No normal wombats - Survival of the quirkiest (guest post)

In hopes of spending a bit more time on getting Quirky Cookery going, Quirky Jessi is open to guest posts. If you have something quirky you'd like to post, just email me.

Now on to Duncan, who has something to say about those wacky wombats:

No Normal Wombats

I recently discovered wombats. By that I mean I didn’t discover them in my basement or anything, I just learnt of their existence. It might sound unbelievable that a 25 year old cannot at some point in their life come across a picture of wombat, but I think God must have been waiting until I reached an age where I could fully appreciate just how crazy these creatures are before he showed me one.

Since seeing first image of these mad beings, I soon learnt that it is very difficult to find any image that makes them look vaguely normal. It leads me to wonder if their continued existence has been due in some part to the fact predictors haven’t got a clue what they are either. I mean, how would you even begin predicting what one of these gremlins would taste like?



Duncan works for an online store selling white wardrobes and bedside tables.

20 creative uses for egg cartons

With Easter coming up, many of us will end up with at least a couple extra egg cartons more than we usually would. Why not turn them into a project to entertain the kids with? Or if you have plenty of extra time on your hands, tons of egg cartons, and are particularly artistic, there are some adult ones there for you, too.

Make hollow sugar Easter eggs

And this time, can we fill them with quirky bunnies instead? I'm thinking something along the lines of putting this guy inside:



He even comes with his own already colored background so less work for you!

Hollow Sugar Easter Eggs

Pillow blanket is the ultimate in comfyness

Yes, comfiness/comfyness is a real word. It has to be. And this pillow blanket is the ultimate in it.

Unless you don't like pillows. Or are forced to sleep with a spouse instead of these comfy pillows. Then you have to lie and say you don't want it. You 'do' want it, right?



We're going to ignore how easy it would be to get wrapped up and trapped in this thing if you don't stay still in the middle of the night.

Most useless machine ever, also best machine ever

Yep, this is definitely the most useless...and the best ever, at the same time.

In case you're not sure what you're looking at, when someone pushes the switch, the little "hand" comes out and pushes it off. So essentially, this machine is built to turn itself off as soon as you turn it on, hehe.

Duct tape meets magnetic strips

I probably shouldn't refer to Duct tape here by name here, huh? Erm.

Silver/gray-tape-that-comes-in-many-other-colors-now-with-a-duck-on-the-package-and-is-used-for-a-million-and-one-purposes meets strips-of-magnets; Self-adhesive-magnetic-tape-baby-born.

Yeah, that'd make a much better title, I think.

Dr. Seuss for computers - I do not want 3 megs of ram!

The shirt can be found here, but what really got me was Gizmodo's continued Dr. Suess bit:

I want this shirt, it's 20 dollars*,
I want the boys to gimme hollers.
It's four bucks more for a woman's fit,
But Sam, I don't really give a sh*t—
Cause when I wear it I'll be geeky cute,
Oh, Sam, I sure hope the boys will hoot!
I do not want 3 Megs of Ram!
I do not want them, Sam I am!

*It's only $15 now and there's no difference for the women's fit now either, hehe.

Stunning snowflake pictures

We're going to skip the banter and send you straight to the link. Go. Now. They're gorgeous.

A Polaroid everyday for 10 years...and one day

We've surely all seen the 365 projects that have become really popular over the last few years, right? Someone vows to take a picture of him/herself every day for a year. There are plenty of variations now, too, vowing to take pictures of anything or specific things, but it started with the personal pictures.

Well Marc Tasman was way ahead of his time. Back in 1999 he started taking a picture of himself using a Polaroid camera every day. 10 years (and one day!) later, those images are part of a super-sped up video showing every single one. The video is only a little over 5 minutes long to cram all 4600+ Polaroid pictures into it (but there's still plenty of time to actually 'see' the pictures, see change, see differences, etc). Amazing.

Looking into the Past - History meets present day photos

There are lots of these pictures for the Looking Into the Past project. It's such an interesting way to see how things have changed over the years in a single glance. It's particularly interesting when there's a single building in the historical picture but in the present day photograph, there's an entire city built up around it.

Kroger's Gift Card Giveaway (And other grocery stores)

Giveaway time!

First, the reason for the promotion. Kroger is having a huge sale and in addition to giving me a $25 gift card (via MyBlogSpark), they're also giving one of you a $25 gift card. Woo!  Keep in mind that if you don't have a Kroger, there are other chains in the "family" that it can be used at.

Through March 14th, shop the Cart Buster Savings Event and find the hottest prices around on your favorite name-brand products in over 60 categories at the Kroger Family of Stores, which includes Kroger, Ralph´s, King Soopers, City Market, Dillons, Smith´s, Fry´s, QFC, Baker´s, Owen´s, Jay C Food Stores, Hilander, Gerbes, Food4Less, Pay Less Super Markets and Scott´s Food & Pharmacy.

Here are just a few of the great brands participating in the event: Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Hamburger Helper, Yoplait, Progresso, Totino´s, Green Giant, Cascadian Farm, Tide, Charmin, Bounty, Pampers, Pantene, Crest, Iams, Febreze, Old Spice and many more!

Now this particular sale ends in just a couple days, so you'll have to hit up your local store soon to take advantage of it. If you win the gift card, you'll be able to use it for some of their great sales in the future....and there are 'always' sales going on.

Anyway, here's how to get your chance to win one, too.

Contest Rules

Required entry: Comment below. Tell me about the best sale you've ever caught or your favorite thing to stock up on when big sales go on. (Comments are open and you can comment anonymously, but I need a valid email address or I won't be able to contact you if you're a winner.)

Ways to get more entries:

(For each entry, please leave a separate comment below letting me know what you did. If you're already a subscriber, just leave a comment saying so. If you follow me on Twitter or tweet about the contest, tell me your username in a new comment.)

-- Subscribe to Quirky Jessi (lots of ways....using RSS, through Blogger, or even by email)

-- Subscribe to Quirky Cookery

-- Comment on Quirky Cookery (any post is fine, just remember to come back and tell me you commented here for the contest; can be done up to 3 times total for 3 separate entries)

-- Follow me on Twitter (Quirky Jessi) and tweet about the contest (can be done twice a day for multiple entries)

-- Talk about this giveaway somewhere else -- up to 2 separate entries (put a post on your site? post on a forum? use Facebook? another site you love? just be sure to leave the link in the comments)

Remember to put each entry in a separate comment so they'll all be counted. :)

~Contest ends at midnight EST, March 22. All the information, gift card, and giveaway have all been provided by The Kroger Family of Stores and General Mills through MyBlogSpark. ~

Glamourpuss - Kitty wigs make your cat feel beautiful

No, no, no, no, NO!

So wrong.

Not okay.

At all.

Gah!!!

Now that I have that out of my system, I don't really know what else to say about this. Really? Why would anyone think it's a great idea to put wigs on cats?

If you want to know more about why cats apparently love/need these and check out the book, then you can follow the link. Yes, I said "the book." *I'm* not going to link to it and encourage it.

Did I mention how wrong this is? Hmph.



Yes, I'm going to stand by my opinion and say that isn't cute. Nope. Double hmph. :P

Monster chairs - I hope they don't eat me!

Ahhhh! Oh wait, they're just chairs.

I'm not sure where these chairs would really be "appropriate." They're funky, but can't go in a kids room because small ones would end up getting stuck in them. Maybe in an abstract art gallery? Or your lawn to scare off any pesky kids?

The world's longest and shortest drawers

Okay, not really, but they're pretty long/short. The first one is very Bruce Almighty-ish and the second one is...*tries to think of something clever.* No, it really just seems rather useless. :P


Alright, alright, so it's great for sticking on the end of a desk without taking up much extra room while still providing some storage space. But storage space for what? I'm trying to think of small office supplies, but all that stuff like stamps or thumbtacks would desire much less deep drawers, too. Maybe to store your afternoon snacks or something? I don't know....

Tea Closet/Hangers - Hang your tea like you hang your shirts

This is where squealy girls would say "Too cute!!" because uh, it's kinda cute, don't you think? Instead of pulling bags out of a box or canister, they're all hung neatly on your countertop in a cozy little closet for all to admire. This is just begging for a pun about Tea-shirts, huh?



Oh, and if creative tea stuff is your...erm...cup of tea....then follow the link for some awesome light tea. No, as in, really lights up and is fluorescent.

Rain, rain, roll away....

April showers*, bring May flowers, but sometimes they bring a lot of wet benches, too. Although surely an expensive idea, wouldn't it be cool to show up in a park or outdoor eating area and actually have a place to sit after a nice Spring rain?

*Yes, I know it's March...and not April 'or' May, but this is my way of hoping for warmer weather soon. ;)