Cupcake Pen (sold individually)

Are you tired of your pen getting stolen because it looks like all the other pens in the office? Give your self a sweet treat with the Cupcake Pen from the NeatoShop. This deliciously fun pen is just the unique writing instrument you have been craving.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Pens & Pencils. 

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Ice cream cones are popular for good reason -they are easy to eat and delicious. If you can't get enough cone foods, enjoy these 8 fun cone recipes courtesy of Food Beast. I'm particularly intrigued by this taco cone made with a simple dough around classic taco treats.

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Look carefully and you will see wormsign on the blanket. Yes, it is a fearsome creature. But you must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Embrace Shai-Hulud as made by DeviantART member Oniko.

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NASA is looking for volunteers to stay in bed for 70 days straight. It's to test the effects of weightlessness and lack of exercise on space travelers. The job will pay around $18,000 for your time. And you can keep up with many of your everyday activities -as long as you stay in bed. Dr Roni Cromwell, lead scientist on the project, tells us more.

The purpose of the study is to research the effects of microgravity on the human body.  The study simulates the effects of long-duration spaceflight by having test subjects lie in beds for the 70 day period. The beds are tilted head-down at a six-degree angle. According to Dr Cromwell, this tilt which causes body fluids to shift to the upper part of the body, sets off cardiovascular events that are similar to what we see in a space flight.

“And by putting someone in bed for a long time, there is also atrophy of the muscle and atrophy of bone density,” she explains.

When astronauts spend weeks and months floating around in space – they don’t need to use more than a fingertip to propel themselves across the room, so their muscles go on vacation – the atrophy described by Dr. Cromwell.

The job includes extensive testing before and after the bed rest, and you need to be in good shape to be considered for the position (ha- position). Link -via Daily of the Day

(Image credit: Flickr user Der Wunderbare Mandarin)

(Photo: Chris Burnside)

We've previously seen the firm Olson Kundig Architects build a house in the San Juan Islands with a pop-up roof. Nearby, in Seattle, it upgraded the Gethsemane Lutheran Church with huge multicolored panels of glass. As the sun moves across the sky, different colors move over the walls and floor of the chapel. You can see more photos of it at the link.

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Carn is a somewhat disturbing animated story in which a freezing boy makes a deal with a dying wolf. By Jeff Le Bars. The moral of the story is …don't make promises you can't keep. -via Laughing Squid

The old Milton Bradley game Operation was fun, but a little bit inaccurate in its depiction of human anatomy. Jason Freeny, an artist whose work we've featured extensively at Neatorama, made this superior version. You can buy a print of it for a small copay. 

Link | Artist's Website

The MESSENGER spacecraft took this image on the surface of Mercury a couple of years ago. MESSENGER has already taken 150,000 pictures, and will continue snapping them until 2015. So it's no wonder that it took NASA this long to analyze enough data to determine that Han Solo has been photographed. Here's part of NASA's statement on the find:

If there are two things you should remember, it's not to cross a Hutt, and that Mercury's surface can throw up all kinds of surprises. In this image, a portion of the terrain surrounding the northern margin of the Caloris basin hosts an elevated block in the shape of a certain carbonite-encased smuggler who can make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

Link -via Geekosystem

(Image credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

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It's a pantsuit. The woman in this video bought it for $5. It's a life-changing experience, like finding the One Ring at a garage sale.

Can you handle it? Can you experience at this intensity?

-via Daily of the Day

Here's a Bridezilla story told in a series of emails. First, the bride lays out a series of ten rules for her bridesmaids. She refers to herself as Queen Bee. But some bridesmaids had trouble toeing the line.

Hello my faithful bees,

Chloe has colored her hair. She has repented her sins to the QB and she has been forgiven for her minor lapse in forgetting the protocol.

Kudos to Chelsea for asking permission to cut her hair, unfortunately, her request is DENIED.

Onto to my next point. We will begin weekly weigh-ins on January 17th. I will be sending over the form for everyone to fill out and submit with a picture of the scale shortly.

Lastly, I am looking into bridesmaid rhinestone bikinis and I am open to color suggestions from everyone but Miss Holly because I have already chosen a customizable bikini for her, see below. If anyone could help me find bandeau rhinestone bikinis, I would greatly appreciate it. I would like it so say MAIDS in sparkle, rhinestones, or pearls. Not too much to ask, I know.

It sounds completely made up -I mean, no one really acts like that! Identifying information has been removed from the email messages, but a commenter says she knows the bride and gave further information on the wedding -which was lovely, but probably left scars in some friendships. Link -via Digg

(Image credit: Flickr user squishyray)

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Peter Dinklage, the actor who plays Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, visited Sesame Street. In this clip, he sings about the children's game "Simon Says." At the link, you can see another Sesame Street video starring Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister.

But where is Joffrey? I want to see Joffrey on Sesame Street because Grover wouldn't miss the chance for vengeance, even if it costs him his life.

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Zombie Hot Dog Costume

Beware! Yesterday's lunch is on the loose and it's hungry for revenge. Run, run as fast as you can. Here comes the Zombie Hot Dog man. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop form more great Halloween items and fantastic Zombie stuff. 

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It's his favorite show. Waldorf is learning how to hunt impala with a pack. I just think it's delightful that someone named a cat Waldorf. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Want to cuddle up with one of the handsomest members of The Avengers? Well, you might not ever get so lucky, but you could always follow DeviantArt user quiltoni's lead and at least make a cuddly quilted version of one. In the meanwhile, just enjoy the craftsmanship quiltoni put into this adorable 16-bit version of the hero.

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Want to eat like a pirate on Talk Like a Pirate Day? Marauding buccaneers didn't leave cookbooks behind, and we rarely run across a description of what pirates ate. The fact is that living at sea with no refrigeration made food storage a nasty business. One reason rum was so important is that it helped to make stagnant water and moldy food palatable. But they did have a recipe or two.

In the West Indies, a popular pirate dish among marauders was salmagundi, a stew of the odds-and-ends of meat and vegetables thrown into a communal pot and heavily seasoned. In his book Pirates and Piracy, author David Reinhardt provides a litany of ingredients one might find in the cauldron and the manner of preparation:

Included might be any of the following: turtle meat, fish, pork, chicken, corned beef, ham, duck and pigeon. The meats would be roasted, chopped into pieces and marinated in spied wine, then mixed with cabbage, anchovies, pickled herring, mangoes, hard-boiled eggs, palm hearts, onions, olives, grapes and any other pickled vegetable available. The entire concoction would then be highly seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, and mustard seed and soaked with oil and vinegar.

Doesn't that sound wonderful for supper? Read more about the pirate diet at Smithsonian's Food and Think blog. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user BrotherMagneto)

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This delicious 1994 Chevrolet Caprice will leave trails of orange dust everywhere it drives. It's been modified, inside and out, to honor nature's perfect food.

-via Jalopnik

Kids are exposed to violence. Where is all this violence coming from? At least the cartoon didn't end with, "It's coming from inside the house!" That's a real horror. Comic by Julia Lepetit and Andrew Bridgman at Dorkly. Link  -via Geeks Are Sexy

Need a new place to store all your favorite books and graphic novels? Etsy seller WhittledInWood, who also made this great Star Wars bookshelf, created this delightful Hulk bookshelf that would be great for kids and adults alike.

Link Via The Mary Sue

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Jeff Wysaski isn't giving you a tutorial as much as he is illustrating the way the real world works. -via Pleated-Jeans

Want to be a hobbit for Halloween this year? Then you'll need to learn how to make your own hobbit feet since you can't just just run around barefoot all night. DeviantArt user deeed uploaded this great tutorial to make your own out of funny feet and slip on shoes.

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A 61-year-man in Texas went to a hospital complaining of dizziness. He was very drunk, but insisted he hadn't had a drink that day. His wife said he would become drunk at odd times. Hospital staff assumed he was lying about drinking, but gastroenterologist Dr. Justin McCarthy and Panola College dean of nursing Barbara Cordell wanted to get to the bottom of the case. They isolated the patient and monitored his blood-alcohol level for 24 hours, and found his alcohol level spontaneously went up after eating!

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

The patient had an infection with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.  

The condition is quite rare, as brewer's yeast is usually not a problem for a healthy digestive system. Link -via Arbroath

Instructables member miketherdaintx built a 74-Z speeder bike using a Power Wheels toy car. You can find process photos and instructions at the link. It's totally cool, but I'm not sure that it will support an adult's weight. Well, mine, anyway.

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Elmo Pumpkin Push Ins

La la la la. You want a Elmo pumpkin, but you hate all goo. La la la la, la la la la the Elmo Pumpkin Push Ins are for you!  

Now you can create your own no fuss, no muss Elmo vampire pumpkin with the Elmo Pumpkin Push Ins from the NeatoShop. This handy little set includes Elmo's face, his cape, and two hands. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Halloween items. 

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Remember Athanasius Kircher's cat piano? Of course you do; it's a t-shirt now. The human version has been brought to reality in Quebec. From the YouTube link:

Set during the Festival d'Opéra de Québec, TFO brought opera to the people by inviting the public to engage with a new interactive and never- seen-before instrument. The Living Piano is a 12-note, giant keyboard that you play with your feet, featuring opera singers who elegantly belt out their corresponding notes as the different keys are played. From children to seniors to the occasional dog, TFO allowed the public to play with and discover opera as they moved from note to note, making music every step of the way.

No tail-poking necessary. -via the Presurfer

Why get your burger with a side of poutine when you can instead get it on your buger, complete with a side of gravy and a pickle on top? If you're wondering Triple-O's poutine burger actually is comprised of, it features bacon, fries, cheese curds, gravy and chipotle mayo.

Link Via Food Beast

When billionaire Howard Hughes died in 1976, he left no children, wife, or siblings behind. He also left no will. Sorting out who inherited what from his vast holdings turned out to be a real nightmare.  

While the various parties were fighting it out, a couple of different wills surfaced, though eventually thrown out as fakes. A notable one was the three-page document that declared Melvin Dummar, a gas station attendant, was to inherit 1/16 of Hughes’ fortune. Supposedly, Dummar once picked Hughes up off the side of the road and gave him a ride to his hotel, and Hughes was so grateful that he left Dummar a huge chunk of money. In 1978, the will was thrown out as a forgery.

Next, “wives” started emerging from Hughes’ past, taking advantage of his reclusive reputation to explain why no one had heard of them before. Terry Moore, an actress, claimed to have married Hughes twice, but provided no documentation to support her assertions.  She did, in fact, once live with Hughes in the 1940s, but her claim that they were not only married, but never divorced, was called into question given the fact that she married three times after her supposed marriage to Hughes. Nevertheless, she must have put forward a good argument, or at least pestered the estate managers so much that they decided to pay her just to get rid of her, because she was paid $400,000 by the estate. Later, Moore wrote a book titled Beauty and a Billionaire which made the bestseller list, likely lining her pockets a bit more.

In addition to supposed wives, an extraordinary number of Hughes’ supposed children decided to acknowledge their deceased father. One was said to be the lovechild of Hughes and Amelia Earhart—product of the Mile High Club?—even though Earhart never had any children. At least two were black, but their claims were thrown out as Hughes was known to be quite the racist.

Learn about the lengthy process of settling the estate and who finally gained in the end at Today I Found Out. Link -via mental_floss

(Photo: Jesse Fox)

If you see a gorilla walking through the main public library of Cincinnati, Ohio, it's probably just music librarian Steven Kemple.* He keeps a gorilla suit in his office and puts it to good use:

There’s a serious reason behind everything Kemple is doing with music programming at the Main Library, even if it sometimes means wearing the gorilla suit he got as a wedding present three years ago. He’s championing libraries as a source for experimentalism — a place to “blow minds,” in his words — and is part of a national movement to do so, having been featured on the blog “Library as Incubator Project” early this year for his experimental music series.

“I see being a librarian as not that different from being an artist or running a gallery,” he explains. “When I talk about blowing minds, I don’t necessarily mean in the sense of cheap gags or thrills, but really turning people on to how vast and amazing the world is.

“One function of public libraries is to foster an informed citizenry. Part of getting people informed is to get people curious, and curiosity begins with wonder — and blowing minds is a great way of cultivating wonder. Experimentalism in the library creates incongruous situations that, presented in the right way, can elicit wonder.”

I will not wear a gorilla suit in my library. I am a professional.

Link -via Amanda Brennan

*Probably, but not certainly.

The Game of Time by ZombieDollars

Two steps foward, one step back probably doesn't mean much in winning or losing in the Game of Time, but we do know that this: The shirt is truly a winning design from T-shirt artist ZombieDollars.

Visit ZombieDollars at his Facebook page, then visit his NeatoShop page for more fantastic designs.

A Prosperous Long Life	Cantina Jazz	The Broken King	Bounty Hunter

View more designs by ZombieDollars | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

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

Hey look! It's time for our collaboration with the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners who submit funny and/or clever (albeit ultimately wrong) answers will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

If you guess the correct answer, you'll get a big pat on the back.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

There are more pictures of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Critters in slippers are simply adorable, especially when they're utterly ridiculously huge like the ones on this kitty. If you just can't get enough of these cuties, you'll certainly appreciate this great BuzzFeed articles featuring 20 animals in slippers.

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