The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose

There has been a lot of eerie experimentation over the years, but few experimental journals touch Edwin Katskee's diary. Katskee decided that he would go ahead and test the effects of cocaine. He took far too much, and then documented his own overdose.

For years the medical profession handled "pain management" by providing straps to hold a conscious surgical patient down. Then it handled pain management by, for the most part, stopping the flow of gas to an unconscious surgical patient just before it killed them. Cocaine changed that. It became the first widely-used local anesthetic, and so could numb people without knocking them senseless. It wasn't too long, however, before doctors noticed that cocaine too had dangerous side effects.

Exactly what the side effects were, and what they were at different levels of dosage, was still a fuzzy area to doctors in 1936. Edwin Katskee decided to change that, and ended up as one of the more ghoulish cautionary tales in experimental medicine. Katskee was a proctologist,who worked with local anesthetic. He gave himself a large injection of cocaine, intending to document the symptoms of the drug. The injection turned out to be a fatal overdose. During the course of that overdose, Katskee wrote his symptoms and thoughts on the walls of his office. He was found dead, surrounded by his notes, the next morning.

The writing on the wall was in no particular order, although some people were able to put the scribbles in sequence from neatest to sloppiest handwriting. The first note seems to be, "Eyes mildly dilated. Vision excellent." Things got worse from there, then briefly better, when Katskee wrote, "Now able to stand up," and "Partial recovery. Smoked cigarette." Later there are warnings to other doctors, and to himself. In one spot on the walls he wrote, "Results will be recorded in Rx books! Have a university and college [illegible] any findings. They better be good because I am not going to repeat the experiment." The last word he wrote was "paralysis." He probably died soon afterwards.

Katskee's notes, as scattered as they were and without proper timekeeping, did not prove useful. His example might be more so.

[Via Mad Science Museum, The Milwaukee Journal]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose

A boy accidentally summons a succubus who tries to get him a girlfriend onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A boy accidentally summons a succubus who tries to get him a girlfriend

Normally, summoning a succubus is a recipe for sexy doom, but the demon teenaged Teddy accidentally binds himself to is Chloe Love, a succubus with a soft heart. She makes it her mission to save Teddy's soul the only way she can—by getting him a girlfriend.

Dangerously Chloe is part of the Pixie Trix stable of webcomics, which collects comics by Gisèle Lagacé and David Lumsdon. Ménage à 3 is the crown jewel of the network, an R-rated sex comedy set mostly in Montreal that uses aspects of the hāremumono genre, but twists its tropes along the way and goes beyond the love life of the male protagonist. Dangerously Chloe spins off the more PG (but still sexy) Eerie Cuties, which centers on a school for monsters. DC is written by Lumsdon and drawn by Cassandra Wedeking, who does a fine job of aping Lagacé's style.

Dangerously Chloe finds Chloe a bit older than she was in Eerie Cuties (although her former classmates are still the same age; time travels differently in the underworld), but no wiser. She is summoned back to Earth when Teddy accidentally makes a blood pact with a creepy statue in a local museum, wishing for a girlfriend. Chloe would be happy to fulfill that role, but there's a catch: once she and Teddy have sex, he'll die and be immediately condemned to Hell. Naturally, Teddy doesn't want to be damned for all eternity and Chloe agrees to help him out of his contract. But the only way for Teddy to save his soul is to get himself a girlfriend, which is proving to be a difficult task.

So Chloe settles into a household with Teddy and his younger sister Abby (their parents are, conveniently, usually absent), taking on the role of a meddling, supernatural older sister. But as Chloe herself notes, she's basically a cupid whose powers all have evil applications, and she's not particularly well suited to the role of matchmaker. She may mean well, but she tends to wreck Teddy's life in a variety of amusing ways—even when she's not trying to keep her superiors from finding out her benevolent intentions or dealing with a mischievous pal with a knack for ticking off angels.

While the stakes may be Teddy's soul, Dangerously Chloe thwarts expectations by being resolutely lighthearted. The worst punishment succubi dole out to one another is time spent in an incredibly itchy sweater, and while the succubi might be evil, it's a pretty low-level evil. Their worst threat to heaven seems to be stealing smooches from the wrong fellow. In fact, time spent with a succubus is quite enjoyable, provided that succubus isn't getting involved in your love life.

[Dangerously Chloe]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A boy accidentally summons a succubus who tries to get him a girlfriend

Antarctic Expedition Ship is Trapped in Sea Ice onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Antarctic Expedition Ship is Trapped in Sea Ice

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Scientists taking part in the 2013-2014 Australasian Antarctic Expedition have issued a distress call after their ship, the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, became trapped in heavy Antarctic ice. The crew is retracing the footsteps taken by Sir Douglas Mawson in 1911 — a journey that nearly ended in disaster.

The captain issued the distress call to the Maritime Service Authority based in Falsmouth in the UK early on Christmas morning. Three nearby icebreaker ships have been notified and are on their way to help.

The Guardian, which has a reporter on board, writes:

The nearest ship, the Chinese Xue Long (Snow Dragon), will take just over a day to reach the Shokalskiy's position, around 1,500 nautical miles from Hobart in Tasmania. A French ship called the Astrolabe, and sent out from the nearest Antarctic base, Dumont D'Urville, could arrive around the same time. The furthest ship, also on its way, is the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis.

"The ship is no danger," said Chris Turney. "We're currently in heavy ice and we need help to get out. It's frustrating – we're only two miles from open water. Everyone is well on board and morale is high. We've had a fantastic Christmas and the science programme has been continuing while we're stuck in position. The results looking really exciting. We're very fortunate the Chinese are in the area, passing relatively close by."

The Snow Dragon is a 166-metre-long icebreaker, cruising towards the Shokalskiy at 14.5 knots.

This story is continuing to unfold, and there's good coverage at the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Russian-built Shokalskiy is currently occupied by 48 passengers (consisting of both scientists and tourists) and 20 crew members. They're currently taking part in the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) of 1911 led by Sir Douglas Mawson. The adventurer spent more than two years on the frozen continent — an entire year longer than planned.

You can read an excellent account of Mawson's journey here, but here's a taste:

The team was travelling in single file across a field that they knew had a lot of crevasses. Mertz was at the front, followed by Mawson, then Ninnis. Most of their food supplies were on the final sledge, which was drawn by the best dogs. The thinking was that if a sledge fell down a crevasse at the front, their vital supplies would remain safe.

Unfortunately, the reverse happened. Ninnis's sledge disappeared into a crevasse the others had already walked over. The survivors were left with one and a half weeks' worth of food, but were 500km from the coast. "They were in a lot of trouble," says Turney. "They decided to return, with a real sense that they might not survive."

Running out of food, Mertz and Mawson began eating the dogs, unaware that they were poisoning themselves. "They didn't realise that dogs' livers contained toxic levels of vitamin A, so their hair started falling out. They complained of enormous exhaustion," says Turney.

"The soles of Mawson's feet fell off. He had to strap them on with lanolin every morning. Mertz suffered more than Mawson and, sadly, had a fit of insanity and bit off the tip of his finger and eventually died." But, says Turney, noting his predecessor's stoicism: "In spite of all these things, [Mawson] was still making weather observations."

Image: Laurence Topham

Related: Color pics of Antarctica, 1915.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Antarctic Expedition Ship is Trapped in Sea Ice

What today needs is some historically accurate Christmas carols onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What today needs is some historically accurate Christmas carols

Have you ever thought, "I like Christmas music, but is any of that stuff true?" Well, Horrible Histories has answered that question for you. In song.

The best part of these re-written-for-accuracy carols is that Horrible Histories was, at least nominally, a kids' show. I know that if this had existed when I was younger, I would have spent every holiday correcting everyone while going caroling. There's no way there aren't little know-it-alls doing that as we speak.

The above carol is a corrected "Good King Wenceslas." Below, see why "Silent Night" is a giant lie. Plus the German history of "O, Christmas Tree."

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What today needs is some historically accurate Christmas carols

How would various news outlets report the end of the world? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com How would various news outlets report the end of the world?

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If the apocalypse started tomorrow, how would the New York Times, Fox News, NPR, and TMZ report the events? Buzzfeed imagines the news and social media reactions from across the World Wide Web.

Tom Phillips pictures our apocalyptic future through a series of fabricated screenshots and gifs from news sources like the Guardian:

Social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and reddit:

And a few oddball sources like Modern Farmer and TMZ. Naturally, the series is at its funniest when Buzzfeed imagines its own coverage of the apocalypse. Head over to Buzzfeed to see the headlines that accompany, "22 Survivalists Who Are Doing it Wrong."

io9 isn't one of the media outlets lampooned in the series, but rest assured that our front page would look pretty much the same—except half the posts would be tagged "Modern Ruins."

How The Media Will Report The Apocalypse [Buzzfeed via MetaFilter]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com How would various news outlets report the end of the world?

A scholarly zombie is forced to aid a princess of thieves in her quest onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A scholarly zombie is forced to aid a princess of thieves in her quest

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Sette Frummagem and Duane Adelier are an unlikely pair of traveling companions. She is the young daughter of the head of a criminal family, quick with a lie or a boast, eager to liberate money from its rightful owner, and oddly gifted with a lion's tail and a nose that can sniff out things that no one else can smell. He's an undead wizard, forced from his quiet afterlife to serve as Sette's bodyguard, though he's easily frustrated by her sharp tongue and constant treachery.

Every now and then I come across a webcomic, read it, and find myself slightly embarrassed that I hadn't read it earlier. Ashley Cope's Unsounded is one of those webcomics. From the opening pages, which find Sette and Duane bickering, it's clear that Cope is both an accomplished visual artist and a wonderful writer of dialogue, and as the story progresses the world and the larger epic prove just as rich.

Sette and Duane are our first protagonists, but they are by no means the only ones. Sette has been sent far from home to find her cousin Stockyard, ostensibly to convince him to pay the tithe owed to her father. Duane, meanwhile, is an unusually skilled spellwright and a far cry from the undead plods that populate the continent of Kasslyne. It would be enough to follow just the two of them as they travel from Sette's home to the city where Stockyard has planted himself, brushing against the various conflicts of Kasslyne's nations and exploring Sette and Duane's backstories while uncovering whatever the truth is behind Sette's quest.

Instead, Cope introduces us to a host of characters who cross paths with this mismatched pair and follows their stories as well. Quickly, we are caught up in the stories of Jivi, a boy who has been snatched by slavers who are engaged in something even more nefarious than selling children into servitude, Quigley, a mercenary spellwright whose tragic backstory inspires operas, and Toma and Elka, a pair of soldiers who are far from home, enforcing the laws of their nation, including those against slavery. Cope recognizes that many people are the heroes of their own stories, and even as her characters come into conflict with one another, we can recognize each one's point of view, seeing their better qualities as well as their often profound flaws. And these conflicting, but legitimate, viewpoints reflect the richness of the world Cope has created.

While reading Unsounded, I often find myself clicking over to the wiki Cope has created, not for clarification, but to learn more about this world. Kasslyne is a place of national and religious conflict, where the beliefs of the two major faiths stand in direct opposition to one another. It features one nation that is either a paradise or a tyranny depending on your point of view, and two characters who feel very differently about their own caste-based nation due to their own personal experiences. Cope has imagined politics, economies, dogmas, her own readily understanable system of magic, and various fashions. Plus, there are neat visual tweaks to the conventional high fantasy setting, like giant dogs used as mounts in lieu of horses and floating smoke eels that tend to hang about. And it's always refreshing to see a high fantasy comic that models its characters on black folks as well as white.

Unsounded is a thoroughly engrossing comic, one that has immense affection for its characters but also makes them work for their emotional connections to one another and the small joys of a troubled continent. It's a comic that can make you root for a bratty thief and a pretentious zombie, and then make you root for half the people who stand in their way.

[Unsounded]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A scholarly zombie is forced to aid a princess of thieves in her quest

Stuffed bear sculptures embroidered with anatomical designs onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Stuffed bear sculptures embroidered with anatomical designs

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Deborah Simon's stuffed faux bears aren't your typical teddies. Instead of furry backs and bellies, these sculptures come with anatomical features embroidered on their hides.

Simon made her Ursus maritimus (polar bear), Ursus arctos horribilis (grizzly bear), and Ursus americanus (American black bear) from polymer clay, faux fur, linen, embroidery floss, acrylic paint, glass, wire and foam, creating sculptures with realistic heads and paws that are embellished with embroidered with parts of the nervous, circulatory, and digestive systems. Here is how Simon describes her work:

My work walks the line between taxidermy, toy and sculpture. Each animal is meticulously fabricated to create an unnervingly accurate but slightly off version of the natural animal. Evolution has always held a particular fascination for me, informing how I create and group the animals in my work. As I've read and dug through museum collections to research my pieces, western science's mania for labeling, codifying and collecting has stood out. Most of this categorizing bears little resemblance to how animals and plants exist out in the natural world and I find this disconnect fascinating.

Flayed Bears [Deborah Simon via Nerdcore]

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onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Stuffed bear sculptures embroidered with anatomical designs

Two souls form a strange friendship on an island in a river to Hell onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Two souls form a strange friendship on an island in a river to Hell

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Like so many other souls living in the world of the webcomic Judecca (NSFW), Sharky lives a shabby life, spending his days in Sisyphean labor and his evenings with too little warmth and too little food in the company of his rabbit roommate, while his own body becomes more like a shark's. But when a mysterious mute girl begins inserting herself into his life, Sharky's quiet purgatory threatens to become far more dangerous.

In the Divine Comedy, Judecca is one of the sections of the river Cocytus, where the souls of traitors reside. And the comic, co-written by Jonathan Meecham and Noora Heikkilä and drawn with lovely gloom by Heikkilä, is a blend of afterlife mythology. The ferryman Kharon transports transparent shades. Sharky works on the docks for the fearsome Minos. And the souls who live on the island make vague references to their lives before while they gradually transform into physical representations of their sins.

Although no one leaves the island, many of its denizens eventually go further in, or else go mad from their transformations. Sharky seems intent on maintaining a sort of stasis, keeping a spartan but not unhappy household with Frederick Dickinson, a bookkeeper in the shape of a rabbit. But when a mute girl with a Glasgow smile begins appearing in their house uninvited, Sharky may find himself caught up in the very elements of the island's power structure he's been trying to avoid. At the same time, the mysterious figure who rules the island senses something is amiss, and sends Lilith, a soul who revels in sexual and physical violence, to investigate.

Judecca is afterlife story that feels like it's set in a punishing place, even though it doesn't rely too heavily on Dantean views of punishment. Those who are triggered by depictions of violence should be warned that the comic features rape, cannibalism, and other violent acts, and for folks who might be reading at work, one of the characters frequently appears naked. But in the midst of all this violence, Judecca is about people trying to make a life in this terrible place and trying to hang on to something of their humanity when everything is pushing them to the next phase of their existence.

[Judecca]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Two souls form a strange friendship on an island in a river to Hell

And now Kathy Bates' severed head will watch Roots and sing onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com And now Kathy Bates' severed head will watch Roots and sing

Hang on to your witch tits, the midseason finale (which is totally a thing now) of American Horror Story was insane. So insane. Really really insane. Coven could be the campiest/bloodiest AHS series yet, and it's so good. Spoilers ahead.

First up, apologies this didn't go up last night. Sometimes people fall asleep mainlining Hulu's Bar Rescue and wake up in a pool of their own spit at 4 AM assuming they finished their work. APOLOGIES. But this was such a wildly bloody episode I couldn't ignore it. So let's talk about it now, okay?

First item of American Horror Story business:

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NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS!NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS! NEW HATS!

The BEST thing about this Coven series is the seemingly endless supply of fabulous black hats. The "new hat scene" was set at the bedside hospital of Patti Lupone's son (the boy with the cleanest asshole in all the land). Nan is listening to the whispers from her comatose boyfriend who then reveals that his crazy-ass mother Lupone killed their father. Because after Aslan broke the stone table in Narnia, the laws were forever shifted and it became a commandment that American Horror Story must and shall always have 8,000 plot lines juggling around in the air.

No real surprise here — Lupone didn't like her murder secrets being spilled so she killed her own son. Let's hope this makes Nan go all firestarter and burn down the bitch's house.

But the crazy didn't stop there. Next up, Myrtle seeks revenge.

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Most of this season has been centered around "protecting this coven." I actually think there was an entire episode where Jessica Lange just smoked a cigarette in a fabulous hat and said "protect this coven" over and over and over again. It was great.

And apparently the best possibly way to protect this coven is by murdering most of the bitches in it. This week it was Myrtle's turn. Justifiably pissed off that she was falsely burned at the stake, Myrtle murders the rest of the coven, death by melon ball scooper! First the evil ginger poisons their melon balls, causing the two remaining members of the (I dunno, Witch Club?) to suffer from actors-pretending-to-be-paralyzed-itus. There is absolutely nothing more delightful than watching experienced, well-paid Hollywood actors play the "FREEZE" game on camera. Ridiculous delights.

Myrtle then goes full crazy and melon balls their eyes out, chops them into bits and donates the two random eyes to Cordelia, thus negating the whole "Cordelia is blind" plotline. Which is kind of unfortunate. But in trade we got batshit Myrtle on the loose and I love that. Love it. She's a complete wildcard now, and this should make for some interesting television.

The third plot revolved around the fancy new witch hunter's club that we just found out about right now. You see Cordelia's husband isn't just any crazy witch hunter with a gun, he's part of a special club of witch hunters. Think Wolfram & Hart, only with two prerogatives, killing witches and sharing in a lot of father-son hugs.

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Cordelia's husband (Hank) is the son to the leader of the this Delphi Trust group. And like all good TV sons of important figures, he really sucks at living up to his legacy. You see, Hank is a shitty hunter and the boys are always cleaning up his mistakes. His only job was to marry Cordelia and collect intelligence on the girls so the group could later kill them. Seems like a lot of work, but hey, I'm not a professional witch killer.

Obviously his idiotic plan to team up with Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau was not approved by his father. But he managed to fix all of his mistakes by showing up to her shop and KILLING ALL OF HER FRIENDS. It was actually a pretty clever move for the show. It tied up the Hank plot, unified Marie and Fiona, and gave the series a singular big bad to fear.

Sadly this means that Queenie had to go (maybe). She took her life (shooting herself in the head thus shooting Hank in the head) to protect Marie. Which means no more Queenie and Kathy Bates' severed head antics, which was really the best part of this entire episode. Or maybe Queenie is still alive! Who knows, I mean they can just bring her back with mud if they need to anyway.

The "sensitivity training" was so entirely beyond anything I can't even write about it. So I will just leave you with the clip at the top. What is to become of Kathy Bate's head now that her caretaker is gone? Maybe she'll roll in the last minute and save the day, gun in teeth. Who knows? Either way, dear lord.

See you next month!

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com And now Kathy Bates' severed head will watch Roots and sing

Pin-up calendar features not-so-sexy monsters in sexy poses onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Pin-up calendar features not-so-sexy monsters in sexy poses

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Looking for something a pin-up calendar that's a little different? How about Nosferatu, Godzilla, and Slimer giving their best come hither looks in a series of prints that proves light-hearted seduction isn't just for conventionally attractive monsters.

Erika Deoudes' 2013 Sexy Monsters Calendar is 12 months of funny monster pin-ups, available as prints in a variety of sizes. If you're particularly partial to one monster model, you can also purchase individual prints and celebrate Blobuary or Augzillust all year round.

Sexy Monsters Calendar [modus Deoudes via Neatorama]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Pin-up calendar features not-so-sexy monsters in sexy poses

Disaster interrupts an alien mission to rescue the human race onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Disaster interrupts an alien mission to rescue the human race

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The Fiah's Exodus mission is a noble one, to remove sentient races from their doomed planet and relocate them to a safer preserve. But Ethma and Endi's assignment on Earth is troubled from the start, though their crew of accidental human stowaways is the least of their problems when the entire Exodus mission takes a tragic turn.

Ran and Cory Brown's The End seems at first like an alien comedy of errors when the stern and cranky Ethma and the sweet but inexperienced Endi of the Axca first arrive on Earth, especially when their data-gathering mission takes them straight to a science fiction convention in the heart of Ottawa. Thanks to a broken cloaking device, an assortment of humans wanders onboard, including a TV actor, an angry college kid, a convention security official, a cosplayer thinking about hanging up her wig, and a young family going through an emotional rough patch.

But this isn't just a story about humans learning to get along with their semi-unwitting alien abductors. The Browns have built up a much, much larger universe beyond the convention doors, and the size and stakes of that universe become clear when the Exodus fleet is dealt a devastating blow from an unknown source. Suddenly, Ethma and Endi's priorities have radically changed; they must run on home with their human captives in tow and not all those captives are ready to follow along quietly.

And as the Browns expand their world, they deepen our understanding of the characters and the larger conflicts they face. Although there is a familiar alien bazaar scene (and they render alien speech in a particularly delightful way), it's given just enough of a twist that, when we see human-shaped characters, it's far more unnerving than seeing aliens with more beast-like forms. And while the main focus might be on the crew of the Axca, the camera occasionally shifts back to Earth and to other alien crews, so that we understand that there are individuals with personalities, whims, and desires involved in these worlds-spanning disputes before we thoroughly understand the nature of the disputes themselves. The Browns can be guilty of the occasional info-dump (as in a recent arc), but for the most part, they show a restrained hand, letting us get to know their characters on an intimate level before pulling back the curtain on the larger story.

As they slowly pull back that curtain, it seems that while The End is a large-scale, large-stakes alien conflict story, it's also a potentially frightening one from the human perspective. While one alien group has a rather indifferent view of humans, viewing them as they would view any sentient race whose planet is in peril, the other takes an intense interest in humanity, perhaps due to a shared distant history or a bizarre biological quirk. The question is whether humanity is prepared for such attention, whether they will be absorbed as pawns for an alien culture, destroyed, or if, with the help of allies, retain their independence, even if it means enjoying that independence somewhere other than Earth.

[The End]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Disaster interrupts an alien mission to rescue the human race

Batman, Iron Man, knights and more crash couple's "battle wedding" onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Batman, Iron Man, knights and more crash couple's "battle wedding"

You've seen the best wedding photos, best proposals, best cakes, best wedding invitations and more. But this is probably going down as the most impressive, most elaborate, and definitely the most nerdy wedding ceremony of all time. Just watch.

[Via Uproxx]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Batman, Iron Man, knights and more crash couple's "battle wedding"