The original post has disappeared from the subreddit /r/relationships. This is most likely because the woman felt overwhelmed with shame at not immediately supporting her husband's spectacular plans for his remains after his death.

Novelist Herb Mallette proposes that a better option would be to have the skull placed next to the wife's nightstand so that he could watch over her as she sleeps. This would be far more romantic than resting on the mantle. I'll bet that if the husband had pitched this modification of his plan to his wife, she'd swoon with bliss and agree.

If she simply refuses to cooperate, then I think that the husband should have his cremated remains compacted into a jewel that will be embedded in the pommel of a cursed sword that will be used by his children to slay his still-living enemies.

I'm sentimental that way.

The most frustrating part of using a glue gun on a regular basis is how often it's necessary to reload. It's the flintlock musket of the crafting world.

Now it's time to change the crafting battlefield forever. Let's massively increase the rate of fire on a glue gun by converting it into a cycling 6-shot revolver. Vije Miller made a revolutionary improvement upon the classic glue gun by adding a servo that turns the 3D printed cylinder, chambering new sticks. The system is controlled by an Arduino Nano and 5 volt power supply built into the grip.

If you call Miller out into the street, you'd better hope that your first (and only) shot hits.

-via Hack A Day

Sometimes, it's not enough to travel to new places to relax. What you really need is actual, sustained, uninterrupted sleep for several hours. That can be hard to get, what with your brain deciding to 2 AM is the ideal time to process that time you of embarrassing, aggravating, or guilt-inducing memories. And when you're not listening to the noise inside your head, there's the noise coming from the outside world.

That's why some luxury hotels are developing rooms designed with sleep in mind. Pictured above is a suite at the Park Hyatt hotel in New York City. It has an AI-controlled bed that adjusts pressure points and temperature while you sleep, essential oils, sleep masks, and sleep-inspiring books.

CNN reports about other hotels that are getting into this market, with high-end sleep-optimal hotels opening in London and Coimbra, Portugal. Sleep, one researcher says, is often the first casualty of travel. Good travel planning should include making plans for how to sleep effectively. Hotels that design their experiences with sleep in mind can offer tourists an essential service.

-via Marginal Revolution

I love when neighbors place Free Little Libraries outside their homes, but this house in Los Feliz takes the cake. Ten years ago, the owner installed a bocce ball court in the median between the sidewalk and street, open to anyone who wants to play. pic.twitter.com/Z9NxgbZlN6

— L.A. Dork (@la_dorkout) September 25, 2022

The Little Free Library movement places book swapping libraries in public places. Take a book if you like and leave a book when you can. I find them helpful because the practice of actually throwing away books is so repulsive to me that Little Free Libraries give me a way to dispose of some books that are worth reading but for which I have no space

The movement has inspired other public sharing places, such as little free art galleries and, now, a little free bocce court. Los Angeles author Paul Haddad says that in the Los Feliz neighbhood of his city, there's a bocce court that one kind landowner makes available to passersby who would like to play a game.

-via Super Punch

Finished stitching this today 😇 pic.twitter.com/akwCVDZ8eT

— MJ (@somanyjets) October 5, 2022

Marianne Jetté, a professional theatre costume designer in Ontario, describes herself as “Baba Yaga but with may more glitter.” She weaves supernatural and folkloric themes through her cosplays and crafts. This funny cross-stitch sampler illustrates the dark side of this “cosplay witch”.

Jetté takes the classic “Don’t Do Cocaine in the Bathroom” cross-stitch meme and suggests that summoning demons may be an even worse choice when taking a sanitary break while visiting her home. But turn off the lights and glow-in-the-dark thread indicates that she’s totally chill with your lifestyle choices.

If you like her design, you can buy the pattern on Etsy.

-via Rebeccca Baumann

The Fisher & Norris Factory Museum in Tinton Falls, New Jersey is a private museum devoted to one subject: the anvil. This humble tool used by blacksmiths and best known for falling on top of coyotes is an object of fascination to Joshua Kavett, the founder of the museum.

A company named Fisher & Norris manufactured anvils until 1979. Kavett toured its defunct factory shortly before it was demolished and rescued many anvils from it. He became fascinated with anvils and this particular company and wrote the definitive history of it before opening his museum.

Are you in the mood for a love story? Here's one from Easdale, Scotland, where a woman named Margaret Stables is offering to give away a coffin that she had originally purchased for her husband. The tabloid Daily Record reports that Stables posted the offer on Facebook Marketplace. She purchased the coffin in the hope of burying her husband in it, but he hasn't died yet and the coffin is taking up a lot of space in their house.

The coffin is free, but you have to come to the Stables' residence to pick it up. It doesn't come with the pillow, as their dog has taken a liking to it.

Valentine's Day is a few months away, but consider this opportunity to get the perfect gift for a romantic partner early.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Margaret Stables

Do you find it awkward to sell yourself during a job interview? Do you want a job that you're unqualified for and wouldn't be able to fake competence at during a job interview? If yes, then there are people that can help.

Business Insider reports that some companies that do a lot of remote work, hire people through online interviews, or overseas jobs are encountering proxies. These are people who pretend to be the actual applicants. Such applicants may pay stand-ins up to $150 per hour to disguise themselves as the applicants and bluff their way through interviews. This is especially common for knowledge workers, such as those in information technology fields.

Companies that are deceived by this practice run the risk of hiring incompetent workers or suffering reputational damage when the scam is exposed. So make sure that your proxy wears a really convincing mask.

-via Marginal Revolution

An experience from TikTok that really touched us last year. pic.twitter.com/RqP7UKXktf

— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) September 16, 2022

Actor Mandy Patinkin is most famous for playing the role of the rogue Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. His father died of cancer in 1972 when he was a young man and Patinkin was still grieving over the loss when he played Inigo in 1986.

One of the greatest scenes in the film shows Inigo slaying his father's murderer while saying, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch." As Patinkin explained in an interview several years ago, he was thinking about own father's killer when he performed in that scene.

The Princess Bride has touched the lives of millions of viewers over the years. One of them was a TikTok user whose father recently died of cancer. The father was a fan of The Princess Bride and Patinkin's character. In the above video, he connects with her to help her mourn her loss.

Patinkin seems like a genuinely sweet person. About a decade ago, he was giving an interview with a television station when the wife of a reporter went into labor. Patinkin understood that this event was of far greater importance than anything he had to say.

-via Althouse

How awesome is this? She is dressed up as the Dumbo ride! #D23Expo pic.twitter.com/yAIvOacYVp

— Arvid - Travel to the Magic (@travelttmagic) September 9, 2022

Dumbo the Flying Elephant is a classic amusement park ride available at various Disney parks around the world, including Disneyland in California, where it debuted at the park's opening in 1955. It's entertained millions of children and adults for three generations.

Now it's a cosplay.

Tina Elliot loves all things Disney, especially the rides at the parks. Her cosplays include wearable recreations of the Alice in Wonderland ride and the Haunted Mansion. The one displayed above is a mechanical recreation of the Dumbo ride. In this video, she's displaying its full majesty at the D23 Expo in Anaheim.

It bears an astonishingly close resemblance to the real thing.

-via Super Punch

Riley Stearns, a filmmaker, wrote, directed, and produced a recent film called Dual. It's a satirical film in which a woman must fight her own clone in a duel. A few days ago, he shared the above image about a human-canine duel in a viral tweet.

Stearns did a lot of reading to prepare his story, including reading Gentleman's Blood: From Swords at Dawn to Pistols a Dusk by Barbara Holland, which is a history of dueling in Western civilization. Holland's text includes this fascinating and perhaps true story of a duel fought in Fifteenth Century France between a man and a greyhound.

The dog won.

It's an amazing story. But as a librarian, I have a duty to verify if it's true. To summarize my investigation: the story is so poorly sourced that it's unlikely to be true. To be more specific, this story does not appear to date back prior to the Nineteenth Century.

But it's probably okay to share with your dog anyway.

This brief gem buried in the bowels of YouTube shows an outtake from the set of Mary Poppins.

The actors recorded their songs in an audio studio for clarity and then lip-synched them on the set. Here, Julie Andrews mouths the lines of Bert and Dick Van Dyke does those of Mary Poppins. "Chim Chim Cher-ee" gets delightfully weird as the costumed actors switch roles.

This is the sort of gag reel that I'd like to see from more television shows and movies. Just have the actors switch their lines and see how convincing they can be.

-via Laughing Squid

The Secretary of State of New Mexico informs us that her state has an official question. It is, simply, "Red or Green?" This is to say: do you prefer chile peppers that are red or green?

In Smithsonian, Doug Mack unpacks the complicated history of this simple question. It began with a debate in the state legislature of what should be the official state food. In 1964, high school student Helen Loera proposed to her history teacher, Arcenio A. Gonzales, who was also a member of the state legislature, that chile peppers be the official state vegetable. When the legislature was next in session, Gonzales did precisely that.

Despite partisan bickering over the issue, the motion was passed and the chile pepper became the official state food. But the law was ambiguous because it did not state precisely which color chile pepper claimed official status.

In 1995, a bipartisan bill (red and green parties) passed a bill that decided to accept the ambiguity and assert that "Red or green?" is the official state question. Governor Gary Johnson considered it to be a waste of time and vetoed it. The next year, the legislature sent the bill to the governor's desk again and he gave in. Now New Mexicans can remain patriotic while disagreeing over the correct color, which is of course green.

-via Marilyn Terrell

At one point, perhaps 6,000 years ago, a First Nations hunter in North America discovered that the tasty beaver he had killed had internal sacs positioned near its anus that extrude a fluid that we call castoreum.

Beavers use these glands to mark their territory with a scent that is vaguely like vanilla. It's now used as a food additive and a base for perfume production.

Tamworth Distilling in Tamworth, New Hampshire, a producer of small batch whiskeys with fanciful names and flavors, is betting that beaver anal gland extract -- which is to say, castoreum -- is a good starting point for a whiskey dubbed Eau de Musc. This bourbon has a "leathery, raspberry taste."

I'll take a double.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Tamworth Distilling

It was 1990 and across Eastern Europe, communist governments were collapsing. Albania had had a rough go of it even by Cold War standards because it had split from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and aligned itself with China. Then China distanced itself from Albania in the early 1970s, leaving a deeply isolated nation with no allies and few friends. Albania had a bunker mentality in the most literal sense possible.

Atlas Obscura tells us that in 1990, the communists knew that the end was near and that their government would fall. It was necessary to get rid of documents detailing their crimes that had accumulated during 46 years of tyranny and murder.

Paper shredders were not available, so government officials liquefied the incriminating files with water and the mixing machines used to knead dough. Once the documents were reduced to a slurry, they were surreptitiously dumped in rivers and in the countryside.

29,000 files were turned into this uncooked dough, leaving only about 10% to survive the democratic revolution of 1991-1992 to the present day.

Photo: Adam Jones