Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

The new McDonald's Happy Meal commercial emphasizes apples, not toys. McDonald's is giving kids a new reason to buy their Happy Meals, and it doesn't involve toys. An ad campaign launching Friday hopes to teach kids to hit the Golden Arches because it's healthy.

Yes, those Golden Arches. The cartoon spot will follow a boy named Ferris who teaches his friend, an over-indulgent goat, to pick fruit and dairy over things like paper and baseballs. During a trip to McDonald's.

Not only are there no freebie action figures, there's not a single burger in the entire commercial. Could that be a first for McDonald's?

It's a stretch for a chain that relies on deep fryers and "pink slime" to carry out orders. But recent additions to the kids' menu -- from apple slices to low fat milk -- are changing the brand's image, or at least attempting to. Now that Happy Meals come with fewer fries and a choice of apple slices, the calorie count has dropped by 20 percent. But the bulk of the meal is still grease-laden.

In recent years, the fast food brand has been singled

Jessica Simpson's Elle cover.
Is a pregnant woman's body not safe for supermarkets? An Arizona grocery store is being accused of censoring an Elle magazine cover featuring a very pregnant Jessica Simpson in her birthday suit. Issues of the glossy are getting the Hustler Magazine treatment, placed behind a make-shift  "shield" on the rack so only Simpson's face peaks out, according to Jezebel.

PHOTOS: Famous, nude and pregnant on magazine covers

A reader to the site sent in the photo of the cardboard-covered issue in a Tucson Safeway. It's unclear whether a shop clerk or a patron provided the cover-up. Jezebel's Cassie Murdoch followed up with the store's manager who claimed not to be aware of the cardboard shield. But at least one person  was offended by the image.

"True, her breasts are somewhat exposed, but it's not too different than what you could see on this year's Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition cover," writes Murdoch. "And what do you think the chances are that they covered that up?"

For the record,

Sometimes it takes a genius to point out the most obvious things in life. Or a kid. Our new series Kid Logic brings you those epiphanies from the brilliant minds of young people. Listen and learn, grown-ups.

If you ask a group of first-graders to write freely, odds are one of them is going to share something brilliant. The Huffington Post found this gem via Reddit. The assumption is that he or she was heading to Virginia the following day and would be absent from school. But something was lost (or found) in translation.

Do you have any awesome kid artifacts to share? We want to see it! Post it on Shine and leave the link below or share it with us on Facebook, because it makes us happy.

More kid logic:
Why plain donuts suck
Kids' take on summer
Boy's awesome halloween costume

By Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

Last year, Jirka Väätäinen, a student at Arts University College at Bournemouth in the UK, decided to bring Disney's most famous heroines to life. The 22-year-old graphic design student combined photos of real women with Disney's classic cartoon renderings using Photoshop, and created digital paintings that brought everyone from Sleeping Beauty to Princess Jasmine to life. Shine featured his work and 14,000 Facebook likes later, Jirka's art was a viral sensation.

Now he's followed up his series with six more realistic princesses. What took him so long? "Each art piece does take hours, and I usually don't finish my pieces till days or weeks later," Jirka told Shine on Wednesday. Despite all the attention he's received (his work has been shared by over 100,000 on Tumblr) he hasn't turned his passion into a profit. "I'm not currently selling any of my Disney inspired art, since I am afraid that there might be a copyright issue with these being so heavily

There's only one way to go with that train: up. (AP)If your dress train is two miles long, then a hot air balloon is a practical method of transportation. As the latest record-we-didn't-know-you could-break, a Romanian design house debuted the longest bridal train known to man.

PHOTOS: World record bridal train displayed in Romania

The Andree Salon, a Bucharest fashion label, hired 10 seamstresses to toil away on the Guinness World Record-breaking dress for 100 days. The imported material alone, including French lace and Italian taffeta, cost around $7,300. That's not including labor and the dramatic floating runway show.

PHOTOS: 7 amazing, world record-breaking women

On Tuesday, a model wearing the dress was hoisted into the air outside Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament, for all the world to see- in particular- The Netherlands. The Dutch country previously held the longest train record (it wasn't even a mile, ha!). The most high-maintenance wedding dress on earth. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

PHOTOS: More weird and wacky wedding gowns

The victory was particularly sweet, in light of a feud sparked between

Shhh. She's working. Sleeping on the job is a requirement for the handful of writers hired by a travel website to test room amenities at China's leading hotels. Believe it or not, snooze button-hitting isn't even the easiest job out there. Imagine if your couch potato tendencies could earn you a living. How about your unique passion for luxury vacations. Most of us consider ourselves pros at napping and looking at cute pictures of kittens, but we don't expect to get paid for it. Maybe we should...

The Tropical Pie was just named the world's best pizza. (Courtesy of Goodfella's)
To make the world's best pizza you'll need dough, mozzarella cheese and some top shelf tequila.

On Thursday, top pizza-makers from around the globe competed for the title of "World's Best Pizza" at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. At stake was $10,000 and the highest honor in the industry.

Photos: more from the International Pizza Expo

This year's big winner was anything but traditional. The "Tropical Pie" - a blend melted asiago and mozzarella cheese, topped with shrimps, thinly sliced and twisted limes, a fresh mango salsa, all resting on a rich pineapple cream sauce infused with Patron.

The recipe, devised by mad pizza scientist Andrew Scudera of Goodfella's Brick Oven Pizza in Staten Island, was months in the making.

"I came up with idea to use tequila, but it was a collaboration," Andrew tells Shine. "Everyone here at the restaurant dived in and gave their input, helping to perfect the recipe by the time we brought it to the show."

The competition in Vegas was

(courtesy of Detroit Lakes Tribune/ In Forum/Forum Communications)Here comes the single bride. Last week, Nadine Schweigert married herself in a symbolic wedding ceremony. The 36-year-old divorced mom of three wore blue satin and clutched a bouquet of white roses as she walked down the aisle before a gathering of 45 friends and family members in Fargo, North Dakota.

More: the history of weird wedding traditions

She vowed to "to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self," reports Fargo's InForum newspaper . After the ring was exchanged with the bride and her inner-groom, guests were encouraged to "blow kisses at the world," and later, eat cake.

Video: one woman's quest to return wedding photo

Schweigert, who followed the ceremony with a solo honeymoon in New Orleans, claims the wedding was her way of showing the world she's learned to love and accept herself as a woman flying solo.

"I was waiting for someone to come along and make me happy," she told reporter Tammy Swift . "At some point, a friend