Shiniest by ChocolateRaisinFury

Fantastic beasts such as the Nifflers and Erumpnt tend to have a fetish, which is some activity, object or substance they value greatly and love to indulge in whenever they get the chance. For the Nifflers there's no activity more entertaining or satisfying than stealing shiny stuff, and they will cram their pouches full of every shiny bauble they come across in their journeys. So when Captain Mal had to make an emergency landing in old New York and made the mistake of leaving his bay door open long enough for a Niffler to spot all the shiny stuff he had inside he unknowingly added one sneaky new member to the crew of the Serenity...

Add a touch of fantastic imagination to your geeky wardrobe with this Shiniest t-shirt by ChocolateRaisinFury, it's the adorable way to bring your new favorite movie and old favorite TV show together in the cutest way possible!

Visit ChocolateRaisinFury's Facebook fan page and Instagram, then head over to her NeatoShop for more adorably geeky designs:

Art of the Moon	NOPE	Slumber Party	Laziness Challenge

View more designs by ChocolateRaisinFury | More Movie T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

A few days ago, redditor jr0d7771 posted this picture and gave us a conundrum. There are obviously five young women sitting on the couch. But there are four pairs of legs. The woman in the middle appears to have none. Can you figure it out?

First off, you shouldn't be led by my assumption that it's the middle woman who has no legs. It could be any of them. When you've given up, you can read about the investigation and conclusion at The Concourse.

Rogue One has proven to be just what Star Wars fans needed at the end of this crummy year, and the final version of the film that made it to the big screen seems to have satisfied even the pickiest fans.

Believe it or not 40% of the original film was reshot, which means the original version of the film presented in the trailers may have been quite different than the one released in theaters.

But one thing is for certain- at least 46 shots shown in the trailers were cut, so film editor Vashi Nedomansky created a video essay to show us all the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. (may contain spoilers)

ROGUE ONE - 46 SHOTS NOT IN THE FINAL FILM from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo.

-Via Laughing Squid

Okay, I know, I know, parapsychology is not a science. But science does study claims of psychic abilities. Dr. Joseph B. Rhine was influential in codifying a way to do that.

Since the 1930s, Zener cards, also known as ESP cards, have been used to quantify psychic ability, testing for telepathy and clairvoyance (you might remember them from that scene in 1984’s Ghostbusters, when Venkman tests the “effects of negative reinforcement on ESP”). The cards straddle the intersection of science and the paranormal, pseudoscience and legitimacy. In a lot of ways, that’s a space also occupied by the man who pioneered their use, Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, founder of the Duke Parapsychology Lab.

Rhine’s interest in the paranormal took hold in 1922, when he was a young plant physiologist earning a Ph.D. in botany at the University of Chicago. Rhine and his wife Louisa were both dedicated scientists, but they had questions that simple biological reductionism didn’t seem to answer; Rhine had once thought of joining the ministry, until his wife steered him towards science. And then, in May of that year, they sat in the audience to hear Sir Arthur Conan Doyle make his case for life after death.

While fascinated by the phenomena they observed at Spiritualist seances, they were also scientists who wanted proof. Since there is no way to observe life after death and report on it, Rhine focused on ESP, and developed Zener cards (along with psychologist Dr. Karl Zener) in order to test those powers in a scientific manner. Read the story of Dr. Rhine and his ESP research at Atlas Obscura.    

Dog owners aren't really all that different than cat owners, but they definitely have a different kind of relationship with their pet.

Cats tend to act aloof and treat their humans like house guests, but most dogs will happily follow their human around all day long, watching their human do stuff while seeking attention, approval and a snack.

This pack dynamic makes for a strong bond between dogs and their doggy mommies and daddies, and yet it's hard to describe what it's like to live with a furry friend who sees you as the center of their world.

But illustrator Natalie Marion does a great job of capturing the feeling of being a doggy mom in this comic strip she created for Barkpost because the strip is based on her own experiences with her furry friend:

“By day, I spin plates and manage projects in GTB’s award-winning design studio The Park. By night, I illustrate and document our world.”

See These Charming Illustrations Capture A Day In The Life Of A Dog Mom here

You think you everything there is to know about Darth Vader? There have been tons of publicity about Star Wars' most popular character, who has appeared in seven Star Wars movies so far (and another as a dead icon), but I'll bet there's something in this video that you haven't heard before.

(YouTube link)

I've been following Star Wars since 1977, and even I didn't know about all the shenanigans that went on behind the scenes of the original trilogy. Get the lowdown on Darth Vader right now, in the video and more at Looper.

There's something so satisfying about a great piece of art, but sometimes you just don't want to hang a Van Gogh on your wall. Sometimes you just want to lick it. For those days, there are these Art History lollipops from Etsy seller LIQNYC.

Of course, if you prefer the pop art of comic books over the fine art of the masters, you might prefer these classic comic book designs instead. The shop carries plenty of other designs as well, including creepy eye pops, space designs and even zombies, so whatever you're into, why don't you just lick it already?

In the new movie Why Him? Bryan Cranston doesn't like his daughter's new rich boyfriend. In the parody Why Walt? from Funny or Die, Bryan Cranston is his daughter's boyfriend, Walter White. Contains NSFW language.

(YouTube link)

Cranston plays both parts perfectly, even though he had no idea what he was in for when he did those roles in Breaking Bad and Why Him?  -via Tastefully Offensive

When a 4-year-old goes missing it's crucial to find the child within the first 48 hours, because they know from experience that a young child would have a hard time surviving outdoors that long without help.

So when little Karina Chikitova wandered into a forest in Siberia and got lost her family panicked, and when the hundreds of people searching for her had yet to locate her a week later they began to give up hope.

But Karina was lucky because her dog Kyrachaan had gone with her, and Kyrachaan was able to help Karina stay warm at night and defend her from wolves and bears in the forest until help arrived.

Eleven days after her disappearance Kyrachaan showed up in the village and pointed rescuers in the right direction, and four miles from the village in the tall grass they found Karina. 

Karina had survived by eating berries, and had a few scrapes and bug bites but no major injuries, and the first thing she said when she saw Kyrachaan again- "Why did you leave me?"

Read Dog Protects Girl Lost In Forest For 11 Days here

While you see plenty of lists about the top movies of the year, they aren't much help if you've seen them all. If you are looking for something new and different to watch, you may want to check out some that fell under the radar. That could be because of too little promotion, some bad reviews from critics, or they might not have ever made it to your local theater. Recognize the promotional image above? I didn't, either. It's from the 2016 movie Masterminds.  

This is a comedy that is actually based on a true story. In October 1997, in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the largest cash heists occurred in banking history. The robbers who pulled off the heist weren’t very careful, and they left behind millions of dollars and they were caught on tape. Eventually, the criminals were caught. The has an amazing cast, including Zach Galifianakis, who plays David, the bank worker, and Kristen Wiig, as Kelly, another person who works at the bank.

Read more about Masterminds and four other movies that deserve a second chance at Unreality.

2016 was full of terrible celebrity deaths and ugly politics and most people seem to agree that it was a pretty awful year overall. But not everything was the worst -Distractify collected the best cute animal photos of the year.

While most lists compiling what happened in 2016 show us things we wanna forget about this year, this one is a great reminder of the good things in this world.

Even if 2017 is just as terrible as this past year, bookmarking this list is a good way to cheer yourself up when everything is just plain awful.

Harry Love by Dr.Monekers

Harry knows love is not all you need, because he once had nothing but love on his side and almost died. Instead young master Potter has learned to carry love in his heart, a wand in his pocket and a set of both offensive and defensive spells in his mind, for whatever mystical mayhem old Voldy throws at him. Because love is an important part of life, but only magic spells can save your butt when Voldy comes to town and the Dementors start flying!

Spread some fantasy feels wherever you go with this Harry Love t-shirt by Dr.Monekers, it's the warm and fuzzy way to meet your fellow HP fans and share the fan love!

Visit Dr.Monekers's Facebook fan page, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more wonderfully geeky designs:

Gas Wookiee	Brotherhood Sumi-e	Exterminate	Negan Major League

View more designs by Dr.Monekers | More Movie T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

I may be wrong, but I believe the first-ever regular cast member to die during their time as a regular on a TV series was Joseph Kearns of Dennis the Menace. I used to love watching Dennis the Menace as a kid. The show ran from 1959 to 1962, and Kearns, who played Mr. Wilson, died in 1962. He was replaced by a much lesser talent named Gale Gordon and the series took a serious dive quality-wise.

The death of Joseph Kearns was unmentioned by the show's writers and it wasn't until the death of the great Dan Blocker, who played "Hoss" on the classic western Bonanza, in 1972 that the death of a TV character was mentioned in a show by the writers of the series.

Nowadays, a good majority of the classic and lesser TV shows have dealt with the death of one of the show's characters. Let's take a look at four memorable TV "deaths" (interestingly, three of the four are hilariously funny episodes).

1. The Simpsons: Maude Flanders in "No More Footlongs"

Have you ever had a truly wondrous New Year's Eve celebration? Yes? Too bad, that just means all your other New Year holidays will be compared to it, and will never measure up.

(YouTube link)

The New Year is a holiday based on the calendar and the ideas we have imbued it with. The end of one year and the beginning of another is just the change of one day to another, and there's really no magical quality to it. The secret to having a good New Year is to keep your expectations low. And try not to invite a hangover. This is the latest video from AsapSCIENCE.

(Image Link)

Squirrels don't know about Santa or Christmas or that it's better to give than receive, and they don't get to experience acts of human kindness as often as they should so they can get a bit skittish around people.

(Image Link)

But something tells me the neighborhood squirrels are willing and eager to visit Twitter user @SHESAMERICVN's house on Christmas- because her dad gives out wrapped chestnuts.

(Image Link)

Wrapping little presents for squirrels may seem a bit nutty to some, but to me it seems like the perfect opportunity to shoot a hilarious video for AFV!

-Via I Can Has Cheezburger?

Here's a door that might be a little difficult to get through at times. At least it opens in instead of out! This picture was taken in Germany, and the consensus of commenters is that the stairs were there first, and a room with a door was added to the home. Let's just hope it's a closet or storage room. Can you imagine trying to get out of a bedroom like this in an emergency situation? Or paramedics trying to get in? This is one of a group of remodeling failures from Germany, in a collection at Buzzfeed called The 21 Worst Handymen In The World.

(Image credit: Pfusch am Bau GmbH)

Back in the day adults were stuck playing the same old boring, repetitive and unimaginative board games because there just weren't any alternatives out there.

But game industries have been booming for the last 20+ years and now there are some amazing, captivating and, most importantly, super fun to play games available for those who are tired of spelling words and passing go.

It's sad to see adults so strapped for game options they reach for games like Mouse Trap, Sorry or Trouble, especially when they could be playing amazing games like Pandemic and The Resistance: Avalon, which are similar in spirit but much more fun to play.

In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

The Resistance: Avalon pits the forces of Good and Evil in a battle to control the future of civilization. Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred's unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur's servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.

Solitaire tends to numb your mind after a while, turning the player into a card flipping zombie, but why flip cards mindlessly when you can play Agricola and flip cards with a purpose?

In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

And I think Cards Against Humanity is a brilliantly simple game that can be played forever, provided you keep adding new cards to the set, but at the same time the gameplay can get a bit boring after a while.

So if you and your friends are looking for a more compelling alternative why not give 7 Wonders a try?

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

See 5 Much Better Alternatives To Famous Board Games here (NSFW language)

Ukrainian artist Yuliya Kosata makes felted toys and rugs and whimsical cat caves that will bring a bit of fantasy to your living room. Since they are felted, your cat will enjoy sinking his claws into it as much as hiding inside.

All products are made by hand, with the soul, in order to please you, your children and pets.

See the half-dozen felted cat caves (and other products) Kosata has available at her Etsy shop FeltField. -via Boing Boing

No matter where you live in the US, you can always go to a local liqour store and get a 40 ounce of Colt 45 for $3 or $4, but in Hollywood, you can get the full forty-ounce-in-a-paper-bag experience without all that slumming in a liqour store. And it will only cost you $15. It's just the next step in rich hipster idiots pretending to slum it. 

Read more about the ridiculous concept at LAist

Actress and author Carrie Fisher, best known to the world as Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan (later General Leia Organa), the character she played in four Star Wars movies, has died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center three days after suffering a massive heart attack. Her other movies (she has 90 acting credits at IMDb) include Shampoo, Hannah and Her Sisters, and When Harry Met Sally. She also wrote screenplays and repaired existing screenplays without credit. Fisher was the author of several books, including Postcards From the Edge, Surrender the Pink, and her autobiography The Princess Diarist.

Fisher was also known for a family of prominent relatives. Her parents were Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, she was married to Paul Simon, and her only child is Scream Queens actress Billie Lourd. On her website, Fisher described herself as "actor author mental health advocate." Fisher was 60 years old.   

"She was Princess Leia to the world but a special friend to all of us. We will miss her dearly." -Kathleen Kennedy https://t.co/E96OuqnFQL pic.twitter.com/lr0rm0sRxc

— Star Wars (@starwars) December 27, 2016

Fisher told a story in her book Wishful Drinking that led to the quote she wanted in her obituary:

“Anyway, George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one look at the dress and says, 'You can't wear a bra under that dress.'

So, I say, 'Okay, I'll bite. Why?'

And he says, 'Because... there's no underwear in space.'

I promise you this is true, and he says it with such conviction too! Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere.
Now, George came to my show when it was in Berkeley. He came backstage and explained why you can't wear your brassiere in other galaxies, and I have a sense you will be going to outer space very soon, so here's why you cannot wear your brassiere, per George. So, what happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn't- so you get strangled by your own bra. Now I think that this would make a fantastic obit- so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”

― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

It has been 15 years since the first Harry Potter film came out and those adorable little kids from the films are entirely grown adults now. Geek Girls has a collection of pictures showing the actors as they appeared during the movies and how they look now -and some of the transitions are amazing.

Even nerdy Neville is now a swoonworthy stud and snotty Drako is a sweet-looking, sensitive guy.

See all the photos over at Geek Girls.

There was a time in American history when single women were routinely denied credit cards and loans, no matter how long they had been working and paying their bills. Divorcees and widows also found they had no credit history, because any family financial history belonged to their husband, and disappeared when he did. When did these discriminatory practices happen? In the 19th century? Try 1973.

Billie Jean King had served up Wimbledon gold several times, but when it came to establishing a credit history, she kept hitting the net. The tennis champ couldn’t get her hands on a credit card unless she used the name of her husband, Larry — an unemployed law student she happened to be supporting at the time. Lindy Boggs, who ran for her husband’s congressional seat after his plane disappeared in 1972, faced a similar struggle for credit as a widow.

While women have always been a part of the workforce in varying capacities, it wasn’t until World War II that working middle-class females became a thing. When the bombs stopped dropping, the ladies got laid off en masse to make room for the returning men. But they eventually bounced back, and women have been entering the labor force in increasing numbers ever since, earning livings and contributing to household economies. But just as steadily, through the mid-1970s, they continued to lack access to independent credit or credit histories — a discriminatory truth that left spinsters, divorcées and widows financially vulnerable.

It was Lindy Boggs who slipped "gender" and "marital status" into the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974. The overwhelmingly male US Congress hadn't even considered the plight of working women who had to ask their sons to co-sign for them. Read how that all changed at OZY.                     

Thanos vs Apocalypse by Albertocubatas

They're two sides of the same villainous coin even though they're from different comic universes, and since they're both hell bent on the destruction of Earth humanity should be careful how they handle these evil overlords. But who would win in a fight- Thanos or Apocalypse? On the one hand Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet, and on the other he has nothing but zealousy and hatred. Meanwhile Apocalypse has the end of the world in his freakin' name, and although Thanos is capable of marvelous mayhem Apocalypse has faced the ultimate superheroic forces in the universe and walked away unscathed. So who would win? You decide!

Start geeky arguments wherever you go with this Thanos Vs Apocalypse t-shirt by Albertocubatas, it's twice the villainous fun!

Visit Albertocubatas's Facebook fan page and official website, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more mighty cool designs:

Plants	Little planet	Monkey circle	Fat

View more designs by Albertocubatas | More Comic T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

We learn about different battery sizes when we're kids, which is when I learned it took six D batteries to play cassettes on my boombox for about four hours- and that D batteries were heavy and cost a bundle.

But we're always left with one unanswered question- what happened to the "B" batteries?

(Image Link)

To find out we have to go back to the 1920s, when battery cell sizes were standardized by the government agencies, War Industries Board and American battery manufacturers working to create a uniform product:

In 1924, industry and government representatives met again to figure out a naming system for all those cells and batteries they had just standardized. They decided to base it around the alphabet, dubbing the smallest cells and single-cell batteries “A” and went from there to B, C and D. There was also a "No. 6" battery that was larger than the others and pretty commonly used, so it was grandfathered in without a name change.

As battery technology changed and improved and new sizes of batteries were made, they were added to the naming system. When smaller batteries came along, they were designated AA and AAA. These newer batteries were the right size for the growing consumer electronics industry, so they caught on. C and D batteries also found a niche in medium- and high-drain applications. The mid-size A and B batteries simply didn’t have a market and more or less disappeared in the U.S..

While you typically won’t see either A or B batteries on American store shelves, they’re still out there in the wild. A batteries were used in early-model laptop battery packs and some hobby battery packs. B batteries are still sometimes used in Europe for lanterns and bicycle lamps. According to Energizer, though, their popularity is dwindling there, too, and they might be completely discontinued.

-Via mental_floss

Four cats and two dogs snuggle together peacefully in front of a warm fire. Can life get any better? Well, yes it does. The title of this video is "The end is worth the wait!" because something does happen.

(YouTube link)

The four kittens -Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike- are being fostered for Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue (VOKRA), but they've already learned the important parts of human language. You can see more of these cats and dogs at beanthechiweenie's Instagram gallery.  -via Laughing Squid

We all had an amazing teacher in our lives and while some are just good at making educational concepts click with their students, some connect with their kids through humor and then work to get them to learn something.

Over at Buzzfeed, you can see 23 amazing teachers that certainly made their kids smile -even if they didn't teach them a thing. If you had any funny teachers go ahead and share their stories in the comments. 

So see the whole list here.

Every year we're treated to a bunch of "Best of..." compilations, which are a fun way to watch an entire year's worth of clips in a flash, but none of them can compare to those wacky Japanese TV commercial comps.

That's because Japanese television commercials are the zaniest, craziest and most eye-pleasing ads on the planet, and most of us only get to see them on these year-end compilations.

So close out one of the crappiest years of all time with some super terrific Japanese commercial fun!

(YouTube Link)

JPCMHD sifted through over 2200 commercials to pick out the very best commercials Japanese TV had to offer in 2016, and they really picked a pack of winners!

-Via Laughing Squid

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!

The perceived power of red, plumbed
by Stephen Drew, Improbable Research staff

There are many ways to test whether and how the color red conveys influence by some human beings over others. None of these ways is regarded as being definitive. Here are three attempts at exploring the subject.

The Power of Red Ink
“The Pen is Mightier Than The Word: Object Priming of Evaluative Standards,” Abraham M. Rutchick, Michael L. Slepian, and Bennett D. Ferris, European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 40, no. 5, August 2010, pages 704–708. (Thanks to Scott Langill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at California State University, Northridge; Tufts University; and Phillips Exeter Academy, explain:

Because red pens are closely associated with error-marking and poor performance, the use of red pens when correcting student work can activate these concepts. People using red pens to complete a word-stem task completed more words related to errors and poor performance than did people using black pens (Study 1), suggesting relatively greater accessibility of these concepts.

Moreover, people using red pens to correct essays marked more errors (Study 2) and awarded lower grades (Study 3) than people using blue pens. Thus, despite teachers’ efforts to free themselves from extraneous influences when grading, the very act of picking up a red pen can bias their evaluations.
 

(Image credit: Rachmaninoff)

Rats are used for all kinds of scientific experimentation, and many rats have given their lives so that scientists can figure out how to cure diseases, test theories and generally help mankind live longer and better.

But the rat in this video posted by National Geographic hit the jackpot, because he's the subject of an experiment on tickling!

Researchers at The Humboldt University of Berlin discovered rats vocally express enjoyment when they're tickled, just like humans do, and they like tickling so much they come back for more.

(YouTube Link)

Artist Victor Engbers built a greenhouse for the Amsterdam Light Festival out of uranium glass. The glass has a nice green tinge, but glows radiantly under a blacklight. Yes, it does contain a little uranium. It's been used mainly for dishes, and was particularly popular during the 19th century and early 20th century, but this is the first time anyone's used it for windows.

See more pictures of the greenhouse in this Facebook album, including the inside of it. The house will be on display at the festival until January 8. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Janus van den Eijnden via Victor Engbers' Facebook)