The Norse Hollywood Dining Vikings (Facebook page here, natch) have made a pasttime of dressing up like vikings and carousing their way over to wherever vikings shouldn’t be. Like… a laser lights show, the Red Bull Flugtag Races, a chain of gay bars, or IKEA (although Jonathan Coulton would probably disagree).

The group started with professional blacksmith and prop-maker, “occasional viking,” and “the reigning ‘Pirate of the Year’ for Pirates Magazine,” Tony Swatton; who told AOL News:

“At some point, [a friend] and I decided it would be fun to dress up like vikings and go to restaurants and do reviews,” Swatton said. “The next night, we went to Griffith Park Observatory where they were doing a laser show about the northern lights. There were 15 of us and we all had our weapons — axes, spears, everything — and we heckled everything.”

Final Fantasy XIV Beta Starts Tuesday (Joystiq)

StarCraft II Will Get Patched Next Month (Kotaku)

True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer as Dr. Doom? (ScreenRant)

Gummy Bear Art (FlavorWire)

Questionable Predator Shirt (Fashionably Geek)

Walk Like The Batman (Neatorama)

Walk Like the Submariner (Bleeding Cool)

(image via Topless Robot.)

Pallas Cats are wild felines native to central Asia about the size of your average house cat, with several unique physical traits that set them apart from other members of its taxonomic family. Round pupils; rounded ears; shorter legs and denser fur creating the appearance of a rounder body.

Its babies, though. All the adorable features of bear cubs with the hyperactive movements of kittens. Yes, yes, we have video.

We began the day with some LEGOs, and we’re going to end it with the same. It just goes to show that you really can do anything with minifigures and some stop motion.

Frankly, we’re surprised that this infographic even got made. It was way behind schedule. We just know they spent the whole time on Scottrade, Farmville, and Techcrunch and then threw this together at the last minute. Those… those…

Procrastinators.

Hot on the heels of news that the amount of student loan debt in America is now higher than the amount of credit card debt, comes oddly named website (or game?) Ultrinsic, which allows college students to gamble on their own performance.

From Fast Company:

The idea came from one of the site’s founders, Jeremy Gelbart, who, as a student, made a wager with his friend Steven Wolf, now CEO of Ultrinsic. If Jeremy got an A, Steven would give him $100. If he didn’t, Jeremy had to hand over $20 to Steven.

We must admit, the image of a couple of college age kids having that conversation does not inspire confidence in any business plan based thereupon.

Hellboy Hoodie, Not Bad (Fashionably Geek)

5 Comments Not To Make In Your Code (RepeatGeek)

StarCraft 2 Didn’t Actually Cost $100 Million (That Videogame Blog)

How To Turn An Inkjet Printer Into A 3D Printer (Shapeways)

Tarp Surfing Is Back (RuseEntertainment)

LEGO Light (Neatorama)

The Eisner Awards (Comic Book Resources)

(picture via Marvel.)

A Colorado family was approached by the police early yesterday morning because of reports that their car had been lying off the road in some trees with the horn honking for forty five minutes. As it turns out, it had been stolen. By a bear (not pictured above).

The pieces were put together by police and the parents of the car’s 17-year-old owner.

“So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park,” Ralph said. “It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It’s like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn.”

German Wikipedia contributor alchemist-hp is on a quest to take a beautiful picture of each element of the periodic table. So far he’s only captured 35 pure samples of the 118 elements known to man, but the results are impressive.

Read on...

Here’s something an iPad can’t do.

…What do you mean it can?