Child film star and later United States Ambassador Shirley Temple Black (1928-2014) was a huge celebrity from the age of 3 and the release of her first film, Bright Eyes. She inspired the creation of the Shirley Temple mocktail (non-alcoholic cocktail) in the 1930s. To make one, you need ginger ale, grenadine syrup, and a maraschino cherry.

The Takeout reports that Black herself was not fond of the drink. Before her death a decade ago, she told an interviewer that she found it far too sweet. When, in 1988, a beverage company tried to market a drink with her name, she successfully sued to stop them.

Photos: 20th Century Fox, Jodie Wilson

The Duluth News Tribune introduces us to Dustin Soyring of Hibbing, Minnesota got his start by restoring antique cars. His skills at paint and bodywork made for a smooth transition to provide customers with matching refrigerators. Soon, he developed a reputation as skilled in this specialized trade conducted by perhaps four people in the United States.

Then the famous football players Travis and Jason Kelce reached out to Soyring and asked him to provide vintage fridges decorated with the logos of the brothers' beer brand, Garage Beer. After the Kelces showcased the fridges on their social media outlets, Soyring's services have been in high demand. He now keeps a couple 1949-1951 units in stock, ready for the next celebrity request.

-via Marginal Revolution

It stands to reason that if you can do something--especially something of a culinary nature--you probably should. Thus if you have a few cans of tuna and a soda water maker, it's time to be creative.

YouTuber Ordinary Sausage makes extraordinary foods for his viewers' appreciation. These marvels include chocolate-covered pickles, Oreo-stuffed sausage, and steak flavored with Sour Patch Kids candy.

Most recently, Ordinary Sausage carbonated tuna and water to produce a sparkling tuna liquid that made for a fine tuna salad. He then turned this into a tuna salad sandwich with a bit of kick.

Not everyone on YouTube appreciates his genius, though:

-via Born in Space

Jerry Wayne Longmire is a Houston-based comedian who is not just Texan, but very Texan. In this video, he describes a very relatable experience that, as a fellow Texan, I feel in my sweat-soaked overalls: Longmire must look at his energy bill as the summer heat (made all the worse by the moisture blowing in off the Gulf of America) erodes his being.

Longmire tells the story as the long-winded Southern novelist William Faulkner would. Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi is geographically far from East Texas, but not culturally far from this kudzu-stangled land ruled by mosquitoes, cottonmouth snakes, and languid despair.

-via Elai

World War II ended with the aircraft carrier as the supreme warship type. So the leading navies of the world considered how to best optimize this platform.

A 2021 article in Naval History magazine explains that among the challenges of the new jet-powered aircraft were the the limited space and weight requirements for aircraft. Could a designer save on both by foregoing landing gear? In the late 1940s, Royal Navy considered this option. Perhaps a jet without landing gear could land on a carrier if the flight deck was covered with rubber. After hitting the arresting cable, a jet could come to a gradual if bouncy stop.

The US Navy conducted similar experiments. Although there were no serious accidents, it was a risky landing method. Furthermore, a jet without landing gear could land only on this type of runway. So relying on rubber-coated flight decks would be too limiting. Both navies ultimately dropped the idea.

-via US Naval Institute

Smoking tobacco used to be a completely mainstream activity. When I was in high school in the 90s, teachers had their own smoke-filled lounge. There was also an area of the campus known as the "gravel pit" where students were, at least unofficially, allowed to smoke.

In the 70s, it was hard to even convince people that tobacco could be dangerous, let alone attach a social stigma to the practice. Cigarette smoke carried an aroma of class and mystery. Weird Universe directs us to this print advertisement from 1972 offering people home water filters that would give tap water the taste of Tareyton brand cigarettes.

It's a completely real and quite prolific ad. You can see it in this issue of Life magazine.

The LOTI Pencil is an enormous public sculpture on the shore of the Lake of the Isles, Minnesota. It's on the lawn of a historic mansion and made from an oak tree that fell in 2017. In 2022, artist Curtis Ingolstad shaped and painted it into a realistic image of a pencil.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that the pencil received its annual sharpening--a task evidently conducted with a chainsaw. This cleaning task has become a major local public event, drawing large crowds to watch. Since the most recent sharpening fell on June 7, the birthday of the late musician Prince, the celebration included Prince music. Prince was a native son of Minneapolis, so his work is dear to the hearts of celebrants.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Ben Krsnak

Patrick Stewart received classical training in his craft and was an acclaimed master of the Shakespearean stage long before he took up film roles and then became widely known to American audiences in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

When acting and directing are done well, the audience doesn't even notice it because the narrative flows so naturally. But good acting isn't done casually or naturally; it's the result of particular choices executed precisely.

In this video, Rowan J. Coleman describes how Patrick Stewart, in the role of Captain Picard, demonstrated masterful execution of timing, intonation, body language, and other facets of the actor's craft. He contrasts Stewart's portrayal of Picard with that of William Shatner's depiction of Captain Kirk to explain how top-tier actors express themselves so effectively.

-via reddit

At the subreddit /r/StarTrek, my fellow Trekkies are playing a game of adding "...if you know what I mean" to the end of favorite lines from Star Trek.

It works rather well. Such as the above line from a scene in the first episode of The Next Generation. Or, below, one from The Wrath of Khan. The results are salacious for those of us with corrupted minds.

Last Saturday, we posted about Ed, a pet zebra that had escaped from his home in central Tennessee. Ed is now back in the slammer, having been captured by local law enforcement, professional animal handlers, and volunteer drone operators according to WSMV 4 News.

How did they capture the zebra? The local NBC News affiliate interviewed the owners, Taylor and Laura Ford. The couple hired professional wranglers from Texas who used an off-road vehicle and a helicopter to drive the zebra. The chopper crew then dropped a net on Ed. After subduing him, the helicopter lifted him to a trailer for transportation to a more secure facility.

-via Super Punch

Turn the corner while browsing through the aisles of this 7-Eleven convenience in Monterrey, Mexico, and you'll see a living tree erupting through the floor and poking out the ceiling. Mike Leavy of Mexico Listo tells us that when 7-Eleven planned its 500th store, it decided to make one that was LEED Certified--that is, built to promote environmental sustainability.

The builders found a 60-year old walnut tree on the site and decided to keep it. Additionally, the store is built from recycled materials, makes great use of natural sunlight and reduces interior lighting when not needed, and uses enthalpy wheels to regulate ventilation.

-via Atlas Obscura

That's a retired Boeing KC-97 tanker aircraft built in 1953. Now it's the centerpiece of The Airplane Restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Historian James Thomas Flexner famously called George Washington "the indispensible man" of the American Revolution. As Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, General Washington refused to profit from the war, accepting only reimbursement for his expenses and returned to Mount Vernon only once during the eight-year long war.

Although he usually did not sleep on the bare ground like many of the enlisted men, his camp lifestyle was hardly comfortable. Pictured above and below is one of the beds that he used toward the end of the war.

You can find this bed within the collections of the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.

-via Massimo

Crokinhole is a tabletop game that is popular in Canada. It involves flicking small disks at a hole in the center of a circle while hitting one's opponent's disks and not hitting your own.

CBC News reports that an American, Connor Reinman, had won the annual world championships for two years in a row. He's a graduate student in Indiana and, like many top crokinhole players, is a math guy.

USA! USA! USA!

Alas, it appears that American hegemony in crokinhole has come to a close. If I understand the results page correctly, the champion at world-level event yesterday is a Canadian named Shawn Hagarty.

-via Dave Barry

A week ago, a man in central Tennessee acquired a pet zebra from a zebra dealer in Texas (of course). It promptly escaped the next day. Zebras are hard to domesticate, so perhaps the zebra did not think of his new residence as a home.

The owners, Taylor and Laura Ford of the town of Christiana, call the zebra "Zeke." But the people of the internet, who have been following the week-long pursuit of the zebra in prison stripes, call him "Ed."

As of yesterday, the fugitive Ed remains at large. But Rutherford County Sheriff's deputies are tracking him with a drone.