Author: Miss Cellania

Which fandom do you prefer to sleep under?

1. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

This appliquéd quilt featuring Zelda and Link was made by sewing each individual piece onto a fabric background. CandySnow sold this quilt through her Etsy shop and then had to suspend sales because the buzz surrounding the Zelda quilt caused her to get behind in orders. You can see more pictures of it in this gallery.

2. GAME OF THRONES

Felice Regina made a Game of Thrones quilt for her husband Seth depicting the animals from the various house sigils on the show. By using a combination of patchwork, appliqué, and embroidery, Regina made each animal visible in negative on the reverse side. Regina posted a tutorial in case you want to recreate the quilt yourself.

3. TRACER FROM OVERWATCH

Erica Price made this huge quilt depicting Tracer from the game Overwatch. It’s 7 feet wide and 7.5 feet long, made of over 3700 individual patchwork pieces. Price is planning to sell it. You can see more pictures in this album.

4. POKEBALL

Some lucky infant will be introduced to the gaming life with an 8-bit style Pokeball baby blanket that measure 32 inches square. You can purchase it or one of several other video game quilts at the KreativeMumma Etsy shop.

5. DARTH VADER

Asmotron received this Darth Vader quilt from his mother. She took the patchwork pattern from a much smaller bead pattern, then thought the “blocky style” might not be right. But she unknowingly made it cooler by giving it an 8-bit pixelated style, which her son loved. The reverse side sports a Vader-printed fabric that glows in the dark. The computerized quilting pattern depicts different Star Wars characters and spaceships. Best mom ever! You can see all the quilt’s features in this imgur gallery.

6. MEGA MAN

Xarddrax was proud and a bit envious that his wife made an 8-bit Mega Man quilt for their 14-year-old son last Christmas. She designed the pixelated images of the game’s various bosses on graph paper and took original pictures to match colors when she bought the fabric. It’s really big, too, at 7 feet, 3 inches square.

7. DOCTOR WHO

Beth and Sara are the Crafty Geeks. They made this quilt featuring minimalist but very recognizable characters and icons from the British TV series Doctor Who. They’ve used the same style for quilts featuring superheroes, Star Trek characters, and various other science fiction and fantasy worlds. Look for them displaying their creations at a fan convention near you, and right now at Instagram.

8. PAC-MAN

This is only the second quilt Shannonagannery ever made, and she didn’t even use a pattern! She estimates that the tied patchwork quilt with Pac-Man and ghost appliqués took 75 hours to complete. “I was very ready to be done by the end and will be taking a sewing hiatus,” she wrote on Reddit. “Baby quilts only from now on!”

9. MINECRAFT TNT

Redditor bottledgoose made this quilt in the shape of the TNT used in Minecraft as a gift for her stepson. All those diamond shapes were sewn together by hand! Yeah, the stepson liked it. You can see a gallery of images from the quilting process here.

10. THE WALKING DEAD

Rick Grimes of The Walking Dead is shown in silhouette in this appliquéd art quilt. Jenna Clements titled her quilt “What Lies Ahead” for quilt shows, but otherwise calls it “The Rick Quilt” because everyone knows what that means. The organizers of the 2016 Exeter Spring Quilt Festival selected it to be shown at their other quilt shows, so Clements let her creation go on tour. But she was glad to have it back at her shop later.

RABBIT HASH HAS A NEW MAYOR

In an election story that was buried under national news, the town of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, elected a new mayor after current mayor Lucy Lou declined to run again. The winner of the election was a pit bull named Brynneth Pawltrow, or Brynn for short. Retiring mayor Lucy Lou is also a dog, as were her two predecessors as mayor of Rabbit Hash. The mayoral election in the unincorporated community takes place by votes that cost a dollar, which goes to the Rabbit Hash Historical Society. Community members are encourage to vote early and often. The duties of the new mayor will include guarding the porch of the Rabbit Hash General Store and greeting visitors. Brynn indicates that she is up for the challenge.  

DRUNK DRIVER RUNS OVER HIMSELF

An unnamed man in Orlando, Florida, became a drunk driving victim when his own truck ran over him. He left a strip club despite bouncers trying to stop him. A soon as he pulled out of the parking lot, he fell out of his truck, and the back wheels of the vehicle ran over him. The truck continued until it hit a house. The man got up and ran away. However, authorities were able to find him because he left his driver’s license at the bar. He has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident. 

SQUIRREL TAKES REVENGE ON POLITICIAN

Howard Brookins Jr. is an alderman for Chicago’s 21st ward. He recently went on record as an opponent of the city’s squirrels. At a city meeting in October, he complained about the damage that squirrel do to garbage cans. According to the Chicago Sun Times:

“It’s a pet peeve. It does invoke some giggles. But we are spending too much money on replacing garbage carts because the squirrels continue to eat through ’em,” Brookins, former chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, declared.

His stance added extra irony to an incident last week when Brookins was riding his bike and a squirrel jumped into his front wheel. Brookins was thrown to the pavement. The alderman lost several teeth and will require plastic surgery for a facial fracture. He was able to joke about the squirrels taking revenge on him.

BRITAIN BANS BEAN AD OVER SAFETY CONCERNS

A television ad for Heinz beans has been pulled from the air in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for safety reasons. The ad shows people using bean cans as percussion instruments to tap out a song. The ASA ruled that viewers might try to recreate the ad in real life and cut themselves on the cans. Heinz is not going to fight the order because the ad campaign was already near its end.   

HOME INVADER WAS DRESSED AS A GORILLA

Group of women college students in Rexburg, Idaho, were frightened by a man who burst into their apartment last Friday. They couldn’t identify him because he was dressed in a gorilla suit. The gorilla came in through the front door, ran around the apartment, knocked over a few things, and left. Police said it was the second incident of its kind, as a gorilla did the same thing at another student apartment a week earlier, that one occupied by men. Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis told East Idaho News:

“We don’t care if it’s a prank or if he was just monkeying around. We’re taking this serious and the perpetrator could be charged with unlawful entry.”

BIRD THROWS SNAKE AT CAR

Australia is often the butt of jokes about wildlife that is out to kill people. A dashcam video shows evidence that this might be true. A group of people were traveling on a highway near Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland when a bird of prey crossed their path and tossed a snake! The snake hit the windshield of the vehicle while the passengers screamed and then laughed. The driver did not lose control of the vehicle.

OK Go’s Latest Music Video Was Shot In 4.2 Seconds. They were very well planned and exquisitely recorded seconds.
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The new movie Moana is a Sweet and Soulful Charmer. This Disney film makes full use of the talents behind it.
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Spending Money on Experiences, Not Things, Increases Gratitude and Altruism. That’s in addition to experiences making us happier.
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8 Great D.B. Cooper Pop Culture Moments. Since the skyjacker was never found, he could pop up anywhere.
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Veterinarian Drives 900 Miles To Help Horses Injured At Standing Rock. Charmian Wright treated some injuries and contributed lessons in equine health.
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Every Single James Bond Movie, Ranked. Your opinion may vary, of course.
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A Brief History of Black Friday. Making Christmas shopping a competitive sport for over 100 years.  

When it was first introduced to the public, saccharin seemed to be a miracle. The substance is about 300 times as sweet as sugar, and it doesn’t have any calories. What’s not to love about that?

But not everything in saccharin’s history is sweet. The story of the sugar substitute begins in the labs of Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Ira Remsen became the first chemistry professor in 1876. One of his earliest laboratory residents was postdoctoral student Constantin Fahlberg, a Russian chemist whom Remsen met when the H.W. Perot Import Firm hired both of them to research sugar impurities.

In 1878, Remsen and Fahlberg were working on various products derived from coal tar. One night that June, Fahlberg worked late in the lab and went home to his supper in a hurry, neglecting to wash his hands. The bread he ate was unusually sweet, and so was his drink. Even his napkin tasted sweet. Eventually Fahlberg realized that he was sipping his drink from an area of his cup that his fingers had touched. He tasted his thumb, and then ran back to the laboratory to work on the newly discovered “coal tar sugar,” which he named saccharin.

Fahlberg and Remsen co-authored research papers on saccharin over the next few years, but Fahlberg struck out on his own when he obtained a German patent for the compound in 1884, followed by a series of American patents. Remsen was upset that Fahlberg applied for the patent on his own: He wasn’t all that interested in the commercial production of saccharin, but felt it important that his contribution to the discovery be acknowledged. Remsen was especially incensed at how Fahlberg’s account of the discovery neglected to even mention the lead researcher.

Fahlberg opened a saccharin factory near Magdeburg, Germany, and another in the U.S. While saccharin sold well enough to make Fahlberg a wealthy man, sales went mostly to food manufacturers who used it as an additive. Consumers bought saccharin, too, but not as much, since regular sugar was readily available and didn’t have the metallic aftertaste of saccharin.

Saccharin had its fans, however—including one in the White House. Theodore Roosevelt was president when the Pure Food and Drug Act, designed to protect the public from food adulteration and unsafe ingredients, was passed in 1906. Harvey Wiley, the chief chemist for the USDA, was charged with investigating dangerous foods. But when he broached the subject of the safety of saccharin in 1908, he hit a sore spot with the president. Roosevelt’s doctor had prescribed a sugar-free diet, and Roosevelt used saccharin in its place. Wiley described saccharin as “… a coal tar product totally devoid of food value and extremely injurious to health.”

Roosevelt was insulted. His response: “Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.” The remark proved to be the end of the two men’s personal relationship.

In 1912, the use of saccharin was banned in the manufacture of processed foods, but it was still sold to consumers as a stand-alone product. Diabetics and people wishing to lose weight regularly purchased saccharin—but when a sugar shortage caused a massive price increase during World War I, its use really exploded. The same thing happened during World War II.

Meanwhile, the question of saccharin’s safety wasn’t fully settled. In the 1950s, another sugar substitute called cyclamate was approved for sale. A combination of cyclamate and saccharin proved very popular, in part because the cyclamate canceled out the bitter aftertaste of the saccharin. The new combination led to a boom in diet soft drinks, until two 1968 studies indicating that cyclamate caused bladder cancer in laboratory rats prompted the FDA to ban the sweetener.

A 1970 study showed some disturbing evidence of saccharin also causing bladder cancer in rats, and the substance was banned in 1977. This time, food manufacturers, lobbyists, and consumers immediately fought back, wary of losing their last artificial sweetener. The ban was soon changed to a warning, and labels were added to products that contained saccharin.

However, later studies showed that the increased incidence of bladder cancer was only applicable to rats, due to their particular biology. The results of the earlier studies were not transferable to humans. In 2000, saccharin was taken off the government’s list of known carcinogens, and the warning labels were discontinued. While other sugar substitutes have since been developed, saccharin still remains one of the most popular. Sold under the brand names Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin, NectaSweet, and others, it accounted for 70 percent of the world demand for artificial sweeteners as of 2001, with world sales totaling hundreds of millions of dollars [PDF].

The average Thanksgiving dinner is around 2,500 calories. They used large servings to calculate that, so go ahead and have a second helping.
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The science of survival in Antarctica. A series of four videos tells us how people live and work down there non the cold.
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What’s Up With The British Tea Obsession? It started out to cure whatever ails ya.
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The Invention of News. Journalism is easier when someone goes ahead and writes a press release.
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Visit the Kansas farm that accidentally became the digital center of the U.S. When you live at the default location, all kinds of horrible things happen.  
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The Catholic Church has a new phone app for making a confession. It’s named The Catholic App, but many are already calling is Sinder.
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President Obama had a ‘corny-copia’ of bad dad jokes at this year’s turkey pardon. With two months to retirement, you can blame him for having a little fun.
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Why We Eat What We Eat On Thanksgiving. Mainly because our traditional dishes are just so darn delicious.

Baby Echidnas Are Called Puggles And They Are Awesome. Sydney’s Taronga Zoo recently hatched three of the little mammals.
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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Alan Shepard. The first American in space had plenty of tales to tell.
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MST3K Turkey Day 2016 Marathon Details. This is its fourth year, so we can consider it a tradition.
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12 Disney Movies That Have Horrifying Origin Stories. Fairy tales were once horror stories.
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Hilarious Photos of Jumping Cats Not Giving a Damn. Photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek says he spent weeks gaining the cats’ trust, but it still looks like he threw them.  
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The Latest Rx for Obesity: Sleep Off the Fat. Studies show insomnia and obesity are linked, and tackling one may affect the other.   
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How to roast a perfect turkey. Honestly, with enough dressing and gravy, any way you cook it is fine.
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7 Intriguing Turkey Recipes From the 1800s. You won’t want to try them yourself, but they’re fascinating to speculate on.

VORONEZH STAR PAINTED AS SPONGEBOB’S PATRICK

The historical residential building at 48 October 25 Street in Voronezh, Russia, has an old Soviet star atop its spire. Somehow, the star has been painted to resemble the starfish Patrick from the TV show Spongebob Squarepants! No one knows how long ago the vandalism was, but the paint is already chipped, so it may have been there for months. OTRV, the local union of roofing companies, denies any involvement in the vandalism. Voronezh administrators say the star will be repainted, but so far no action has been taken. Photographer Vladimir Muldar wrote that the vandalism was a disgrace and that maybe the paint could just be washed off.

CAT RESCUED FROM FLOOR DRAIN

Curiosity can kill a cat, but not this time. Chris Threadgate’s cat Kiba tried to check out the floor drain in the family’s bathroom and stuck his head in a little too far. Then he couldn’t pull his head out. The Cessnock District Rescue Squad in Cessnock, New South Wales, was summoned to help. They tried to extract the cat, and ended up removing the collar around the floor drain, and then removing the collar from the cat. They used the same tools they normally use to remove rings stuck on fingers. Kiba survived the incident wet and uninjured.

MEN ROLL DEAD DEER INTO SHORT PUMP WALMART

Two unnamed men in Short Pump, Virginia, picked up a dead deer off the road after it was hit by a car Tuesday night, but couldn’t transport it. They called a friend to come pick the carcass up. To stay warm, the two men went into a Walmart store. They took the deer, too, in a shopping cart. They only got as far as the store’s vestibule because shoppers became alarmed. Management asked the men to leave the store, and take the deer with them.

In other news, there’s a town in Virginia named Short Pump.

ID THIEF BLAMES ELVIS IMPERSONATOR

Rick Thompson of Seattle was an upstanding man who supported his wife and children as a builder. Then his wife left him for an Elvis impersonator. Thompson turned to drugs and alcohol. To fund his activities, he organized an identification theft ring. He and three accomplices were arrested in 2014. Thompson was charged with identity theft and bank fraud. 

“He knows now how stupid that was, just as he knew it before he plunged into severe addiction. But in the middle of that horrible time, he was just a failed entrepreneur who (lost) his 20-year marriage to a casino-dwelling Elvis impersonator.”

Writing in court papers, a U.S. Secret Service special agent described a multi-jurisdictional investigation into the crime ring. The effort grew to involve seven police departments and several federal task forces.

Thompson was sentenced this week to five years in federal prison.

VANDALS HOLD STREET SWEEPER RACE

A break-in at the council house in Kendal, Cumbria, UK, left quite a bit of of damage. A group of unknown persons entered the equipment storage area Sunday night and took out four mini-sweepers. They apparently raced them around, which left one sweeper turned over on its side, and a van badly damaged by a collision. No equipment was found to be missing. The overturned sweeper sustained £8,000 in damage. Police are interested in speaking to anyone with information on the perpetrators.

17 Iconic Movie Scenes That Were Actually Improvised. Trusting the input of talented people can make magic happen.
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These Might Be the Strangest Ice Cream Flavors Ever. Scoops ice cream shop is thinking outside of the icebox.
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The Harry Potter Movie Series That Could Have Been. Early ideas that were scrapped would have made the movies very different.
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Hayao Miyazaki comes out of retirement to make a new feature film. The 12-minute short Boro the Caterpillar should be a full-length movie by 2019.
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Living with Coyotes in New York City. They could have been relocated, but were killed instead.
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10 Historical Words That Don’t Mean What You Think. Or at least they didn’t mean that when they were first coined.  
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How America’s elections are ruining America. Twenty-two months of campaigning burned us all out.
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Messing with Mother Nature: 5 Cautionary Tales. The unintended consequences of human intervention can wreck the delicate balance of nature.

You might not think of cupcakes as a traditional Thanksgiving dish, but you can incorporate the traditional tastes of the holiday season into individual cakes that are tempting to everyone at your table.

1. CRUSTLESS PUMPKIN PIE CUPCAKES

Mel at Mel’s Kitchen Cafe made cake that tastes like pumpkin pie should. Her Crustless Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes are softer than cake but firmer than pie. The icing is made from whipped cream, sour cream, and powdered sugar for the perfect complement.

2. CRANBERRY ORANGE CUPCAKES

Amy Hanten at The Cooking Mom gives us a fruity Thanksgiving treat in her Cranberry Orange Cupcakes. These aren’t muffins, but real cake with cranberries all the way through. The frosting is made of cream cheese, garnished with sugar-frosted cranberries and edible glitter for extra holiday sparkle.

3. HOT COCOA CUPCAKES

Hot cocoa on a cold autumn evening gets an upgrade with these Hot Cocoa Cupcakes from I Bake You Bake. The cake recipe contains prepared hot cocoa as well as cocoa powder. The frosting also contains hot cocoa mix and a garnish of chocolate chips and marshmallows!

4. PUMPKIN EGGNOG CUPCAKES

Lizzy Mae Early at Your Cup of Cake has a cupcake that links the pumpkin taste of Thanksgiving with a hint of Christmas eggnog. Her recipe for Pumpkin Eggnog Cupcakes has pumpkin in the cake, cream cheese in the frosting, and eggnog in both! It’s pretty simple, as you start with a prepared cake mix, but the finished product is totally decadent.

5. PECAN PIE CUPCAKES

Malinda at Life’s Ambrosia altered a regular cupcake recipe with brown sugar and added pecans to make Pecan Pie Cupcakes. The real treat is the frosting, for which she made a pecan pie base using eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, and butter, and then whipped it into a fluff and sprinkled pecans on top!

6. HARVEST CORN CUPCAKES

This is not so much a recipe but a decorating idea from Jelly Belly. Line up your favorite frosted cupcakes and top them with jelly beans in fall colors (and compatible flavors, if you please) inside layers of corn shucks made of phyllo dough. The Party Animal made these and posted photographs of all the steps.

7. TURKEY CUPCAKES

Lizzy Mae Early at Your Cup of Cake decorated her Thanksgiving cupcakes as turkeys with Reese’s Pieces for the colorful plumage and made the turkey’s heads from Hershey’s Kisses. She’ll show you how to do it this way, along with a couple of other turkey decoration techniques.

8. APPLE CIDER CUPCAKES

Apple cider is one of the tastiest treats of autumn, and a little cinnamon makes it holiday-special. Erika at Love & Custard developed a recipe for Apple Cider Cupcakes for her apple-loving husband. Cider is an ingredient in both the cake and the frosting, plus there’s brown sugar and cinnamon in the cake and cream cheese in the frosting.

9. SWEET POTATO CUPCAKES

Kathleen Siegle at Yummy Crumble takes the sweetest side dish at your Thanksgiving table and puts it into a dessert, where it belongs. Her Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Maple Walnut Frosting come complete with a traditional toasted marshmallow on top!

10 Misconceptions About the Flu. The more you know, the better you can protect yourself -and the rest of us.
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Beautiful Aerial Photographs of Magnificent Coastlines Around the World. Photographer Gabriel Scanu never leaves home without his drone camera.
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9 Easy 3-Ingredient Appetizers To Make For Thanksgiving. Snacks to keep everyone busy while the turkey is cooking.
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Why It’s So Hard To Save An Endangered Species. By the time a species is classified as endangered, it may be too late to do anything.
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11 Movies & TV Shows About Taking Political Action.  In some of them it’s so subtle you might miss it. 
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Facebook spent Friday telling users they’re dead. Yeah, it was a glitch, but that kind of thing could give someone a heart attack.
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Why extreme weather is the new normal. It’s a trend that been building for some time.
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The United States Once Planned To Nuke The Moon. Aren’t you glad we decided to just go there instead?