Would you like fries with that?Photo: lille abe via FlickrWe love our McDonald's stories (as evidenced here, here, and, oh yeah, here), so it's no wonder that this one jumped out at us: McDonald's Happy Meal "came with cigarette."  According to the U.K. publication Metro, Nicky Holloway found an unused cigarette in the Happy Meal she purchased for her 1-year-old son. "‘My son can feed himself and I was watching him eat, but he could easily have put the cigarette in his mouth.' Miss Holloway said the manager of the McDonald's branch in her home city offered her another meal …

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, so does that mean that people who live in stone houses shouldn't throw glass? Guess we should ask Antón García-Abril and Ensamble Studio, who, according to Treehugger, have built La Trufa, or truffle, a small holiday house that looks like a big rock on the north Spanish coast. Blending impeccably with its natural surroundings, the abode is made of concrete. The builders used straw on the inside and dirt on the outside to form the structure, and then just pulled away the dirt once complete. The best part is how they …

Photo via GeekosystemObserving wildlife? Good. Inadvertently threatening the wildlife while observing it? Eh, not so good. But some bizarre-looking glasses may be the solution. According to Geekosystem, "Earlier this month at the Dutch Rotterdam Zoo, an 11-year-old male gorilla named Bokito escaped and ran rampant through the zoo's food court, injuring a woman when he bit and dragged her some distance. Now, health insurance company FBTO is distributing eye-contact disguising glasses that allow zoo visitors to stare all they like, a behavior that is threatening to most of the great apes." Sure, the glasses are totally creepy-looking, but they'll hopefully …

Courtesy of IHOPMan, I sure could use a cheesecake sandwich right about now. But instead of bread on either side of the cheesecake, I want pancakes. And then I want to top it with strawberry compote and whipped topping. And because that probably won't be enough, let's tack on eggs, hash browns, and bacon on the side. Unfortunately, this is no dream (or grodie nightmare). Not to be outdone by KFC's disgusting Double Down (that's two fried chicken breasts instead of a bun, with bacon and cheese in between), IHOP's stepped up with its own answer to the question, "How …

Has "green" jumped the shark if even pugs are on board? They're always late adopters. For Puglet's next trick, he will push climate-change legislation forward. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you see? Sign up to receive The Grist List, our email roundup of pun-usual green news just like this, sent out every Friday.

One bunny in a dryer yields three urns.Cleaning out the mass of lint, dog and human hair, dirt, and dust that collects in the dryer always makes me retch just a bit, but Oregon-based mortician Elizabeth Fournier, known as the Green Reaper, obviously has a stronger stomach than I do (from dealing with the dead all day, one would assume) because she puts that dryer lint amalgamation to use to make a sort of papier-mâché urn. As in the thing you keep someone's ashes in post-cremation. "The stuff that ends up in the dryer's lint trap is good fabric and …

I remember watching The Earth Day Special when I was 10 years old, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, with far too much enthusiasm. I had even set the VCR to tape it more than two weeks prior. I was such a nerd. Lucky for you guys, I still am, as is some other kind soul who uploaded the whole made-for-TV movie to YouTube for our viewing pleasure (though, it's broken into 11 parts). Enjoy some of your fave '80s and early '90s stars, like Mayam Bialik (Blossom!), Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown!), Ted Danson (Sam Malone!), and Kid 'N …

High-fructose corn syrup in soda? Bad. Cocaine in soda? Depends on whom you ask. We all know Coca-Cola used to contain trace amounts of the narcotic back in the day, but, according to the UK Guardian via Fast Company, Bolivia's kicking it old school with its coca-leaf containing soda, Coca-Colla (note the second L—I smell copyright infringement; it's also black, sweet, and comes in a red-labeled bottle). Bolivia had previously tried to ban the production of the coca leaf—the raw ingredient of cocaine—but now that coca grower Evo Morales is president, the government is singing a different tune. And I'm …

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, my family sure does produce a lot of excrement; how can I cash in on this?" Well, according to DVICE, SeabEnergy's MuckBuster might be just the ticket. "The MuckBuster is a self-contained anaerobic digester, built inside a repurposed shipping container. It can produce renewable energy from any organic materials—animal waste, grass clippings, or the stuff bound for the septic tank. In a month-long process, bacteria break down the organic materials and produce methane, a gas that can then be burned to produce electricity...allowing you to squeeze two kilowatt hours of power—about half of …

OK, so you couldn't tell a lie, Georgie boy, but apparently you made no bones about stealing a couple of library books and not paying your fines. Gasp! That's right, Pres. George Washington was just as big a fan of the library as Ask Umbra (woot for reusing, Mr. Prez); however, according to an old ledger book (and Boing Boing), Washington checked out two books from the New York Society Library in October 1789—one on international law and one a transcript of debates in the British House of Commons—and never returned them. His inflation-adjusted fines are now more than $100,000. …