Morgan on the Move, a travel influencer, stopped by Cheese & Crack, a gourmet cheese and snack shop in Portland, Oregon. You can buy cheeses, charcuterie meals, fine wine, and soft serve ice cream there, among other treats on the menu.

The ice cream is dusted with your choice of espresso, matcha, beet, strawberry, or chocolate malt. For just $1.50, you can get a tiny chocolate cowboy hat added to the top.

How do you celebrate the Fourth of July in Maine? In the seaside town of Cutler, it's by running over fifty lobster crates strung between two docks. 

Cutler isn't the only town to engage in this traditional Maine sport. There's an upcoming race in Rockland on August 2. Run as fast as you can across the crates without falling into the water.

It appears to be a sport for children, although I don't see what adults can't try it. Orthopedists would certainly appreciate your efforts.

-via Rural Maine

Arresting officers called it karma.

Police in Howard County say that a man parked his truck, left the keys inside, and then robbed a Verizon store across the street. When he got back to his getaway vehicle, it had gotten away from him. Someone stole it in the brief time that he was distracted by the robbery.

So he called 911.

Police came and interviewed him. He had a bloody hand. Yahoo! News reports that one of the store's windows was broken. Security cameras inside the store showed him pillaging it, so the officers arrested him and mocked him for his bad luck.

Chris Garrett of Phantom Surf is a master craftsman of surfboards in Australia. He made this unique board for the Gage Roads Brewing Company. It has an internal resevoir that can hold up to 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of beer.

So if you're hot and thirsty after a long day of hitting the waves, you can install a tap into the board and drain the contents. Watch a video about the construction of the board here.

-via Toxel

The extreme stunts crew at Nitro Circus is back with another blending of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Everyone likes dining with friends, right? Some wine and fine good set a convivial mood, even if you're being dropped out of an airplane at the time.

The dishes are attached to the table, but the food remains in motion and partially eaten as these skydivers plunge to Earth. Eventually, they stand up, move way from the table, and open their parachutes.

-via The Awesomer

While reading a biography of Zachary Taylor by John S.D. Eisenhower (yes, the son of Dwight Eisenhower), I came across this interesting fact: Taylor was the first officer in the US armed forces to receive a brevet promotion.

A brevet rank is a temporary promotion given in honor of meritorious service. It is temporary until confirmed through regular procedure.

Zachary Taylor was President of the United States from 1849 through 1850. Prior to that, he was a long-service officer in the United States Army who achieved fame during the Mexican War.

Earlier in his career, during the War of 1812, he held a fort in the wilderness of Indiana against a Native American attack. With only 20 effectives, he was outnumbered 30 to 1, but nonetheless prevailed. President Madison awarded Captain Taylor the brevet rank of major--the first in American military history.

Niche Museums is a website that catalogs unusually specific musems around the world. It directs us to the Vincent and Ethel Simonetti Historic Tuba Collection in Durham, North Carolina. If you're into tubas, this your pilgrimage site!

Vincent Simonetti, one of the two founders, began building his collection of over three hundred tubas in 1965 when he encountered an unusual specimen. He and his wife, Ethel, operated a tuba business until 2011, when he sold it and offered his personal collection to interested viewers.

Would you like to see it? You can visit by appointment only on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3 and 6 PM. A tour is free, but Mr. Simonetti does suggest a donation.

-via David Thompson

Dries Depoorter is a Belgian artist, public speaker, and "concept provider." I would be skeptical about the last position as a real job, but my introduction to him is this clever candle that burns down at the rate of its cost. The candle costs €30 (that's $34 or 16 quatloos) and has 30 lines on it. As you use it, the money that you've spent on it burns away.

-via Flowing Data

Imagine what it would have been like if George Lucas had to produce Episode IV of Star Wars with only pocket change?

Secondhand Movie Company has recreated iconic scenes from Star Wars (and Jurassic Park) with props made of cardboard, duct tape, and spraypaint. Here's the introduction of Luke Skywalker and a drunk Uncle Owen buying droids on Tatooine.

It's not a shot-for-short remake of Star Wars. The scriptwriters have fun with the scenes by adding animosity and implied sexual tension between our two favorite droids. They also turn the iconic blue milk into paint and give Aunt Beru a beard.

-via Nag on the Lake

In 1975, a criminal court in Georgia convicted Terry Brown and sentenced him to seven years in prison at hard labor. There was apparently a personality conflict between the presiding judge and members of the appellate court because the judge "demanded that if Judge Randall Evans, Jr. ever again was so presumptious as to reverse one of his decisions, that the opinion be written in poetry."

The appellate court did precisely that. Judge Dunbar Harrison composed the reversal of Brown's conviction in proper rhyme. You can read the full poem/decision at Justia and an article about it and other instances of judical humor in the University of California Law Journal.

-via Jarvis Best

Sora News 24 tells us about the opening of a new hotel outside of Osaka. The Hoshinoya Nara Prison is a beautiful historic penitentiary that now serves more voluntary guests and provides conditions that previous residents would envy.

The Blind Pelican is a seafood restaurant in Holly Springs, North Carolina. On the southwestern edge of Raleigh, it's quite far from the Atlantic Ocean. But guests can still enjoy massive quantities of seafood.

The eatery is locally famous for its cocktails. Each one is a meal--probably for four people. The margaritas come with food items on skewers, often more than just appetizers. Why not stick a whole lobster in the drink? And why not then add a Alaska King Crab? Put in some onion rings and a steak so that it's a balanced meal. Make the drink so large that it takes two people just to bring it to the table.

Sometimes school yearbooks request baby photos from graduating students. It appears that one prankster decided to submit a photo of Adolf Hitler as a baby instead of him/herself.

The New York Post reports that East Brook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey has recalled all copies of the yearbook and apologized for the oversight in a letter sent to parents of all the students. The principal then condemned both the prank and Adolf Hitler.

-via Wade Stotts, who quips, "The school apologized saying, 'If we could go back in time to prevent this from happening, we would.'"

Photos: Josef Franz Klinger/Google Street view

Mel Books, the great comic filmmaker, was born 100 years ago today as Melvin James Kiminsky to a poor family in Brooklyn. Brooks was a prodigious comedic talent even as a child. That early career was interrupted by the war, in which Brooks served as a combat engineer in the US Army at the Battle of the Bulge.

Brooks worked hard to develop his skills and entertainment appeal. In 1967, he won an Academy Award for The Producers--the first film that he directed. In the 70s and 80s, Brooks produced original masterpieces, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, and Spaceballs.

He's worked continuously in filmmaking for several decades. His hand prints in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre, notable for having a sixth finger, is well-earned. People magazine tells us more about Brooks's astonishing life and work.

Photo: Nehrams2020

Oddity Central tells us about a new and fresh take on ice cream from Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Honshu. It combines the Japanese love of seafood and creamy soft serve ice cream. Imagine the clamminess of, well, shellfish, the tang of soy sauce and the sweetness of the ice cream. Combinations of sweet and savory tend to do well, so I'd like to try it.