Sewage Plant Hosting Valentine’s Day Tour

For those of you looking for ideas for a romantic Valentine’s Day date, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn is offering a morning tour of its sludge-processing facility.

Put on some comfortable boots, snuggle up with your companion, and hold your breath when the plant’s ruggedly handsome superintendent, Jimmy Pynn, explains how the city cleans 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater each day.

You’ll get to see every aspect of the plant’s waste treating process, and even take a trip through its suggestively shaped digester tanks, where plucky microorganisms break down what you and your date ate for lunch yesterday, producing methane and carbon dioxide gas.

And at the end of the tour, Pynn will give each attendee a Hershey’s Kiss — because there’s nothing sweeter than protecting the environment.

One thing’s for sure -it will be a Valentine’s Day neither of you will ever forget. Link -via Breakfast Links

(Image credit: New York City government)

1UP Mushroom Burger

Mario fans, make your own 1UP Mushroom Burger with tips from momo! at Instructables. This particular burger has a veggie mushroom patty, but you can get the same effect with meat. The spots on the bun are mozzarella cheese! Link -via Laughing Squid

11 Amazing Thank You Notes From Famous People

The art of the thank you note is not practiced as much as it once was, even though they always make the recipient happy. Mental_floss has collected some of the best thank you notes ever from the archives of Letters of Note. For example, here’s a note Neil Armstrong sent to the Extravehicular Mobility Unit engineering team.

To the EMU gang:

I remember noting a quarter century or so ago that an emu was a 6 foot Australian flightless bird. I thought that got most of it right.

It turned out to be one of the most widely photographed spacecraft in history. That was no doubt due to the fact that it was so photogenic. Equally responsible for its success was its characteristic of hiding from view its ugly occupant.

Its true beauty, however, was that it worked. It was tough, reliable and almost cuddly.

To all of you who made it all that it was, I send a quarter century’s worth of thanks and congratulations.

Sincerely,

(Signed) Neil A. Armstrong

You’ll enjoy the others just as much, if not more. Link

The Greatest Toy in the Universe

(YouTube link)

This video introduced me to Jaimie Mantzel. He not only builds toys, he builds everything else! The top comment at reddit tells more about him.

This guy is a complete and total bad-ass. Seriously. (He’s also nearly constantly manic too, but I digress.)

He has this giant tree-house he built in the middle of the woods by hand which he actually lives/lived in. When he realized he needed a lumber mill to build a giant workshop to go along with his tree house in the woods, he made one himself, with two tires, a motor, and some aluminum poles (no joke).

Why did he need a giant workshop in the middle of the woods, you ask? To build a working life size version of this robot of course! And he did it using 99% junk yard scrap MacGyvered together (like everything else he does). He also wore chain-mail while doing all this to ‘stay fit’.

He has a video blog with tons of videos on YouTube. This guy is so interesting he has caused countless people to spend 10+ hours watching his videos in a single sitting (myself included!). Just look at the other comments here and you’ll see how common an occurrence this is.

P.S. Almost forgot! His “tree house” has a giant trampoline in one of the rooms integrated into the floor (one of those giant backyard ones).

P.P.S. He also somehow convinced his lady-friend to move out into the middle the woods and into his tree-house with him while he did all of this.

Anyway, this toy does not yet have a name, but he is working with a toy company to eventually produce it. -via reddit

Building the Lego Super Star Destroyer

Tran, Ken, and Rodney (who writes for GAS) got together to build a 50-inch long Super Star Destroyer from the deluxe LEGO kit. All 3152 pieces of it. And they documented the process in photos, which you can see at Geeks Are Sexy. Link

Beer Bottle Excavator Trick

(YouTube link)

The person operating this Bobcat E50 excavator no longer has to fill out employment applications; he just sends the YouTube link! -via Bits and Pieces

History’s Wildest Ballet Riot

The most infamous riot in the history of the performing arts began with the violins in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” But more remarkable than the fistfight was the way the piece revolutionized classical music and ballet.

On the night of May 29, 1913, an elegant Parisian crowd assembled for the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s eagerly anticipated new ballet, “The Rite of Spring.” The opening seemed promising, but then the violins kicked in with a pulsing chord so dissonant that it made spectators wince. As the orchestra continued, the audience hissed and booed. They rose to their feet and shouted—some defending the music, but most denouncing it. People began whacking each other with canes, umbrellas, and, before long, bare fists. Stravinsky’s musical revolution had arrived.

Prelude to “The Rite”

By one account, the idea for “The Rite of Spring” came to Stravinsky in a dream. He envisioned a pagan rebirth ritual, with people throwing themselves before vengeful gods. Rather than a cheerful celebration of springtime, it was a dark and superstitious rite. To compose music appropriate for such a vision, Stravinsky tossed aside convention and broke new ground in rhythm and harmony. He constructed atonal chords never heard before and developed a meter so complex that he struggled to accurately record it on paper. At times in the piece, parts of the orchestra actually seem to be playing against each other.

Stravinsky first performed “The Rite of Spring” for ballet director Sergei Diaghilev and orchestra conductor Pierre Monteux. Both men were shocked and overwhelmed. Later, Monteux wrote that he didn’t understand one note of it and wanted to flee the room. Nevertheless, plans for the ballet got under way. Diaghilev entrusted the choreography to dance phenom Vaslav Nijinsky, whose steps proved just as inspired as the music.

The first signs of trouble came during rehearsals. The ballerinas complained that Nijinsky’s flat-footed, straight-knee jumps jarred them to their bones, and the musicians struggled to keep up with Stravinsky’s galloping pace. At one point, after practicing a particularly dissonant section, the orchestra couldn’t help but burst into nervous laughter.
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Cat Breading

This is why the Internet exists. The long march of human progress has finally ended; we have reached our destination. Rest and rejoice in our accomplishments. Then:

1) Take a piece of bread
2) Cut a hole approximately 1 inch larger than your cat’s head. This trips some people up. Remember: the bread has to fit around not just the cat’s head, but it’s ears, too.
3) Gently place the bread around your cat’s head.
4) Take a picture & post it! We love Cat Breading!

Link -via Nerdcore

The Sea Is Screaming

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Ice floes on the Black Sea are scraping past each other, creating weird noises. If you couldn’t see the video, what would you guess is making the sound?

-via The Presurfer

The Adventures of Tauntaun

This might just be a better movie than both the Phantom Menace or The Adventures of Tin Tin. Would you go see it?

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The Best Response to A Rejection Letter Ever

I don’t know about you guys, but unless the applicant was absolutely terrible, I would totally hire him after that.

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The Weirdest New York Times Correction Ever

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This might just be one of the strangest scenes in The Shining, but The New York Times Correction on the matter might just be even weirder. Here goes:

Correction: January 29, 2012
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described imagery from “The Shining.” The gentleman seen with the weird guy in the bear suit is wearing a tuxedo, but not a top hat.

It’s darn good they changed that. I mean how would the readers possibly lived without knowing the bear was not, in fact, wearing a top hat?

Link Via io9

The Cutest DJ In The World

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Wikki wikki wikki what. Go Frenchie, it’s your birthday.

Via I Has A Hot Dog