The biggest franchises in the world all started with just one store. Some are so big and have been around so long that few know where the original was! Read how Starbucks, 7-11, and The Gap started out, and plenty of trivia. Did you know Taco Bell was named after its founder? That Arby's is named for the pronunciation of R.B, but that doesn't mean roast beef? And the first Whoppers cost 37 cents? Fifteen such chains are featured in this post. Link -Thanks, Freshome!

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New Zealander Robert Thompson completed a journey the long way across China on September 28th. And he went the whole way by skateboard! Thompson kept a blog of his latest journey, as well as his previous skateboard treks across Europe and the United States. Total length of his skateboard trips: 12,159km (7,555 miles). Link -Thanks, Jee!

Jamie Laughlin made a birthday cake for her co-worker John Linn. A really big cake!

When I first saw the monstrosity I thought, "My God! That thing's huge!" Little did I know its largest was simply the housing for my undoing.

The huge cake was a hat box with frosting. After the candles were lit, Laughlin pulled off the top and revealed the real cake underneath that bore the likeness of Rick Astley! Link -via Digg

Israel has developed a new weapon that should be less harmful than the rubber bullets they use against protesters. It's a liquid called Skunk, to be deployed from a water cannon.

Imagine the worst, most foul thing you have ever smelled. An overpowering mix of rotting meat, old socks that haven't been washed for weeks - topped off with the pungent waft of an open sewer.

Imagine being covered in the stuff as it is liberally sprayed from a water cannon.

Then imagine not being able to get rid of the stench for at least three days, no matter how often you try to scrub yourself clean.

Skunk is made from yeast, baking soda, and some secret ingredients that are completely organic. David Ben Harosh, an Israeli police superintendent, is proud of the Skunk project.

"It's totally harmless, you can even drink it,"

Link -via Metafilter

Another ingenious way to clog your arteries: The Fatty Melt. Make two grilled cheese sandwiches, grill a hamburger patty, then slip it between the two sandwiches. This would be three meals for me. Link -Thanks, raphael!

Believe it or not, an elephant in the lobby of this hotel is not a rare event! The Mfuwe Lodge in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia was built on a path the local elephants take to find wild mangoes. Andy Hogg, the director of the company that runs the hotel, says:

"This is the only place in the world where elephants freely get so close to humans," says the 44-year-old.

"The elephants start coming through base camp in late November of each year to eat the mangoes from our trees.

"When they are ripe they come through and they stand about for four to six weeks coming back each day or second day to eat the mangoes."

When the lodge was built, no one realized the elephants used that route. Link to story. Link to hotel website. -via Arbroath

Nikon presents the 34th Annual Small World Photomicrography Competition. The official judging is over, and the winners will be announced October 15th. Meanwhile, see the top entries and vote for the pictures you think are best. This photograph by Dr. Sharona Even-Ram shows a cluster of neurons. http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/vote-launch.php?showall=true -via Metafilter

Your friends will do a double take when they see this upside-down bookshelf. And then they will freak out again when you pull a book out! No books were damaged in the making of this bookshelf. Instructables will show you how it's done, and how you can make one of your own. Link -Thanks, Ed!

Criminal hackers can do a lot of damage and still end up famous among their peers.

But it's the ones who go uncaught and unidentified (those who we didn't highlight in our Cyber Crime Hall Fame that are actually the best. Attempting to cover your tracks is Law-Breaking 101; being able to effectively do so, that's another story altogether.

When a major cyber crime remains unsolved, though, it probably also means that those of us outside the world of tech crime solving may never even know the crime occurred.

PC Magazine has a rundown on ten of the biggest still-unsolved cyber crimes. Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!

Shannon Wright created this wallpaper design depicting the body's urinary system. Perfect for any bathroom or urology clinic. http://www.shannonwright.org/drawings/wallpapernumberone.html -via LA Weekly -Thanks, Erin Broadley!

Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test your memory of halftime shows at the Super Bowl over the years. Even if you think you won't do well, the questions will make you say, "Oh yeah! I remember that!" I scored 50%, which is the average so far. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/18818

This is a game I'll have to share with the kids! In stage one, you place bones in the proper spot on the body. In stage two, find those bones by name. Pass those (time counts), and you are challenged to beat each bone with a mallet. I did pretty well! Link -via Everlasting Blort

It's October, time for harvest and Halloween decorating! Some people prefer to paint pumpkins instead of carving them. See pages and pages of wonderful painted pumpkins submitted by readers at Tagyerit Presents. The pumpkins pictured were painted by Janet Lange. Link -via the Presurfer

The Phoenix Mars Lander was expected to work for three months, but has passed the four-month mark. That's fortunate for us, because the lander has observed snow falling in the Martian atmosphere!

Using lidar (analogous to radar, with pulses of laser light standing in for radio waves), Phoenix picked up signs of snow drifting down from clouds some 2.5 miles (four kilometers) overhead. It has not been seen reaching the Martian surface; it appears to vaporize before landfall.

"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," James Whiteway of York University in Toronto said in a statement. Whiteway is lead scientist for Phoenix's Meteorological Station (MET), the Canadian Space Agency's contribution to the mission. He added that the MET team will now seek to discover "signs that the snow may even reach the ground."

The Martian winter is approaching, and soon there will be inadequate sunlight to power the lander. Link

The world's first commercial wave farm is operational three miles off the shores of Portugal. The three 140-meter generators were built by British company Pelamis. The "sea snakes" convert the kinetic energy of wave motion into electricity -enough to power 1,000 homes.

Each of semi-submerged Pelamis devices is 142m long, has a diameter of 3.5m and is made from 700 tonnes of carbon steel. A single wave converter is composed of four articulated sections that move up and down as the waves pass along it. At each of the hinges between the sections, hydraulic rams use the wave motion to drive generators to produce up to 750KW of power at peak output.

The electricity generated by the three Pelamis devices will be carried by undersea cable to a substation in Aguçadoura, which will then feed the power into the Portuguese national grid.

The wave farm will eventually add another 25 generators, enough to produce up to 21 megawatts of power, with no CO2 emissions. Link -Thanks, Jee!