People are resolving to read more. Sort of.

At least one of these people wants to read more. (Maybe.)

iQuanti, a data-driven digital marketing company, combed results for the most popular resolutions for 2017 searched for on Google's search engine.

According to the results, the desire to read more was #7 on the list of most popular results. Numbers 1-through-6?

1.)  Get Healthy:  Yes, the nebulous and ambiguous "get healthy." You might believe "get healthy" to be going to the gym five days a week and eating more vegetables, while Steve in Sheboygan, WI, might be steadfast that getting healthy is a six-pack of Miller Lite and a bag of Tostitos for breakfast.

2.)  Get Organized:  It seems all of those hoarding shows on TV have scared the bejeezus out of Americans.

3.)  Live Life to The Fullest:  If you're sitting there thinking, "Yeah, but what does that actually mean on a broad scale?" Good news--you're right! It's really just a wannabe tag line to a self help book on the discount rack at Barnes & Noble.

4.)  Learn New Hobbies:  Time to give into that lifelong desire to learn macramé and papier-mâché, people!

5.)  Spend Less/Save More:  Apparently buying American Girl dolls is not a sound investment strategy.

6.)  Travel:  Going two towns over to visit the new Arby's that just opened seemingly doesn't qualify.

And this bring us to #7 on the list. Of all the things that Americans searched Google for regarding resolutions, the seventh most popular matter was to read more.

There were 4,746,560 searches about reading more. This sounds absolutely fantastic until you learn this was actually down 5.63% from last year's 5,029,790 searches.

Oh. That's sort of a downer.

Well, I guess there goes my resolution to be more positive in 2017.

Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' never looked so...bare.

I've always said that you can't really enjoy 400-year old Renaissance drama unless it's done stark naked in the middle of New York's Central Park--which is what happened this week at Summit Rock, where an all-female cast performed Shakespeare's The Tempest completely in the nude.

How does the theater company explain it?


"This Tempest [...] will be dramatized not only through performance and staging but also through inventive and integral use of costuming, with the harrowed, conspiring shipwreck victims initially forced to navigate the play’s island setting in constricting outfits suggestive of European aristocracy."


"[I]nventive and integral use of costuming."

Or, you know, as naked as the day you were born.

If this sounds reminiscent of that time you walked through Central Park naked while yelling out quotes from Shakespeare--it's exactly like that, minus the various felony charges and people fleeing from you while firing off pepper spray.

But just like that.



 

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of The Year is best represented by a case of jaundice.

Emoji is the Word of The Year.

Except apparently only a very specific emoji:

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries, says that the "face with tears of joy emoji" best represents the "playful and intimacy" of emoji culture.

I could dive into the debate as to whether this is just a gimmick to get two minutes of attention from the Oxford Dictionaries people, but I'll just respond in a language they'd understand:

Randomness Corner: Greece! Only the best in medical care!

This weekend, in Greece's second division of soccer, AEL Larissa beat Ergotelis, 2-1. There's no reason to watch Greek soccer. Ever. Like, ever ever. It's not that skilled. And the video below is of Greece's second division--even worse.

The real reason to watch Greek soccer is shown in the video, when medics came on the field to carry off an injured player in potentially the most amazing display of medical ineptitude possible.

Admittedly, the Greek economy is in tough shape, so maybe this is the best medical care money can buy these days.

Bonus points for the nonchalant stretcher plop once they get across the sideline. The whole exasperation of the medics, as if they've been put out, really sells it.

Dog steals bat, multiple gloves after running onto college softball field. Has no escape plan.

Bored from a routine college softball game between Western Oregon and Simon Fraser, we first see our feisty pup dart on the field after the batter hits a routine grounder. In quick succession, the hitter's bat and the shortstop and left fielders' gloves are snatched, the likes rarely seen outside an eastern European pickpocket's skill set.

Then there's the play-by-play guy saying, "There's nowhere to go though!" As if the dog had a logical escape plan thwarted--the Bonnie and Clyde of the canine set, with the feds hot on his heels.

Online test to measure how fast you read against your fellow Americans is encouraging, sad.

The test, sponsored by Staples (yeah, the group that brings you the Easy Button and overpriced ink cartridges), offers three texts to choose from, then asks three questions to make sure you actually comprehended what you read. It's kind of like a two-bit timed pop quiz.

Results compare your speed to the national average, and offer comparisons to the speed of college students and college professors, for example.

It's all fun and games until you find out a third grader reads faster than you. Then this all takes a sad, pathetic turn.

One word for every state: What Google auto-complete combines with your home state.

The Twitter account @Amazing_Maps tweeted out the map below, which combines every state with the one word Google's autocomplete uses to answer the question "Why is [name of state] so...?"

Massachusetts is smart and Oregon good, but other than that every state has some stigma--politically, economically, or culturally.

Or if you're Nebraska or Delaware, you're just boring.

Missouri driver offended by license plate 'WH0 R8X' assigned to her.

"Who Rakes"?

Deb Levy claims the letter and number combination is offensive and tells FOX2 St. Louis she demanded a free new license plate from the DMV.

Apparently not a raking enthusiast, Levy says the DMV claimed the plate only read "who," and told her to pony up an extra $17 for a new plate.

"Can you spell?!" Levy yelled to the clerks. She believes the wording suggests she's a "whore 8 times."

Fox 2 reports that plates are created with a standard formula, meaning there are a number of other cars driving around Missouri that question "who...?"




photo: KTVI

Billy Collins on 'The Colbert Report'

Because poet laureates on late-night don't happen enough.

Librarian kisses frog, reads to alligator.

In an effort to get neighborhood children to read over the summer, New York librarian Susan Scatena offers up incentives. Cookies? Cupcakes? Only if you're talking amateur hour. Scatena becomes the Steve Irwin of the library set and involves animals.

According to Shine, in 2007, she dressed in bunny pajamas and read a book to a live rabbit. For the 2009 challenge, she dressed like a chicken and performed "The Chicken Dance" while holding a live chicken. She kissed a frog named Pee Wee for 2011's summer challenge (evoking "The Frog Prince" fairy tale), while 2012 saw a 14-foot python named Twinkie draped over her shoulders.

This year it involved reading the children's book "There's an Alligator Under My Bed" by Mercer Mayer to a packed library--and to an accompanying alligator named Wally.

Wally's enjoying the book more than the kid in the background.



photo: Yahoo Shine

Colin Firth's famous 'Pride & Prejudice' lake scene was meant to be played naked.

The 1995 British miniseries, one of the more famous television/movie adaptations of the book, is well-known for Colin Firth emerging from a lake fully-clothed.

Yet, according to the show's screenwriter, Andrew Davies, Mr. Darcy was supposed to be in his birthday suit.

As he told London's The Mirror, "He would have had a few hours in which he could be blissfully alone. It's a hot day, he arrives at this lake--so I thought he would strip completely off and dive down and just become a creature, an animal, just for once." Or, as Davies more bluntly put it, "The wet shirt scene was intended to be a total full-frontal nudity scene."

To the dismay of wannabe voyeurs and nudists everywhere, the powers that be decided to film Firth clothed, as seen here:

Fight like Sherlock Holmes.

Baritsu--a professed form of Japanese wrestling--was mentioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1905 Sherlock Holmes story The Adventures of the Empty House. Yet, for nearly a century no one could verify that baritsu actually existed.

That's because it didn't. According to CNN/Time, Doyle misspelled the word (it's bartitsu--two Ts, not one--because you've never seen a historian crippled to the knees like they are with misspellings), and not Japanese wrestling at all, but a Victorian England creation that incorporated a variety of martial arts styles.

Bartitsu--which consists of boxing, judo, and stick fighting--was largely ignored until Sherlock Holmes junkies started looking into it and developing an exercise routine, and by 2011 led to the Bartitsu Club in New York City.

Says Roxanne Henkle, a practitioner of bartitsu, to CNN, "I thought instead of seeing a show I could learn something and maybe apply it in the real world."

Cracking a rattan cane off someone's throat followed up by a judo chop to the ears--those are everyday applications you can use in the workplace.

Cookie Monster impersonator shoves 2-year old after parents refuse to pay money for photo.

If Elmo can do poppers, Cookie Monster can ruffle up some ankle biters.

Word to the wise:
If your Cookie Monster looks a little...off, like his eyes are a little too spaced and his neck a little too emaciated, like he's a third-rate, back-alley costume creation from a boy scout retreat in rural Iowa...he's probably not the real deal.






photo: radaronline.com

The Fraggles were death obsessed.

Naturally.

Not for nothing, did you know in the international market The Fraggles were known as:
Fraglesy in Poland
Fragglama in Sweden
De Freggels in the Netherlands
Ha'Frogguelim in Israel
Fragglerne in Denmark
Fragglit in Finland
Fraggle Rock, a Rocha Encantada in Portugal
Los Fraguel in Spain
Dünya Fraggle in Turkey.

The last one sounds like a Quentin Tarantino version.

Stephen and Tabitha King pledge $3 million for local Maine library remodel.

Under one stipulation:

The Bangor, ME, town library must raise $6 million from other sources for the remodel before the Kings hand over the dough.

So...yaaahhh...? Charity!

2013's Color of the Year: Emerald

Pantone Inc. came up with their color of the year for 2013, and much to the delight of leprechauns and Idi Amin impersonators everywhere, Pantone selected Emerald.

According to Pantone's over-hyped description:

Emerald, a vivid, verdant green, enhances our sense of well-being further by inspiring insight, as well as promoting balance and harmony.

And here I've been wearing blue all this time. What a downer color! Explains a lot now.

It’s also the color of growth, renewal and prosperity – no other color conveys regeneration more than green.

What does gold represent then? Poverty? Because you can't afford to buy gold?

Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, doesn't want to downplay Emerald. "As it has throughout history, multifaceted Emerald continues to sparkle and fascinate," she says. "Symbolically, Emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is so important in today’s complex world."

At some point, Eiseman morphed into a hybrid of Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra to describe a color.

And here you were thinking Emerald just looked green.

Fairy tales reimagined for the 21st century.

A Tumblr called fairy tales for twentysomethings has reimagined classic fairy tales for the 21st century crowd.

You say they're funny because they're different. I say they're funny because----oh, my god I'm so depressed.

the ugly duckling always felt gross compared to everyone else. but then she got instagram and there’s this one filter that makes her look awesome.

sleeping beauty wasn’t waking up till noon or even later. “i guess i’m depressed,” she told a friend. the friend took her out to a big party that night and sleeping beauty got a little drunk and made out with a cute prince on a couch. it was pretty great. the next morning, she woke up early, took some aspirin, and headed out to enjoy the day.

hansel and gretel got entry-level jobs at a major corporation run by an old witch. the witch said she wanted to give them more vacation days but there was just too much work to get done. one day, hansel and gretel were like, “fuck this,” and they pushed their boss out her office window. then they got jobs as bartenders and snuck sips of whiskey all day.

snow white had lost her infatuation with the prince. they only had sex maybe once a week now, and even when they did it was eh. she found herself looking at photos of ryan gosling online, remembering when she felt about the prince how she felt looking at him.
but the prince loves me, she thought. and if i were with ryan gosling he’d be prettier than me and that wouldn’t be cool at all.

The hare got a high-powered job in the tech industry straight out of college, whlie the tortoise traveled the country by train just writing in his journal and thinking. Finally the tortoise got a big book deal for a memoir he wrote and when he posted about it on Facebook he thought, I knew I’d outshine that fucker in the end.

Sleeping Beauty was lying in bed checking Facebook from her phone, just feeling so completely alone in her depression. Then she came across a post from an acquaintance about how sad he was, it was a darkness that made him feel like nobody could ever understand how he felt. “Is there anyone else who feels this way?” he asked.

She felt a sense of relief wash over her, a little bit of joy, and thought, At least I’m not so sad I wrote about it on Facebook.




All photos/stories: fairytalesfor20somethings.tumblr.com

Louisiana State University alumnus has a fancy car, police attention.

Jalopnik was sent photos of an LSU alumnus pulled over by police for unknown reasons. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he was arrested.

The real reason to care?

This alumnus turned a Lamborghini Gallardo (with an original MSRP of $202,000-$224,600) into this subtle, understated shoutout to his former school--the LSU Tigers:

Classy.




photos: Jalopnik

Something horribly, horribly wrong has happend on the Japanese toy market.

Japanese toy maker Bandai has announced that they intend to release 'Chogokin King Robo Mickey & Friends' in early 2013. Yes, that Mickey. As in Mickey Mouse. As a robot.

Not just Mickey though--as the '& Friends' includes Minnie Mouse, Daisy and Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and Steamboat Willy all combining into a wannabe Power Rangers robot.

In essence, it's channeling the Super Sentai Chogokin Shinken robot whatchamacallit toy from the 1980s. And if you're reading this right now and blacking out because I just typed the words Chogokin Shinken, I'm waaaaaaay ahead of you.






My grandmother gave me a Chogokin Shinken robot toy for Christmas once because she thought it was popular. Shockingly, 77-year old women don't have their fingers on the pulse of popular toys for 10-year old boys.

Sandy, meet Dr. Seuss.