Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Scary short story

From the Reddit short horror story thread:
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, "Daddy check for monsters under my bed." I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, "Daddy there’s somebody on my bed."

Monday, July 29, 2013

Half-man, half-shark baseball statuette


"As a tribute to the Washington Nationals outfielder nicknamed "The Shark," Roger Bernadina, the P-Nats will memorialize the fan favorite with a half-man, half-shark figurine dubbed by the Potomac Nationals front office team as 'The Shark-A-rine'."

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Micro horror

Super short horror stories thread at Reddit.  The current top vote getter:
I just saw my reflection blink.

Link roundup

1. "The secret medieval Muslim brotherhood of burglars whose expert toolkit included a candle, a bag of sand, dried beans and a tortoise."

2.  Alexander Guerrero, who recently defected from Cuba, was apparently just signed by the Dodgers for $32 million over 7 years with the expectation that he'll be starting in a month.

3. View of the Earth from Saturn.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Nightmare fuel

"Imagine you’re deep in the Amazon rainforest, and you come across this.. thing. It’s a group of caterpillars, moving in a formation known as a rolling swarm."

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Link roundup

1.  Great article on the creation of Chuck E. Cheese:
"The reason for doing the animals, believe it or not, was not for the kids. It was meant to be a head fake for the parents. Kids are really smart at knowing how to play their parents. and the kids knew that if they said, 'I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese and play the games' the parents would just see themselves spending money. But if they said, 'I want to go see Chuck E. Cheese entertainment -- and it's free,' they'd be good to go,"
He's a rat by accident - - the founder thought he was buying a coyote costume, and then just went with it.

2.  Space walk cut short after astronaut's helmet fills with water.

3. "Faran Tahir was the best Starfleet captain ever"

4.  "The scariest Google Glass hack just got fixed before anyone evil could actually use it, but the details are a little unsettling. Using nothing more than Glass's camera and a malicious QR code, hackers would have been able to steal total control of the device if you so much as looked at the wrong thing."

"In the same way that the detective movie is a fantasy about city life, the spy movie is a fantasy about tourism"

Grantland:
No one is more beautifully adapted to the urban environment than the detective — he knows its secrets, speaks its language, moves freely between its penthouses and dives — and no one is better than the spy at being a tourist... 
To watch Sean Connery in Dr. No, the first Bond film, is to see someone so utterly at ease that he essentially reverses the normal polarity of travel. Instead of being a tourist in Jamaica, he turns everyone around him into a tourist of him.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Heat Vision Dutch figure



NECA's new toy reveals include heat vision Dutch.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Timecrimes, a taut thriller about time travel


Last Man Standing




By Dan Luvisi to promote Last Man Standing: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter

Tokyo Disneyland Jungle Cruise

 New Jungle Cruise coming to Tokyo Disneyland:
In the next version, the Jungle Cruise skipper will have a startling encounter with an animal spirit guardian in the ruins of a lost jungle temple. It will also feature a new soundtrack and special effects – and for the first time at any Jungle Cruise attraction – a permanent after-dark “night-cruise” version that will offer guests a unique take on the jungle adventure.

Mexico travel poster



Mexico travel poster available at Amazon.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Armor tattoo



Armor tattoo by Dmitry Bronya.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

"The owner's strategy: open restaurants in crisis regions"

"The restaurant 'Deutscher Hof' in northern Iraq sells bratwurst, sauerkraut and German beer, much to the delight of soldiers and diplomats. The owner's strategy: open restaurants in crisis regions where duty-bound foreigners are hungry for a taste of home."

Link roundup

1.  Believe it or not, this is part of an argument against culinary schools:
For some of the larger non-profit culinary schools, there seems to be a revolving door sort of arrangement with a lot of the corporate food companies and hotels. Basically, what happens is once they graduate cooking school they get paid anywhere from $75,000 to, say, $100,000 to work at resort like Beaver Creek or Kona Hawaii. Any beautiful place. They're going to put them up, they're going to pay them a lot of money, and they're going to subsidize their housing. And they're going to do that for two years. They'll work in corporate hotel kitchen where they're not going to learn intuition. They're going to have a fun time, absolutely. 
But by the time they're in their third year or so where they should be learning the fundamentals and honing their skills, they're going to want to move on and become a sous chef or whatever. But they're not going to be able to do that at that particular restaurant. More than likely, they're going to come back to the States or a major city and they're going to have two years of experience under their belt, but experience that really taught them not that much. They feel that they have a lot of experience to offer but they really don't.
2.  Spider-tailed viper.

3. "Corruption is so systemic in Zimbabwe, one of Africa’s poorest countries, that a local hospital charges mothers-to-be $5 every time they scream while giving birth."

Custom carousel animals



Tim Racer sells custom carousel animals.

Superior Spider-Man



Spidey by Michael Dialynas.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Sneaking color into Wimbledon



Federer's banned at Wimbledon orange-soled Nikes.

Monday, July 8, 2013

Link roundup

1.  "It seems the Israeli Electric Corp. will offer 'kosher electricity' by 2014."

2.  Starfish have eyes at the end of their arms.

3.  The La Mirada, California high school football team has 20 different uniform combinations, courtesy of Nike.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Korean rhythmic gymnast throws out wild first pitch







"Before the Doosan Bears at Jamsil on July 5th, rhythmic gymnast Shin Soo-ji threw out the first pitch."

Thursday, July 4, 2013

1/6 scale dystopian police officer figures by Foxbox Studio




One sixth scale State of Alarm figures by Foxbox.

Mike Cervenak, who has spent 15 years playing baseball in the minors and overseas

Grantland profiles Mike Cervenak, who has spent 15 years playing baseball in the minors and overseas. Here's one anecdote:
At the end of 2002, the Yankees announced they were moving their Double-A team [from Norwich] to Trenton, New Jersey. Cervenak, who was depreciating as a prospect, was happy to toil somewhere else. "I said to someone at the gym, 'I tell you what: That's the last time this town will see my shadow!' 
"In December," he said, "I wind up getting a call. 'You got Rule 5'd to the Giants.' I'm like, 'Where's their Double-A affiliate?'" In fact, San Francisco had just moved its Double-A team. To Norwich.
And another, on being briefly called up to the Phillies:
A day later, Cervenak got his first major league at-bat, in extra innings with the score tied. He fouled off the first pitch. The second pitch he hit to deep left, all the way to the track. His mom, Eva, was in the stands, and she got so excited that she spit her gum onto Ryan Howard's mom.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Gadsden tee



Gadsden tee at Clean Sheet.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Blurred logo tees


Censored tees.

Link roundup

1.  The US Coast Guard remembers Dodger phenom Yasiel Puig's early failed attempts to flee Cuba for America:
One night, the gravity of the situation depressed Puig. Torres could tell the toll his impending return to Cuba was taking, so he went to his locker and retrieved a pair of tennis balls. He brought them to Puig, along with a Sharpie, and asked him to sign. 
Carlos Torres was the first American to get Yasiel Puig's autograph, looped in perfect cursive with his number for Cienfuegos: "Y Puig 14." 
Almost two weeks after the Vigilant interdicted Puig's boat, it parked just outside of Cuban water space. Cuba was sending a boat to bring the migrants home. The Coasties thanked them for their conversation, their companionship, their attitude, their appreciation – for understanding this wasn't personal but a policy implemented more than half a century earlier, when the world was a different place. Puig and his friends gathered their belongings and walked toward the ladder. For some migrants, it is the last glimpse they’ll ever get of something American. 
"I remember as they were leaving, I said [to Puig], 'Are we going to see you again?' " Hoschak said. “He just smiled."

2.  The Mall of America to double in size.  A $2.5 billion expansion is planned.

3.  "Algae creates a giant green obstacle for Chinese beachgoers."

4.  "This comically large shotgun was once used for hunting ducks."

Link roundup

1.  Advertising:
Sony is shipping its Bravia X9 line of 4K TVs in the UK this week, and it wants to convey the advantages of all those extra pixels. The solution? Advertising that's as finely detailed as the screens themselves. It's putting micro ads on the fingernails and uniform of tennis player Anne Keothavong as she makes her way through Wimbledon, showing how the extra detail pays off.
2.  "For reasons of being incredibly poisonous, expensive, or just involving way too many snails, here are five pigments that have disappeared from art."

3. "Police in Lower Merion Township (the 5th highest-earning community in America) have just accused husband and wife luxury real estate duo Jonathan and Andrea Straub of planting dead mice and snakes in the driveway of their next door neighbor’s $1 million home in an effort to sabotage its sale."

Monday, July 1, 2013

All-black Brazil national team jersey



All-black Brazil national team jersey. "By rule" the team can't even wear it.

The New Mutants



By Brandon Graham.

Nitanny Lion then and now



Old and new Penn State Nittany Lions mascot.

Baseball roundup


Vintage chest protector, apparently from the San Franciso Seals.



Vintage Phillies usher uniforms.



The theme for the Rays' road trip is accidental preppie (this is their manager).



The Pirates comment on a rain delay.