Cursed cats! They are so fond of disrupting human work, especially medieval manuscript composition. In 1420, a scribe in what is now the Netherlands discovered that a cat had urinated on a page that he had written. He added illustrations of the event and the subsequent damage to the book, as well as provided helpful advice:

Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum ostum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem uni cattie venire possunt.

When translated into English, that reads:

Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.

Link -via Alexis Madrigal | Photo: Historical Archives of Cologne

I saw this headline a couple of times yesterday before I realized that what made the story so rare is that she gave birth to two sets of identical twins all at the same time! Tressa Montalvo had a Cesarian section on Valentine's Day at  Women’s Hospital of Texas and produced four boys, each weighing between three and four pounds. She had conceived fraternal twins, then each embryo split into identical twins. Montalvo and her husband used no fertility drugs.

The odds of delivering two sets of naturally occurring identical twins is somewhere in the range of 1 in 70 million, according to the hospital. Two boys shared one placenta and the two other boys shared another placenta.

Ace and Blaine were born at 8:51 a.m. on February 14 and weighed 3 pounds, 10 ounces (1.64 kg), and 3 pounds, 15 ounces (1.79 kg), respectively. Cash and Dylan followed a minute later, weighing 2 pounds, 15 ounces (1.33 kg), and 3 pounds, 6 ounces (1.53 kg), respectively.

"We tried to stick to the A-B-C-D theme when naming them," Tressa Montalvo said. "We didn't expect it, we were trying for just one and we were blessed with four."

The quadruplets join a two-year-old brother. The boys' father said they were going to try for a girl next. That's easy for him to say. Link  -via Holy Kaw!

(Image credit: Reuters/The Women's Hospital of Texas)

Oh, it won't just be a fire flickering away. There will be on-air experts providing color commentary as the fire burns:

"We'll talk about the very nerdy subjects like burning, slicing and stacking the wood, but we'll also have cultural segments with music and poems," Rune Moeklebust, a producer for state broadcaster NRK.

"It will be very slow but noble television."

Moeklebust got the idea for the show from the wild success of a firewood book by Lars Mytting, Norway's biggest firewood celebrity. His book "Hel Ved", which means Strong Character in English, is a play on words because ved also means "firewood".

This kind of programming has a following in Norway:

NRK is not new to quirky programming.

In 2011, it broadcast 134 hours non-stop of a cruise ship going up the Norwegian coast to theArctic, bagging the world record for the longest continuous TV program along the way.

At one point 600,000 people tuned in to watch that program with 3.2 million people, or over 60 percent of the population, glued to the screen at one point.

And an earlier broadcast of an eight hour train journey from Oslo to Bergen was so popular, NRK had to repeat it.

Link -via VA Viper | Photo: haddensavix

15-year-old gay teen named Laurel came out of the closet with great taste. Literally. She baked a "gayke" cake and presented her parents with a touching note:

Good morning parents, I’m gay. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. I thought doing it this way would be a piece of cake. I hope you still love me. I mean, it’s hard not to love someone who baked you a cake.

All my friends know and still love me. Your acceptance would be the icing on the cake. I hope you, much like this cake, are not in tiers.

I hope we can look back on this and say “boy, this one really takes the cake.”

It gets batter.

Love, Laurel (sorry for so many puns)

Link - Oh, by the way, her parents loved it.

Photo: Ken Steinhardt/OC Register

We're going to need a giant roll of newspaper to discipline that dog! As part of his exhibit "Ain't Painting a Pain," artist Richard Jackson created a giant 28-foot-high puppy that squirts yellow paint onto the side of the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California:

Jackson said he crafted the dog from fiber glass and other composite materials with the help of an engineering company in Santa Ana. It consists of 52 digitally-cut-out pieces that were assembled on site.

Once the shell was placed, Jackson climbed into the dog with a big bucket of yellow paint, which he squirted on to the wall. Now a pump continuously shoots out the paint.

"The way I see it, it's funny," he said. "I understand that Newport Beach has traditionally been a conservative community. But, this is an art museum. This piece of art is making a commentary or statement. The dog is pissing on the museum."

The dog is what Jackson calls a "painting machine," a mechanism that helps create works of art. He has at least a half dozen other painting machines as part of the exhibit, including a herd of deer statues that shoot out paintballs.

Deepa Bharath of the OC Register has the story. Check it out: Link

Lilah and Nick built this wonderful cabin in West Virginia out of reclaimed lumber and filled it with eccentric castoff vintage and antique furnishings. One wall is made completely of old windows. I particularly like this imaginative use of an old cast iron bed frame -not as a bed, but as a hanging rack over the bed!

Found at Cabin Porn. Link

Pictures from the cabin's Tumblr site. Link

Milky Joe is one lucky snake. His human, Stephanie Christine Davidson, wants to make sure that he doesn't freeze during the winter. This sweater will keep him both warm and fashionable. You can watch a video at the link.

Link -via Passing Fancies

I Survived The Russian Meteor

Celebrate your survival from the latest cosmic-based apocalypse (take that, space pebble!) with this clever T-shirt design by Chris Murphy. Remember: In Russia, Space Explores YOU!

Link: I Survived The Russian Meteor

Previously from the NeatoShop: I Survived The Mayan Apocalypse | I Survived the Large Hadron Collider

We've featured San Francisco artist Steven J. Backman here before — he's built an entire career out of assembling toothpicks into bridges and buildings. But these are a little different: Using tiny pieces of a single toothpick, backman has recreated the Eiffel Tower, Burj Khalifa, the White House and other iconic structures, adding only saint-like patience and a bit of glue. Check out the full gallery on his website. Link -via WebUrbanist

(YouTube link)

Mimi is inside the box. Chibi-bang is on the box. Boys and girls, can you guess what will happen? The Shironeko cats know how to have a good time! Link -via Daily Picks and Flicks