Mr. Rogers' Widow Gets The Best Surprise On A Hospital Visit

Newborns at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania childrens'
hospital got dressed up like Mr. Rogers on
World Kindness Day back in November

OK, time for a little sweetness.

Back in November, the widow of Mr. Rogers was invited to visit a Pittsburgh womens' hospital as part of World Kindness Day.

Mr. Rogers was among the kindest people the world has even know, so the visit seemed appropriate.

Mrs. Rogers was led into the nursery, where newborns relaxed and recovered after entering this world.  What Mrs. Rogers found hand to be quite familiar to her, and would make us all go "Awwwwwww."

All the newborn  were dressed in red cardigans, little ties, comfortable pants and sneakers.  I guess that was the perfect way to dress for Pittsburgh's newest neighbors.

As anyone who knows and loves Mr. Rogers knows, that's how he was dressed as he greeted us at each episode, when it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

The mom of one of the newborns said she watched Mr. Rogers as a kid and his message of kindness and acceptance stuck with her.

She and her husband said those are the values they want to instill in their newborn daughter. I guess Mr. Rogers' legacy lives on, huh?

Here's a nice news clip of the event from CBS Pittsburgh:

German Town Goes On Beer Buying Spree To Annoy Neo-Nazis

Residents of Ostritz, Germany are seen here buying up all the beer
at the town's supermarket so an influx of Nazis at a right-wing
festival wouldn't be able to buy any. 

The area around Ostritz in the Saxony area of Germany is dealing with the Shield and Sword rock music festival, a favored gathering for neo-Nazis and other like-minded creeps.

The only thing worse than a Nazi is a drunk Nazi, so people in Ostritz had that in mind when they came up with an "evil" plan.

A court had earlier ruled that booze would be banned inside the event, so Ostritz residents figured the Nazis would buy their beer in town on the way to the festival.

So, residents raided the local supermarket and bought every last bit of beer in there before the festival-going right wing assholes couldn't get any.

Double bonus: Townspeople could down a nice cold one or two while holding their own peaceful demonstration agains the Neo-Nazis. It's a win-win.

No word from the Nazi creeps if they were unduly thirsty during the festival. Poor babies.

ANOTHER British Christmas Ad Wins The Day

Mog the CGI cat cauises an eventful Christmas
for a family in a delightful Sainsbury's
holiday ad from Britain.  

What is it about Christmas ads from British retailers?

American advertisers can sure learn from them, as ours are mostly terrible. (Apple's sweet 2013 Christmas ad was a welcome exception, however.)

The reason I'm saying this because barely a week after this Grinch managed to offer a seal of approval to the new John Lewis holiday ad from Britain, we have this great one from Sainsbury's, which is an English supermarket chain.

In this ad, Mog, a cat character made popular by beloved childrens' author Judith Kerr, awakes from a Christmas Eve nightmare and inadvertently and hilariously creates a real life Christmas nightmare for himself and the entire Thomas family.

The sight gags are hilarious, and children in particular will love the chaos in the Christmas ad. (This child at heart loved the chaos, too.)

It's Christmas, so of course everything works out in the end, but I love the way they get there.

Watch this great viral video of the Sainsbury's ad, called "Mog's Christmas Calamity":

Another Amazing OK Go Video: Fun With Umbrellas This Time

An image from OK Go's latest music video for "I
Won't Let You Down."  

The group OK Go set the standard for innovative, amazing music videos back in 2010 with their Rube Goldberg inspired video for the song "This Too Shall Pass."   

They've since put out other amazing videos, including all kinds of creative uses for things, including cars that make music when driven recklessly in a certain way.  

Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of OK Go's music.

It's OK, which I suppose fits the name of the band. But their viral videos go way beyond OK and becomes truly inspiring. The members of OK Go are THE masters of amazing viral music videos. 

"This Too Shall Pass" has had more than 45 million hits on YouTube, so yeah, they are really, really viral.

I have a particular soft spot for OK Go teaming up with the Muppets for the Muppet theme song, even if the official video keeps having these little pop up messages promoting videos I have no desire to see.

Now they've got a new one, with the song. "I Won't Let You Down."   Interesting use of little scooters, and young Asian women dancing in formation. Especially as viewed from a drone.

The highlight of the video builds up toward the end, with an aerial view of a whole bunch of people opening and closing umbrellas.

It looks like it's computer generated, but it's all great synchronization, in part shot from a drone droning overhead.

Sounds dull, but it's totally not, especially as the video builds toward its ending.  It's pretty awesome.

Watch:

Awesome Ant Photos That Are Completely Unappetizing, But Fascinating

Photographer Paul Quagliana has released some really awesome closeup photos he took of woodland ants squirting acid all over the place.

One of Pau Qualiana''s photos of ants spraying
acid to ward off predators 

It's less dire than it sounds. The ants don't spray acid at people to kill them. Instead, they squirt the foul smelling acid to ward of predators. 

According to The Daily Mail, Quagliana said:

"It doesn't hurt but it stinks and I imagine if it was to get in your eyes it would probably sting."

In order the capture the action, he set up his camera on a tripod, ensuring the sun was behind the ants, which had built a nest on a lot. "I then tapped the log and lifted my hand up and starting photographs," he said.     

Another of Quagliana's ant photos  

"I didn't see it when they were squirting the acid, but when I looked back at the images, the sun had captured the droplets."



The photos look like the climatic battle scene in some epic action/adventure movie.

Amazing what goes on in places we don't normally notice.
 

Group Innovatively Uses Mockups of Famous Magazines To Highlight Abused, Exploited Girls

One of the fake magazine covers from Catapult.  

Imagine if Good Housekeeping magazine suddenly became "Good Slavekeeping," with cover teasers like "35 Days to Train the Perfect Slave - How to Whip Her Into Shape, Fast!"

Or what if Seventeen magazine became "Thirteen" a magazine for young girls forced into prostitution, with headlines like "Hide those Bruises With 35 Easy Makeup Tricks"

How about, instead of Bride magazine, we get "Child Bride" for children forced into marriage against their will. "Dazzling Bridal Gowns! Now For Ages 7-12`!"

The above examples are beyond sickening, but that's the point. As part of an International Womens Day effort to expose, fight and stop exploitation and abuse of young girls all over the globe.

Catapult, a crowdfunding group advocating for equal and human rights for girls and women worldwide, has put out the provocative magazine covers.

According to Mashable, Maz Kessler, Catapult's founder and creative director say she was glad people and marking International Womens Day by highlighting inspiring women and important causes, but she wanted to get people fired up to improve the situation for the world's women.

Another Cataputl fake (thankfully!)
magazine cover  

"Thankfully these are fake magazines. Unfortunately, these are real problems," Kessler told Mashable.

She said 14 million girls, some as young as eight years old, will be married against their will in 2014. About 1.2 million children, most of them girls, will be trafficked into slavery. And in New York, girls as young as 13 are exploited for sexual exploitation, according to Catapult.

So yes, the fake magazine covers hit new lows in tastelessness and shock value. But sometimes it's worth it, if it inspires somebody, anybody to make the world a better place for exploited and abused girls and women.

Because strong women make a strong world. Which is what we really need right now.

If Taste Were Visual, This Is How It Would Look: Incredible Video

There's a British spice company called Schwartz that wanted to promote its new line of "Flavour Shots" spices and did so brilliantly.

A still from a brilliant British spice advertisement 

They put explosions of spices in sinc with piano music to just wonderful, mesmerizing effect in their ad.

The awesome video is below:

Best Newspaper Headline EVER

A newspaper editor in Northern Ireland came up with the best idea for a headline on an article about an ill-fated, expensive railroad project.

You may not get it when you first read the headline, but do so while thinking about the opening lines of the classic song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen:

Gorgeous Photos From Projecting Movie Into a Blizzard

When you're stuck inside during a blizzard, you can get bored. Your mind wanders as you try and think of something interesting to do.

The effect you get by projecting the movie "The Lorax" into
a blizzard. Photo by Brian Maffitt

A guy in New York, photographer Brian Maffitt hit paydirt in that respect. It was snowing like crazy outside his window during last week's huge blizzard.

He wondered what would happen if he pointed a powerful projector out his window that was showing a colorful movie.  

According to an article in The Atlantic about his beautiful creations from the projector, he picked the movie "The Lorax," only because it was on the top of the children's list of movies on Netflix. I'm glad he picked such a colorful movie.

The light from the projector hit all those zillions of swirling snowflakes, and the results, posted on Reddit are stunning. Hit the link and see for many more examples than what I have here. So cool!

Go to Maffitt's Flickr page for even more.

Another view of what happened with photographer
Brian Maffitt projected a colorful movie into a blizzard

I want to figure out how he did it so I can try something like it during the next snowstorm.

Here's a great video Maffitt made of the projection into the snow. The music he picked works perfectly with it, too.  He said it came out even more magical than he expected. I agree.  Do watch this amazing video:

Cool, Excellent Way to Put Out a Boat Fire

On Lake Lyndon in New Zealand, a boat caught fire recently.

It's a pretty remote spot. The blaze was too big for a fire extinguisher. The boat was hard to get at. The fire department was far away.

What to do?

Somebody came up with an excellent, awesome idea that worked. Watch: