Taxali is not my original last name. It was changed 300 years ago to
Taxali by a Maharaja in India. My ancestor invented a coin that was difficult to counterfeit and was subsequently knighted Taxali by the Maharaja. It means, "Maker or Steward of The Mint". How serendipitous!! Here I am, 300 years later, honouring my ancestor's achievements and mine and my sister's family name.
via [Drawn]
posted by unliteral
on Jan 23, 2012 -
20 comments
The
Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was a popular children’s birthday-party venue that was run out of several locations in North Toronto in the 1980's. Whisked away in a hearse, throngs of elementary-school children were led through a "magical underground kingdom" by teenaged attendants, participating in whipped-cream fights and shopping-cart bumpercars, with
no parents allowed.
[more inside]
posted by murphy slaw
on Oct 27, 2011 -
29 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by Argyle
on Jul 14, 2011 -
255 comments
These days, with Christmas getting more and more commercial, it's occasionally hard to keep track of all the reasons to celebrate. One of the big reasons though is a very special birthday. The birth of something that changed the world. I'm referring, of course, to the
birth of the world wide web.
[more inside]
posted by sarastro
on Dec 24, 2010 -
21 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why
.
posted by The Devil Tesla
on Jul 14, 2010 -
238 comments
When he was 32, his life seemed hopeless. He was bankrupt and without a job. He was grief stricken over the death of his first child and he had a wife and a newborn to support. Drinking heavily, he contemplated suicide. Instead, he decided decided that his life was not his to throw away: it belonged to the universe. Buckminster Fuller embarked on "an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity." If the architect, author, designer, inventor, and futurist
Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller were still alive, he would be 115 years old today. Though he died in 1983, his legacy grows on through
recordings of his ideas and
the Buckminster Fuller Institute.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jul 12, 2010 -
32 comments
For the 75th birthday of Elvis Presley (yesterday in most time zones), here is an Elvis Impersonator doing famous TV theme songs:
The Flintstones,
The Partridge Family,
Rawhide,
WKRP (opening theme, wish he'd try the end theme),
Danger Man (Secret Agent Man, the full-length Johnnie Rivers version),
The Brady Bunch,
The Love Boat and
Cheers (maybe next time Frasier's 'scrambled eggs song'?).
Other wacky musical repurposing from the same silly singer includes David Bowie (celebrating his 62nd birthday on the 8th) doing Elvis'
Viva Las Vegas.
posted by oneswellfoop
on Jan 8, 2010 -
13 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by anotherpanacea
on Jul 14, 2009 -
568 comments
Some wiseacres slip in risque prank-call names to a local TV station for its "Happy Birthday" segment, and whaddyaknow!
It works.
posted by zardoz
on Mar 29, 2009 -
65 comments
Cat-scan.com Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by jokeefe
on Jul 14, 2008 -
186 comments
The Travels of Franz Kafka , a website that chronicles the many places and social interactions of Franz. A photographic journal collection of his life as he traveled. For your enjoyment, today being the 125th Anniversary of Franz Kafka's birthday. Cheers.
posted by Fizz
on Jul 3, 2008 -
10 comments
It has now been several years since Jacquie Lawson, an English artist living in the picturesque village of Lurgashall in Southern England, created an animated Christmas card in 2000. The e-card, featuring her dog, Chudleigh, her cats, and her 15th-century cottage, was sent to a few friends for their amusement. Those friends sent the e-card to others, and within weeks Jacquie was inundated with requests from all over the world to design more e-cards. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Dec 20, 2007 -
29 comments
Find that going to work is a drag, and nothing seems to make you want to go? Well how about being deciding to refuse to sit around at home and keeping working just because you're 'bored'. I reckon that is an unusual reason to work your life away. Especially if it happens to be your birthday.
Oh, and even more so if you just happen to be
100 years old.
posted by Brockles
on Nov 10, 2007 -
20 comments
You're the star today! In 1976, ABC's Record and Tape Division came up with the Captain Zoom Personalized Birthday Record. A two-minute song with 8 instances of the birthday boy or girl's name was recorded and mastered for a paper-thin flexible 7" record. It was sent in an envelope along with the lyrics to the song, a mini-coloring book, and an order form. In 1978, the Record and Tape Division was disbanded. Robert Stiller, a sales consultant who was involved with the project at ABC, bought the rights to the project and began distributing the record with his own company. Captain Zoom left a
lasting impact on those who heard his little jingle.
And there's a wedding version too. How sweet.
posted by mkb
on Jul 28, 2007 -
22 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by Stan Chin
on Jul 14, 2007 -
111 comments
What should we get Erich for his birthday? How about
a desk set with a radio, a thermometer disguised as a TV mast, a clock topped with a tank, a calendar, and four ballpoint pens disguised as missiles.
Iconographia socialistica from the GDR.
posted by tellurian
on Feb 21, 2007 -
16 comments
Think you get a lot done? Isaac Asimov (
pronounced like "has, him, of" without the h's) , who would have turned 87 today, wrote or edited over
500 books, including
science-fiction novels, introductions to
organic chemistry (a field in which he held a professorship at B.U.) , indispensable
anthologies of early science fiction,
jokebooks,
guides to Shakespeare, and
collections of lively essays on science that have introduced thousands of people to the pleasures of thinking hard about the universe. He also found the time to write
a few essays and
write postcards to his fans. His story
"Runaround" , from his 1950 collection
I, Robot, is the only piece of fiction I know centered on the properties of a differential equation. His
Foundation Trilogy was given a
special Hugo award in 1966 as the best science fiction series of all time; a
movie version, to be written by Jeff Vintar and directed by Shekhar Kapur, is currently in development. Previous AsimovFilter:
here,
here,
here. Feel like a slacker yet? Stop reading MetaFilter and get to work!
posted by escabeche
on Jan 2, 2007 -
95 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why
.
posted by kyleg
on Jul 14, 2006 -
181 comments
