IKEA Monkey

From A Hamburger Today

[Photographs: RocketNews24]

Behold the latest fast food burger tower monstrosity from Japanese blog RocketNews24: Lotteria's new Ramen Burger topped with 10 extra servings of ramen. (Previous towers include cheese tower, onion tower, and bacon tower.) Yup, it has no good reason to exist.

But I've got to give props to Mr. Sato—RocketNews24's resident burger guinea pig—for eating the whole thing. You can watch him go at it in the video below (warning: loud music ahead):

[Video: rocketnews24]

For a more reasonable food stunt, RocketNews24 also transformed Lotteria's ramen burger into a bowl of ramen, which they beefed up with extra water and sliced green onion.

About the author: Robyn Lee is the editor of A Hamburger Today and takes many of the photos for Serious Eats. She'll also doodle cute stuff when necessary. Read more from Robyn at her personal food blog, The Girl Who Ate Everything.

Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter while you're at it!

Sergio's carne asada tacos. [Photographs: Paul Bartunek]

In and around Los Angeles, tacos know no geographic boundaries. Take, for example Sergio's Tacos, a growing taco empire that is quickly coming to dominate the southeast Los Angeles County landscape. With locations in East L.A., Montebello, and Whittier along with their Atlantic Boulevard location in Commerce—plus a roaming truck that comes complete with its own al pastor spit—Sergio's is winning over the hearts and stomachs of every working-class neighborhood they've entered.

That pale yellow location in Commerce sits on the edge of ranch house suburbia and industrial scourge. With a parking lot just big enough for their parked lonchero and a few subcompacts, you might miss Sergio's altogether were it not for their big rectangular sign that shows a photorealistic al pastor spit being attended to by a cartoon cactus and his sombrero'd friend. Look closer and you'll also notice a menu plastered to the wall outside the front door; step inside and the reason is clear. The place is tiny, with less than seven tables in total, which makes butt-to-face proximity a real issue when someone feels like gawking up at the menu board over the grill. And besides, most people at Sergio's know what they want the moment they walk in the door.

Sergio's in the sun.

That answer is usually carne asada. Served heavily inside a burrito or piled up into a simple taco, the asada at Sergio's is surprisingly smoky for such an otherwise straightforward affair. Wide sections of thin, marinated salted beef are given a serious once-over on the grill, producing meat with lots of caramelized char, sometimes enough to make you cough with smoky appreciation. Then again, that could just be the salsa, a mixed chile blend that cranks the heat up fast and doesn't let go until you've sipped off a good inch of sweet, cinnamon-laced horchata. How the locals manage to make it through a meat-only carne asada burrito is beyond rational comprehension.

You'll also find a most passable al pastor, marinated in a heavy glaze of onions and ground chiles and citrus. Rather than the spit-shaved slices of pastor you're likely to find at their late night truck, the version at the Commerce location is rounded at the edges from an all-over session on the griddle and nearly soaked in the spices and juices that give it such a pungent flavor. The bites with the withered and slightly blackened onions are the best, since they give off enough latent earthiness and offer a contrast to the big, tender bites of pork.

Tacos al pastor.

You'll find a similar consistency with the cabeza, tender chunks of beef cheeks and jowls that has been run over by a salsa verde truck. Be careful: this quiet-looking green condiment carries more heat than you might expect, and the peppy excess of cilantro in the mix gives off a serious freshness that almost verges on minty.

Find solace in the buche instead. An off cut that most folks tend to skip, it's a hot item at Sergio's--and for good reason. Rather than the overly funky, boiled and sometimes rubbery bites that can mar a good buche experience at lesser taco houses, here it's buttery, tender, and freshly salted to battle back some of that organ flavor. What's left is smooth and satisfying, especially when paired up with the crisp white diced onions and a splash of the heat-laced salsa roja.

Tacos buche.

Sergio's Tacos manages quite the balancing act. Their Commerce location teeters between industrial and residential, with day workers and night walkers both making the pilgrimage for tacos, super nachos and burritos. They also tightrope between good and great, depending on the day, the order, or the whims of the cooks in the back. Is it a destination stop? That depends on where you're driving from. If nearby Commerce Casino is calling your name, a swing down Atlantic Boulevard before or after a round at the tables for some of Sergio's carne asada and buche tacos is well worth the ride. For everyone else... let's hope Sergio's opens up closer to you soon.

Sergio's Tacos

2216 S Atlantic Blvd, Commerce, CA 90040 (map) SergiosTacos.com

About the author: Farley Elliott is a writer and comedian living in Los Angeles. He writes about strip mall food for LA Weekly and covers the LA beer scene for KCET.

Keanu Reeves arrived at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, where he is presenting his just-finished directorial debut, A Man of Tai Chi. Keanu gave a speech in which he gushed about his love of kung fu movies (calling them "beautiful, wonderful, empowering") and his intentions to market his film to Chinese and Western audiences. But the headlines about Keanu right now deal with his weight.

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Vive le volume!

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Comedian Amy Schumer's new sketch comedy show on Comedy Central, Inside Amy Schumer, is the best thing to hit the airwaves since The Golden Girls. Yes, THE The Golden Girls. That's how you know I'm serious.

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Operating on the sound principle of “if you can’t say anything nice, shut your trap,” the couple who own Amy’s Baking Company, the famed self-immolating bistro in Arizona, have canceled this afternoon’s press conference. Why is that? Did they decide to dedicate the afternoon to training their new staff and revamping the menu instead? Have too many Yelpers threatened to show up? Well, no–the production company behind Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” sent them a letter reminding them that if they “disparage the show, the host, or its producers,” they’ll owe “liquidated damages of $100,000.” Keeping this in mind, they just went ahead and canceled the press conference.

According to the letter, which the Phoenix Business Journal has posted, the program’s participants are allowed to acknowledge that yes, they were on the program…and that’s about it.

The restaurant also happens to be parting ways with its publicist, a Scottsdale specialist in damage control. Speaking with the Arizona Republic, he didn’t elaborate other than to say that they disagreed over future strategies.

More than 1,500 people have tried to get reservations at tonight’s grand-reopening event. If you’re one of the lucky diners, we’d love to hear from you. Just don’t open up your smartphone’s Yelp app while in the building.

Amy’s Baking Company gets lawsuit threat, nixes conference [Arizona Republic] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
Amy’s Baking Company cancels press conference; re-opening still a go [ABC 15]

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
Owners Of Amy’s Baking Company Say Yelpers Are Endangering Their Lives
Amy’s Baking Company Needs To Hire 30 People, Held Weekend Job Fair
Amy’s Baking Company To Re-Open May 21, Hires Damage-Control Publicist
Waitress Fired By Amy’s Baking Company Tells All
How Not To React To Internet Criticism: The Epic Facebook Meltdown Of Amy’s Baking Company

Ready to get your skep on? It’s time to register for one of the Chicago Honey Co-op’s upcoming beekeeping classes. [ more › ]

Faced with a teen pregnancy rate that's reported to be one and a half times higher than the national average, the Chicago Department of Health decided that they needed to do something drastic. So they took to the subways with an ad they knew would be controversial, because that's what cities are doing about teen pregnancy these days.

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This is Captain Morgan, a dachshund who was on death row in one of Alabama's high-kill shelters when the folks at Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue took him in. They placed him with Eva Armstrong, the group's co-director, and with her by his side, he learned to be a loved dog.

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Actually, they're playgrounds from the former Soviet Union, where people were good at making a lot of things -- tanks, rifles, factories to make tanks and rifles -- but cheerful playground statuary clearly wasn't one of them. The following playgrounds give me nightmares as an adult; I can't imagine the many ways they might warp the imaginations of children. Perhaps this play sculpture from Moscow is meant to impart a lesson: never crawl into a hungry dragon's

Today Yahoo! announced that it's buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Let's look back at some other sites taken over by Yahooligans...and see how it turned out for them.

1. GeoCities ($3.6 billion)

Status: dead (except in Japan)

GeoCities-izer

Way back in January 1999, Yahoo! bought GeoCities, the poster child of '90s web communities. Divided into goofy topic-driven "neighborhoods," GeoCities was the place to go to build your first website, cram it full of "under construction" animated GIFs, and then forget about it for a decade.

The purchase was a stock swap valued at $3.57 billion at the time (both Yahoo! and GeoCities were public companies...though GeoCities had "only" a $2.3 billion market cap). When the deal was announced, CNN reported in the acquisition story:

In a separate announcement, GeoCities posted a net loss of $8.4 million, or 27 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended, compared with losses of $3 million, or 14 cents a share in the year-ago period.

Um. Yeah. Anyhoo, in October 2009 Yahoo! shut down GeoCities, prompting Wired to remember the site and its estimated 38 million user-generated pages with a walk down memory lane, including popups and auto-playing music. A partial archive of GeoCities is available from Archive.org -- maybe your high school website is in there!

2. Flickr (estimated $40 million)

Status: still ticking!

WikiMedia Commons

In 2004, Canadian gaming company Ludicorp launched Flickr as a photo-sharing site. It was an outgrowth of tech the company had developed for its planned massively multiplayer online game Game Neverending, which, ironically, ended before it launched -- Flickr proved far more popular.

Ludicorp was headed by Stewart Butterfield and his then-wife Caterina Fake, and the company's sale to Yahoo! was estimated at around $40 million. Butterfield went on to create another massively multiplayer game in 2011, called Glitch, which closed due to lack of player interest. On the bright side, Flickr is still flicking away, was an estimated 6 billion images as of 2011.

3. del.icio.us ($15-30 million...ish)

Status: alive; sold to AVOS Systems

WikiMedia Commons

Delicious launched in 2003 as a social bookmarking site, using the amusingly awesome domain name "del.icio.us" (that .us on the end is the top-level domain for United States websites). In its heyday, Delicious was an exceedingly popular way to save and share bookmarks, and it boasted millions of users (and millions of dollars of investment, including some from Amazon.com).

Yahoo! picked up Delicious for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be somewhere from $15-30 million, in December 2005. In 2010, a leaked Yahoo! document revealed that the service was slated to be "sunsetted" (corporate speak for "shut down"), leading users to flee to competing sites. In a surprise move, Yahoo! instead sold the service to AVOS Systems in 2011, which promptly removed a bunch of features and re-launched the service.

4. Broadcast.com ($5 billion)

Status: functionally dead; parts folded into Yahoo! Music

Getty Images

In April of 1999, Yahoo! announced a deal to acquire Broadcast.com; the sale closed in July, just months before the dot-com crash in early 2000. The sale made many Broadcast.com employees "paper millionaires" (including a few billionaires) by granting them massive Yahoo! stock options -- the only bummer was that most of those employees couldn't exercise the stock options until after Yahoo! stock tanked, along with virtually the entire dot-com stock sector.

Broadcast.com was an early streaming radio site, and its sale succeeded in making Mark Cuban a billionaire -- he now owns the Dallas Mavericks, Magnolia Pictures, and Landmark Theatres. Cuban used some of his Yahoo! loot to buy a Gulfstream V jet online in October 1999 for $40 million, a feat that earned him a Guinness World Record for the largest single e-commerce transaction.

Broadcast.com holds the distinction of being Yahoo!'s largest dollar-value acquisition.

5. Upcoming.org (terms undisclosed)

Status: dead

WikiMedia Commons

In an attempt to cash in on the "local-content market" (yeah, this was a hot new thing eight years ago), Yahoo! bought Upcoming.org, a social events site, in 2005. I actually used Upcoming.org at that time, and it was a great way to find local events, add them to your calendar, and even see what your friends were going to do after work.

Upcoming.org founder Andy Baio wrote that Yahoo! let the site stagnate after Baio and his compatriots left the company. Earlier this year, Yahoo! announced that it would close Upcoming.org with just 11 days notice, leading Baio to ask for help in archiving the site. The Archive Team sprang into action and used a distributed network of volunteers to scrape the site, saving its catalogue of events. Baio wrote: "It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when Yahoo was actually pretty cool, in its own dorky Silicon Valley way."

Good Luck, Tumblr!

Although Yahoo!'s track record with acquisitions is spotty, a Yahoo! buyout can be a good thing. Looking through Wikipedia's long list of Yahoo! mergers and acquisitions, some stick out as extremely good choices -- for instance, the $92 million acquisition of Four11 (aka RocketMail), which formed the foundation of the still-popular Yahoo! Mail. Plus, let's face it, Mental Floss is on Tumblr, so they've got that going for 'em.

Every day South Siders unknowingly pass by a unique mashup of nautical and geological history just a few hundred yards from 49th Street's pebbled beach. [ more › ]

In tear-filled statements, the brother and sister of the man Jodi Arias was convicted of murdering told jurors Thursday that his brutal killing had ripped the heart out of the family.Jurors were hearing arguments over whether Arias deserves to die for killing Travis Alexander in 2008. The same jurors found Wednesday that she had been "especially cruel" in his slaying, which could justify the death...

Caleb "Kai" Lawrence McGillvary with Jimmy Kimmel. Photo via Facebook

Remember Kai? The hatchet-wielding hobo of SMASHH!! SMAAASSHHH!! SAAAMAASHHH!! fame? The guy who made headlines after stopping some psycho who claimed he was Jesus Christ and ran over a bystander before attacking a group of women? Well, now Kai's wanted for murder.

ABC Local is reporting that an arrest warrant is out for Lawrence in connection with the murder of one Joseph Galry, who was found dead in his home on May 13. Reports are spotty, but authorities are considering Lawrence, last seen on Tuesday, to be armed and dangerous. He was last seen at a rail yard near Haddonfield, New Jersey. No matter the outcome, it's a truly bizarre and tragic twist to the "home-free" tale of everyone's favorite hatchet-wielding hobo, who it's been said harbors a bit of a violent streak. As he told told VICE last month, recalling busting up another guy after the Jesus incident: 

He was on a trip of dominance and control. I think he had a poisoned psyche. I've heard some of the research that people have been doing about his life and apparently he was a high school basketball coach for girls. That is fucked up. That truly sickens me. When I hear stuff about him getting jumped by six guys in a Fresno County jail and getting his jaw broken, I'm not going to lie to you, I celebrate that. People like that need to be fucking stopped.

For now, all we have are these words, which Lawrence put on Facebook two days ago:

what would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a strangers [sic] house... walked to the mirror and seen come dripping from the side of your face from your mouth, and started wretching, realizing that someone had drugged, raped, and blown their fuckin [sic] load in you? what would you do?

Read the rest over at the new Motherboard.VICE.com. 

This commercial uses scantily-clad ladies and bone-crunching sound effects to encourage you to visit the shadiest of all shady shadesters: a chiropractor.

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Rumors that Beyoncé is pregnant are becoming more reputable as E! reports that "multiple sources exclusively confirm" a second child is on its way for the singer and her husband, Jay-Z.

The couple gave birth to their first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, in January of 2012. The singer recently told ABC News that she "would like more children," and rumors of her pregnancy hit the Internet when bloggers identified a small bulge around her waist on Monday. On Tuesday, the singer raised suspicions further by canceling a concert in Belgium due to "heat and exhaustion."

Of course, Jay-Z's rep had no comment and Beyoncé's rep could not be reached for comment by E!, so the speculation on whether or not a baby bump will soon protrude from Beyoncé's belly will continue until the appearance of said baby bump makes the speculation pointless.

Perhaps Kate Middleton can hold us over until then.

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[Photograph: Joe Roy]

Until this afternoon, I was unaware of the joy of one of Chicago's finest luxuries: lunch with a skyline view. What's that old saying? Location, location, something or other? Nevermind. But I think you know where I'm going with this. Thing is, tourists and business lunchers don't always have the most, ahem, particular of palates. Which is why Tavern at the Park (with "Millennium" being the operative descriptor here) shouldn't have to try so hard. It really does, though, with more successful than not fried results along the way.

One bite into the Duck Egg Rolls ($12.00), and all I could think about was P.F. Chang's. But when you're talking duck confit stuffed egg rolls perched atop a sweet, colorful cabbage slaw, that's hardly a slight. Said poultry is rich, with actual ducky flavor, and the toothsome egg wrapper is fried crisp without being overly so. I'm not usually one for raw green pepper, but it adds an unexpected peppery sourness to a slaw that could easily cross the line to cloying. The included dish of tart and viscous mango sweet and sour puts those little carryout packets to shame, and, all in all, this is a dish that is way better than it has any right to be.

If you don't mind adding salt tableside (and I certainly don't), the Goat Cheese Salad ($14.00) will certainly satisfy. The mixed greens base is ho hum, though the abundant apple and strawberry slices add a pleasant fruit bulk. Toasted almonds and biased celery lends a Waldorf-ish crunch, and the quince-based reduction contributes just the right amount of sweetness. The tart, Babybel-sized fried goat cheese disks help maintain the balance, though a smidge less time in the fryer would prevent the cheese from drying out as much.

Someone probably should have informed the Shoestring Fries ($6.00) that it's dangerously close to swimsuit season to be going outside without a tan. Bad joke, ladies and germs—but seriously, another minute in the deep fryer would make all the difference here. That and some salt. Still, the shadow of Millennium Park and a surprisingly well balanced dish of truffle aioli rights all wrongs.

Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed my bright sunlit lunch at Tavern at the Park. The kitchen appeared thoroughly engaged in putting out a balanced, respectable meal, though the spectacular view certainly could've contributed a rose-colored je ne sais quoi to the experience. Either way, after glancing at other dishes sweeping past, I'll certainly be stopping back—business meeting and fanny pack decidedly optional.

Tavern at the Park

130 E Randolph Street Chicago, IL 60601 (map)
312-552-0070 
tavernatthepark.com

Cry-Baby #1: Barry Swegle

(via)

The incident: A man named Barry Swegle became upset about a fence his neighbor had installed. 

The appropriate response: Talking it out with the neighbor, if that doesn't work, maybe contacting a local council or something. If that doesn't work, smashing down the fence when your neighbor isn't home then denying all knowledge.

The actual response: Barry got into a bulldozer and partially leveled his neighborhood. 

Apparently the fence, which was installed by Barry's neighbor several months ago, was blocking Barry from being able to move his logging equipment in and out of his driveway in the small town of Port Angeles, Washington. 

This caused some kind of dispute between the neighbors, which, according to Barry's brother, turned Barry into "a ticking time bomb."

On Monday, Time Bomb Barry exploded. He got into his bulldozer and smashed down the fence. But his rampage didn't end there, he carried on rampaging and destroyed four houses, a boat, a truck, and knocked down a telephone pole. 

Once he was all rampaged out, Barry was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree assault and six counts of first-degree malicious mischief.

Cry-Baby #2: Monroe County, Pennsylvania 

Criminal mooning?

(via Reddit)

The incident: 18-year-old high school senior Larry Liero mooned a couple of kids. 

The appropriate response: Nothing. Mooning is funny. I guess if it was really bothering the kids, they could have yelled at Larry or something. 

The actual response: Larry was suspended from school and arrested.  

According to police, Larry mooned two 13-year-old girls who were being taken on a tour of his school, Pleasant Valley High School in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. 

The mooning victims told their teacher, who told school officials, who told the school-resource police pfficer.

Larry was escorted from the school in handcuffs and taken to the local police station, where he was charged with disorderly conduct and open lewdness. He was also barred from taking part in his school's graduation ceremony and suspended. His charges could lead to a year in prison.

In a statement, Doug Arnold, the school district's superintendent said, "It's a violation of law not to keep your clothes on. It's unacceptable in school." He added, "I don't know that anybody would condone mooning someone"—suggesting that Doug knows some really, really fucking boring people. 

Who is the bigger cry-baby up in here? Let us know in this poll:

Who is the bigger cry-baby?

Previously: The school that suspended a kid for being a kid Vs. the farm that fired some people for being sensible

Winner: The school!!!

@JLCT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers are ready to question the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service as Congress holds its first hearing on the tougher scrutiny the IRS gave tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

With the scandal joining the parade of political headaches buffeting President Barack Obama, the Republican-run House Ways and Means Committee planned to question the agency's ousted chief, Steven Miller, on Friday.

Miller, acting director until he resigned Wednesday, seems sure to get a hostile reception from the committee. Members of both parties have spent the past week bitterly chastising the agency for abandoning its charge of making nonpolitical decisions about which groups should qualify for tax-exempt status, which makes it easier for them to collect contributions from donors.

Lawmakers also have said that despite asking the IRS repeatedly about complaints from conservative groups that their applications were being treated unfairly, the agency — including Miller — never told them the groups were being targeted, even after May 2012, when the agency said Miller was briefed on the practice. Miller was previously a deputy commissioner whose portfolio included the unit that made decisions about tax-exempt status.

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With comments during a developer conference, Google Glass product director Steve Lee did little to assuage privacy concerns around the wearable device. Responding to questions about how one would know if one were being surveilled by a Google Glass wearer, Lee said "you'll know." As Gizmodo's Jamie Condliffe commented, "it's a pretty shaky privacy argument." On Thursday, a bipartisan Congressional privacy caucus sent Google a letter with questions about how privacy will be protected by Google Glass. Lee's conference remarks will not sate privacy advocates, understandably concerned about the proliferation of wearable devices, brought to you by the tech giant that stores vast troves of individuals' personal data. But, Lee said of the headsets:

 You'll know when someone with Glass is paying attention to you. If you're looking at Glass, you're looking up... If I'm recording you, I have to stare at you — as a human being. And when someone is staring at you, you have to notice. If you walk into a restroom and someone's just looking at you — I don't know about you but I'm getting the hell out of there.

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Romance may be getting short shrift among college students these days, replaced instead with quick "hookups" devoid of any real emotion, a new book argues.

A dancer-choreographer befriended by Michael Jackson when he was a child now calls the late pop icon "a pedophile and a child sexual abuser."

A pizza deliveryman is accused of selling more than $45,000 in cocaine, hidden among pizza boxes, to undercover agents in New York.

People always worry about pee in the pool, but number two is the No. 1 problem, government health experts say. They found plenty of evidence that someone’s pooping in the pool.It’s not only disgusting, but it’s evidence that people are not following basic hygiene rules, says Michele Hlavsa, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy Swimming Program.“It is time to stop treat...

From Sweets

[Photograph: Molly Sheridan]

My cupboards are full of half-bags. A half bag of hazelnut flour from when I made linzer cookies, maybe a quarter bag of chickpea flour for when I want to make socca or panelle. Same goes with cornmeal—or at least it used to. I'd leave a never-quite-empty bag hanging around in case I made skillet cornbread to accompany chili. Now I can hardly keep a bag in my house. Why? I figured out it's useful for all sorts of things besides cornbread, from biscotti to pancakes to pudding.

But first things first: maybe you want to make cornbread. And why not? Corn bread is delicious, and we're coming up on BBQ season. You'll need something to mop up that sauce.

Sweet Versions

Brown Butter Cornbread
Sage and Honey Skillet Cornbread
Pumpkin Cornbread
Gluten-Free Maple Almond Cornbread

Savory Versions

Basic Corn Bread (without sugar)
Jalapeño Jack Cornbread
Gluten-Free Cornbread
Cheese and Pepper Cornbread

What else can you make? Well muffins, for one (and we've got recipes for sweet, savory, and sausage-stuffed), and other breakfast items (johnny cakes, pancakes, and spoon bread) and full on dessert (plum cake, Indian pudding, and more). Scroll on down to see all the ways you can use this versatile ingredient.

Muffins

Old Bay Corn Muffins
Corn Muffins with Candied Bacon
Buttermilk Corn Muffins
Sausage-Stuffed Corn Muffins
Scallion and Cheese Corn Muffins
Corn Dill Mini Muffins

Other Breakfast Dishes

Johnnycakes (Cornmeal Pancakes) with Chili Syrup
Cornmeal Pancakes with Honey, Salt and Cracked Black Pepper
Spider Cake (New England Skillet Corncake)
Food52's Warm Custard Spoon Bread

Dessert

[Photograph: Carrie Vasios]

Cornmeal Cherry Biscotti
Plum-Cornmeal Cake with Plum Sorbet
Indian Pudding
Cornmeal Biscotti with Dried Cranberries and White Chocolate
Jalapeño Cornbread Whoopie Pies with Honey Buttercream
80-Cent Citrus Corn-Muffin Madeleines with Raspberry Confiture
White Chocolate Dipped Lemon-Almond Biscotti

Have another great way to use cornmeal? Share your tricks in the comments section below!

Purses are both a blessing and a curse for ladies on the go. Invest in a good tote, said fashion, and so I obeyed. And man am I happy I listened to fashion. I love my gigantic Mary Poppins purse: It's the black hole where I throw in my makeup bag, tampons, books and magazines, miscellaneous objects found on the street that may come in handy one day, and most importantly, snacks. Lots of snacks. But your go-to bag, that precious carryall that holds your life and all the crumbs that go with it, is likely to hold more bacteria than the average toilet seat. Dammit, perfect tote bag. I knew it was too good to be true.

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A Michigan school district won't let two pregnant students show their baby bumps in the high school yearbook because it would promote teen pregnancy and thereby contradict the state's abstinence-only sex ed approach. We can't make this shit up.

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No, really. Our favorite mortician Caitlin Doughty "submits" an "audition" video, and we cross our fingers that whatever shitshow is in the works doesn't make the funeral business — or women — look bad.

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