1. Peony

This one is apparently the most common, so your chances of spotting it in the skies this weekend are pretty good. It’s “a spherical break of colored stars.”

2. Chrysanthemum

This is a variation of the Peony – the difference is that the stars leave a visible trail of sparks. To me, this looks like a fiber optic ball or those balls that you put your hand on to attract the current to at science museums and the life.

3. Willow

I love this one! It’s a lot like the Peony and its variations (the Chrysanthemum and the Dahlia), but it leaves trails of silver or gold stars that produce a weeping willow-ish outline.

4. Horsetail

It’s a compact little burst that falls down down, well, like a horsetail. You might also hear this one referred to as a Waterfall Shell.

5. Fish

The shell bursts and then you see little squiggles of light squirming away from the main burst. The effect looks like fish swimming away. Or sperm. Whatever.

6. Spider

This one is fast-burning and bursts very hard, which makes the stars shoot out straight and flat. Basically, the look like lots of spider legs.

7. Palm

This one produces an effect that looks like a palm tree when it bursts (go figure). Some even have a thick tail that looks like a trunk.

8. Crossette

Take lots of tic-tac-toe boards and cross them over each other haphazardly. That’s kind of what the crossette looks like. It’s usually accompanied by a loud crackling noise.

9. Kamuro

Named after a Japanese hairstyle, this one has a dense burst that leaves a glittery trail.

10. Rings

I like these because they can be arranged to look like atoms, which is very mental_floss-y. But typically you see rings within rings, like the ones in the picture.

For more fireworks effects and help on spotting them, take this quiz on PBS.org.

Who’s got a good caption for this pic?

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From the AV Club, I love you, Scumbag X: 12 things Woody Allen just doesn’t get.
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From CollegeHumor: 3 songs without auto-tune.
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Looking for a one-stop shop for all your nefarious needs? Drop by Villain Source and peruse traps, doomsday machines, and all manner of mayhem, moohahah!
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Fight the good fight … against your own mind! Here are 10 thinking traps that keeps us thinking inside the box.
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Further ideas on how to train your memory to encode major number systems. Way beyond my brain power!
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Closer to what I usually spend my time look at: Cats in Sinks! I know this has been around, but every time I stumble on it I can’t help but click… and click … and click … (thanks Sarah!)
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Two words: baby. panda.
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If you don’t have access to cuddling a baby panda, how about a cuddly Jabba?
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Tomato pie, or, how to feed your family for under $10. To learn more about tomatoes, check out this week’s Dietribe.
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Astronomy picture of the day: Saturn’s moon Enceladus. I can’t decide if it looks like something I want to lick or something really, really old found in my fridge…
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Too hot to go outside but all done with the Weekend Links? Check out these 10 humor sites from CNN.
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A big ole huzzah and kudos to all those who sent in links this week! Send all links, blogs, pictures and whatnot to FlossyLinks@gmail.com.

[Last Weekend's Links]

1. He Was Almost Cary Lockwood

The man we know as Cary Grant was actually born Alec Archibald Leach in 1904 in Bristol, England. When Archie Leach finally made it to Hollywood in 1931, studio execs at Paramount didn’t think that “Archie Leach” sounded sturdy enough for a leading man. As Grant later told it, someone at the studio said, “’Archie’ just doesn’t sound right in America,” to which he grudgingly admitted, “It doesn’t sound particularly right in Britain, either.”

When he was faced with the task of literally making a name for himself, Leach enlisted the help of his friends Fay Wray and John Monk Saunders, who suggested “Cary Lockwood.” When Leach took the “Cary Lockwood” moniker back to Paramount, the studio honchos liked the “Cary” part but felt that “Lockwood” was too long and too similar to other actors’ names, particularly silent film star Harold Lockwood. Grant would later tell The New Yorker that at this point, someone in the meeting just started reading down a list of potential last names and eventually stopped at “Grant.” Archie Leach liked the sound of it and nodded, and Cary Grant was born. In 1941, the actor legally changed his name to Cary Grant.

2. Archie Leach Had Some Adventures of His Own, Though

The name Cary Grant may not have emerged until 1931, but long before that Archie Leach was already showing the inimitable charm and comedic gifts that would later light up the screen. He left home at age 13 to join the Bob Pender Troupe, a group of traveling boy comedians, and from that point on he focused on learning acrobatics, tumbling, and vaudeville techniques, where he excelled as a straight man. In 1920, Bob Pender brought his troupe to the U.S., where they successfully toured for two years. At the end of the engagement, Archie Leach decided he’d rather just stay in the U.S. than return to England.

For the next nine years, Grant did a little bit of everything. He juggled on-stage, served as an audience plant for mind readers, worked as a barker at Coney Island, and walked on stilts to advertise Steeplechase Park. He also worked as an “escort” who could fill in empty seats at dinner parties; he once escorted the great soprano Lucrezia Bori for an evening. By 1927, he’d met legendary producer Arthur Hammerstein and was appearing on Broadway, which opened the door for his film career.

3. He Took Thriftiness To a New Level

From just watching Grant’s movies, you’d think that friends would describe him as witty, charming, and urbane. While his associates certainly give him credit for all of those qualities, he’s just as legendary for being a cheapskate. Although Grant was the first star to break out of the studio system and negotiate a deal where he got a percentage of his films’ box office takes, he was famously careful with his cash and obsessed over how much everything cost. (If Grant attended an expensive charity event, he was quick to point out that the entrance fee was deductible.)

Rumors circulated that Grant was so cheap that when he’d worn out a shirt, he’d cut all the buttons off and save them before throwing it away. Grant never denied this rumor; he simply explained in an interview that he liked to have some extra buttons around and that if his maid used his old shirts as dust rags he didn’t want the buttons scratching his furniture. As he told the New York Times, “I think it’s a very sensible procedure and should be adopted as a household tip.”

4. He Did a Lot of LSD

Although Grant was outwardly a clean-cut light-comic actor, he struggled with depression throughout his life. Part of this unhappiness stemmed from his uneasy relationship with the fairer sex, a problem that may have sprung from losing his mother when he was just nine years old. (Family members told Grant his mother had either died or gone on vacation, but she’d actually been committed to the Country Home for Mental Defectives in Fishpond.) While Grant was quite the ladies’ man on screen, he didn’t fare quite so well in his own life. He was married five times, and the first four wives all left him.

In an effort to confront these problems and restore his mental health, Grant underwent a hundred or so LSD sessions. He started taking LSD under the supervision of doctors in 1963 when his third wife, actress Betsy Drake, hit the road. According to Grant, when he took LSD and talked to a psychiatrist he “went through rebirth,” and although he discouraged the recreational drug culture that emerged later in the 60s, he remained firmly convinced that LSD helped him come to terms with his issues. In fact, Grant felt so grateful for the breakthroughs he had with LSD that he left $10,000 in his will to the doctor who had overseen the treatments.

5. He Was No Fan of Chevy Chase

It sounds ridiculous now, but when Chevy Chase was first starting to make his splash in show business, people compared him to Cary Grant. During a September 1980 interview on Tom Snyder’s talk show Tomorrow, host Snyder favorably compared guest Chase to Grant. Chase responded, “I understand he was a homo…He was brilliant. What a gal!”

Chase’s comments addressed the long-standing Hollywood rumor that Grant was bisexual, and Grant was less than amused. He sued Chase for $10 million for slander the following day, and the pair eventually settled out of court. (Grant allegedly received a $1 million payment from Chase for the ill-chosen comment.) Grant, who was 76 at the time, told the media, “True or untrue, I’m old enough not to care.”

‘5 Things You Didn’t Know About…’ appears every Friday. Read the previous installments here..

You know Ben Franklin was a Pennsylvania man, and Thomas Jefferson was on Team Virginia. But what about the less famous Founding Fathers? Today’s quiz asks you to choose which state 12 signers of the Declaration of Independence were representing.

Take the Quiz: Founding Fathers

Play for your chance to WIN a $100 shopping spree in our store!

We’re back with another 5-day trivia hunt!

First let’s meet our current champion, and big $100 winner, Daniel Wilson. You can read all about him and see the answers to last month’s final puzzle here.

As comments have been turned off for the length of the 5-day hunt, be sure to hit us up via e-mail with questions if you find something in the instructions unclear.

As always, it pays to play whether you’re the first in with all the correct answers or not. In addition to the $100 shopping spree first-prize, we’re also giving away a $50 shopping spree in our store to one random winner who has all the right answers but isn’t the first to e-mail them in. Random winners sometimes submit all the correct answers/logic a full 48 hours after the closing bell, so don’t worry if you’re late or can’t submit your final answers at 8 pm ET next Monday.

Have fun with it, and, as always, don’t hesitate to work in teams and e-mail all your friends for help. Many, if not most of our past HDYK winners have been teams, not individuals.

If you’re new to the 5-day trivia hunt, be sure to see the rules and regulations page here. Also, we’ve now got a Facebook page which we’re going to use to drop cryptic clues now and then. Don’t worry, even if you’re not a Fan of our Facebook page, you can still view it through the link below, and, of course, you’ll still be able to solve all the puzzles, as normal, even if you don’t want to visit Facebook. But the Fan page will allow you to friend other contestants, form alliances, network and just hang out with other trivia nuts. So go check it out over here.

If you missed Day 1, you can see that right here, while Day 2 is is over here, and Day 3, right here. Now on to our fourth challenge!

We’ve got a two-part challenge for you today. This one, we think, is a bit harder than yesterday’s. Ready to play? Click on through to the challenge.

Upon his return to Baltimore, Key gave the poem to his brother-in-law, who noted that the words fit melody to the popular drinking song, “The Anacreontic Song.” Key’s brother-in-law took the poem to a printer, who made broadside copies of it. A few days later, the Baltimore Patriot and The American printed the poem with the note “Tune: Anacreon in Heaven.” Later, the Carr Music Store in Baltimore published the words and music together as “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The song gained popularity over the course of the nineteenth century and was often played at public events like parades and Independence Day celebrations (and, on occasion, sporting events). In 1889, the Secretary of the Navy ordered it the official tune to be played during the raising of the flag. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that it be played at all military ceremonies and other appropriate occasions, making it something of an unofficial national anthem.

After America’s entrance into World War I, Major League Baseball games often featured patriotic rituals, such as players marching in formation during pregame military drills and bands playing patriotic songs. During the seventh-inning stretch of game one of the 1918 World Series, the band erupted into “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Cubs and Red Sox players faced the centerfield flag pole and stood at attention. The crowd, already on their feet, began to sing along and applauded at the end of the song.

Given the positive reaction, the band played the song during the next two games, and when the Series moved to Boston, the Red Sox owner brought in a band and had the song played before the start of each remaining contest. After the war (and after the song was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution in 1931), the song continued to be played, but only on special occasions like opening day, national holidays and World Series games.

During World War II, baseball games again became venues for large-scale displays of patriotism, and technological advances in public address systems allowed songs to be played without a band. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played before games throughout the course of the war, and by the time the war was over, the pregame singing of the national anthem had become cemented as a baseball ritual, after which it spread to other sports.

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Well, the 4th of July weekend is almost here. Time for fireworks, parades, and all those great outdoor cookouts. But for a few hearty souls, it’s also time to loosen the old stomach muscles, in preparation for the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Let’s warm up for the occasion with a video buffet of extreme eating competitions.

Pumpkin Pie

Independence Day doesn’t have a monopoly on eating contests. Prepare to never want another piece of pumpkin pie.

Buffalo Wings

My, the ladies can sure put away the wings. Who needs lipstick when hot sauce seems to work just as well?

Bacon

At the Des Moines Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, you can almost hear the arteries hardening as the contestants chew the fat.

Onions

I have to admit, while searching for eating competition videos, I didn’t expect to find onions. Who gets to kiss the winner?

Jalapenos

What kind of cast iron stomach do you have to have to enter a jalapeno eating contest? And did that sign say “Puke on Me”?

Artichokes

I once found out how the “choke” part of the artichoke got its name, so these brave folks certainly have my respect.

Oysters

I’ve never had a glass of oysters, and I hope I never do. And you have to love the face painters, right? They really get into it.

Whoopie Pie

Ian “the INVADER” Hickman defends his title, while wearing some sort of electric shirt.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs

And here’s last years photo finish between Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi. U…S…A! U…S…A!

Back at the end of May, I promised to cover 13 artists from 13 different countries in the 13 “Feel Art Again” posts for the month of June. Due to personal issues, I’ve gotten a little behind schedule, but I’ll be working this week to fulfill my promise.

Today’s post lands us in Kenya, at the request of reader Christina W., for the artwork of Walter Njugana Mbugua.

1. Walter Mbugua did not begin painting professionally until he was about 30 years old. Mbugua had become a teacher and court clerk straight out of high school. In his spare time, he wrote plays and poetry, but apparently was unsuccessful in his attempts to publish them.

2. Although he was born Walter Njugana Mbugua, the artist is best known by his nom de plume, Sane Wadu. When he left his “secure career” as a teacher and clerk to pursue painting, he was ridiculed by his friends and neighbors, who called him “insane.” Mbugua’s response was to declare his sanity with his very name; he has gone by Sane Wadu ever since.

3. Wadu has never received any formal training, yet he has become one of Kenya’s most well-known artists. His work has been exhibited all around the world, including several one-man exhibitions in New York City. Today, he supplements his income by providing art lessons.

4. Eunice, Wadu’s wife, is also an artist. She originally worked designing cloth, but was inspired to paint by Sane, who was already an established artist. They were later married. Together they started a communal art studio where they offer lessons, keep local youths artistically engaged, and sell their own artwork and that of their students and other local artists.

5. Wadu was reportedly featured in TIME magazine in 1997, although the TIME archives don’t include Wadu.

A larger version of Wadu’s “Prodigal Son” (shown above) is available.

Fans should check out this video of Eunice Wadu.

“Feel Art Again” usually appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists.