1. Photography – The baby pygmy hippo who’s barely bigger than a lettuce leaf (Daily Mail).
2. Nostalgia – Pete and Pete: Where Are They Now? (Manolith).
3. History – The evolution of caltrops (TYWKIWDBI).
4. History – A Historic Killing in the Capitol Building (NPR).
5. History – George Metesky, New York’s Mad Bomber (truTV).
6. Interesting – Whatever Happened To…5 Viral Video Stars (BuzzFeed).
7. Interesting – A single ostrich egg can blow up a microwave (Your Daily Media).
8. Interesting – New York hen lays monstrous 5 ounce egg (Telegraph.co.uk).
9. WTF – Money to bury Detroit’s poor has dried up, forcing struggling families to abandon their loved ones in the morgue freezer (CNN).
10. Wiki – Telectroscope, the first concept of a television (Wikipedia). The designer went insane (YouTube).

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The prize for most awesome dad goes to Tom Rhoads of Lemoore, California. He built this 18-foot “life-sized” replica of Bumblebee out of an actual VW Beetle for his son.

Link. Via.

I’m sure that everyone in their mid-20s has that one game that defined their childhood and still carries a strong emotional significance.  I’ve known people that were moved to tears by Final Fantasy VII and one of my best friends made it through his parents divorcing by playing Sonic & Knuckles repeatedly.  Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge was one of my favorite games and I owe Ron Gilbert a beer if I ever run into him for providing me with the memory of beating it for the first time.

In 1992 GameFAQs wasn’t around to dumb down gaming to searching for a solution the first time you ran into a roadblock.  Rather, it was just me and some friends staying awake on weekends during sleepovers trying to figure out how to beat the game.  Cans of Jolt Cola, cold Domino’s Pizza, and bags of Doritos provided us with the energy to guide Guybrush Threepwood on his quest to defeat the zombie pirate LeChuck.  During class we would argue with each other over what we had to do, tried to find other kids that were playing it, and pawed our way through as many back issues of PC gaming magazines as possible for clues.

We eventually managed to figure out the monkey puzzles towards the end that befuddled us for a week, found all the ingredients we needed to make a voodoo doll, and defeated LeChuck.  It took us over a month but we had beaten the game!  We started cheering so loudly that we woke up my friend’s parents.  His mom didn’t seem to care that we had JUST BEATEN FUCKING MONKEY ISLAND 2 ON OUR OWN.  Instead, we were scolded for being loud and forced to go to bed.  That night, as we were drifting off to sleep, one of my friends said, “This is the best night of my life.”

In a sense he was right.  Every accomplishment I’ve managed since then doesn’t give me the same level of dizzying glee as that night because it was the purest type of happiness I’ve ever felt.  Nerdy?  Geeky?  Sure, whatever.  But I still crack a smile any time I see a picture of LeChuck and it saddens me to know that LucasArts went from a company that put out quality adventure games to one that churns out nothing but Star Wars games.

I doubt that a kid that grows up playing games like Halo is ever going to form the same emotional bond to a game as someone who grew up playing Super Mario World.  These days there is more of a focus on flash and dazzle than substance.  What kind of memories are the kids that beat Halo going to have?  The first time they got on Xbox Live and were barraged by a bunch of pre-pubsecent voices saying some of the most vile, misoginistic, and racist things imaginable?