Feeding time at the Orana Wildlife Park, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Via Ratak Monodosico.

No chainsaw, no BFG, you have to destroy your adversary with gossip! It was inevitable. An experienced (female) professional game designer is trying to Kickstart a Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game set in the world of Jane Austen.

Will you get points, I wonder, if you successfully seduce (and ruin) one of the flightier young ladies? What if you (nefarious laugh) nail one of the very smart and principled ones?

Suggested caption: You have seduced, ruined, and abandoned Elizabeth Bennett. You become a member of the Hellfire Club, are awarded a cameo appearance in Pierce Egan’s Life in London, and are chosen by the Tory Party to represent Old Sarum in the House of Commons. You manage to evade a challenge to duel from FitzWilliam Darcy, and die (hiding from your creditors) in Calais at a great old age. Miss Bennett is obliged to leave respectable society, but becomes wealthy by becoming mistress to the Prince Regent.

Exeter, New Hampshire volunteers leaving for the Mexican War, circa 1846, Daguerreotype, 1/4 plate, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

The Guardian has the story of an 80-Year-Old who fought a bear and was tossed off a cliff and still survived.

An octogenarian versus a hungry Russian bear. It was a confrontation that could have ended only one way, and yet shepherd Yusuf Alchagirov was sitting upright in bed this week and happily munching on the three traditional pies his family had baked in celebration at his survival.

The bear approached Alchagirov, 80, in a raspberry field in the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria last week, but despite his age, Alchagirov showered kicks and headbutts on the bear and managed to knock it off balance.

The bear, apparently irritated by the feisty shepherd, tossed him off a cliff and sauntered away, said Alchagirov in an interview with local television. He was hospitalised with bruises, bite wounds and four broken ribs, but was spared a mauling, and released within a few days. It is not known whether the bear suffered any lasting injuries.

“I got off easy. It would have killed me if I’d chickened out,” Alchagirov said.

ADWEEK:

Star Wars Imperial Forces Invade Thomas Kinkade Paintings Quaint cottage? It’s a trap!

This is one of the better creative mashups we’ve seen in a while. Artist Jeff Bennett has invaded the cloying world of Thomas Kinkade with the full might of the Galactic Empire. In a series Bennett is calling Wars on Kinkade, the Painter of Light’s ethereally bland landscapes come under the iron fist of Star Wars storm troopers, Imperial Star Destroyers and Hoth-crushing AT-ATs.