La Vache Qui Rit = sounds kinda like "valkyrie"

The Encyclopedia of the Cat is a reference book recommended for small-to-medium academic libraries. I find it humorous that - perhaps due to space concerns - the Encyclopedia of the Dog is NOT a similarly recommended book! Librarian humor. I guffaw. And my sources are probably out of date, but I enjoy it anyway.

Have I started using proper capitalization in this blog? Oh fine. I'll try it in this post, see how it goes.

You know how excited I am about coelacanths (see-luh-canths), those swimming fossil fish blithely going about their prehistoric business while we build skyscrapers and walk our cockapoos to the corner store...there's a book called A Fish Caught In Time: The Search for the Coelacanth. I'm excited to read that sucker. Check it out at your local library, or buy the book, heck.

Here's some cool stuff gleaned from Neatorama:


Stories behind 10 Famous Food Logos (including the metamorphosis of the Morton Salt Girl). I love the development of the Laughing Cow logo - it's a pun on "Valkyrie" = "vache qui rit", or the cow who laughs. Oh my god, the first laughing cow drawing makes me die a little bit. The cow is really losing it. Also included: the fictitious Aunt Jemima, the fictitious Betty Crocker (with creepy composite portrait gallery), and the fictitious Sara Lee!

At the website Energy Fiend, you can find out how many cups of coffee it would really take to kill you. Really! (The website is not liable if they are, say, two cups off in their arithmetic.) Actually, you can calculate the toxic dose of pretty much any commercially available stimulant and/or beverage on the market! Just enter your weight, your "poison" of choice...and there's even a Facebook app. Lord have mercy.

It would take approximately 130 shots of espresso to kill me, bitches! Try brewing that on your expensive yuppie-toy WHILE I WAIT.

And from Geekologie: how to program those Road Work construction signs to say things like "Zombies Ahead" and "Your face is ugly"! Nice.

From Gizmodo and Geekologie: a $5000 paper house for poor people - ostensibly as an alternative to a shantytown shack. (But if I had $5000, I wouldn't be living in a shantytown!) Anyway, it's a paper house that has insulation, and built-in ways to easily slaughter the yard pig and rinse its carcass in the shower stall. Integrated clothesline, and space for a family of eight. I guess it would be more of a gift from some kind of humanitarian organization: "Have fun drying your fish on the clotheslines, hang in there! This refugee camp is looking really ship-shape! Next we'll be handing out Ikea pillows that also function as plates and bowls..."