Feckin' felines, drinking liquids: how do they work? "It has taken four highly qualified engineers and a bunch of integral equations to figure it out, but we now know how cats drink. " (via BB Submitterator, thanks EMJ)

From a local newspaper in the Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago: "17 female students fell mysteriously ill and began rolling on the ground, hissing and blabbering in a strange tongue, after suffering bouts of nausea and headaches. Two of the students reportedly tried to throw themselves off a railing and had to be physically restrained, triggering fears of a possible demon attack." — Read the rest

Via the BB Submitterator, Liz Ditz says,

Dr. Jan Gurley (shown at left) has been going to Haiti since the earthquake, and is there now. She and friends made a video that shows you how to make Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) in the sheet camps, using salt, sugar, and bottlecaps to measure.

The correct gate (Pulkovo airport – St. Petersburg)

(Moscow local time: 7PM.  Weather, colder and rainier)

The morning's shuttle through light snow flurries to the Pulkovo airport near St. Petersburg is effortless. At the airport we are thankfully without instruments, as they've been shipped a different way.   — Read the rest

My pal Shane Speal says:

I have a bunch of Pick Punches in stock in the Cigar Box Nation store.

I bought a ton from them before they sold out.

I also put a how-to video up there for getting the perfect edge on a homemade pick.

(Video link) My friend Todd Kessler pointed me to this video of a friend's amazing Halloween costume — a mobile tiki bar! — Read the rest

GAMA-GO brings their wagon train down to Los Angeles this Saturday for their big holiday sale. It's at Model Citizen Studio from 12-5pm. Harass the Gama Goons, live and in person!
"GAMA-GO LA Holiday Sale This Saturday"

(Video link) Fun video of micro-model airplane builders having a blast inside a gymnasium in Japan somewhere. Rubber band ornithopters! Flying angels! Itty-bitty biplanes! Styrofoam pterodactyls and sea turtles! (Thanks, George!) — Read the rest

(Video link) This fellow made a beautiful perpetual motion machine out of wood. Unfortunately, the "first attempt is not working yet."

It didn't work on his second attempt, either. But he says he's "really on the edge of cracking this." — Read the rest

For the past 6 months I have been using the cat eye orbit wheel light. It clips onto my bicycle wheel spokes. By squeezing the housing the light turns on. It makes a soft, but bright, illuminated glow which spins with my bike wheel while riding down the road. — Read the rest

Big day for stop-motion shorts, apparently! Pesco posted the lovely Stop motion history of stop motion this morning, and this afternoon, AFI Fest announced their short film winner was the crazy-cute stop-motion Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp. — Read the rest

Jesse sez, ""Growing up in Idaho Falls, Idaho was strange enough but I always wondered what was up with this collection of futuristic hippy homes in my neighborhood above I.F. (called Rimrock Estates, in Ammon, ID). The place is overrun with starter castles today, yet these architectural anomalies built sometime in the early 80's, presumably by the same developer continue to amaze. — Read the rest

Joel Johnson delivers a blistering smackdown to the trolls, miscreants and entitled creeps who infest comment threads at Gizmodo.

There's the McRib and then there's this—a barbecue pork belly sandwich on brioche, with homemade pickles and sauce. Saveur reinterprets a fast-food favorite for the foodie crowd.

Pascalvanhecke sez, "California Dreaming is a documentary broadcast on Dutch TV November 8. It portrays the consequences of a the subprime crisis and crumbling local government. You can download the doc in HD format with a CC license and reuse for your own purposes." — Read the rest

Many jazz-fans in New Orleans were distraught to learn, back in July, that an incompetent contractor had botched the refurbishment of Louis Armstrong Park, including damaging the iconic statue of Satchmo. Construction on the park has stalled since then, and the site is fenced off. — Read the rest

Remember the contest from a while back, where the winner got to spend a month living in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry? Awesome as the idea is, I'll admit it kind of fell off my radar. Today, I discovered that the winner of that contest, Kate McGroarty, moved into the museum on October 20th and is down to her last few days. — Read the rest

Here's a sweet little animation spelling out 23 years' worth of the complex interpersonal relationships on The Bold and the Beautiful, a soap-opera, visualized with artists' maquettes and liberal use of connecting lines and narration.

Beautiful LAB – EPISODE 0 in English: The Bold and the Beautiful in 6 minutes

Bay Area BB readers, drop what you're doing tonight and check this out!

Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, an animated music film produced by Flux and Hornet with the Decemberists, is the opening night presentation of the 5th Annual San Francisco International Animation Festival. — Read the rest

I just disappeared into a sweet and fully rocking memory for 45 minutes, and I'm still bopping. I recently discovered that Jerome Godboo, former frontman for 1980s Canadian blues/rock band The Phantoms has put much of his back catalog online as free MP3 downloads (and as commercial CDs that he'll ship to your front door). — Read the rest