Science Fair for August 4th-10th

This week's Science Fair is super-duper mellow. I feel a cold coming on and these links made me rather happily distracted from my ever-present headache! Hooray!

-Out of the UK, the Daily Mail's "Femail" section is a veritable treasure trove of gossip about Victoria Beckham, random reality TV stars, and fascinating windows into the British woman's soul. They have features on women who suffered brain damage from extreme dieting and hyponatremia, teen pregnancy, and loads of other goodies. This week's highlight was profiles of three women who are devoted wives...circa 1950, 1940, and 1930. Meet the Time Warp Wives, guaranteed to give those Desperate bitches a run for their money!

-Moving right along with the retro-femme theme, Cooked Books shares with us some great resources on home canning, food safety, and the agricultural industry. All the foodie info websites you could ever possibly want, in one place! I also enjoy checking out HealthMap for new food poisonings and norovirus outbreaks.

-Eardrums Music, a blog with a great love for northern European indie-pop, shares with us the strings-and-vocals based Provkoket, and I think they're rather elegant. Provkoket reminds me of some of the earlier Arcade Fire, with the heavy cello and charmingly plaintive male vocals, what do you think?

-Nicole at Baking Bites finds the tart frozen yogurt sweeping the nation to be just too, well, tart, so she makes her own! Having lived on Tasti D-lite for the last three months in New York, I can say that all these "healthy" soft-serve places just don't taste right! Pinkberry is too sour with too-sweet toppings, and their green tea flavor tastes like nothing. We just got a Red Mango here in Ye Olde Hometown, but by all accounts it is not that great. We've even got a Pinkberry knock-off opening up! It's fro-yo madness, I tell you!

-Biggie, the preeminent bento-packing expert of Lunch In A Box and San Francisco-ite, has a new FAQ on everything you ever wanted to know about obento! My grandma always packs me obento before I go away from home for a while, for a plane trip, or just because she can. I have heard stories of kids getting beaten up and teased at school for having adorable Japanese-style packed lunches, though, hmm...

-Princess Poochie of Hello, Lover lets us into her awesomely cozy library. I love that it's an actual library, rather than a wimpy modern "den" or living room! A room, made for READING BOOKS, can you imagine it in this day and age?

Coming up soon in Karen-land will be a rare glimpse into the beauty regime of a totally lazy girl, wafer-thin beauty products, maybe something about babies, and a triple-play of snarky book reviews! Have a great week, everyone, stay cool!