Weekend Link Dump

Strange company has been stretched pretty thin this week.

But not nearly as much as the cats.

On to this week's frolic down the rabbit hole:

What the hell has been walking around Latin America?

What the hell is flying over Jerusalem?

What the hell is going on in Chicago?

Where the hell is Vlad the Impaler?

Watch out for those Funayurei!

Watch out for those Alligator Men!

Watch out for those Emus!

Watch out for those Hex Cats!

Watch out for those film scripts!

Watch out for those...ah, hell, just run for your freaking lives!!!

Out: Mayan Apocalypse.  In:  Viking Apocalypse!

Violet Jessup:  One of the luckiest, or very unluckiest, people in history?  Discuss.

Things are booming is Saskatoon!  Uh, perhaps not in a good way.  (P.S. Make that double for, well, pretty much everywhere else.)

Why it wasn't always easy to be an ancient Egyptian lentil cook.

Did Clark Gable really kill off the undershirt industry?  Analyzing the birth of a myth.

In which quantum physics finally begins to catch up with Poe's "Eureka."

Hart Island:  New York's Land of the Lost.

"The Fall of the Romanoffs":  The first Russian-history docudrama.

A look at British country houses that are now gone forever.  Sigh.

The loneliness of Old London:  A photo essay.

Medieval masquerade balls were more reminiscent of Poe's "Hop-Frog" than you'd really like to think.

Short version:  Anglo-Saxon politics was really, really messy.

Because Mystery Blood Wednesday just isn't enough at this blog, may I present Mystery Blood Friday?

Howard Winham and his Double Trouble.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, we present Conspiracy Theories A-Plenty.

The Benders:  Little Bates Motel on the Prairie.

The odd tale of Hitler's secret first love.

The excavation of a Roman girl:  A 15th century archaeological nine-days-wonder.

I know I've probably posted a link about this island before, but I'll do it again.  Because, damn it, Fukuoka sure looks like Heaven to me.

And, finally, my favorite photo of the week, via Twitter:

“RT ~ @Ou_Prg: Stunning @DerickPauls: pic.twitter.com/skwW6fXrKq
— Theresa (@theresamax) November 21, 2013

And...that's it for this week!  I'll see you on Monday, when I'll be dishing up some juicy Georgian-era dirt!