Laughing Squid

While visiting the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, DC, digital strategist and political activist John Aravosis engaged an active game of virtual fetch with a playful sea lion from behind the plexiglass of the aquarium. Aravosis stated that he got the idea when watching the seal following the finger of another visitor until the very...

Zebra Corner has inserted a “Real Person” named Mahk into a Chevrolet‘s new J.D. Power Dependability Award commercial that takes place on a busy highway. A ‘Real Person’ Named Mahk Is Inserted Into the Blind Panel of Chevy’s ‘More Awards’ CommercialA ‘Real Person’ Named Mahk Is Inserted Into a Commercial for the 2017 Buick EnvisionA...

In a fascinating Ted talk, George Steinmetz, photographer for National Geographic and climate change/global food supply documentarian, spoke about his amazing experience of capturing absolutely gorgeous aerial shots of various parts of Africa from a motorized paraglider aka a “flying lawn chair“. Steinmetz explained how his flying lawn chair worked, how high he was comfortable...

The Mermen playing at sunset just before the burn at Burning Man 1996. Legendary art car artist Tom Kennedy (who we lost in 2009) can be seen driving by at the beginning in Max the Daredevil FinMobile. La Contessa vs. The Whale at Burning Man 2003HELCO at Burning Man 1996 by Chuck CirinoWeird America’s Video...

In a heartwarming episode of Today I Found Out, host Simon Whistler explained the origins and history of the legendary Sriracha chili sauce by Huy Fong Foods, the origins of the iconic rooster on the bottle, the number of knockoffs being made by big companies due to a lack of trademark, despite an unchanging market...

In 2012, we wrote about the “Song Map”, a whimsical road map by British design group Dorothy, that reimagined all roads and locations with names taken from song titles (e. g. “Highway to Hell” and “Heartbreak Hotel”). Since that time, the designers have updated the map to include 150 new songs that have come out...

A post shared by emmanuelle moureaux (@emmanuellemoureaux) on Dec 27, 2017 at 6:58pm PST Emmanuelle Moureaux, a French architect and designer who lives and works in Tokyo has created “Color of Time“, a beautiful installation that features hanging numbers that use the changing color of the day to mark the passage of time over the...

In 2012, digital artist Massimo Pietrobon created “PANGEA POLITICA“, which takes a look at the world as it once was before all the tectonic plates shifted, as the supercontinent Pangaea, but with the country borders of modern age. With this map, Pietrobon also posited whether or not the countries of the world would come together...

A fascinating map posted by redditor Georgie Washington shows that more people live in the 304.8 square miles of the New York City’s five boroughs, which is more than a large swath of the midwest and northwest United States put together including parts of Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and...

In a truly informative piece for Vox, foreign video editor Christina Thornell very succinctly explains the history of Puerto Rico, how it became a commonwealth of the United States, how that status differs from that of a state, what governmental representation a commonwealth has and what the future holds for the American citizensof Puerto Rico....

On January 20, 2018, photographer Gary Cranfield and a friend went out into the snowy cold of Oswego, New York to look for animals they could photograph. They were just about to give up for the day when they spotted a beautiful snowy owl perched upon a sign, but by the time they were able...

Great Big Story visited with Dewi Tjahjadi, the proud proprietor of Warung Selasa (Indo Java), an Indonesian grocery store in Elmhurst, Queens that turns into one of New York City’s tiniest restaurants every Tuesday. The very amiable Tjahjadi explained that she and her family opened the store in order to provide people with Indonesian groceries...

Amigurumi pattern designer Jennie Faith (a.k.a. “JBcrochetwizard“) has created a crocheted doll of Sandor Clegane (a.k.a. “The Hound”) from Game of Thrones. The doll is available to view on Ravelry. images via JBcrochetwizard via KnitHacker An Illustration of the ‘Game of Thrones’ Duo Arya Stark and Sandor ‘The Hound’ CleganeThe Career of Rory McCann, The...

To celebrate the news of Quentin Tarantino developing a Star Trek film, producer Felipe Haurelhuk and editor Fernando Mendonça teamed up with Darth Blender to create “Pulp Trek.” It’s an out of this world mashup of scenes from Star Trek: The Original Series and audio from the original trailer for Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Loyalty, betrayal...

A very playful husky dog hilariously tried waking up a snoring pig by repeatedly pushing down on the pig’s hind quarters. After several unsuccessful attempts, the drowsy porcine got up to see who was creating a disturbance but the dog had cleverly bolted out of the room momentarily and then came back in, as if...

During an amusing “Audience Suggestion Box” segment on The Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon brought out The Gentlemen’s Chorus (Arthur Meyer, Colin Elzie, Sage Boggs, Dion Flynn, and Dan Chamberlain) to sing the song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day. Here is the original song. Rashida Jones Joins Jimmy Fallon to Sing...

Doctor Popular has created a wonderful step by step tutorial on how to make your own mini-comics and zines. The handy paper guide template is available to download and fold from the comfort of your own home. He also posted a video of his friend Audrey talking about her first mini-comic that features an irritating...

Palm Springs, California author Eric G. Meeks presents a great video where he demonstrates how to clean and repair old vinyl records with wood glue. A friend of mine, Corey Yack’s girlfriend, Denise, showed me a YouTube video of how to clean an old vinyl LP record using normal wood glue. I’ve take a day...

French professional skier and filmmaker Candide Thovex teamed up with Audi to create two stunning Quattro advertisements, titled Ski the World, that features Thovex skiing arpimd the world on various surfaces. He skis across everything from a beautiful countryside to the Great Wall of China. via Kevin Kelly One of Those Days 3, First-Person Video...

Derek Herron of How Ridiculous set an incredible Guinness World Record for the greatest height from which a basketball is shot. Herron made an astonishing 660-foot basketball shot over the Maletsunyane Falls in Lesotho, Africa. A post shared by How Ridiculous (@howridiculous) on Jan 19, 2018 at 2:09am PST A post shared by How Ridiculous...

MetaBallStudios created a fascinating visualization back in December 2017 where they compare the sizes of movie monsters like Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. and the massive Exogorth from Star Wars. The 2007 Transformers Film Reimagined as a Low Budget Monster Movie From the 1950sScreen Junkies Enlists ‘Monster Experts’ to Determine the Coolest Movie Monsters of...

The Super Slow Show is a new YouTube original show where Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy of The Slow Mo Guys demonstrate their slow motion skills with special celebrity guests like Dylan Sprouse, Kevin Durant, and Tony Hawk. In their first two episodes, Free and Gruchy perform amazing action hero stunts and Hollywood style falls...

Legendary released the second trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising, the upcoming sci-fi monster film directed by Steven S. DeKnight and a sequel to the 2013 Pacific Rim film. The action-filled trailer follows Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) as he pilots a gigantic mech and battles an all new enemy threat. Pacific Rim Uprising is scheduled to...

When it was time for bed, a beautiful bright yellow Lutino Indian Ringneck parakeet named Dunkin gave his little human lots of kisses good night while saying really sweet things to the little girl. Dunkin also shares his chatty kisses with fellow ringneck and roommate Rukus. via reddit A Tiny Yellow Parakeet Successfully Completes an...

The very talented Rob Scallon who is know for being rather adventurous with his music, had the phenomenal opportunity to record in a studio using 100 year old Edison Cylinder Phonograph. He and friend Jeff Linville started off the session with the beautiful acoustic fingerstyle “Short Song” that Scallon wrote awhile ago. Then an oddly...

Simon Laprise, an artist and fabricator in Montréal, Quebec, with a wicked sense of humor, sculpted an amazing realistic, but inconveniently parked, car out of snow. The car looked so real that even the local police were fooled and came very close to issuing a ticket, but upon realizing their error left instead a note...

As with their thoughtful social experiment on bullying, an apparently woke Burger King brand addressed the confusing issue of Net Neutrality with Whoppers. In a frustrating but useful experiment, (actors posing as) employees served orders to (real) customers on a priority basis depending on how much the customer paid for the burger. If the customer...

In 1998, a 16 year old Rob Sheridan, a talented artist, photographer, former creative director for Nine Inch Nails and friend of Laughing Squid, sat down for an interview with local television station K5 in Seattle to talk about the website he made that was dedicated to the infamous “Dancing Baby“. The Dancing Baby already...

Upon hearing his human Nicolle‘s verbal request, a well trained pig named Paul eagerly walked back and forth across the room to grab each one of his toys in his mouth and then deposit them into a wooden chest. This adorable process was only slightly hampered by a plush monkey that refused to go in...

The great yarn war continued with no end in sight until General @atchoumthecat showed up. He gave the enemies a stern look and they all ran away like a bunch of scaredy cats. . . . . #digitalart #digitalpainting #digitalartist #creative #myart #photomanipulation #adobephotoshop #instaart #digitaldrawing #doodle #conceptart #fanart #artistic #sketchaday #portrait #painting #cats #catstagram...

Bobby Duke, the very talented wood carver and artist in Fort Worth, Texas who created a gorgeous sculpture of a floating coffee cup spilling out a rainbow of colored pencils, very humorously demonstrated his meticulous method for carving pencils out of pencils or as he calls it “Pencil Inception“. Has science gone too far? I...

Musician Dan Baker quite skillfully employed the amazing capabilities of the Mac OS program GarageBand to perform a solo, multi-track cover of The Buggles song “Video Killed the Radio Star“, completely on his iPad. With the use of this technology, Baker’s version is eerily similar to the original 1979 hit. Here’s my take on the...

Prankster Oobah Butler who is also a freelance writer for Vice, performed a brilliant prank in which he created a fake restaurant named for the shed in his backyard and submitted it to TripAdvisor to be reviewed. Butler, who had been paid in the past to write restaurant reviews, created just the right amount of...

In a spirited episode of the Condé Nast Traveler series Many People from Many Countries Say Things, 70 different people from all over the world shared how they say “Cheers” in their native languages. While the words varied from country to country, the ritual of declaring a general toast aloud with an accompanying drink was...

A post shared by Kate Kato (@kasasagi.design) on Oct 18, 2017 at 12:16pm PDT Welsh artist Kate Kato of Kassagi Design creates really wonderful sculptures using old books and manuals and then adorning them with beautifully decorative papercraft version of the subject found within the pages. For example, The Observers Book of Birds grew a...

A hero is something that I think I strive for everyday. I don’t think I will ever reach that goal. I think the challenge is in reaching for it, not achieving it The first episode in the second season of the AARP series Spinoffs features the very likable Dick Sine, a former Ohio police officer...

A post shared by Suzanne Saroff (@hisuzanne) on Dec 17, 2017 at 1:39pm PST Photographer Suzanne Saroff has captured a unique way of viewing common sundries such as fruits, flowers, plants and a fish, with her whimsical series “Perspective“. To get that unique view, Saroff places the item(s) directly behind clear cylinders and water glasses...

German photographer Tanja Brandt has captured the sheer beauty of unusual friendships with an absolutely stunning photo series featuring her beloved shepherd dog Ingo and his variety of feathered owl friends. Normally these species don’t interact together very much, but Brandt’s photos show that friendship can cross all sorts of unlikely boundaries. Brandt shared how...

In February 2016, we wrote about Microscape, a wonderful collaborative project between New York City based architectural design firms TO+WN Design and AJSNY and their 3D printed customizable topographically-correct tiny cityscape of New York City. Almost two years later, Microscape is raising funds through Kickstarter to create a second version of this amazing project for...

A post shared by Ruby Silvious (@silvirub) on Jan 7, 2018 at 8:45am PST 363 Days of Tea is a beautiful art project, created by artist and graphic designer Ruby Silvious, where she created miniature paintings on the thin paper of empty used tea bags. She turned her year-long collection of paintings into a book...

While visiting a friend, redditor AusSpyder captured the surprising sight of four beautiful orange tabby cats peacefully dining alongside their newly adopted crow sibling. The crow had been injured and appeared unexpectedly at his friend’s house. The friend to whom AusSpyder refers as “Doctor Doolittle” and calls her house “the petting zoo”. Animals know. This...

StatusSilver has created “Finger Kaleidoscope 2,” a great new video where the incredible trio of Japanese performers from the Xtrap Dance Crew join their 30 fingers together once again to perform a mesmerizing dance to DJ Snake‘s song “Let Me Love You (BOXINLION Remix ft. Travis Garland).” This is a wonderful follow-up to their original...

Using an MRI machine at the NYU Langone Voice Center, the very talented vocalist and teacher Tyley Ross brilliantly demonstrated the changing physicality of his vocal tract as he sang the classic Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma” in four different ways; a light and heady mix, “forward facing Broadway”, “back and down Opera” and in a...

DJI has released the Mavic Air, their new ultraportable, foldable 4K camera drone that boasts a 21 minute max flight time and can travel at speeds up to 42 MPH. As with the larger Mavic Pro, the Air features an onboard 4k camera mounted on a 3-axis mechanical gimbal for capturing smooth footage during flight....

An audacious little arctic fox attempted to convince Siberian fishermanb Ildar Biktimirov to share his bounty. Biktimirov repeatedly protested loudly in a gentle effort to scare the fox away from his day’s catch, but as soon as the fox did something really cute, the fisherman relented. Biktimirov spent much of the day playing with and...

Eclectic Method has created a fun-loving remix of Minions and Despicable Me films. Minions Mix Remix Mashup Song thingy. ‘Minions’, An Animated ‘Despicable Me’ Prequel About Three Minions’ Journey to Find a New Villainous Master‘The Secret Life of Pets’, An Upcoming Animated Feature by the Makers of the ‘Despicable Me’ and ‘Minions’ SeriesGru Battles a...

During the promotional trailer for the fifth season of the sublime HBO commentary series Last Week Tonight, a harried John Oliver and the narrator were repeatedly interrupted by ridiculous, but sadly believable, news alerts on Oliver’s phone. It all came to an end when the last alert ordered him to do just one thing. We're...

A talented man transfers from his original wheelchair to a wheelchair mounted on top of a hoverboard. He shows off his skills by riding around in a wide open area and maneuvering around obstacles in his own home. The Amazing Organization That Builds Elaborate Halloween Costumes for Kids in WheelchairsCanadian Man Sets Guinness World Record...

The Japanese company MinebeaMitsumi Inc. from Minato, Tokyo set a new Guinness World Record for creating the smallest fidget spinner. Their extremely tiny toy measures a mere 0.2 inches and can easily fit on top of a fingertip. Built using MinebeaMitsumi Inc’s existing record-breaking product, the Smallest commercially available steel ball bearing which itself is...

Filmmaker Ryan and editor Kurtis Jackson created a relaxing video that features their friend Alex’s graceful snowboarding journey down a large hill covered in soft, powdery snow set to “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy. via Boing Boing Tough Little Pug Snowboards Down a Snowy Hill While Wearing a GoPro CameraClever Man Plows Snow Using...