9:49 minutes of pure Bollywood Awesome. [via]
Rowan Atkinson is Teh Schoolmaster. Pay attention, Nipple.
Aswad. Good riddims, brah.
Satchmo. Can’t top him for the end of a Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, folks, and be back here tomorrow for more fun.
Dan Akroyd and John Belushi meet Tommy Chong on the Blues Brothers movie set. [Found here.]
Missed it, didn’t you? That’s what we’re here for.
Noche de Rabanos (Night of the Radishes) takes place every year, on the 23rd of December, in Oaxaca,Spain and is one of the most impressive vegetable festivals around the world.
The radish was brought to the Americas in the 16th century, and back then the vendors used to carve them and use them on their market stalls to attract customers. Although the origins of the festival cannot be traced to an exact period, it is considered that it all began in the year 1897, when the mayor of Oaxaca organized the first radish-art exposition. Everever since that first celebration, every year, this humble vegetable is meticulously carved into animals, warriors, kings, dancers and pretty much any shape you can imagine. The artists sometimes make use of other vegetables, like onion or lettuce to complete their work. There’s also a prize for the most beautiful piece displayed.
The carver’s work begins about three days in advance and on the 23rd of December, the day of the festival, the results of all their hard work is presented to the public. On that same day, especially in the morning, children have the chance to learn this incredible art of radish-carving, or at least some of its secrets.
The celebrations don’t end that day. They continue on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with other joyful “fiestas”, parades of floats, fireworks music and dancing.
[More images here.]
Almost missed it, but Happy Birthday, Axe Cop!
From Futility Closet:
In 1900, evidently tired of initiating pledges by hand, Edmund and Ulysses de Moulin decided to automate the process.With their “initiating device,” the applicant is blindfolded, placed in position, and told to pull the handles to test his strength. When he does so, the paddle spanks him and an electric shock passes through his arms, “making the sensation rather unique.”
Never forget that there was no Declaration of War until after the attack. Image from here includes this description:
Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance.
A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California.
On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier. Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port.
Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right.
Hawaii Time 7:53AM 7 December 1941
This is amazing. If you cross your eyes and focus on the middle image you get an awesome 3D effect of one of the hundreds of Frieda Kahlo’s self portraits.
[Found here.]
Get the flock out! Forget the danger of little Timmy eating lead “icicles,” this stuff allowed many immigrants to light their Christmas trees in the traditional way — with tallow candles — and without burning their houses down.
I assume that this flocking product was intended to be mixed with water and poured or painted over the boughs of den Weihnachtsbaum. Perfectly safe, as long as the faux snow wasn’t friable, and you kept little Timmy from gnawing the needles.
Ahhh. Those were the days, before they invented lead poisoning, asbestosis, DDT toxicity, alar scares, political correctness and AGW pseudo science.
Tacky Raccoons 