Belfast Telegraph
6 November 2008



A Japanese man has enlisted hundreds of people in a campaign to allow marriages between humans and cartoon characters, saying he feels more at ease in the "two-dimensional world."

Comics books are hugely popular in Japan. Marriage is meanwhile on the decline as many younger people find it difficult to find partners.

Taichi Takashita launched an online petition aiming for one million signatures to present to the government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters.

"I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world," explained Taichi Takashita. "Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?"

This article didna grab my attention because of the hugeness of the pumpkin, as I have seen this before. But it had this description of its outrageous rate of growth--AT NIGHT, when no one was looking. It almost makes it sound like an ALIEN BEING! :O

Smashing Pumpkin

Ian and Stuart Paton's pumpkin weighed in at 1,457lb - more than 104 stone - and had to be lifted by forklift truck...

"At it's fastest stage this one was growing at 30lb a day - that's more than two stone.

"Pumpkins do most of their growing at night and it may even have managed up to 50lb in 24 hours if it was as warm as 25 degrees celsius overnight."

An original Mini [car] weighs 1,360lb (617kg).

I found the photograph that goes with this post before I read the piece it was with, and I was intrigued. It is a theatre set for a play. It's amazing! I could live here too!! I will just put the details from the original entry of last year that concern the set and its reason for existing.

The Great Plotnik

'Few people know the post-war history of Japanese-Americans and African-Americans in San Francisco. The Fillmore had once been Japan Town, but, when the Japanese were removed to detention camps during the war,
blacks, mostly from the South, moved in to work in war industries and in the shipyards. Then, after the war, the Japanese-Americans came back but were not welcomed, while the African-Americans lost their jobs to returning white servicemen. Eventually, much of the Fillmore was razed for urban development. This is the historical backdrop to Philip Kan Gotanda's 'After the War' at A.C.T.

How is the show? Well, to begin with, the set is amazing -- Donald Eastman's circa-1948 San Francisco rooming house in the Fillmore District revolves 360 degrees on stage, as the house lights land on various characters residing in each room, each of whom has a story to tell. Actors run down stairs and up fire escapes as one scene ends, the house revolves, and another scene begins. The set is a tour de force.'


I have to agree! :)

I have shamelessly stolen this from my dual Lj/melo friend Ursula (nuclearsnow on melo and blacklight_halo on Lj). Thanks for finding this Ursula. Now I just have to get a certain someone on the messenger when he is totally drunk and not paying attention! haha! ;)

Virtual Vow.com

"Do you want to get virtually married to your MySpace sweetheart? Do you want to show your affection toward another but aren't ready for the "real" thing? Would you like to let your friends and family know you're in love? Well, this is the place for you!

Virtual Vow lets you get married online, in a virtual setting. Although the marriage is not legally binding, and doesn't give you any additional legal rights, it does give you the ability to get "virtually married" when it otherwise isn't "legal" or possible. It demonstrate to everyone how much you care for your partner! And best of all, it's completely FREE!

Another benefit of Virtual Marriage is the fact that you can marry anything! There are no limitations or discrimination on VirtualVow.com.

• Do you love your dog or cat? Marry it!
• Do you love your truck? Marry it!
• Do you love your motorcycle? Marry it!
• Do you love your website? Marry it!
• Do you love a celebrity? Marry them!

Once you're married, you get a full Virtual Marriage Certificate suitable for framing and printable at any time. You'll also get a set of customized graphic buttons and images that you can put on your website, blog, or MySpace page.

You can get started by sending a proposal or, if you know you're already in love, you can go directly to the online wedding page."

Yessss!!!! :D

Certain architectural structures hold a fascination for me. I find them to be fearsome and awe inspiring - bridges, skyscrapers, huge freeways, and cooling towers. Yes! Cooling towers. Here is something I saw tonight, and I thought you might also like to see it. If the structure inspires awe, so also does its demolition - although they botched this one!



In pictures




How do you blow up a tower?




Tinsley Viaduct

What is a Cooling Tower?

By Russell Jackson
Scotsman
11 August 2008

SCIENTISTS have stumbled on a material that could turn science fiction into reality – a material that makes objects invisible.

Ever since the author HG Wells' novella of 1897, The Invisible Man, the story of a scientist rendered invisible by a potion, researchers have been intrigued by the notion of invisibility.

Now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have engineered a material that for the first time can bend light around three dimensional objects making them "disappear."

The research – funded by the American military – paves the way for stealth tanks, aircraft and even warships that can disappear from enemy soldiers' sight.

( >>Read on )

Yes, but it's a filing cabinet skyscraper! Go look! And then, here are more cool real skyscrapers of the world. :)

By Margaret Neighbour
Scotsman
07 August 2008

SCIENTISTS are launching a study into whether the "trash vortex", a plastic soup of waste floating in the Pacific, could harbour new forms of marine life.

Environmentalists have campaigned for action to clean up the vast expanse of debris thought to cover an area twice the size of the continental United States since it was discovered in 1997.

According to the United Nations, the rubbish kills more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals.

Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food, as well as on Hawaiian beaches.

The rubbish vortex is held in place by swirling underwater currents. It drifts about 500 miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan. ( >>Read on )

Long ago I read a book about ghost hunting, The Demonologist, written by a husband and wife team, Ed and Lorraine Warren. They would go round from house to house all over everywhere, checking out and documenting people's stories of being haunted and terrorised by spirits and ghosts and such. The book is a very compelling read. Lorraine Warren has her own website: The New England Society for Psychic Research.

This particular tale is one from the book which I found on another site. It is chilling.

Annabelle, the Haunted Doll