Friday, August 25, 2023

Miss Cellania's Links

Metazooa, a taxonomy game where you guess the animal of the day. Great fun for science geeks! (via Metafilter)

14 Hilarious Examples of Dutch Not Sounding Like a Real Language. It comes across as English with a laugh track.

Why Ulysses S. Grant’s Wife Julia Always Posed in Profile. There's a love story in there.

Human Embryos Have a Mysterious Yolk Sac, And We Finally Know Why. (via Damn Interesting)

How Iceberg Won the Lettuce Wars.

28 Inspirations Behind Popular Movies and TV Shows.

Who Was Betty Crocker? She was the fictional character who taught you how to make a pineapple upside-down cake. (via Damn Interesting)

A home for retired playground animals just opened in NYC. (via Metafilter)

6 comments:

Bicycle Bill said...

Betty Crocker may have been fictional, but were you aware that Duncan Hines was a real person?   Originally a traveling salesman, by the time he was in his fifties he had eaten a heckuvalot of meals on the road.   Since there was no interstate system at that time (and pretty much no restaurant chains or fast-food places as we know them today), travelers were forced to depend on local mom-and-pop types places for their meals. So in 1935 he and his wife Florence began assembling a list for friends of several hundred good restaurants around the country.  
 
After he retired from the road in the early 1950s, he began writing a food column, "Adventures in Good Eating at Home", which appeared in newspapers across the US three times a week on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  The column featured restaurant recipes adapted for home cooks that he had collected during his nationwide travels.

And, Miss C, like yourself, he was a product of the Bluegrass State... born in Bowling Green, and when he died at the age of 78, he was buried there as well.

Anonymous said...

> Duncan Hines, father of famed tap-dancer, Gregory.

WTM said...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6249478/duncan-hines

gwdMaine said...

I don't always herdy dur mur flerpty floopin, but when I do, I yer der shmer dor her der foomty, der shoopin flerpty dur. You betcha! Bork Bork Bork.

Fijne Vrijdag Mevrouw Cellania!

Miss Cellania said...

Fijne Vrijdag to you, too, gwdMaine!

xoxoxoBruce said...

I won Metazooa with 1 guess remaining. All luck, no skill.

Hmm, I wonder If Julia Grant was doing a Nancy Reagan or really reacting to her own growing fame?

It says the story of retired playground animals, “...where you can see these animals and sit on benches near them.” Old folks can’t relive memories or introduce grandkids to the simple pleasures of imagination without batteries? Plus the poor animals are not only drummed out of service, then they’re put tantalizingly close but off limits to receiving love from children of all ages. A town without pity.