(YouTube link)

Simone Smith visited a gourmet supermarket in Berlin and found an American section among the ethnic foods! Now stop and guess what she found there before you see it. I imagine they stock it with "comfort foods" requested by Americans living in Germany. -via Buzzfeed

Shannon Elliott of Long Island, New York lost the thumb and two fingers of her left hand in a fireworks incident. The 25-year-old recently underwent surgery to replace her thumb -with one of her big toes!

"To me it was a no brainer. I'd rather lose a toe and gain a whole hand," said the mother of two.

Losing a toe has little effect on a human's ability to walk or run, but losing a thumb nearly incapacitates hand functionality.

Doctors said Elliott will regain full use of her hand in six to nine months.

"She'll be able to pinch and grasp with her hand, she'll be able to hold things and pick up her children," said plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Ganz.

Doctors even expect the new digit to change size in time to more closely resemble a thumb. Warning: graphic picture. Link -via Digg

Those who work in the freezing weather of Antarctica are already members of a very exclusive club, but with an initiation stunt, they can join an even more exclusive club. The traditional "nudie run" takes a slightly different shape for different nationalities, according to Dr. Chris Cormick.

He said Australians based at all three stations, Davis, Casey and Mawson, take part in the traditional "Bliz Run", which obliges the loser of any bet or dare to strip off and run a lap of the accommodation block.

"It's only about 100m, but even 10m would seem like a long run in the conditions," Dr Cormick said.

New Zealanders at their summer station go skinny dipping in Lake Vanda, with a plunge in the chilly water earning membership of the Royal Lake Vanda Swim Club.

The group is rumoured to include former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark, who gained membership before she was elected.

Americans at the Amundsen-Scott base can regularly be seen emerging from the sauna to run a naked lap of the South Pole.

The deed earns membership of the 300 Club, but only if it's done when temperatures have plunged to below -100F.

"The idea is to run from the 200F sauna, outside, so they go through 300 degrees (F) in seconds," Dr Cormick said.

The nude pictured is an American. http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/06/24/154351_fun-weird-news.html -via Fark

If you want something done right, you should do it yourself. The last thing you want to do is give it to David Thorne, especially if it has anything to do with a cat. Shannon asked him to make a poster about her lost cat. What she got was not exactly what she had in mind.

Having worked with designers for a few years now, I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism. I don't come downstairs and tell you how to send text messages, log onto Facebook and look out of the window. I am willing to overlook this faux pas due to you no doubt being preoccupied with thoughts of Missy attempting to make her way home across busy intersections or being trapped in a drain as it slowly fills with water. I spent three days down a well once but that was just for fun.

There are several other drafts of the poster in this email exchange. Link -via Buzzfeed

Edith Shain was the nurse who became an icon when photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped her picture as she received a kiss from a sailor on VJ Day in New York City. She died at her home in Los Angeles yesterday, at the age of 91. To commemorate her passing, Buzzfeed posted a collection of recreations of that kiss. Link

Image credit: Flickr user Mike Stimpson (featured previously at Neatorama)

The artist known as Sillof (previously at Neatorama) combined the characters from Star Wars with the characters from various Pixar movies. Take a look through the gallery and see how logical the choices are. I particularly got a kick out of Obi-Wan Carlobi! Link -via Unreality Magazine

It's a hamburger that uses two grilled cheese sandwiches for the bun, offered by Friendly's. Only 1500 calories! Consumerist has more nutritional information. Link -via Other Crap

Sometimes those in traditional media (meaning newspapers) get upset that some on the internet use their material. Apparently that door swings both ways, and if you don't have a proofreader, you could end up with egg on your face! Link -via Blame It On The Voices

Graffiti can be useful! Someone has been painting compasses on the sidewalks of New York City at subway exits. If you've ever ridden a subway beneath a city, you know how helpful this can be when you re-emerge and have to get your bearings on the street level. The question is: why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Actually, they have.

Using sidewalk compasses is an idea that has been tried before by both official and unofficial sources. In 2006, a blogger snapped a photo of a compass on the sidewalk at the 8th Street L station; someone else caught one on Bleecker. The City of New York's Department of Transportation got in on the act in 2007, installing compass decals in the ground at selected stations around midtown, in a pilot program that doesn't seem to have been continued.

Maybe this time, the idea will stick around. Link -via The Daily What

(Image credit: Paolo Mastrangelo/NYC The Blog)

Dawn dishwashing liquid is to go-to soap for cleaning up birds and animals caught in crude oil spills. Wildlife rescue groups swear by it, and have for years. They say it cuts the crude without doing harm to the animal. A company representative says it's a delicate balance of surfactants that make it so effective.

What the company doesn't advertise — and these days is reluctant to admit — is that the grease-cutting part of the potion is made from petroleum.

"To make the best product out there, you have to have some in there," says Ian Tholking of Procter & Gamble. He says less than one-seventh of Dawn comes from petroleum.

"To say Dawn's horrible because of this, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense," he says, "and that's what we're trying to avoid. Because we're not trying to do something evil here."

"I think it's extremely ironic," says Martin Wolf, a chemist for Seventh Generation, which makes a dish liquid without petroleum. "Here we are trying to squeeze every last drop of oil we can out of the Earth, and it's despoiling the Earth. And we're using that same product that's messing up the Earth to clean it up."

Wolf says his company sent a truckload of oil-free detergent to the gulf, but he hasn't heard whether anyone has used it.

Proctor and Gamble donates supplies of Dawn to animal rescue operations. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127999735&sc=ipad&f=1001 -via Holy Kaw!

(Image credit: Elizabeth Shogren/NPR)

Born Rich has named our fearless leader Alex the Cool Geek of the Week! See him with two out of three adorable children (and sans crown) at the post. Link -Thanks, David!

(vimeo link)

Richard Sullivan posted this lovely color footage from August 14, 1945.

65 Years Ago my Dad shot this film along Kalakaua Ave. in Waikiki capturing spontaneous celebrations that broke out upon first hearing news of the Japanese surrender. Kodachrome 16mm film: God Bless Kodachrome, right?

There is more information about the film in the comments at the vimeo link. -Thanks, Duke!

Aren't these adorable! Etsy seller CraftyisCool is selling the patterns so that you can crochet Pee-Wee Herman and his friend Chairy. Contact her if you would like to buy the dolls themselves. Link -via Sofa Pizza

Think Geek added several new products on April Fools Day, as they do every year. The page for one of those products, canned unicorn meat, used the words "the new white meat." The National Pork Board objected to the phrase, which is somewhat similar to their slogan "The Other White Meat." The board sent a 12-page cease and desist letter to the management of Think Geek, who called it "Officially our best-ever cease and desist".

First, it's 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they're not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds.

But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it's for a fake product we launched for April Fool's day.

Think Geek also said:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist.

Link -via Boing Boing

There is much more to the produce aisle than lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers! Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will find out how much you know about other, more obscure vegetables -and you might even learn something new. I scored 67%, which you can well beat. Link