James Stowe has a neat collection of Star Wars cards for Valentine’s Day, which is this Sunday.  There are six cards, one for each episode.

Link (Previously on Neatorama: A Very Wrong Star Wars Valentine)

This Halloween marks the 71st anniversary of the night The Mercury Theater aired a live production of the H.G. Wells story of a Martian invasion, The War of the Worlds.

At least two websites are offering streaming versions of this historic event that “panicked America.”  Produced by and starring Orson Welles, the chilling tale was told as though the radio broadcasters themselves were part of the story at first.

Soon, the conditioned ears of the listeners took the news events coming out of their radios as the truth, and, while there is some speculation of reports like this:

[P]anic ensued, people fleeing the area, others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance.

It’s still fascinates to this day.  The actual 1938 broadcast of the show is going to be streamed live at WarOfTheWorldsTribute at 8:00pm EST on the 30th of October, and it’s really worth a listen.

Also, on Halloween night, student radio station WKNC will do the same with a modernized version here at 7:00pm.

via kottke. | Photo: Orson Welles (Wikimedia Commons)

We all grew up with the beloved Disney versions of fairy tales and stories, which have wonderful "all’s well that ends well" happy endings.  What you may not know is that Disney left out a few horrifying details from the original version in order to keep its customers happy.

Here’s a post about 10 original fairy tales in their full and gruesome glories. Take, for example, Snow White:

In the tale of snow white that we are all familiar with, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her heart back as proof. Instead, the huntsman can’t bring himself to do it and returns with the heart of a boar.

Now, fortunately disney hasn’t done too much damage to this tale, but they did leave out one important original element: in the original tale, the Queen actually asks for Snow White’s liver and lungs – which are to be served for dinner that night!

Also in the original, Snow White wakes up when she is jostled by the prince’s horse as he carries her back to his castle – not from a magical kiss. What the prince wanted to do with a dead girl’s body I will leave to your imagination.

Oh – in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

“Fake! Phony!” he cried. And then he wondered, “Just who are the goofballs passing this off as an authentic secret formula and how is it that such a bad knockoff recipe becomes so crazy popular?”

Todd had an idea. Since he had way too much free time on his hands, he got to work on a recipe for a cookie that had the flavor, texture and appearance of a real Mrs. Fields cookie. How hard could it be? Batch after batch the clones came closer to the real thing, until one day, it happened. The cookies came out chewy and delicious, with crispy edges and that strong vanilla aroma. Bingo! The first Top Secret Recipe was born.

Link: Top Secret Recipes