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Valentine’s DIY: Making Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Feeling a little handsy—I mean handy—this Valentine’s Day? We can help!

Whether you’re trying to impress your new flame or spicing up a long-term devotion, a crafty Valentine is the way to go. But maybe you waited until the last minute (like we did with this post)! Never fear, Quirk is bringing you Three DIYs of Valentines, just under the wire.

Even in the eleventh hour, you can still whip up something sweet for your sweetie. The Red Velvet Whoopie Pies from Sprinkles: Recipes and Ideas for Rainbowlicious Desserts are a scrumptious way to show you care.

Posted by Suzanne Wallace

Beard Science: A DIY Celebration of Darwin’s Fabulous Facial Hair

Image via Topsy Turvy

Darwin’s birthday is here, and it’s time we celebrated his other great accomplishment: a truly historic beard. A secondary sex characteristic in male humans, and a secondary magnum opus, Darwin achieved a beard that outstripped the facial hair of many of his peers.

Posted by Margaret Dunham

Celebrate Darwin’s Birthday with Six Fearless Fictional Explorers

Charles Darwin—traveler, naturalist, and father of evolution—would have celebrated his 205th birthday on this day, and in honor of this most momentous occasion, let’s look at the explorers who, in their respective works of literature, braved the perils and uncertainties of new worlds, either in the pursuit of knowledge, or the avoidance of the mundane.

Posted by Alyssa Favreau

Spoiler Alert! Ten Literary Couples that Ended Unhappily

It's February, and if you find yourself surrounded by pink and red and drowning in chalky conversation hearts that's because Valentine's Day is fast approaching. (Pssst, it's February 14th for any of you are currently freaking out because you forgot.) Despite the fluffy nature of the holiday and the focus on “twue wove” it's not the day for everyone.

Maybe you prefer to spend Valentine's Day listening to Morrissey in the dark, maybe you're just like President Snow and the mere sight of people holding hands disgusts you, maybe you just have a problem with rampant consumerism. Whatever the case may be, we have created an anti-Valentine's Day list just for you. Get out your hankies (or your noisemakers, because you may be a sadist), because these literary couples do not find their happily ever after.

WARNING: beware of spoilers all ye who enter here (duh).

Posted by Cassie Rose

Some of the Most Terrifying Fictional Computers

For about as long as we’ve been able to imagine computers, they’ve had a place in our science fiction stories. Whether it’s the machines in Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R (which, fun fact, coined the term “robot”), or The Engine in Gulliver’s Travels, these machines have provided information, service, and plot devices for decades. Sometimes, though, computers go bad, and when that happens, you best be armed with prayer, and a good hammer.

February 10 is Clean Out Your Computer Day, and though it might seem like a chore, I beseech you, please organize your PC. Make sure you know what programs are running, and where all your important documents are. Makeover your MacBook. Dote on your desktop. Because if we don’t keep a close eye on these suckers, they’ll be coming for us.

And if you still don’t understand the urgency of our plight, take a look at these six fictional computers that, in their own special ways, almost trounced humanity:

Posted by Alyssa Favreau

What Common Grammatical Mistakes Can Tell You About the Shameful Moral Failings of Others

Friends, these are dark times. Gangs of misused homophones run wild and unfettered through the streets. Tongues wag in nonsensical sentence fragments and keyboards transcribe contractions of words that should never be shortened. Superfluous commas and apostrophes glitter in the sky like the trail of an ominous, ungrammatical comet.

Sure, some may claim that “it’s no big deal” or that “you still get what I mean,” or that we should “stop being such a total jerk about it, Blair,” but we all know the truth. The Day of Judgment is at hand, when the ears of the deaf will be unstopped to how many times they’ve said “where is it at?” and the eyes of the blind will be forced to read all their flippant substitution of the second person possessive pronoun for the contracted form of “you are.” But we, the grammatically righteous, shall peer down the shining walls of our ivory tower and watch the doomed writhe in agony! We must accept the scepter of our sacred duty and must judge the erroneous in accordance with their grievous sins…which, conveniently, I have cataloged here, for ease of punition.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh