Samantha Hartsoe of New York City was long puzzled about why her apartment is always so cold. She carefully studied it and realized that cold air was blowing from the edges of her bathroom mirror. When she took it off the wall, she found a large hole behind it.
When Hartsoe climbed through the hole, she found an entire apartment. Aside from trash and unfinished utilities, it was empty. But had someone been there?
-via Laughing Squid
Dungeons & Dragons player Professor Olaf introduces us to this tasteful and elegant kitchen backplash design. Yes, it would be hard to clean, but you're thinking too far ahead. As long as what you're splashing around is blood, your kitchen will not lose its appeal over time.
-via Super Punch | Photo: unknown
Thomas Ramsey (left), of Gallman, Mississippi, is a Civil War reenactor. Peep, his pet rooster, accompanies him into the mock battles. It's solid history, Ramsey says, because of the account of a Confederate soldier who kept a pet rooster in this manner until he was finally eaten by Union soldiers (the rooster, not Johnny Reb).
All was merry for Ramsey and Peep until the pair was travelling from a reenactment and stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Cullman, Alabama. The restaurant did not allow chickens inside, and so Ramsey tied Peep by his leash to his truck while Ramsey and his friends went inside.
When the reenactors returned to their truck, Peep was gone. The Cullman Times quotes Ramsey:
“I went back into the Cracker Barrel and it was very hard for me to say this with a straight face, even though I was panicking: ‘Do you have cameras in the parking lot? I think someone stole my chicken,’” he said. Someone overheard and said they’d seen Peep wandering in the parking lot.
Animal control authorities searched, but were unable to locate Peep. The call went out on Facebook and the people of Cullman sought out Peep. Eventually, a local farmer located the rooser and reunited him with Ramsey:
[...] Ramsey felt like Peep was happy to be back with him. “He stood up and kind of jumped when I got him,” he said.
There’s no doubt about Ramsey’s affection for Cullman. “I was really impressed; I love y’all’s town now,” he said. “I can’t think of many places where there are that many people willing to take the time to help out like that.”
-via Dan Lewis | Photo: Thomas Ramsey
Adidas approached Tommy Cash, an Estonian rapper of some prominence, and asked him to collaborate on a shoe design. His response was to insist on creating the longest Adidas original shoe design in the world. Cash comments on the duality expressed in the color choices:
both the ‘angel’ and the ‘devil’ live in me at the same time — two opposites that are constantly fighting with each other. so why hide one side of your personality when they can perfectly coexist with each other. shouldn’t be too good or too bad. balance is needed. as two opposites of yin and yang, forming one whole. yes, these sneakers are different colors. after all, they reflect my mood, which changes every day. and I will proudly wear both versions of the iconic silhouette at the same time
They're available for sale in Russia, so be prepared for a quite a shopping trip if you want to pick up a pair to impress people while clubbing this weekend.
-via Design You Trust
Photos: Tommy Cash (content warning: nudity)
Highly realistic felting work makes this monstrosity all the more adorably frightening. These are the creations of Sacocho Kisou, an artist and presumably necromancer. His felted cats take on unnatural forms. They're what every home needs!
Tom's body suffered a lot of abuse in his long and ill-fated quest to vanquish Jerry the mouse. At one point, he was flattened against a set of stairs. Now you can enjoy that moment forever with this rug by Nellaf, an artist in Florida. He calls it, appropriately, "Flat Tom."
-via Born in Space
When Mommy and/or Daddy are busy trying to get Zoom to work and fix errors in Excel formulas, we need to be quiet and not distract them. Or we can join in the obvious fun they are having talking with their boss, who is using a cat filter, and can't figure out how to turn it off.
Fisher-Price recently unveiled a toy set appropriate for the coronavirus era. It gives children the opportunity to be as stressed as their parents.
What would you add to this set to make it more realistic?
-via Marginal Revolution | Image: Fisher-Price
Would you like to propose marriage to your partner? Do you have a $100,000 to spend? Then I have a great service for you!
Heather Vaughn operates The Yes Girls, a business that creates perfect, customized marriage proposal scenes. Business Insider quotes her:
We've planned some really high-end proposals — some that we haven't been able to share online due to privacy requests — but our most expensive was over $100,000.
It was on a private island off of Charleston, South Carolina where the gentleman flew in over 30 members of his closest family and friends on a private jet. We did a full-blown engagement party afterward, so it was a "proposal meets engagement party" all-in-one experience. She was really surprised, and it was gorgeous — like something out of a Nicholas Sparks movie, complete with a private villa and a boardwalk right up to the beach.
If you'd like to have this kind of proposal experience, you can use Vaughn's Wink Wink feature to subtly signal to your partner about your expectations for getting engaged. It would no doubt be illuminating to receive such a suggestion from one's partner.
-via Marginal Revolution
Simon Sörensen builds remote controlled vehicles and handy gadgets of all kinds, including a hovercraft, an electric hand warmer, and an airboat. His latest invention is appropriate for winter weather. It takes all of the hard labor out of ice skating with two electric motors.
Sörensen wears a battery pack on his back to juice up each motor mounted on the skates, held in place with custom 3D printed parts. Screws in the drive wheels provide traction. You can see his invention in action at the 9:07 mark.
-via Hack A Day
Pufi, a dog in Romania, knows how to enjoy a snowstorm. In this video, his human, Andrei, towed Pufi on a sled behind a bike.
After this video went viral, CERT Transylvania, a disaster relief organization, provided Andrei with a new bicycle to make his transportation duties easier.
-via The Dodo
Yes, your dog can buy a stick. Or you can buy a stick for your dog. But the dog gets bored and wants another stick. And other dogs want your dog's stick.
This is why the Stick Library exists. Jeremiah Carter, a 10-year old boy in Saskatchewan, Canada, created this lending stick library for dogs in his neighborhood. It's like a Little Free Library, but with canine patrons in mind. Jeremiah and his father built this library and hung it at a local dog park. A CNN affiliate quotes the father:
"We took it and zip tied it to the fence so it wouldn't disappear, we gathered sticks that we figured dogs would enjoy, and filled it up and waited to see what happened," Carter said.
He and Jeremiah were surprised when they came back to the park one day to see that the stick library was actually used.
"When we would go to the dog park, there would be no sticks in there, or lots of sticks lying around," Carter said.
I should open a branch library in my own neighborhood.
-via Super Punch | Photo: Dave Carter
Fong's Pizza in Des Moines, Iowa, is locally famous for unusual pizza toppings, such as ramen, General Tso's chicken, roast turkey and cranberry sauce (for Thanksgiving, of course), and Mongolian beef.
The pizzeria's latest ingenious creation is Froot Loops Pizza. The Des Moines Register reports:
The new pizza, made with Froot Loops and cheese, is one of the new breakfast pizzas Fong's is rolling out at their Fong's location at 3018 Forest Ave., Des Moines. (As we all know, Iowans have a thing about breakfast pizza.) Alongside cereal pizza, there are steak and eggs, bacon popper and vegetarian breakfast pizzas on the menu.
"Making pizzas that are outside the box has always been a staple of Fong's," owner Gwen Page said. "Now we're trying things out for breakfast pizzas."
-via the appropriately named subreddit Pizza Crimes | Photo: Des Moines Register/Olivia Sun
Our heartwarming news story of the day comes from Australia (AKA "British Texas"), where a grandmother celebrating her birthday fell prey to a purse snatcher. The purse snatcher then fell prey to her. She chased after the thief, tackled him, and wrestled the bag away from him as he tried to escape from her clutches.
The thief fled in his truck, but was later arrested.
-via Dave Barry
It looks like a mirrored hemisphere, but what redditor Melissa Rags has made is actually a perfectly glazed cake. How does she get the glaze so perfectly smooth? Her secret is a little bit of corn syrup:
I’ve used a lot of different recipes for this and have noticed that any one you find that includes a little corn syrup always comes out beautiful and shiny! That and lot of recipes don’t state this but I recommend shaking your container of glaze upon completion. All the bubbles and thick parts with go to middle where you can easily ladle it out. All that’s left is a smooth glaze!
I really like this cute silver ring by Etsy seller Astha. When viewed from the right angle, it looks like a high quality piece of dollhouse furniture resting on your hand, offering a hospitable cup to guests.
-via Arsenic in Shell
