We were all stunned by the horrible news of the school shooting in Newton, Connecticut, yesterday. Our hearts go out to all the grieving families and the survivors of that incident. As with other overwhelming news stories, we didn't post about it here at Neatorama because, honestly, there are so many other media outlets that are better at covering breaking news, and our readers know where to find them. The editors at Wikipedia are adding continuous updates to the story as it is known. If you have children, you may want to read Mr. Rogers' page on Tragic Events in the News for tips on discussing what happened. Meanwhile, we continue to offer you a steady stream of pleasantness and distraction when you need it. Or just want it. And we had a lot of neat stuff on here this past week.
Eddie Deezen gave us some entertainment history in two posts. A Few Things About Frank Sinatra was posted on what would have been Sinatra's 97th birthday, and The Only Christmas Song to Hit #1 on the Charts followed it the next day.
Tiffany presented us with The Bacon Lovers Gift Guide.
The Other Mr. Coffee. That is, the story of Starbucks, came to us from Uncle John's Bathroom reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research had Molecular Genetic Analysis of a Christmas Carol.
Where Traffic Lights Came From came from a mental_floss book.
Our banner at the top of the page with the little pictures will help you access these exclusive Neatorama feature articles anytime. There are more than what you see at any given time -just use the little arrows on the ends to see more of them. After the Christmas rush, we will seriously get to work on a new "Best of Neatorama" page where you can see all the features going back to 2006.
We have a contest open now for Pinterest users (established and new): Neatorama 'Pin To Win' Contest - Holiday Edition. Read and enter to win fabulous prizes!
In the What Is It? game this week, the pictured object is indeed, a horn shark's egg. Ain't nature weird? Mindy Slover-Peek was the first of many commenters to recognize it, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from iago, who guessed it to be a "Piece of fossilized unicorn poop found in North Korean unicorn lair." (reference) That's good for a t-shirt, too! Thanks to everyone who played! You can see the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Our new subblogs have extra content aside from what you see on the main page! At Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly, we are free to post as many cute cat videos as we want to -and we do! Neatolicious, Mad Skills, and NeatoBambino all have extra content, but the real treat is the Halloween blog, which has a lot of new items every day that will either bring a smile to your face or a chill to your heart.
The post that was most-commented-on this week (besides the contests) was Eddie's The Only Christmas Song to Hit #1 on the Charts. Nothing else came close. We are going to have to put more typos in our posts if we want people to talk to us!
Remember, we have extra fun stuff at our Facebook page. For example, David Israel posted this picture and got a lot of comments. The best was from Tony Deconinck, who said "I'm happy to see he moved on after Heidi Klum." Ha! You'll find Neatorama on Twitter and Pinterest as well.
As Hanukkah draws to a close, we hope you had a blessed holiday. As we head into the last busy week before Christmas, remember to stop and recharge your batteries with us at Neatorama!