If you were to find a new species of animal with a hairy chest, it would only make sense to name it after actor David Hasselhoff. That's what happened when a new hairy species of yeti crab was documented near thermal vents in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica.
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The crabs were found in piles around hydrothermal vents on the seafloor during a 2010 expedition conducted by British scientists. Professor Alex Rogers of Oxford University led the voyage, and told LiveScience that the crabs were "literally, in places, heaped up upon each other."
According to the BBC, the crab has long hairs on its abdomen, inspiring a Hasselhoff comparison. The creature was one of many new species discovered by British scientists exploring deep-sea vents in the Antarctic. Others spotted included a pale octopus and new starfish.
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1. make a big sheet of gingerbread-- roll it out right on wax paper or parchment the size of the cookie sheet. then when it comes out of the oven, quickly cut out the pieces using the paper pattern pieces you have ready. (the g'bread is soft at this point-- gets hard as it cools)
2. stick the pieces together with toothpicks.
3. Use royal icing. it is basically uncooked meringue; has eggwhites. It is super sticky and dries hard as a rock, almost. It is more an engineering material than a food. It also holds the decorations on tight.
4. new geeky idea-- make lego guy gingerbread men to go with. Heck, make a gingerbread laptop with only m's and s's for keys. (m&m's and sprints or whatever they are called)
I ended up doing Angkor Wat. It took a little over a month, and in the end, I did not win any sort of ribbon, nor did anyone have a clue as to what Angkor Wat was. :/
http://www.romanticasheville.com/gingerbread.htm
If you are anywhere in the area between November and January it is worth your time.
http://peakdefinition.smugmug.com/Events/652711
http://www.jdrfnorthwest.org/gingerbread/
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=gingerbread&w=45206671%40N00
Mount Rainier is definitely outside-the-box.
Ha ha Poptarts. I used to eat those. Great idea. Some even are already frosted!
Now, I wonder what happens in the end; when display time is up? Everyone gets to "eat house"? Demolition with a giant Gobstopper wrecking ball?
Just give it a Splat!
So, I took the chicken route and tossed the gingerbread 'glop', baked up some pumkin-rum cake, cut out cubes and thin(1" thick)squares for the roofs, trimmed off some of the cubes so the two sides of the roof would fit, frosted and decorated each "gingerbread" house with different candies.
They were a hit! So, I made them agin, this year. Hmm...tradition starting to bloom?
This link gives instructions (with pictures).
--Dean
http://picasaweb.google.com/deanpomerleau/FoolproofGingerbreadHouse?feat=directlink
Everything is built to scale as if it were an actual house.