An illegal immigrant from the Philippines who stowed away on a container ship will be allowed to stay in the United States. A female cat apparently wandered into a shipping container in Manila, which was loaded and crossed 6,400 miles to Los Angeles. The cat was found when the shipping container was opened, over three weeks later. Pinay was weak and dehydrated, and the Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control took her to the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center.

“The cat was very weak and frail,” said Marcia Mayeda, DACC’s director.

The cat, named “Pinay” (Pin-eye) by staff, was described as a Domestic Short Haired, orange and white female and is listed in fair condition at the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center’s medical unit.

“It is amazing that this cat could survive the almost 6,400 nautical mile journey by sea without food or water,” Mayeda said. “She has been closely monitored and cared for by our medical team and is getting stronger and putting on weight.”

Pinay is now available to be adopted into a good home, preferably one that won't let her roam. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control)

Comic Con International is the biggest pop culture event of the year, with major entertainment companies, artists, designers and rabid fans descending on the San Diego Convention Center by the tens of thousands for a weekend full of premieres, debuts, unveilings, surprise appearances and enough geeky treats to satisfy fanboys and fangirls for another year. But what about those artists who choose to create and produce their own independent vision, the little guys who have yet to be swallowed up by the big fish in the sea of media giants? They’re still making a strong impact on the landscape of the convention floor, proving that the spirit of independence is alive and well at Comic Con.

Blake Armstrong

Blake Armstrong has an extremely diverse entertainment industry background, but nothing has ever made him feel as passionate as creating his own illustrated fantasy series. The result is The Jester’s Curse, a dark and spaced out saga influenced by the music of In Flames and soon to be co-published by Heavy Metal magazine. Blake spent six months creating his moody series, in hopes that it would lead to being published and available to fans, but when he got the attention of Heavy Metal magazine, his indie success story was complete.

Erik Arreaga

San Diego native Erik Arreaga grew up when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the big, bad heroes of Image Comics ruled the comic store shelves. Back then, he dreamed of one day attending Comic Con as a professional artist. Now in his seventeenth year selling prints and original art at SDCC, it’s safe to say Erik has made his artistic dreams come true on the Con floor. This year his Zombie Last Supper prints turned heads, and lots of his original Ninja Turtles artwork were up for sale too.

Robert A. Kraus

The works of RAK are a familiar sight to Comic Con attendees, and Robert sells mini prints of his works complete with card sleeve for a dollar so his booth is very popular with kids and comic art fans alike. He’s been sharing his heroic visions of pop culture characters with Comic Con attendees for the last eight years, and if his name sounds familiar then you may be remember him as the creator of the character Chakan the Forever Man, who appeared in his own comic book series and video games in the 1990s.

CME

Japanese artist Aki Inomata once asked "Why not hand over a shelter to hermit crabs?" and answered her own question with this: a series of plastic shells modeled after the New York City skyline, a Parisian apartment, as well as typical architectures of other countries.

Aki's said:

In this piece I gave hermit crabs shelters that I had made for them, and if they liked my shelters, I got them to use them as their shell. I overheard that the land of the former French Embassy in Japan had been French until October 2009; that it was to become Japanese for the following fifty years, and then be returned to France. This concept made me think of hermit crabs, which change their shells. The same piece of land is peacefully transferred from one country to the other. These kinds of things take place without our being aware of it. On the other hand, similar events are not unrelated to us as individuals. For example acquiring nationality, moving, and migration. The hermit crabs wearing the shelters I built for them, which imitate the architecture of various countries, appeared to be crossing various national borders.

Aki's website | Designboom has more pics

Check out this picture of 28 men with no hair. One, two-year-old Patrick in the front, lost his because of chemotherapy for cancer. The rest, his father, his father's co-workers in the Secret Service, and former president George H.W. Bush (front and center) all shaved their heads in support of the little guy. Bush and his wife Barbara lost their four-year-old daughter to leukemia 60 years ago. Link

(Image credit: Jim McGrath)

This is what you get for trusting your brain with anything important. The brain is not your friend.

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When people are grumpy, who you gonna call?

A friend of Judson Hudson loves to cosplay as a Ghostbuster and Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony. This custom proton pack will let her do both at the same time. It lights up and plays appropriate sounds for blasting ghosts and turning frowns upside down. You can hear it in action in the video below.

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Perfect with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Wait. Wrong serial killer, but close enough.

The talented Annabel de Vetten of Conjurer's Kitchen created this gruesomely awesome "skin suit" cake, inspired by the serial killer Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. It's made from vanilla cake, dark chocolate ganache, black cherry filling and pure horror.

Link - Thanks Emma!

This picture reminds me of the game Stack the Cats. But you wouldn't get any points for the configuration, as the colors of the four cats don't match! -via Pleated Jeans

(Image credit: Norman Chan)

(Image credit: Frank Ippolito)

Adam Savage of Mythbusters attended Comic Con on Thursday dressed to the nines as Admiral Ackbar in a classic British naval uniform! See how effects master Frank Ippolito built the prosthetic mask at Tested. Link | Photo Gallery -via Laughing Squid

Photo: William Eng Photography/Flickr

Holy LEGO Batman Cake, Batman! Cake designer Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes created this Lego Batman: The Video Game for the game's launch party. William Eng snapped the photo above: Link

(YouTube link)

Gertie Cleary of Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, saw a raven perched on her fence with porcupine quills stuck in its face. The overly-friendly juvenile raven had a run-in with a porcupine, then made a better choice to let the woman get close. Cleary, wisely wearing gloves, did what she had to do.

The bird, clearly in pain, waited for Cleary to get each one of the quills out. Cleary says she didn’t think twice about helping the animal in distress.

“It reminded me of a child with a splinter and when you pull a splinter out, they holler and screech and pull their hand away,” says Cleary.

Once the quills were out, Cleary carried the bird to her daughter’s house, where she fed him dog food and water.

She let the raven, named Wilfred by the Cleary family, outside the next day, and he hung around for a while before flying off. Let's just hope the bird learned his lesson about porcupines. Link  -via Arbroath

If there's one thing that Neatorama readers love, it's cute baby animals. This wide-eyed hatchling is just starting to explore the world. Don't you want to just hug him to pieces?

-via The Soul Is Bone

(Photo: unknown)

You can either use the Force or wave your hand in front of the two sensors. In either case, this custom bra built by Instructables member caitlinsdad will emit sounds similar to those of R2-D2. Scroll down to see it in action.

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Dogs are employed as sniffers for all sorts of jobs. One specialty is a dog trained to detect disease in honeybees, particularly a nasty-sounding ailment called American foulbrood. Australian beekeeper Josh Kennett trained his Labrador Bazz to detect the disease, but he ran into a problem -bees tend to chase dogs off.

The beekeeper, from Tintinara in South Australia's south-east, says that while there are dogs doing similar work in the United States, the cold temperatures there negate the need for protection.

"Their winters are far colder than ours, with snow over the top of beehives. We don't have that situation here in South Australia.

"So I've tried to develop a suit the dog can wear and hopefully avoid being stung."

Mr Kennett says after a long process of trial and error, he's finally got a working prototype.  

The next step is to get Bazz used to working in the suit. Link  -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Josh Kennett)

Redditor Gentronification writes, "My buddy's answer to his wife saying they needed a guard dog..." Excellent choice! But like all things in life, this could be improved with a bayonet.

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