Icarus takes a shower

My 'tiel, Icarus, takes showers with me.

Cookies for Preventing Sadness

Cookies for Preventing Sadness

22 g ground nutmeg
22 g groun cinnamon
5 g cloves
500 g spelt flower
150 g cane sugar
250 g butter
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
100 g almond pieces

Bake cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for five to ten minutes. Beware! They have a strong effect.

Based on a recipe by [Hildegard von Bigen] as seen in the book [Pagan Christmas].

Durex condom ad

Dancing 2008

Contrary to internet rumor, this is not a hoax. He really went to all these places and all those people are [not robots].

Mental_Floss Tuition Giveaway

No, really. Just write 750 words or less on why you think you deserve one of the five $10,000 scholarships. Mental_Floss encourages quirky, memorable entries.

You just have to be over 18 and a full-time undergraduate student in fall 2009 (at an accredited 2- or 4-year institution).

The deadline is 31 Jan 2009 so you still have time to craft a winning essay.

See the [entry form] and rules.

Apply yourself or spread the word!

Flora watch

Be on the lookout for winter-blooming hellebore species. This typically low-growing, herbaceous perrenial sports showy, petal-like bracts that can persist well into the spring--much longer than its small flowers. Their color spectrum includes greens, creams, and even flushes of red and purple.  The foliage is extremely frost-hardy and variable in its generally slender shape and verdance. 

Hellebore (Helleborus spp.) also has a lengthy history in folklore. Known alternately as "witch weed" and "Christ rose",  toxic hellebore (active alkaloid: helleborin) has been used in folk healing as well as poison-making. Its frost-resistance and winter blooms were thought to be evidence of magical constitution. Hellebore tinctures were also used as a treatment for "winter melancholy" for this very reason--an original treatment for what we've developed as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Ingesting helleborin causes diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea--it was never used as a purgurative for the weak, even in antiquity.