When she was 90 years old, Norma's husband died. Then she was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors recommended a regimen of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to treat it.

Norma had a better idea:

"I'm 90 years old," she said, according her daughter-in-law, Ramie. "I'm not doing that."

Since then, she's been driving across the United States, seeing everything that she always wanted to see. Her son and daughter-in-law have been taking her on the journey and documenting it on their Facebook page Driving Miss Norma.

Last August, Norma sold her home and bought a 36-foot long motorhome for the trip. Norma has since seen many natural wonders, including Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon. She's been to the National World War II Museum, which is fitting, as she served in the Navy during that war. She's even ridden in a hot air balloon.

You can read more about Norma's extraordinary ongoing journey at the Today show.

-via 22 Words

(They Can Talk/Jimmy Craig)

Cats are naturally tidy. They know that if they need to cough up something, such as a hairball or a dead bird, then they need to dispose of it properly in your sneakers. Dogs, in contrast, will just barf anywhere.

(Historically accurate image of Washington crossing the Delaware River by Jason Heuser)

History teaches us that Washington once threw a knife into Heaven and could kill with a stare (NSFW). He was the superhero of the American Revolutionary War.

Naturally, these facts inspire Zach Snyder, the director of the movie Batman v. Superman. He'd like to make a biographical movie about George Washington in the style of 300, the story of the Spartans at Thermoplyae and one of the great movies of all time. Bloomberg Business has the scoop:

One of these days, he’d like to make one about George Washington in the style of 300. He has a picture in his office of the Revolutionary War hero crossing the icy Delaware on his way to decimate the British in the Battle of Trenton. “We were talking about it,” Snyder says. “The first thing we asked was, well, how are we going to make it look? I pointed at this painting. It looks like 300. It’s not that hard.”

It was actually the Hessians at Trenton. But Snyder can later make a sequel about how Washington outsmarted Cornwallis during the Princeton campaign a week later. Spoiler: it involved riger tigers.

-via io9

Richie the cat doesn't think that cats and dogs can't be friends. When his humans brought long-haired Chihuahua puppies into their home, he welcomed them. He doesn't hesitate to snuggle with them and provide care. Together, they're the Yuta Family.

(Image: SpicaSirius)

7th Heaven, a beauty product line in the UK, is offering a pop-up day spa in London from March 12 to 14. Humans can stop by and receive massages and facial treatments from qualified professionals. While they do so, rabbits from Greenwich Rabbit Rescue will freely hop about the facility, providing a calming atmosphere with their top-tier cuteness. The tabloid Metro reports:

‘At 7th Heaven we love animals as much as we love humans and this is the perfect way to combine the two,’ said spokesperson Steven Van Hemmen.

He explained that the spa isn’t just for the humans: ‘The rabbits will be pampered, too, with plenty of food, a huge run to explore, with plenty of human interaction, which they love.’

-via Lost at E Minor

(Image: AFP)

You can grind up cricket bodies and turn them into flour. You can then use this flour to make pasta. That's how you end up with this delicious-looking radiatori. It's high in protein that the human body can easily digest.

The Independent describes how one artisanal pasta shop in Thiefosse, France is using cricket flour to revive its business:

“The name of the ingredient may be a turnoff, but it's really delicious, especially with game meat,” smiles Alain Limon as he spreads cricket-flavoured fusilli on a drying rack. […]

His boss Stephanie Richard began her homemade pasta business in 2012, and is now hiring again thanks to the success of her latest creations made from insect flour.

“The insect is the protein of the future,” Richard says. “It's protein of high quality that is well digested by the body.” […]

For Richard's unique pastas, she uses pulverised crickets and grasshoppers, sometimes mixing the two, and sometimes mixing ground cepes with cricket flour.

“There's a kind of nutty taste thanks to the cepes, making it taste more like whole wheat pasta,” Richard says.

If you want to buy some cricket pasta for yourself, the online store Bugsolutely appears to have you covered. Of course, if you're more sporting, you'd try to catch the crickets yourself.

-via Nerdcore

Do you see it? It's right there in the picture.

(Photos: Het Nieuwsblad)

Eric Vekeman of Zegelsem, Belgium wanted to build a garage into his house. The local government said no. He did it anyway. The result is a garage that seamlessly blends in with the wall. It's an incredible piece of engineering and craftsmanship. You can see more photos here and a video of Vekeman opening it at Het Nieuwsblad.

-via Super Punch

The pizza slice on the paper plate--it's the universal symbol of hospitality. If you want to create a sense of welcoming and comfort, this is what you present to guests.

So it's a good model for a night light. Steph Mantis, a designer, loves pizza. Gaze upon her Tumblr to get a sense of the scale of her affection for it.

In the past, she immortalized slices of pizza in lucite. More recently, she created a night light that looks just like a warm slice of cheese pizza. It almost looks edible!

-via Home Geekonomics

(Image: Paramount Pictures)

George Kennedy passed away yesterday at the age of 91.

Kennedy came from a family of actors and was a child actor himself. Then World War II came along. He served in the Army and then, after the war, stayed in. He served for 15 years before returning to Hollywood. His first big screen role was as a rebel soldier in the 1960 movie Spartacus. He became famous with a supporting role in the 1967 Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke. I remember him best in the Zucker brothers' series The Naked Gun.

Kennedy's obituary in the Washington Post quotes him on his love for his craft:

“Acting is beautiful,” he said. “If I’m prejudiced toward doing it, it is because of the joy that I derive from it. Add that to the fact that I didn’t have any other choices. I either talked to myself, or I didn’t talk to anybody.”

I've always liked George Kennedy. He always conveyed his characters in a relatable way. He came across as just the sort of guy you'd want to have a beer with.

-via Jonah Goldberg

Today, February 29, is leap day. It occurs only once every four years and is thus a special occasion.

In the Nineteenth Century, in the United States, Leap Day was the one day a quadrennium when it was considered socially acceptable for a woman to propose marriage to a man. Some men took advantage of this fine reversal of fortunes and offered themselves up for the bonds of matrimony.

On January 1 of 1884 and 1888, the Chicago newspaper the Daily Inter-Ocean presented a list of eligible bachelors who would entertain proposals on Leap Day. You can find more of their ads at the blog of the New York Public Library.

Four suits! There's a winner.

-via Marilyn Bellamy

In Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren vowed to finish what his grandfather started. But Darth Vader eventually turned away from the dark side of the Force and appeared in astral form beside Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Andy Kluthe and Andrew Bridgman explain at Dorkly that the crisis might have been averted if only Anakin hadn't been so eager to get to the party.

(Video Link)

Humanity began in Africa, as did the zebra. Why did we never domesticate it? Why did we instead journey on foot to meet the Eurasian horse and only then mastered and trained an animal for transportation?

CGP Grey explains in his latest video. There are certain characteristics of animals that are necessary to either domesticated or tame (which are two distinct concepts) them. He explains what makes the zebra different from the horse and the elephant different from the grizzly bear.

Reddit an open forum utility with a place to discuss everything on every subject. If you can think of it, there's a subreddit (an online forum) for it. It's a central hub for the latest news of the world.

Blair Erickson, a redditor, spent 4 years building a hilarious parody of reddit that imagines what the site would look like a thousand years into the future. It's called Reddit 3016. It's a non-stop parade of jokes, both about futurism and the tendencies of reddit.

Everything, including the ads, is part of the humor. For example, there's a sidebar promo for the latest Transformers movie, Dark of the Crack. Its tagline is "This time, one of them has a Jamaican accent." Popular subreddits in 2016 are updated to 3016 with discussion boards called Artificial Pro Life Tips and ExplainItLikeImAFireMite.

Gizmodo talked to Erickson about the project:

To dream up all those stories, videos, and images, Erickson combined futuristic technology with what he sees as universal themes around human conversation. “If you read graffiti in Roman bath houses you see human beings make... the same silly things even thousands of years in the past. Who’s sleeping with who. What kind of foreigners disturb their xenophobic feelings. Who’s a badass. What they like, what they hate. Who is a liar in politics, etc. So I wanted to play it out in a fun futuristic way.”

You should go to Reddit 3016 right now and go waste some time like, just like you do on the older reddit.

(Lunarbaboon)

If you coddle your children, all you do is set them up for failure. You've got to teach them your values by example. If your son doesn't learn how to shirk responsibilities from you, how do you expect him to be able to shirk them when he's an adult?

(Image: Noah Stacey)

The Storm Crow Tavern is a restaurant and bar in Vancouver with a gaming theme. The entire place is filled with board games and Choose Your Own Adventure novels to amuse yourself with while dining. There's a heavy emphasis on fantasy role-playing games. You've got to read the menu, which has appropriate dishes, such as the Tacos of the Damned and Patton Oswalt's Sadness Bowl. If you're not sure what to drink, you can randomly roll a d20 for a $5 Random Shot. These include the Critical Miss and the Grue.

Artist Noah Stacey loves the place. When the restaurant decided to open a new location called the Storm Crow Alehouse, he decided to contribute to the decor. He painted 9 burgers with different Dungeons & Dragons alignments.

You'll need it. You see, if you don't have a specific burger in mind, you can use a d20 to randomly generate one.

-via Tor