised

by Grant Hamilton

You’ve seen surprised kitty — now see surprised Vader!

The cute is strong in this one.

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Experimental video about time distortions

by Grant Hamilton

I think the top of the frame starts out slower than the bottom of the frame, and then catches up, causing the model’s body to get all warped, but then eventually to come back together.

Trippy!

Also, if you want people to watch your weirdo tech-art project, put the girl in panties. This video has over a million views!

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What if cartoonists were also members of the Tea Party?

by Grant Hamilton

The Boston Globe has a huge gallery of classic comic strips — reimagined by Ward Sutton as if they had been drawn by a Tea Partier named Joe Smith. I guess Sutton didn’t want his real name on these strips?

Above are three of my faves, but there’s about 20 of them here. I also love their rationale:

The newspaper comics page: some find it to be innocuous, even at times irrelevant. But there’s a growing concern among a certain segment of the country that the comics page is out of step with mainstream values, if not an outright cesspool of treasonous, pinko propaganda.

They offer these strips in the interest of “fairness and balance.”

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What possible emergency would require yodelling?

by Grant Hamilton

Go ahead, push it. I’ll wait.

If you are more “real world” and less “virtual cyber fake world”, you can buy a physical plastic version of this, complete with I’m-sure tinny yodelling, for $12.50 here. Amazing that I’m shilling the tinny plastic version as “less fake.” Unbelievable.

The Emergency Yodel Button even has its own dedicated website, at EmergencyYodel.com, so if the occasion finally does happen to arise, and you are, wonder of wonders, actually sitting at a computer, you can yell to your friends, “Hang on! I know exactly what to do!” and then frantically type “emergency yodel button” into Google or Bing — why not Yahoo!? — and save the day with a perfect yodel.

(Thanks Colin, and Don Juan Oban)

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Life, in the flash of a falling star

by Grant Hamilton

What goes through a meteorite’s mind, as it falls to earth? Is it joy? Fear? A little of both?

Only the mind of Sascha Geddert can tell you.

(from Vimeo, via tdw)

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There are many styles of beer. Here is how they fit together

by Grant Hamilton

Click on the image to see it larger, or, because I know you’re not a cheapskate, why not click over to Pop Chart Lab, where you can buy a big ol’ poster for just $25, and you can mount it in your home office, or rumpus room or on the back of your dorm room door, and you can highlight or something all the beers that you’ve sampled.

Mmmmm, this poster makes me thirsty.

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Cats really can sleep anywhere

by Grant Hamilton

There is something about this video, in which nothing really happens, that is both cute and greatly amusing. Perhaps it’s the incongruity of the orange juice? Neither water nor milk, it’s something no one would make up, if they were making up this video.

But I can vouch for the fact that some cat (mine) do sometimes drink orange juice. For about the first three years of her life, Shadow would try to eat/drink anything that was bright orange, and she liked sweet things like orange juice a fair bit.

She also likes peppermint, and will chew peppermint gum. For a while. Why am I not putting these things on YouTube?

PS. Happy Caturday!

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