Cheryl Eddy

The Best Last-Minute Geeky Gifts That You Can Get For Under $10

It’s December 18? How did that happen? If the holidays got away from you this year — and you’re feeling the pinch of the most wonderful … and freakin’ expensive … time of the year — we’ve got you covered in the last-minute affordable gift department. Here are the best last-minute gifts for under a…

How The Simpsons Changed the English Language

Over at the Oxford Dictionaries blog, there’s an essay by author and Indiana University at Bloomington professor Michael Adams that investigates how The Simpsons has helped shape the English language over the past 25 years. Specifically, he’s interested in the words and catchphrases — not all those memorable one-liners, though who among us doesn’t reference…

Idaho State To Offer Bigfoot-Inspired Course

Though the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Idaho State University is careful to note, “It is not a course on Bigfoot. It is a course on anthropology,” ISU will nevertheless be offering an experimental class titled “The Relict Hominoid Inquiry.” Which is kinda a course on Bigfoot. Sorta. The Idaho State Journal…

Watch Sir Ian McKellen School Cookie Monster On Self-Control

“Say there was … a golden ring. And you really, really wanted this golden ring. It was like your precious.” “You know, me not much of a jewelry guy, so me not sure that very relevant example.” (Hmmm … seems Cookie Monster didn’t learn that much from Tom Hiddleston!) Image via Hitfix.com.

Are Anti-ID Theft Jeans A Fashion Statement Or Paranoia?

Clothing that blocks “digital pickpocketing” is now hipster-approved. But do we really need RFID-blocking pockets in our pants? The BBC reports: A pair of jeans containing material that blocks wireless signals is being developed in conjunction with anti-virus firm Norton. The trousers are intended to stop thieves hacking into radio frequency identification (RFID) tagged passports…

A red-and-green rock stuffed with “30,000 teeny-tiny diamonds” was unveiled this week at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting. Though the sparklers are too wee to have value as gems, the unique rock, discovered in Russia’s Udachnaya mine, may help geologists better understand how diamonds are formed.

“Beast Jesus” Has Become A Bona Fide Tourist Attraction

Remember “Beast Jesus”? How could you forget that face? In 2012, this amazingly terrible (and unauthorized) restoration job applied to a 19th-century Spanish fresco by elderly Cecilia Giménez made instant headlines and launched a thousand memes. One year later, the painting —”originally named Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) but now widely known as Ecce Mono…

The Walking Dead Spin-Off Will Take a Bite Out Of LA

The rumors are true: the as-yet untitled Walking Dead spinoff has set its sights on Los Angeles. That said, as Entertainment Weekly points out, Just because the setting is Los Angeles doesn’t guarantee it will be shot there. AMC, which had no comment, is still casting the pilot written by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson.…

Thanks for clearing that up: Harlem, Georgia’s Born Again Independent Baptist Church has a special message for everyone during the holiday season about free speech and two different men in red suits. The sign is, unsurprisingly, controversial in the community (a youth director at the nearby Harlem United Methodist Church worried that the sign was…

Syfy’s Ascension Jumps The Shark In Its Very First Episode

Is the heavily hyped Syfy miniseries Ascension the second coming of the second coming of Battlestar Galactica? Nope. Spoilers ahead… The first night of Ascension wasn’t directed by M. Night Shyamalan, but it might as well have been. We’ll get to the final twist at the end of this recap, but suffice to say that…

Museum Receives A Million Dollars’ Worth of Taxidermy

And you thought you had a lot of random stuff lying around the house. The Virginia Museum of Natural History just scored a taxidermy collection so enormous, its value is over $1 million. The haul consists of some 230 items gathered by Gregory Speck, who made the donation when he moved out of his Manhattan…

Pennsylvania And Washington Lead The Nation In Bigfoot Sightings

‘Tis the season for year-end stories wrapping up the cultural and political goings-on of 2014. So why not … “The Year in Bigfoot“? CityLab went through the submissions sent to the admirably user-friendly website run by the nearly 100-year-old Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, crunching the numbers like leaves under suspiciously large, hairy feet. The results,…

Buy This “Jigsaw Puzzle” Mansion For a Mere $22 Million

As the old real estate saw goes, location is everything. And sometimes, one’s 500-year-old mansion is simply in the wrong spot … and one must move said mansion, brick-by-brick, to a more desirable address 70 miles away. This feat of engineering and whimsy actually happened, as the Telegraph reports, over 100 years ago: Wealthy antiquarian…

The 8 Most Intriguing Unsolved Crimes

When a crime is never solved, it can become both maddening and tantalizing. The victims never get justice, their loved ones never get closure, and law enforcement officers can turn into haunted, True Detective-style obsessives. Here are eight fascinating cases that remain unsolved to this day. This list of unsolved crimes deliberately leaves out the…

Hey, Weirdos! Is A Reboot Of The Craft In the Works?

Today’s unconfirmed/tantalizing/”but whyyy?” Hollywood rumor for all the once and future teen witches out there: There may be a reboot of 1996’s The Craft in the works. Dread Central is cautiously sharing the news from a tipster who “takes surveys about various topics, the most recent of which was films that are currently in theaters.”…

Selfie-Themed Horror Movie Is Inevitable Sign Of Our Times

It was only a matter of time before selfies became the basis of a horror-movie plot — after all, the genre sure does love tapping technology as a fear-delivery mechanism. Stepping up the haunted-phone plot of One Missed Call (and its remake) is Selfie, a just-announced Singapore-Cambodia co-production that will be “built around the me,…

So, What’s Satan Been Up To Lately? 

Well, he’s been modeling for this statue that’s (hopefully) gonna be placed next to a Ten Commandments statue on the lawn in front of Oklahoma’s state capitol, courtesy of those noted holiday-cheer-spreaders, the Satanic Temple. Vice has hella (sorry) more under-construction pics of the statue, right this way. Elsewhere, Old Scratch has also been bumming…

Brazilian Confesses To Being One Of The Most Prolific Serial Killers

Here’s some nightmare fodder for you: CNN is reporting that a 26-year-old man has admitted to killing 39 women in the Rio de Janeiro area. If that body count is accurate (other outlets are reporting 42 victims), it would place the alleged killer high atop the list of Brazil’s most prolific serial killers. In an…

The New Out of the Dark Trailer Is Bursting With Tropical Terror

“Move to Colombia,” they said. “Start a whole new life with your curious young daughter in this probably-haunted mansion,” they said. “Don’t worry toooo much when Stephen Rea starts spouting off about ancient legends and burning children alive,” they said. As the new, ultra-spooky international trailer for Out of the Dark — the debut film…

“Oldest Time Capsule” in U.S. Unearthed in Boston

History buffs, start your engines: CNN is reporting that a Boston crew has removed a time capsule from the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House, believed to have been stashed there by then-Governor Samuel Adams and patriot Paul Revere. Inside the capsule are contents that will be showcased as soon as the box is removed…